Via: "Ram Ganesh Kamatham"
Hi all, for those of you in B'lore do come and see the show!
Warm regards
Ram
Creeper
Starring Abhishek Majumdar and Mallika Prasad
Written and directed by Ram Ganesh Kamatham
Saturday 3rd (7:30pm) and Sunday 4th May (3:30 & 7:30pm)
at Nani Arena, Centre for Film and Drama
5th Floor, Sona Towers, 71, Millers Road, Bangalore
Tickets Rs 150/-
Call 98456 02265 for tele-booking
About the play:
This is a story about two people in this city.
She is the expert narrator, he is a mischievous sutradhar.
These two story-tellers have amazing stories to share.
Problem is, they don't agree on how to tell the story!
Creeper is a modern re-imagination of the tale of Vikram and Betal.
The play slams this ancient cycle of folk-tales into a contemporary
urban setting – creating a shadowy world that is immediately
recognizable, yet bizarre and entertaining.
Darkly funny yet poignant, the play freewheels between the old and the
new – creating a landscape that happily contains – pornography,
literary theory, orkut, Chandamaama comics, exorcism, blogging, Silk
Smitha, foul language, Kurt Cobain, a big tree with a Barbie doll
nailed onto it and a magical(?) box with something inside.
Creeper was developed under a Sarai-CSDS Independent Research
Fellowship and has previously been performed in Bangalore, Delhi and
Heggodu. The script development process has been blogged at
www.addledbraindump.blogspot .com
Via: "Aarti Sethi"
i am not sure why a comparison of the violence by the LTTE with that of the
Indian state should make us think better of the Indian state?
regards
A
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 7:56 AM, simran chadha
wrote:
> hi,
> i'm new to this list, Ravikant introduced me...so pick on him. thot i'll
> introduce myself else i feel like i'm evesdropping but shivam's questions
> were on target, i mean before u romanticize terrotists like robin hood
> figures, do take a look at what the LTTE is all about, not that that makes
> mahinda rajapakse's hands any less bloodier but this is no raja
> harishchandra here. take avisit to war torn colombo if the topic bothers u
> so much and c militancy upfront, believe me u'll think better about the
> indian state.
> a question, can someone pl forward some poetry written by the naxalites,
> esp the female naxalites, am not sure if any exists coz i've never read any
> but do want to dispel my ignorance
> have a nice day'
> simran
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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Via: Nandini Chandra
Forwarding Jesse's reply:
Dear Shuddha,
First I think the piece had someone like you in mind
and
that's why it appealed to you. It is a piece about
politics
written for someone with an utterly depoliticized (you
could
even call it aestheticized or personalized)
consciousness.
This is not to insult you or your intelligence, simply
to
reflect on your consciousness as part of a larger
historical
problem. I say this because equating the foundations
of
Marxism-Leninism with those of a liberal ngo is no
longer the
gesture of a deconstructionist sleight of hand but
rather part
of a larger now dominant global cultural logic
(celebrated by
bourgeois intellectuals) in which left and right are
equated
in an encompassing context of nihilistic
impossibility, and by
implication affirmation of the status quo. What
disturbs me
is that anticommunism like this has become so casual.
It used
to be something one had to argue for.
I wont comment on your reading of the Buddha. I had
something
to say about it. You have something else to say about
it.
But I disagree with your characterization of Maoism.
There
are certain fringe Maoist groups whose ideas are like
what you
present below, but Maoism has from the very beginning
been an
utterly global phenomenon with significant movements
within
the U.S.A. itself, including the Weather Underground
and the
Black Panthers for example. Maoism has always been
about
transforming the poor into historical agents, and not
maintaining them 'as poor.'
I also disagree with your characterization of
Marxism-Leninism. Yes it is about ultimately creating
a
classless society in which there is no longer a
proletariat.
I follow Lenin and Trotsky, however, in holding that
only the
proletariat and its allies can accomplish this
historic task
through a protracted class struggle and then through a
gradual
transition to socialism. I mean to say that the
experience of the poor as poor is and has always been
incredibly important for the undermining of capitalist
society. While I agree with you that Charu Majumdar
took
things to an extreme which was ultimately not cogent
politically, and that one may disagree with some of
the
strategies of some Indian Maoists, overall the time is
ripe
for revolutionary insurgency in the backward Indian
countryside, or the unevenly 'developing' Indian city.
The
rage of those who have no stake in the
present order is to be celebrated as a productive
force. But
I too pity us that we need such heroes.
Via: Kshmendra Kaul
Dear Shivam
For a 'middle-pather' (generally) like me, your piece articulated most of my own understandings, concerns and questions.
The summarising comment by you "The naxalites have just filled in the vaccum in places where the Indian state didn't exist....." is very appropiate (to my way of thinking).
I would not know about there being an 'urgent need' (for the Naxalites) to enter that "vaccum" other than to serve ideological end-points. That need not neccessarily be redeeming.
I would rather see the "vaccum" as a fertile and convienient space invitingly available for a formalised "Naxalite Movement" to enter. Not just only for the Naxalites, in my opinion that particular "vaccum" is 'convienient space invitingly available' for any 'extremist movement' to enter and it is easily done.
There are many such "vaccums" in different parts of the country (India) arising out of varied environments. A common linkage between their geneses is lack of, or more aptly described perhaps, total absence of (legal) governance.
The recourse to rectification should have been through the Courts of Law. Unfortunately, the 'justice system' itself is corrupted. My analogy for explaining "corrupted" is a music CD that (unstatedly) is supposed to 'deliver' content after the purchase (contract) is done with and the CD either does not allow easy access or 'deliver' promised content as it should but is 'corrupted'. A 'corrupted justice system' has many more serious ailments than just corrupt officers of the Court. (need not explain I think)
Even if the justice system were not as 'corrupted' as it is, it cannot be a potent institution in the absence of a supportive 'environment of justice'. That 'environment of justice' has to lie seeped into and resident in every aspect of the citizen's relationships and interactions whether in private or in the public domain (need not explain I think).
Those citizens who are placed in situations of biases, prejudices and an exploitative environment mounted against them (proactively or by historically being placed so) have two simple options of choosing to continue to suffer (and hoping for charitable interventions by individual or institutions) or reacting sharply in the declaration of their non-acceptance.
What form will that reaction take for those who are of the mind "I will not accept this"? There are many possiblities but what is pertinent here is the pooling in of the resentment and non-acceptance of many individuals affected similarly.
In the 'regulated' domain of the economy (India specific comment), which primarlily is the Large and Medium Scale Industrial sector the 'pooled in non-acceptance' is easily expressed by "rail roko", "raasta roko", "pen down strike", "general strike" etc. The participants however have the security of a job which they are unlikely to lose unless they do something totally stupid, and in most cases have powerful Unions running the show of strategised 'strikes' and subsequent negotiatiations addressing their 'demands'.
Such of those disaffected who do not have the luxury of such supports (most of the small-scale industry workers, agricultural workers, stigmatised caste groups and the like) are residents of that "vaccum" which offers a 'convienient space invitingly available' for any 'extremist movement' to enter.
Does it have to be 'extremist'? I do not see much choice in that if there is the absence of 'legal governance' and an 'envirionment of justice' and a "not corrupted justice system" and if these three elements do not recognise the malaise and intervene speedily, justly, appropiately and effectively then an "extremist movement" taking roots in or entering the "vaccum" should not come as a surprise.
It could be the bearers of any kind of an "extremist movement" flag who herald for the "residents" of the "vaccum" the coming of a 'new age' as long as the "residents" collect under the offered flag. The flag could be Naxal-Red, Hindutva-Saffron, Islamist-Green or Christian-White. The flag could be in the name of a "Pappu" or a "Bhaiya" or a "Bhai"
In this embracing of an 'extremist movement' must the individual or a collective take recourse to violence? What other option is available? "Extremism" functions on the outskirts of the 'system' both questioning it and attacking it. Any non-violent remedial measures are likely to be only through avenues from within the 'system', in which case it is not an 'extremist movement' any longer.
Which brings me to Kanshi Ram, Dalits, BSP and Mayawati. But thats another story.
Kshmendra Kaul
Shivam Vij शिवमॠविà¤à¥ wrote:
I second what Shuddha is saying, and Jeebesh's analysis actually
raises more questions than it purports to. But I have some questions
for Sabitha.
Jyoti Punwani's assertion - "Despite her own rough life, neither did
Anu make us feel guilty for our bourgeois luxuries nor did she
patronise us" - is indeed very heartening. Those who ally themselves
against any kind of oppression in anyway are often mocked at for their
personal lifestyles. We saw this some months ago on this list in a
Nandigram debate when Shuddha was being 'praised' for his work amongst
the poor. You see something like this in the atrocious film Bawandar
where the feminist activists from Delhi are being mocked for their
penchant for shopping, films and burgers as they fight Bhanwari Devi's
case. Anu, we are told, was someone who 'declassed' herself and yet
did not have such a patronising attitude. The Naxalite does have a lot
of lessons to offer.
But the only place where Punwani offers a semblance of an argument for
Naxalism - this is a personal obituary - is in the last two lines:
"The 'Naxalite menace', says Manmohan Singh, is the biggest threat to
the country. But I remember a girl who was always laughing, and who
gave up a life rich in every way to change the lives of others."
To state the obvious, the naxalites - threat or not - are much bigger
than one individual. And that individual's limited personal
interactions with friends of the pre-Naxalite life are no barometer to
measure Naxalism. And as Jeebesh points out, the narrative has a whole
about what she did or did not do in the underground life and years.
Which brings me to Sabitha's response. She writes:
> What I find appalling in Manmohan Singh and the new corporate Congress (as
> well as the new corporate CPI-M) is how they use the language of terror to
> describe Naxalites, remaking them as "terrorists", instead of addressing the
> deprivation of millions that leaves them with no alternative but to look out
> for themselves and join aggressive movements of dissent such as Naxalism.
Firstly, the official Home Ministry policy is to indeed look at 'the
deprivation of millions'. See
http://mha.nic.in/security/N.M.Division.pdf
==
"Naxalites operate in a vacuum created by inadequacy of administrative
and political institutions. They espouse local demands and take
advantage of the prevalent disaffection and injustice among the
exploited segments of the population and seek to offer an alternative
system of governance which promises emancipation of these segments
through the barrel of guns.
"The naxal violence continues to be an area of major concern to
internal security. The problem cuts across several state boundaries.
In order to check the growth of naxalite activities in the country,
the Government has addressed the problem both on security and
development fronts"
==
The development ministries have especially marked funds for
development in Naxalite areas. Having travelled a bit in Jharkhand and
Chattisgarh, I can tell you this is not all bunkum. They are also
looking at the issue of rights and the Forest Rights Act is a step in
that direction. The massive scale of displacement is another story
though, and I'm not so naive as to say that the rural poor in the red
corridor has no disenchantment with the state - I mean, even the state
admits as much. But the labelling of Naxalites as terrorists is I
think in line with the definition of terrorists. A terrorist is
someone who uses violence to frighten or terrorise with a political
aim. The touching obituary of Anu Ghandhy cannot blind us to delete
the word violence in discussions of Naxalism.
So while I agree with Sabitha that -
> The recasting of Naxalites as "terrorists" absolves the state of its
> responsibility for the brutal police actions against admirable personages
> such as Dr.Binayak Sen
But I ponder at the word 'recasting'. The problem with the
terrorists-versus-deprivation-of-millions-and-then-see-what-they-did-to-Binayak-Sen
line is that we are looking at the state's actions and inactions but
not those of the Naxalites. I am not defending the Indian state, just
asking why you present this binary to me on a plate, State vs
Naxalites, and ask me to take my pick? Is another world that
impossible?
So while I stand with you in opposing, condemning the fake encounters
of the innocent and false cases against Binayak Sen and others, and
the brutality of Salwa Judum, here are my questions.
Do you support violence?
But do you support violence as a means of achieving 'revolution'?
And do you support revolution? Are you arguing against universal adult
franchise, against multiparty democracy, elections, freedom of
speech..?
And if the Naxalites indulge in violence, why won't the state seek to
repress them, punish them?
Are you saying you want an India ruled and run by the Communist Party
of India (Maoist)? Do you want to live in a communist state, 17 years
after the collapse of the soviet union? Oh, and how many did the
cultural revolution kill? And how many will the Indian Maoists kill
before we can be freed from the violence of deprivation perpetrated by
the Indian state, so that we can replace Gandhi's photographs with
Mao's?
Are you saying that you support the taking away of individual rights
of people who don't want to live under Maoist rule, or those who are
not willing to join The Party?
> I've grown up with Naxalites and Naxal-sympathizers - including my father
> -and they're all far from being "terrorists", just a community of brave
> socially conscious individuals and public intellectuals who want to make a
> difference, who don't want to close their eyes and shut their ears like the
> vast majority of us.
Fine, but the Naxalites are much more than that. They use landmines,
they exploit deprivation, they put the tribal poor on the frontlines
to clash with the police and build their political dreams in safe
underground hideouts, (in Jharkhand) they use the gun to support one
party or another in elections; in Dantewada they take money from tendu
leaves businessmen to allow the business...
One Naxalite-turned-Salwa Judum guy in Dantewada told me that amongst
other things he had to do amongst the Naxalites was to raid villages
and find the riches man in the village, ask him to hand over all his
wealth, which would be redistributed amongst the villagers. Should he
not agree to do so, he would be killed. In which case he would be
killed, half his wealth taken away by the raiding Naxalites and the
other half distributed.
Tell me Sabitha, is this how you want feudalism ended?
I really hope anyone who sides with Naxalites and calls himself or
herself a Naxalite 'sympathiser' does so only as a rhetorical retort
to the Indian state. And by the way, The Naxalites love it when
Manmohan calls them the biggest internal security threat. They take it
as a compliment. So if you are a Naxal sympathiser, you should be
happily smiling at Manmohan's comment. But let me also say I think
Manomohan's threat perception is exaggerated, perhaps deliberately.
There is not a single police post in the country that the Naxalites
have been able to permanantly capture. The election commission says
there is no polling both where they are not able to hold elections
because of the naxalites.
The naxalites have just filled in the vaccum in places where the
Indian state didn't exist, and where it now has an urgent need to
enter. And I thank my atheist gods for that.
best
shivam
On 4/29/08, Jeebesh Bagchi wrote:
> dear Sanjay,
>
> Thanks for posting these memories.
>
> If we seriously read this as a memory, then what surprises me is the
> unreflective and euphoric account of so called the "radical" 70s. As
> a narrative, it marks the 70s as the hotbed of radicalism and then
> 80s and 90s as a story of personal choices.
>
> This makes it as if the milieu of the 70s disintegrated - only - into
> various disappointments, cynicism, renunciation, dogmatism and
> silences. This positioning of the "underground" seems to me to mute
> any possibility of thinking about what went on (then and after),
> what kind of interventions , and what and how their efficacies played
> out. Why is sacrifice the main trope of for narrating a life rich in
> complexity and experience.?
>
> Is it possible to think these last 40 years differently?
>
> Should we not think hard on the giving up of a life for a "party"? Is
> Manmohan Singh going to determine how times and biographies are
> remembered?
>
> just wondering.
>
> warmly
> jeebesh
>
>
> > Apologies for cross-posting: and in respect.
> > Sanjay Kak
> >
> > -------------------------------------------
> >
> > Memories of a Naxalite Friend
> >
> > Times of India, Mumbai Sunday 20 Apr 2008
> >
> > by Jyoti Punwani
> >
> > Cerebral malaria can be fatal, but people have been known to
> > recover from
> > it. Anuradha Ghandy, however, didn't stand a chance. Already
> > weakened by the
> > sclerosis when she walked into the hospital, it was too late.
> > Within 24
> > hours, she was gone. By the time her vast circle of friends was
> > informed on
> > the evening of April 12, the 54-year-old had already been cremated.
> > Better
> > this than death by 'encounter', after prolonged torture. For that
> > was the
> > fate we feared this Naxalite could not escape.
> >
> > That Anu managed to evade arrest for so long, was an indicator of the
> > ruthlessness with which she effaced her identity. This, of course,
> > meant
> > isolating herself from all those who would have given up everything
> > to nurse
> > her. There was another way she could have recovered, even while
> > underground.
> > Anu could have followed medical advice and given herself the break
> > her body
> > so badly needed. For someone so important to the Party (CPI-
> > Maoist), it
> > might well have allowed it. But that wasn't her style.
> >
> > Just climbing stairs had become an ordeal five years ago. Yet, days
> > before
> > her death, she was in some jungle where malaria was probably an
> > inevitability. Anuradha Ghandy, I learnt after her death, was a senior
> > Maoist leader. Her political career spans the first radical student
> > outfit
> > in Mumbai (PROYOM) in the '70s, and the armed dalams of Adivasi
> > women in
> > Bastar. Certain that like her comrades in Chandrapur, she too would be
> > implicated in false cases and arrested, Anu went underground some
> > years ago.
> >
> >
> > When I first met her in 1970, Anuradha Shanbag was the belle of the
> > ball in
> > Mumbai's Elphinstone College. A petite bundle of energy, bright eyes
> > sparkling behind square glasses, her ready laughter, near-backless
> > cholis
> > and coquettish ways had everyone eating out of her hands, professors
> > included. Elphinstone then was an intellectual hub. The Bangladesh
> > war was
> > just over, drought and famine stalked Maharashtra. Naxalism had
> > come to
> > Mumbai, at that time the industrial capital of the country. Anu,
> > majoring in
> > Sociology, was everywhereâinviting Mumbai's leading radicals to
> > talk about
> > the reasons for the drought, putting up posters that proclaimed
> > 'Beyond
> > Pity' and urging students to get involved with the crisis in the
> > countryside, defending this stand against those who felt a
> > student's role
> > must be limited to academics and at the most, 'social work'.
> >
> > Anu was also the one to question celebrity guest speakers such as
> > Girish
> > Karnad, whose path-breaking plays had just hit the stage, on the link
> > between theatre and society. And it was Anu who introduced us to that
> > feminist bible, Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch. Those were the
> > days of
> > 'parallel' cinema. Marathi amateur theatre was blossoming at Dadar's
> > Chhabildas Hall. The Dalit Panthers had exploded into the Marathi
> > literary
> > scene. Adil Jussawala's New Writing In India was still making
> > waves. Forum
> > Against Rape, Mumbai's first feminist group, had just been founded.
> > Anu, by
> > then a lecturer at Wilson College, was immersed in all this. With
> > her wide
> > range of interests, she succeeded in linking the human rights
> > organisation
> > she and few others founded after Emergency with the city's
> > intellectual
> > ferment. Among other things, the Committee for the Protection of
> > Democratic
> > Rights (CPDR), demanded that the State stop acting lawlessly with
> > Naxalites
> > even though they rejected its laws.
> >
> > Thanks to Anu's ability to talk as intelligently with George
> > Fernandes as
> > with Satyadev Dubey, her brother Sunil Shanbag's mentor, the cream of
> > Mumbai's intellectuals supported this demand. Playwright Vijay
> > Tendulkar and
> > reformist Asghar Ali Engineer were CPDR's president and vice-
> > president.
> >
> > It was time for Anu to grow into a successful academic, the type
> > who writes
> > books and attends international seminars. Instead, in 1982, she
> > left the
> > life she loved to work in Nagpur. The wretched conditions of contract
> > workers in the new industrial areas near Nagpur and of Adivasis in the
> > forests of Chandrapur had to be challenged. Committed cadres were
> > needed. In
> > her subsequent trips to Mumbai, Anu never complained about the drastic
> > change in her life: cycling to work under the relentless Nagpur
> > sun; living
> > in the city's Dalit area, the mention of which drew shudders from
> > Nagpur's
> > elite; then moving to backward Chandrapur. In Marxist study circles,
> > 'declassing oneself' is quite a buzzword. From Mumbai's Leftists,
> > only Anu
> > and her husband Kobad, both lovers of the good life, actually did so.
> >
> > Kobad's family home had been a sprawling Worli Sea Face flat; he
> > was a Doon
> > School product. Anu's lawyer-father may have left his family estate
> > in Coorg
> > to defend communists in court in the '50s, but she had never seen
> > deprivation. Despite her own rough life, neither did Anu make us
> > feel guilty
> > for our bourgeois luxuries nor did she patronise us. On the few
> > occasions
> > she would suddenly land up over these 25 years, it was as if she
> > had never
> > left. She had the same capacity to laugh, even at herself, the same
> > ability
> > to connect, even with management types, the same readiness to
> > indulge in
> > women's talk. But with those closest to her, she seemed unnaturally
> > detached. Her parents doted on her, yet she didn't take every
> > opportunity
> > she could to meet them. I realise why now.
> >
> > Rushing to meet them whenever she came to Mumbai would have been
> > worse than
> > an indulgence. It would not only have eaten into the time she had
> > for Party
> > work, it would have also made it impossible for her family to have
> > accepted
> > what she sawas inevitableâan underground future. In order not to
> > endanger
> > her family, Anu simply disappeared from their horizon. When her
> > father died,
> > she couldn't go home. That was also the reason for her harsh
> > decision never
> > to have children, though her parents would have willingly brought
> > them up.
> > That was one bond she knew would draw her away from the life she
> > had chosen.
> >
> >
> > The 'Naxalite menace', says Manmohan Singh, is the biggest threat
> > to the
> > country. But I remember a girl who was always laughing, and who
> > gave up a
> > life rich in every way to change the lives of others.
> >
> > jyoti.punwani@gmail.com
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
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> _________________________________________
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Hi,
please do not take the PM very seriously, as all his honest and clean packages are drowned in sycophancy and hangers on looting the packages.
The example of Vidharbha package in Maharashtra is still shining in the minds of children and widows of farmers who committed suicides thanks to the policy of this governance.Not buying the agriculture produce from the farmers at reasonable prices, removal of public distribution system for distribution of essentials, exporting of wheat and rice and then importing them have led to farmers into the hands of traders sponsored by the kickback political party. Vidharbha package also is for not less than 3470 crores, and farmers got sponsored pumpsets , agricultural equipments which are worth in open market for 1000/- for thrice the amount, and these also under quality, thanks to sycophancy and hangers on being the "manufacturers"., of these agricultural equipments.!
PM visited the affected areas with his bindi brigade, had sumptous lunch with hangers on and sycophants when the hungry widows and children waited to meet him in hot Sun were shooed away by the big bindi queen -bee Maggie of kitchen cabinet of mother of all sacrifices. !
So much for the special packages of the PM and his hangers on with "honest"image.! North east area has also seen the special package of this PM along with south being favoured with special package of dredging contracts for the loot in Arabean Sea thanks to obliging the minister of coalition, who wants gas for his sons, in his King Chemicals, Congress has no moral rights to give any more packages as all these packages are looted midway by their hangers on. !
Regards.
----- Original Message -----
From: Wali Arifi
Date: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 4:31 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] Non migrant KPs to boycott elections “legally”
To: sarai list
> http://www.risingkashmir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3109&Itemid=1
>
>
> Non migrant KPs to boycott elections "legally"
>
> Kashmir is a disputed territory
>
> *Shabir Dar*
>
> Srinagar, April 29: Asserting that non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits
> would launch
> a "legal election boycott" campaign, chairman of Kashmiri Pandit
> SangarashSamiti (KPSS), Sanjay Tickoo on Tuesday said that Kashmir
> is a "disputed
> territory"
> Tickoo told Rising Kashmir that his party will launch a "legal
> electionboycott campaign. "We are going to launch a legal election
> boycott campaign
> this time for proving our point," "But" "Our boycott campaign is a bit
> different and has legal backing as per Indian constitution."
> Tickoo said that there is a system in Indian constitution, as per
> the 1969
> Act, in section 49-O that a person can go to the polling booth,
> confirm his
> identity, get his finger marked and convey to the presiding
> officer that he
> doesn't want to vote for anyone."
> Tickoo said that the act also demands a person to register his or
> her name
> with the presiding officer. "Law says that if the number of
> persons who
> rejected to vote exceeds the number of persons who cast their
> votes, the
> polling gets cancelled. This could be used as a referendum against
> India in
> international forums, if Kashmiri leaders know it," he said,
> adding, "He
> will make people aware about the law, as part of election boycott
> campaign."
> Tickoo said that this could be a "legal way" to boycott the
> elections and
> the campaign would be a "legal boycott campaign."
> The KPSS chairman claimed that his ideology is same as that of
> Hurriyat (G)
> chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani. "I have a semblance with Geelani
> sahib in
> considering Kashmir as a disputed issue," he said.
> Tickoo said that Kashmir is a "disputed territory" and "India has
> to accept
> it.
> For driving home his point the KPSS chairman said, "Had Kashmir
> not been a
> disputed territory, then the office of United Nations Military
> Observer'sGroup for India and Pakistan would not have been here at
> Sonawar. It would
> have been somewhere in India."
> Lashing out on New Delhi for what he termed "orchestrating" the
> exodus of
> Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) from Valley in 1990, Tickoo said that New
> Delhi has
> always neglected KPs and has done nothing for them in past 60
> years. "The
> migration of KPs was a policy of Indian government. They announced
> sops for
> those who wished to migrate. This led to migration of KPs.
> Government has
> engineered their migration," he said.
> Tickoo criticized the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for announcing the
> rehabilitation package for migrant KPs. "India is trying to
> divide the
> Pandit community. That is why we, who are living in Kashmir have been
> ignored," he said.
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-
> list
> List archive:
Via: "Wali Arifi"
http://www.risingkashmir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3109&Itemid=1
Non migrant KPs to boycott elections "legally"
Kashmir is a disputed territory
*Shabir Dar*
Srinagar, April 29: Asserting that non-migrant Kashmiri Pandits would launch
a "legal election boycott" campaign, chairman of Kashmiri Pandit Sangarash
Samiti (KPSS), Sanjay Tickoo on Tuesday said that Kashmir is a "disputed
territory"
Tickoo told Rising Kashmir that his party will launch a "legal election
boycott campaign. "We are going to launch a legal election boycott campaign
this time for proving our point," "But" "Our boycott campaign is a bit
different and has legal backing as per Indian constitution."
Tickoo said that there is a system in Indian constitution, as per the 1969
Act, in section 49-O that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his
identity, get his finger marked and convey to the presiding officer that he
doesn't want to vote for anyone."
Tickoo said that the act also demands a person to register his or her name
with the presiding officer. "Law says that if the number of persons who
rejected to vote exceeds the number of persons who cast their votes, the
polling gets cancelled. This could be used as a referendum against India in
international forums, if Kashmiri leaders know it," he said, adding, "He
will make people aware about the law, as part of election boycott
campaign."
Tickoo said that this could be a "legal way" to boycott the elections and
the campaign would be a "legal boycott campaign."
The KPSS chairman claimed that his ideology is same as that of Hurriyat (G)
chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani. "I have a semblance with Geelani sahib in
considering Kashmir as a disputed issue," he said.
Tickoo said that Kashmir is a "disputed territory" and "India has to accept
it.
For driving home his point the KPSS chairman said, "Had Kashmir not been a
disputed territory, then the office of United Nations Military Observer's
Group for India and Pakistan would not have been here at Sonawar. It would
have been somewhere in India."
Lashing out on New Delhi for what he termed "orchestrating" the exodus of
Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) from Valley in 1990, Tickoo said that New Delhi has
always neglected KPs and has done nothing for them in past 60 years. "The
migration of KPs was a policy of Indian government. They announced sops for
those who wished to migrate. This led to migration of KPs. Government has
engineered their migration," he said.
Tickoo criticized the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for announcing the
rehabilitation package for migrant KPs. "India is trying to divide the
Pandit community. That is why we, who are living in Kashmir have been
ignored," he said.
Via: "Asit asitreds"
dear freinds
i agree with marxist project is ending the status of workers as workers in
fact if i understand marx correctly he said that the working class has to
elevate him self to the position of ruling class, regarding
heroism,declassing etc ijust want to say that people make history
celebreties dont but what makes com anuradha important isthat she betrayed
her class and that was a descisive action as an individual.What is out
standing about comrade Anuradha is that in today's neo liberal world where
history has been pronounced dead where any action of transending capitalism
as a total system is ridiculed,when social reality is fragmented in to end
less creation of the other and innumerable contending identities fighting
for their space in the fashionable post modern world where mutlicultarilism
is the in thing. Internationalism and class solidarities are religated to
the musuem of history ultimately George Bush, Man Mohan Singh, Bill Gates
and Mukesh Ambani has the last laugh because the so caleed new social
movements in their anti universalism anti metanarrative of liberation have
localised struggles and fashinable micro narratives.Don't talk about
transcending capitalism be confined to your neighbourhood.
Comrade Anuradha Gandhi's ascetism and the declassing herself is far more
meaningful authentic and politically honest then selfstyled,highflying
gandhian leaders of the socalled new social movements where media
management,networking is the highiest political skill.
Marxist never moralised about lifestyle politics and overstress on the
notion of the sustainable life style, the frauadelance, deceit and shameless
contradiction of the managers of these Gandhian new social movements is
glaring while the leaders romaniticised grassroot activism community life
simplicity intensinaly romanticising rural life including fudeal culture
their agents and managers in the metro politian centres lead a
comfortable urban upper middle class life with a salary of a business
executive their deception. Their decision is quite obvious in their most
unsustainable high energy consuming high tech officers and homes.Their
only job is too manage the media book auditoriums guest houses sending
invitation and of course indulge in to the most apolitical socialising,
groupism and expending empires of their godfathers and godmothers of so
called new socialism.The pen ultimate political skill of these jokers is
event management and the media falls in for the celebrity factor and the TRP
rates.It is needless to say that the class background of the NGO event
managers and Jounalists specially the Jounalists of English newspapers and
electronic media are same.and both grow up with heavy doses of anti left
ideology.Capitalism never had a golden period then these apolitical,anti
ideology anti theory new social movements buffons.Any talk of anti
imperalism is old fashioned.One should endulge into fragmented depoliticised
technical discourses climate change, sex worker rights,governance( without a
discussion of the class nature of the state), empowerment, child labour ,
networking, watersed management, livelyhood generation, capacity
building,alternative lifestyles of course with high swining cocktail parties
deconstructing the technical dectails of the mega projects without it's
politics or historical discussion of development theory and de colonization
and of course colluding with grass root level state official to implement
reformist depoliticising programmes to legitimise the system the agenda of
counter revolution is clear.Here comrade Anuradha Gandhi made a big
difference.
asit
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 5:33 AM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta
wrote:
> ear Jesse Knutson,
>
> Thanks for your response.
>
> I found Jyoti Punwani's piece stimulating to read, not because it
> presented Anuradha Ghandy is a hero, but because it reminisced about
> a friend. I think that the concrete solidarity of friendship has a
> more capacious quality than the abstraction of heroism. As Bertholt
> Brecht once said, 'pity the people who need heroes'. I am suspicious
> of people who get called heroes and martyrs and would run a mile,
> especially from 'revolutionary' ones. But Punwani's evocation of the
> 'revolutionarily' insignificant details of Anuradha's personal life,
> as a friend, and her affection for her friend, made me take it
> seriously. It is possible to honour a friendship, even if you have
> nothing to do with the people who happen to be the friends in
> question, do not know them personally, and regardless of whether or
> not you agree with their views or choices.
>
> I am not quite sure that the conceptual foundations of a Marxist-
> Leninist-Maoist milieu and a liberal ngo are fundamentally different,
> both assume that the 'people' are some plastic entity, an object
> capable of being acted upon and shaped in the desired,
> 'revolutionary' or 'reformist' direction by an elite, (some of whom
> get called 'heroes') either through 'true' education (what is
> 'untrue' education?), or that higher power called, 'empowerment'
> ministered to them through the good offices, either of 'professional
> revolutionaries' or of 'trained social workers'. In either case,
> knowledge, consciousness, comes from a notional 'outside' and the
> 'people' once they are adequately filled with this knowledge, become
> the 'revolutionary' instruments of history (if they are the objects
> of the 'revolutionary' party's self confessed consciousness raising
> mission) , or the entitled subjects of a mid day meal, or an
> inoculation programme
>
> I am actually quite interested in the example that you invoke of the
> prince Siddharth, later known as the Buddha, because in the parable
> of his transformation - the encounter of someone who has not
> suffered, with the reality of suffering (poverty, disease, senility,
> death - the four things that the prince encounters on his chariot
> ride) - this encounter - is not considered as something to be mocked
> but to be seen as a generative, productive situation.
>
> The anger and resentment of the poor for being poor does not take
> them (or anyone) outside their condition. But a prince's realization
> that the reality of suffering might have a relationship to his
> clinging to a world where there are princes and paupers does require
> him to make a choice about either being a prince, or not. In this
> specific case, the prince chooses not to remain a prince. This is not
> about constructing a hierarchy between the moral valence of being
> princes and paupers, but about knowing that the state of princehood
> and paupery are both obstacles, to emancipation. In one case, one
> chooses to reject the claims of the world, in the second, one is not
> in a position to reject the claims of the world, because one does not
> have a world to lose. Proletarians lose their chains by gaining a
> world, princes lose their chains by losing their world.
>
> One might say, that for a proletarian, it is the decision to no
> longer act as a proletarian (as being bereft of estate) or to insist
> that she might have claim on the world is something that one might
> consider to be revolutionary. It is in some way, the mirror (obverse)
> of the princes act. The proletarian has to make a claim on the world
> that the prince must reject. But for a revolutionary subjectivity to
> arise, both the prince and the proletarian must cease to be
> themselves. It means, that the poor must cease to be, or to identify
> themselves, to others, or to themselves, as 'the poor'. Maoism,
> glorifies the state of the poor as the poor. That is why Maoists and
> Gandhians get along so well. they both love the fact that the poor,
> are, well, poor. And their romanticization of poverty has a slightly
> aesthetic ardour. if the poor were to spend hard earned money on
> mobile phones or decent country liquor, Maoists and Gandhians would
> get their khadi (or striped cotton) knickers into a twist of moral
> indignation. Which is why, for instance, Maoists can claim that the
> worker or proletarian in North America, for instance is no longer a
> revolutionary subject. And that to be properly revolutionary in the
> Maoist sense one must bear at least some working resemblance to third
> world emacietedness. This means having and continuing to love having
> a sad, hard, life. Maoists and Gandhians love to make everyone, and
> themselves suffer. The portrait of Anuradha that Jyoti Punwani offers
> is interesting, because contrary to the standard Maoist script, it
> seems to suggest that Anuradha was not at all interested in
> professing, or advocating the vacancy of suffering. She had made a
> choice to live a certain life, not because it was a hard one,
> (although it may have been a hard one) but because it was necessary
> for her to do so in order to practice her politics. She did not
> moralize to those who did not share her choice.
>
> It is possible, hypothetically, that in other circumstances, a
> particular revolutionary, might decide or come to the realization in
> the course of their political work, that their task lies in the
> necessary elimination (through a precise and economical act of pre-
> meditated violence) of the CEO of a corporation. In order to achieve
> this aim, that individual, might have to live for a long time,
> 'undercover' in a highly elite social milieu, waiting for the right
> time, to make the right move. Let us assume that this requires this
> individual to live the life of a high society hostess. Would we then
> say, at some stage, that her decision to live the high life was an
> act of revolutionary sacrifice, and that she would be right in
> looking down, or that others would be justified in vicasiously (on
> her behalf, that is) looking down upon those others who chose not to
> do as she did, and who refused to take upon themselves the contagion
> of living the hard life of moving from a society dinner to a cocktail
> to the races, to another cocktail, waiting for the right moment to
> bring her revolver out of her handbag. I think we might all realize
> that to say such a thing would be absurd, maybe even a little
> pervese. I find it no less absurd when the practical political
> necessity of choosing a certain other kind of life, as opposed to
> another, no matter who chooses it, is cast in the mould of 'herosim'.
>
> In my view, a Marxist understanding would lie in rejecting the
> poverty of the poor as a moral ideal or example. Poverty is not a
> state of grace. From what I remember of Marxism, the emancipation of
> the working class results in the end of workers as workers, not in
> making everyone a worker. This too is a certain kind of taking leave
> of the world a it is. This actually might require a renunciation of
> resentment. I have yet to see a Maoist politics that is capable of
> taking leave of resentment.
>
> Class struggles may be caused by anger and resentment, but they
> cannot be fought with anger and resentment, because proletarians
> cannot afford to delude themselves that the transformation of
> material conditions and social relations can be achieved by the
> venting of anger against their so called 'betters'. That results in
> the replacement of one group of masters with another, and yesterday's
> bullied become tomorrow's bullies. It doesnt get rid of bullying, or
> of that obstinate thing called class, which is not a collection of
> 'bad rich people', but the expression of a social relationship. The
> difference between a Marxist, and a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
> understanding of practice might, I would suggest, consist in the
> understanding that one comes to the banal, everyday, long haul task
> of revolutionary practice, not with anger, but with patience, tact,
> humour and the understanding that the attempt to get rid of class is
> not the same thing as 'dipping one's hand', as the psycopathic
> beatitiude of Com. Charu Mazumdar once had it, 'in the blood of the
> class enemy'. Mind you, I have nothing against the tactical necessity
> of violence in self defence in situations of class conflict, but to
> celebrate the idea of 'dipping one's hand in the blood of the class
> enemy' as so much of the legacy of Maoism in India, does, is to play
> act in a macabre performance of a slightly sick fetish, not to pursue
> a serious politics. A few dead policemen do not make a revolution.
>
> thanks for the provocation to think aloud about these things
>
> regards,
>
> Shuddha
>
>
> On 29-Apr-08, at 11:40 AM, Jesse R. Knutson wrote:
>
> >
> > To respond to Shuddha whose mail is pasted below...Yes all one
> > has to agree with is that the only heroes, even
> > Naxalite ones, are the rich and that the only palatable mode
> > of politics is the asceticism of the nobility. Punwani's
> > piece is nice, especially as it can actually convey something
> > partially meaningful
> > to its mindless and self-satisfied yuppy audience, but it also
> > smacks of age old conservative narrative strategies, like the
> > tale of the prince Buddha who could only really renounce the
> > world because he knew all its pleasures and privileges. What
> > about another kind of story?..One about poor people who
> > receive true education and empowerment in a
> > Marxist-Leninist-Maoist milieu (and not in some liberal ngo),
> > people who reject instinctively the moralism and liberalism of
> > the Indian bourgeoisie whom they regard as cannibals in
> > practice. What about people who turn on their betters
> > reversing the violence inflicted on them, teaching the rich
> > what it means to suffer and be humiliated...Well that would be
> > another story, not of bloated empty complacent 'conviction'
> > but of meaningful revolutionary practice, which is what
> > Anuradha Ghandy
> > actually strove to embody. In solidarity with her, J
> >
> > ORIGINAL MAIL:
> >
> > Dear Sanjay,
> >
> > many thanks for forwarding the tribute to Anuradha Ghandy by
> > Jyoti
> > Punwani. One does not have to agree with Naxalism of any
> > variety to
> > be moved by the example of the kind of life that this text
> > points to.
> > What is important for me in it is that it suggests that the
> > strength
> > of one's convictions do not have to automatically translate into
> > making other people feel guilty about their life choices, or
> > about
> > patronizing them. The world would be a better and more
> > interesting
> > place if we had more people like Anuradha Ghandy in our midst.
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > Shuddha
> > ---------------------------------------
> > Jesse Knutson
> > Ph.D. Candidate
> > Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University
> > of Chicago
> > ---------------------------------------
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with
> > subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
> Raqs Media Collective
> shuddha@sarai.net
> www.sarai.net
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>
>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
Via: "Aman Sethi"
Dear Naeem,
I have read all your postings with great interest - from the
controversy on the missing relics to the attack on the barrister at
Zia airport to your piece on the barricading of public spaces. Please
do continue to post; I, for one, appreciate your postings.
To be honest, I read this particular post with some hesitance - mainly
because of late I have found Dalrymple rather disappointing (compared
to his previous work). In some ways he still writes like the gora who
has almost gone native and - by virtue of simply hanging around for so
long in the subcontinent - can lay bare, for the gora reader, the
complexities of this (choose your own set of adjectives) fascinating,
rich, colorful, diverse, modern, backward, historical, traditional,
loud, oppressed, yet fast empowering area.
I am not saying he is a "bad" writer - he is in fact a very good
writer - or that his analysis is flawed. I'm merely saying that, as a
piece, - and like some of his recent pieces - it is a primarily a
compilation of local reporting in sub-continental newspapers
structured around his road trip.
From his latest-
"As you travel around Pakistan today you can see the effects of the
boom everywhere: in vast new shopping malls and smart roadside filling
stations, in the cranes of the building sites and the smokestacks of
factories, in the expensive new cars jamming the roads and in the
ubiquitous cell-phone stores. In 2003 the country had fewer than three
million cell phones; today apparently there are 50 million, while car
ownership has been increasing at roughly 40 percent a year since 2001.
At the same time foreign direct investment has risen from $322 million
in 2002 to $3.5 billion in 2006.
Pakistan's cities, in particular, are fast changing beyond
recognition. As in India, there is a burgeoning Pakistani fashion
scene full of ambitious gay designers and amazingly beautiful models.
" (yawn)
further in the the piece we find more gems of information, such as
"February's elections dramatically confirmed this shift. The biggest
electoral surprise of all was the success of Nawaz Sharif's
conservative faction of the Muslim League, the PML-N. "
For Whom? Who was surprised by Nawaz's electoral success? In the run
up to the elections, most people who followed the election had the
feeling that the PPP would emerge as the largest party (particularly
after benazir's death) and that the PML (N) would come in a second.
Even before the elections there was talk of Nawaz and Zardari closing
ranks - so it clearly wasnt the biggest electoral surprise
"On my travels I found a surprisingly widespread consensus that the
mullahs should keep to their mosques, and the increasingly unpopular
military should return to its barracks."
Come on; everyone has been talking about this ever since we heard
there would be elections. Everyone had talked about how the parties
allied with Musharaf (which includes the religious right and the
PML-Q) would get their comeuppance. I am hard pressed to find anyone
else who would be surprised by the fact that "ordinary pakistanis"
(whoever they are) aren't generally in favour of a situation where no
particular supra-powerful institution has control over their daily
lives.
Of course, towards the closing we are offered a few options:
"What sort of country did Pakistanis want? Did they want a
Western-style liberal democracy, as envisaged by the poet Iqbal, who
first dreamed up the idea of Pakistan, and by the country's eventual
founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah? An Islamic republic like Mullah Omar's
Afghanistan? Or a military-ruled junta of the sort created by Generals
Ayyub Khan, Zia, and Musharraf, who, among them, have ruled Pakistan
for thirty-four of its sixty years of existence?"
Note that we are offered the choice between a "western style liberal
democracy" envisaged and dreamed up by a poet; an islamic republic
like Mullah Omar's afghanistan; and a military ruled junta. I wonder
which choice the newly re-enfranchised pakistanis shall opt for.
Your time starts "Now!"
Tick tock
"Iqbal or Omar"?
Tick Tock
"Jinaah or Zia?"
Tick Tock
"liberal or Islamic?"
"and at the buzzer we find you have chosen to throw out the islamists
in favour of the secularists. Well done, you have won yourself a New
Deal, not to mention a longish article in the NYRB."
I shall go out on a limb here - Could we say that coalition politics
like we see in india and pakistan (though we are now seeing them in
countries like Italy) seems to be a far more sub-continental style of
politics than the western style liberal democracy dalrymple talks of?
It is true that coalition politics can strictly be understood to be
part of the larger whole that is the politics that darlymple and iqbal
envisage - but i think there are unique nuances and contours that are
flattened with far too much ease in this text.
best
a.
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Naeem Mohaiemen
wrote:
> I post below yet another article that will sink without a trace in
> Reader List, because:
> 1. It doesn't involve India...
> 2. It involves Pakistan, but isn't negative...
>
> For the 0.2% that are interested, here is Dalrymple's latest...
>
> A New Deal in Pakistan
> By William Dalrymple
> What happened in Khairpur was a small revolution—a middle-class
> victory over the forces of reactionary feudal landlordism. More
> astonishingly, it was a revolution that was reproduced across the
> country. To widespread surprise, the elections in Pakistan were free
> and fair; and Pakistanis voted heavily in favor of liberal centrist
> parties opposed to both the mullahs and the army. Here, in a country
> normally held up in the more Islamophobic right-wing press of Western
> countries as the epitome of "what went wrong" in the Islamic world, a
> popular election resulted in an unequivocal vote for moderate, secular
> democracy.
>
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21194
> _________________________________________
> reader-list:an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
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