Reading Pasts Thinking Presents Reflecti

WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS’
JOURNAL
Intellectuals, Philosophers,
Women in India:
Endangered
Species
United Nations International
N° 4-5 / December 2017

Educational, Scientific and Network ok Women
Photo-portrait of the Indian painter M. F. Husain by Parthiv Shah (1993) Cultural Organisation Philosophers
JOURNAL
Journal of the international network of women philosophers sponsored by UNESCO
with the support of Université Paris-Lumières
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Coordination: Barbara Cassin
Isabelle Alfandary, Françoise Balibar, Anne E. Berger, Michèle Gendreau-Massaloux, Françoise Gorog, Judith Revel, Marta Segarra, Giulia Sissa
FOR NUMBER 4-5

Guest editor: Divya Dwivedi (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi)
Editorial Assistance: Priyanka Deshmukh, Chloé Pretesacque, Aarushi Punia
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Seyla Benhabib (Turkey-USA), Fina Birulés (Spain), Fernanda Bruno (Brazil), Vinciane Despret (Belgium), Penelope Deutscher (USA-Australia), Julia Kristeva (France),
Mariella Pandolfi (Canada), Danièle Wozny (France)
Published in 2018 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
7, place Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France
© UNESCO 2018
ISSN 2225 – 3351
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are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization.
Cover photo : Parthiv Shah - Graphic design, typeset (cover and interior) : Edouard Sombié
We especially thank
Vijay Singh, Harsh Kapoor for providing images of M. F. Husain’s “Saraswati” and Krishen Khanna’s “The News of Gandhiji’s Death”, Sanjay Kak,
Project 88, Nature More Art, Urvashi Butalia and Zubaan Books, Teesta Setalvad, Meera Nanda, Siddharth Varadarajan and The Wire, Flora Katz,
Subhashini Ali, Madhu Jain, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Maria Paula Meneses, Nicolas Idier and BNP Paribas.
This book has been published with the support of the TransferS laboratory of excellence (Investments for the Future program ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL * and ANR-10-LABX-0099).
WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS’ JOURNAL — N° 4—5 2

JOURNAL
Intellectuals, Philosophers, Women in India:

Endangered Species
N° 4-5 / December 2017

Contents
Editorial T. M. Krishna
Classikrit: the Lofty and the True 41
Barbara Cassin S. Anand
Intellectuals, Philosophers and Women in India: Thanks You for Watching and Please Subscribe my
Endangered Species 7 Channel 57
Meera Nanda
Presentation Science in Saffron 63
Parthiv Shah Aude Engel

Artist in Exile 9 Opera in India: Mozart at the Maharaja’s or Verdi on
Rickshaw? (English Summary) 73
M. F. Husain
Saraswati (1976) Javed Iqbal
10
Photo Essay – ‘Veli Wada’ in the Hyderabad Central
Ram Rahman, Geeta Kapur, Ramchandra Gandhi University 74
Reponses to the Attacks on the Works of M. F. Husain 11
Media and the Public Sphere, Censorship
Divya Dwivedi
Postcolonialism and the Death Mask 13 Hartosh Singh Bal
Presstitute 82
Public Intellectual Karuna Nundy

“You Hate Me? Now Go to Jail”: When ‘Hate’ is Criminal 91
Interview Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Modi, Majoritarianism and Media Manipulation 100
Romila Thapar and Siddharth Vardarajan
Nationalism and the Public Intellectual - January 2017 25 முனைவர் பெ.முருகன
இலக்கியமும் தணிக்கையும 119
Academia, Education, Culture
Perumal Murugan, translated by Dickens Leonard M. and
Shahid Amin P. Vellaisamy
Making the Nation Habitable (English summary) Literature and Censorship 125
40

Contents
रवीश कु मार Women

जनता का निर्माण 130
Ravish Kumar Subhashini Ali
The Construction of the People 134 Patriarchy, Caste and Neoliberalism: Violence against
Women in India 204
Philosophy Vivek Muthuramalingam

Women labourers 217
Shaj Mohan
Flavia Agnes
The Between: The Dangerous Occupation of the
Muslim Women Negotiating a Historical Moment in their
Philosopher 140
Lives 221
Rohith Vemula 154
Urvashi Butalia
‘Censor in the Heart’? A Feminist Publisher’s Perspective 235
Rohith Vemula
Vemula’s suicide note 155
Vasumathi Badrinathan
Andal: Poetry, Passion, Devotion (English Summary) 241
Rationalists Murdered 158
Charles Malamoud
Adam Knowles and Debjani Bhattacharyya
Sometimes in India, It is a Woman who poses a Good
The Ideal Subject of Totalitarianism 159
Question (English Summary) 242
Alok Rai
A. Revathi, translated by Nandini Murali
Poor Philosophy: the Problem of Unknowing 169 Finding My Daughters 243
Vijay Tankha
Hijra 253
Dissenting Adults: ‘Thoughts of a Dry Brain in a Dry
Season’ 182 Interview with Divya Dwivedi
As a Woman 254
Roshni Vyam
Drawn 193 Tejal Shah
Between the waves 255

Contents
What is Nationalism in India? Anand Teltumbde

Hindutva and the Dalits 312
Genealogies of Nationalism Khalid Anis Ansari
Caste Analytics, ‘Hindu-Muslim’ Conflict and Intolerance 327
J. Reghu
What is Hindutva? 268
Mariana Alves
Os Predicados da Violência na Índia.
Sam Panthaky / AFP
Perspectivas para um possível diálogo com o Brasil. 335
‘Hitler’ clothing store 275
Excerpts from the Gujarat State Social Studies Text for Mariana Alves
Standard X The Attributes of Violence in India:
On Fascism and Nazism 276 Perspectives to the Other Side of the Margin. 348
Krishen Khanna Democracy

The news of Gandhi’s death 278
M. K. Gandhi
Supriya Chaudhuri ‘The Jews’ - From Harijan, November 26, 1938 360
Reading Pasts, Thinking Presents: Reflections on the
Nation, Representation, and Mourning 279 Teesta Setalvad
And Is Justice for All Just a Constitutional Pipedream?:
Jitish Kallat Democracy and Institutional Memory 362
Public Notice 2 291
Arundhati Roy
Sanjay Kak The Ministry of Utmost Happiness 376
Witness: Kashmir 1986-2016 / Nine Photographers 292
Caste & Religion Contributors

Yashpal Jogdand 377
The Drowned and the Saved: Caste and Humiliation in
the Indian Classroom 304 Summary of the illustrations of this magazine whose
rights are reserved 395

Editorial
Intellectuals, Philosophers and Women in India: Endangered Species
If we question the (wo)man in the street about “women in India”, some received ideas soon emerge.
These received ideas, supported by statistics, are alas true. Women remain unborn: females are victims
of foeticide and infanticide (44.3% versus 32% in the world). They obey their family and caste in
marriage (85% of marriages are arranged, 18% of brides are under 15 years old, 44% under 18 years
old); their dowry is heavy for their family; they are trafficked as sex workers and increasingly as brides
far from home, isolated in a culture and a language they do not know. Ladki apne maa-baap by bojh
hoti hai, “the girl is a burden for the parents”,—so goes the saying in Hindi. Rapes are numerous
and go unpunished. They are the subjected to honor killing. They are domestic slaves; they do slave
labour in the mines. They have more limited access to education (with 67% adult literacy compared
to males), a higher drop-out rate at university (which is already 48% by secondary school), especially
in science, they quickly hit the glass ceiling.
Even if the law and customs are evolving – since the late nineteenth century women are no longer
burned on the pyres to accompany their husband in death – all this is still true. However, it is not
primarily of these discriminations that this issue speaks, although they constitute the background of
all the analysis. For it is less than ever possible to isolate the plight of women in India from the general
socio-political situation that determines what is happening to them today. Hence the title we have
chosen: “Intellectuals, philosophers, women in India: endangered species”.
It all began in a meeting with Romila Thapar, the legendary historian of ancient India, whose interview
opens this issue. We then found it necessary to have a guest editor, Divya Dwivedi. And this choice
itself is worth describing as a part of the situation that engages this issue of the Women Philosophers’
Journal. As her name suffices to make known in Indian society, she is of the caste of the Brahmins
– as Romila Thapar, or Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak belong to the Khatri or the Brahmin caste, all
“upper castes”. That makes her therefore “untouchable”, in a totally different sense than the Dalits,
the “untouchables”. Untouchable in a very relative sense, for even in the higher castes the woman

Editorial
intellectual is not worth the man intellectual. She is a philosopher and a literary scholar, English is
her mother tongue as much as Hindi, and she found herself compelled to reflect on what postcolonial
is, what it serves in the subcontinent, and what it is in the name of. Not making the post-colonial the
first and the last word undoubtedly allows us to clarify with greater precision what is happening to
women, philosophers and intellectuals in India today.
Barbara Cassin

Artist in Exile
Parthiv Shah

Saraswati (1976)
M. F. Husain
Saraswati (1976) by one of the

greatest Indian artists who was
Muslim. This portrayal of a
late Hindu goddess of learning,
Saraswati, also a mythical river
considered to have vanished
underground, was identified
after 20 years as offensive and
obscene by the Hindu Right, who
vandalised Husain’s house and
his art gallery, and burnt many of
his paintings. They also destroyed
several, including the three
above which were part of a later
exhibition celebrating Husain and
the freedom of art. Husain closed
down all his galleries and left India
as a result of the physical threats
and hundreds of court cases filed
against him in different corners of
the country. He could not return in
his lifetime and died in London, in
exile.
Not in Open Access.

Reponses to the Attacks on the Works of M. F. Husain
Ram Rahman
“For the artists’ community in India, the predicament that Maqbool Fida Husain finds himself in evokes many
emotions: disbelief, anger, fear, puzzlement and indignation. For a culture that venerates age, it is shocking
that we have allowed this 94-year-old to be hounded out of his home and his matrubhoomi. Husain’s forced
exile is not just the case of an individual who has been falsely accused of religious blasphemy by right-wing
groups and the Bharatiya Janata Party. It has serious implications for each of us as a citizen of the republic.
The cynical stoking of religious hatred by political groups is not new to us. The experience of the partition is
still raw and festering. Yet the Ayodhya mobilization in the 1990s opened a new wound on the body of the
republic. Not without coincidence, the attacks on Husain started in 1996, on works by him that had been
painted years before and which had been in the public realm. The new tactic, with repercussions for us as
a nation, was to use the law as a means of attack and harassment. By filing cases against the artist across
the country in a well-coordinated and strategically managed campaign, the right-wing enmeshed him in a
1. For Husain at 94, Delhi: Sahmat, 2009.
legalistic nightmare. Experts made us realize that this perverse use of the legal framework could be directed
at any one of us, and Husain was perhaps its first, most prominent victim.”1 2. Ibid.
Geeta Kapur
“Should we now count Husain among the diaspora artists; does the title fit the man? Only those who know
Husain will understand that he aches to come home, his itinerant imagination returns to this land with
almost the naïve trust of a fakir in the generosity of the common person. Perhaps his longing may want
to embrace—not the last dream of success, of which he still has plenty, but the possibility of subaltern
survival back from where he once came. Having always worked with celebratory, even triumphal markers
of individual and national survival, neither his temperament nor his aesthetic has a way of expressing loss.
Should we then exempt him from this burden? Overcoming our own guilt and sentiment, shall we find other
ways for recounting the great irony sustained by the always affirmative, always graceful and irreversibly
iconic Maqbool Fida Husain.”2

Reponses to the Attacks on the Works of M. F. Husain
Ramchandra Gandhi
“How can they possibly attack Husain ? He is like a child... he plays with his brush and colours and clay like
our folk artists and toy makers... and sometimes, like them... he ends up making an icon.”3
3. Quoted in Ram Rahman, “A personal Take on M.F.

Husain”, Modern 1.

Postcolonialism and the Death Mask
Divya Dwivedi
Philosophers, public intellectuals and women in the Indian subcontinent are endangered because they are
dangerous to the India defined under Hinduness (Hindutva) and brought into existence by the consolidation
of what is beginning to be termed a Fascist regime.
The title that gathers the following essays into this issue of The Women Philosophers’ Journal presents a
miscellany of items—woman, public intellectual, philosopher—that are not species under one genus. They
belong to different orders of generality: gender which marks the domain of social relations; the public use
of reason which insists on constitutional democracy; philosophy which is bound by no domain but pursues
the most abstract idea as well as the dirt beneath the nails. We know that they, nevertheless, cut through
each another; for example, gender challenges the history of the domains of both the pubic intellectual and
the philosopher. These apparently disjunct orders are forgathered precisely in the danger that wears little 4. See Vasudha Dalmia, and H. von Stietencron (Eds.),
disguise now. Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious
Traditions and National Identity. London: Sage, 1995;
Perhaps, Saraswati, the famous painting made by M. F. Husain in 1976, offers a diagram of this danger. Since John Zavos, “The Arya Samaj and the Antecedents of
Hindu Nationalism”, International Journal of Hindu
it was named after the Hindu goddess of learning and he painted many other figures borrowed from Hindu
Studies, 3.1 (1999): pp. 57-81.
myths, the Hindutva activists attacked him, his house, his galleries and paintings, and drove the artist at
the age of 91 into exile in Dubai and death away from home. In this painting, a deluge has swallowed the
land that Hindu nationalism—the only nationalism there is in India—claims as their undivided and sacred
property; and Woman, reduced to motherhood in this “mother-land” of Hindu nationalism, is sinking
with a last serene breath. Only the lotus survives—the symbol of the political party fronting that immense
Hindutva organization which is overwhelming most sections of society and arms of the state, and that also
holds sway internationally. Perhaps the artist, that phantasmatic being like the Sphinx, had posed a riddle
and, centuries after Oedipus, a new kind of man answered it, dispatching the old being to his death. Perhaps
the riddle is this: what kind of a beast consumes everyone and then regenerates them into one symbol, one
sole body and one sole meaning? And what beast is born in this conversion?
The Hinduness project precedes Fascism, since it began even before the Indian subcontinent obtained
independence from British colonial rule.4 Nevertheless, it has received its name—Hindu fascism—from
Europe and was analysed on the basis of various “Western models”, albeit by carefully setting aside the
determining historical processes which situated the birth of Fascism in the 19th century Europe, as Arthur

Divya Dwivedi
Rosenberg conceived it. This gesture allows for transferring the culpability of conceiving a violent political
project to Europe or to Eurocentrism. Fascism as a distinct event of nationalist politics, served most certainly
as a paradigm for Nazism, for instance, in the emphasis on a totalitarian aesthetic or aestheticisation
of politics, in the use of mob violence and in the cunning manipulation of language to destroy political
engagement. However, there is more to both Nazism and to Hindutva, beyond these logistical similarities.
The rarely used term Hindu Nazism may allow us to attend to the full implications of the program of racial 5. See J. Reghu and Anand Teltumbde in this issue. On
purity and its maintenance through cultural and legal controls that inspired the founders and the followers Dec. 7, 1947, the first Indian prime minister Jawaharlal
Nehru wrote in a letter that “We have a great deal of
of the Hindutva program (which includes the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS), avowedly modelled evidence to show that RSS is an organisation which is
after the SS in Nazi Germany.5 in the nature of a private army and which is definitely
proceeding on the strictest Nazi lines, even following
In this context, we need to discuss the unique race theory of India, perhaps the oldest and the most codified the technique of organization” (Letters to Chief Minister
in history—caste. The racial character of caste was already recognised by Arthur de Gobineau who praised it 1947 – 1964, vol. 1, ed. G. Parthasarthy, Delhi: Oxford
as the preservation of biological inheritance against “miscegenation” and “degeneration” through social laws University Press, 1985); see also Christophe Jaffrelot,
The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics:
in his racist and eugenicist text, Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (1853-55). The basic concept of caste
1925 to the 1990s, Delhi: Penguin,1998; Marzia
is Varna or the colour of the skin. The assignment of offices according to Varna and the social order which Casolari, “Hindutva’s Foreign Tie-up in the 1930s
prevents the intermixing of colours is termed Varna-ashrama-dharma. Caste is the functional isolation Archival Evidence”, Economic and Political Weekly 35.4
of people. The hand can perform many functions including the playing of a musical instrument and the (January 22, 2000): pp. 218-228.
writing of a book, but the hand of the lowest caste—the continuing existence of scavenging—is functionally 6. B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, intro. by
isolated to handling human excreta. Caste is the core doctrine and practice of Hinduism which codifies the Arundhati Roy, New Delhi: Navayana, 2014. See Khalid
identity of each person at birth and clings to him/her even when she may convert to a universalist religion Anis Ansari in this issue.
like Christianity or Islam.6 The doctrine of karmic cycles (or birth and rebirth) is aimed at immuring the 7. See Teesta Setalvad in this issue.
transformative potential of individuals in their lifetime so as to conserve them in their castes. Conversion
8. “Love Jihad” is a term invented by Hindu groups,
and inter-caste or inter-religious marriage thwart the functional isolation of individuals by caste. Both have inspired by Nazis, to accuse Muslim boys of seducing
been punished either using the state (outlawing beef and cow slaughter7) or the amorphous Hindu groups Hindu girls in order to convert and marry them as a
(who killed missionaries, re-converted Christians and Muslims to Hinduism), or both (the latter’s campaigns form of Jihad. See Subhashini Ali in this issue.
against Love Jihad8 have legitimised in court judgments). Dalits, Muslims, and Christians (and also the Dalit
Muslims and the Dalit Christians) are routine targets of ostracism, rape, death by public lynching, honour
killing, and pogroms. Honour killing, whose counterpart “Sati” (honour suicide) by women was banned by
the colonial government in the 19th century, continues to be a routine occurrence in many parts of India,

Divya Dwivedi
with at least one death reported every day in the newspapers now. This practice by the parents and family
members is the re-inscription of the caste code on the body of the girl—and often of the boy chosen by her
if he is lower caste—who rejects that racist fear of miscegenation to marry outside her caste. Feminism in
India fought this ideology in order to claim the freedoms and rights of women over their lives, their choices, 9. For example, Sati has been rehabilitated in the
their labour and their bodies; so did the more recent movements demanding equality and freedom for postcolonialist framework of “colonial discourse” by
homosexual, transgender and transsexual people. The eruption of this “alien” discourse in “Indian culture” Ashis Nandy; see Nandy, “Sati in Kaliyuga”, Economic
was opposed by caste lobbies, religious groups as well as postcolonial intellectuals9 who locate women and and Political Weekly 23.38 (Sep. 17, 1988): p. 1976.
caste within the domestic space, that crucible of native culture which could not be colonised and which 10. See Meera Nanda, ‘We Are All Hybrids Now: The
would resist the so-called “epistemic violence” of “Europeanisation and Westernisation”.10 Dangerous Epistemology of Post- Colonial Populism’,
Journal of Peasant Studies 28.2 (2001): pp. 162-186.
The convenient consensus in the academic field in India is that caste is not race, but a type of culture specific 11. For example, Rajeev Bhargava presents caste
and integral to India.11 This consensus continues more or less undisturbed as the voices of the Dalits, the hierarchy as “vertical diversity” which, alongside
tribal people, and religious minorities are mediated through this very consensus to the world. The Dalit horizontal or denominational diversity comprises a
distinctly Indian brand of secularism and can serve
point of view on India is being called anti-national and extremist because the Dalit way of life does not
as a model of tolerance in the world; “Secularism and
follow the so-called mainstream Hindu practices, and includes eating beef and praying to deities whom the Inclusive Society” in Yojana (Aug 2013): pp. 22-25.
north-western Indians, who consider themselves to be Aryans and Hindu, call demons. This is continuous http://iasscore.in/pdf/yojna/3.%20Secularism%20
with the division between Sura, the gods, and A-sura, the demons made by the Vedic Aryans. However, it and%20inclusive%20society.pdf
was only late in the 19th century that “Hindu” was adopted as the name for the new religion that sought to 12. See D. N. Jha, “Looking for a Hindu Identity”
replace the plethora of cults and local practices of the subcontinent.12 It was a Persian term, Hind, used by (presidential address to the 66th Indian History
Muslim rulers to designate the region and its people, which named the newest so-called oldest religion in Congress), 2004, http://www.sacw.net/India_History/
the world.13 The newly minted Hinduism was appointed as the essential character of the nation, and the gods dnj_Jan06.pdf
worshipped by lower castes and tribal people were cast as demons in the new “Hindu” pantheon. This Hindu 13. Stietencron, “Religious Configurations in Pre-
colonization of the Indian subcontinent by the upper castes of north-western India is being conducted Muslim India and the Modern Concept of Hinduism” in
through religious politics.14 Dalmia and Stietencron, 1995, pp. 51-81.
14. See Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, Why I am not a Hindu:
Since 2013, four prominent Rationalist philosophers have been assassinated in India. In the recent years A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture, and
and increasingly, several Right to Information activists, Tribal Rights activists, whistle-blowers, upright civil Political Economy, Calcutta: Samya Press, 1996.
servants, Kashmiri independence activists, and dozens of journalists have been murdered, incarcerated,
deprived of their civil liberties, threatened or else prevented from working because expensive defamation
cases have been filed against them. Ordinary citizens who are Dalit or Muslim have been lynched by mobs

Divya Dwivedi
affiliated to Hindutva on the suspicion that they possessed beef or transported cows for slaughter, and on
account that they loved and married outside their religion or caste. Universities and premier institutions
of higher education in medicine and engineering—which contribute to India’s intellectual pride and to the
prosperous sections of its global diaspora, and which reinforce the correlation of “merit” and caste—has
become the conditions for a succession of suicides by students and research scholars. The public sphere has
become the empire of a corporatised news media that broadcasts Hindu nationalist propaganda and calls for
lynchings, and a social media that reproduces the power relations of society.
The beast proceeds by means of the incorporation and coordination in its own body of all organs of society
and state. Its end is the eternal sway of the Hindu Nation. It has soldered this means and this end into a
single plan under which it brings the spans of institutions like the university, press, art, and writing which
might release unknown possibilities of human being. It curtails our spans which are infinite: the span of
our minds to think new ends for existence; the span of our imagination and our hands to make new bodies,
new means out of ourselves; the spans of our being-with each other beyond kinship, identity, territory and
the indurate regularity of belief and practice. Love, critical speech, and the adventure of thought in quest 15. See Mohan and Dwivedi, Gandhi and Philosophy:
On Theological Anti-Politics (Bloomsbury Academic,
for Sophia rather than its iteration on the prison island of cultural identity: these are the irrepressible spans forthcoming).
of human being that Hindutva seeks to convert and harness to the Hindu nation, casting what remains into
subjects with less or no rights, tolerated outsiders. And hence, women, public intellectuals and philosophers
are endangered in India today, for they are the creatures that the Hindu nation, like Calypso, aims to transfix
permanently on the prison island of pax Hindica. The calypsological immurement of the ends and means15
of a people into a caste-state system—Hindu nation which will reproduce itself biologically and socially
as the caste conserving being using all the means of the modern state—will render every Indian an island
being no matter where she/he goes. In a complex system, the components, which each have their own laws,
are organised by what may be called the comprehending law; caste is the comprehending law of the Hindu
nation to which the various component laws of different principalities—the state, the army, the university,
the public sphere, popular culture, economy, language, art, the family, the body—shall conform. Nationalism
demands observance of the Hindu caste order and obeisance to its ancient wisdom set in the Code of Manu
and the karmic theory of the Gita. The Hindu nation is the ceremonial society in which the current secular
constitutional democracy will be realigned in conformance to the comprehending law of these ancient edicts.

Divya Dwivedi
The leaders of the RSS describe this programme—of means indistinct from ends—regularly in publications
and speeches to its members. Its representatives in the government use the existing legal and state provisions
to prepare for the calypsological transformation of these provisions. These visions reach the as yet un-
incorporated section of Indians—on the subcontinent and abroad—through reports of journalists, the media
spin of apologists, and the chants tweeted by troll factories. By evening, a new topic framed in the terminology
set by them is taken up for debate by television anchors and spokespersons. The debate on “nationalists” versus
“anti-nationalist”, and “good versus bad nationalism” is such a one. That on the difference between Hinduism
and Hindutva is another. In the meantime, symbols like the national anthem are played in private cinema
halls where those who did not stand up in respect were beaten even if they are disabled, and the national flag
and walls of war heroes have gone up in many university campuses. These symbols were honoured by other 16. For example, Bernard Cohn, An Anthropologist
groups and ordinary people in the past too, but only as a minor principality among others that made up their among the Historians and Other Essays Delhi: Oxford
existence. Now they are deployed as symbols of the commanding law of the total ceremony, as rungs in the University Press, 1987; Nicolas Dirks, Castes of Mind:
ladder through which all Indians will ascend into the apportioned end of Hinduness. Colonialism and the Making of Modern India, Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 5, p. 295.
If something can be named as the post-colonial condition, it is this calypsology which brings together
the ancient hierarchy in an operative relation with the modern state. Postcolonialism as the theoretical
justification of this condition is the scaffolding of this calypsology. According to this theory, the damage of
colonialism is not so much the material depredation brought on by colonial political economy as “colonial
discourse”, the cultural realignment that resulted from the imposition of Eurocentric categories (such as
history, science, religion, nation, rights, justice) to interpret and govern the native societies. By casting native
knowledges and social structures as inferior, colonial rule justified itself and caused the colonised society to
hold its own native culture in contempt. In introducing European institutions, knowledges and worldviews,
colonialism restructured the native’s desire itself and thus constituted an epistemic violence that irreparably
disrupted and contaminated native institutions, knowledges and worldviews. Postcolonialism entails that
this epistemic violence of the colonial moment is the singular wound that cleaves the natives’ history into
a past that is irrecoverable in post-colonial cognition, and a future that will henceforth be perpetually
conditioned by this cognition. Postcolonialist historians and social scientists thus explain the racist practices
of the subcontinent by attributing the present form of caste/racism to its origins in the colonial past.16 This

Divya Dwivedi
“historicising away” of all the problems of India—including caste, communalism17, and the suspended status
of Kashmir, for instance—and the insistence that to understand them we must dwell in the colonial archives,
allows the problems to conveniently persist.
The counterpart of postcolonial theory is the subaltern theory of history that posits a social layer—of
subaltern classes—that, unlike the comprador classes of brown elites educated in European ways, remained
uncontaminated by colonial episteme. Native traditions, myths, beliefs, affective structures and forms of
agency continue in a pristine form in this class (in the non-Marxist sense) from the precolonial era. To
the postcolonial intellectual who thinks in European categories but dreams in silhouettes of a forever lost
past, the subaltern speaks in silences. This was the implication of Gayatri Spivak’s rhetorical question, Can
the subaltern speak?. It is telling that subaltern historians contemplated only Hindu subalterns and had 17. For example, Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction
of Communalism in Colonial North India, Delhi: Oxford
little or nothing to say about non-elite Muslim populations of the subcontinent.18 It is disquieting that they
University Press, 1990.
nevertheless have nothing to say about the caste practices of the subaltern.
18. The recent book Conquest and Community: the
Together, postcolonialism and subaltern theory have established the paradigm of research in humanities Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan by Shahid Amin
and social sciences—in India and abroad—over the past four decades. “Eurocentrism”, “historicisation”, and (contributor in this issue) is an exception.
“postcolonialism” are also the operative terms through which the Hindu nationalist discourse conserves 19. For example, David N. Lorenzen, “Who Invented
the caste order. Only it pushes the colonial moment back to Muslim rulers of the Mughal dynasty which Hinduism?” Comparative Studies in Society and History
it represents as a foreign rule, and historicises the present problems with reference to them and to Islam. 41.4 (1999): pp. 630-659; Makarand Paranjape,
introduction to Swami Vivekanand: A Contemporary
The only difference it makes is to claim that the native culture is retrievable and that, indeed, Hindutva will Reader, ed. , Delhi: Routledge, 2015; and Paranjape,
reinstall it. Ancient scriptures, native beliefs, rituals and myths will—must—be resurrected and caste must Making India: Colonialism, National Culture, and the
be honoured. Afterlife of Indian English Authority, Dordrecht: Springer,
2012.
The terms religion, civilisation, enlightenment and theology are appropriated by the discourses of the
subcontinent, in spite of their European origins, while keeping “racism” at a good distance. Historians
(practicing social, cultural, anthropological and ethno-history) reject philosophy and the sciences, and assert
that the native practices of superstitions, the cults, the racial rites, ritual murders for racial purification,
and caste codes for everyday conduct must be called religion. Although religion is a European category
and it was European thinkers who first identified these practices under religion and studied them under
the aforementioned disciplines, postcolonialists and Hindu nationalists have no hesitation in embracing19

Divya Dwivedi
this term as it has a tactical value: religious practices are protected by international law, while racial
discrimination is not. In the past 15 years, the so-called Hindus have been developing a monotheistic
theology and cosmogony so as to acquire characteristics of the Semitic religions.20 However, caste, which
defies the idea of universal humanity and human rights, is accommodated in this new scheme as tradition
and as a localised way of organising life with some imperfections.
Philosophy is a peculiar problem in the subcontinent. It is also, in a way, at the heart of all the problems in this
region. Postcolonial theory opposes itself to philosophy as a Eurocentric discourse although it is from the very
history of philosophy in Europe, which is a history of self-critique, that postcolonialism obtained the tools
to criticise European philosophy. Moreover, it developed these tools by divesting them of their philosophical
concerns. It is thus, for instance, that Foucault’s works provide it with a model for historicisation, and also for
recuperating a cynical use of “Hegemony” in the moral discourse about caste-based and racist oppression,
even though this notion was overcome through the works of Althusser and Foucault. Deconstruction, again, 21. In the epic Valmiki Ramayana, Rama, the god king
is deployed to present the situation as an aporetic one where no intervention can be made. All futures fold cut off the head of a Shudra as punishment for daring to
back into this infinitely stretching postcolonial present. cross the caste barrier to learn the Vedas. The other epic
Mahabharata has a similar story about Ekalavya, an
outcaste tribal boy who was made to pay with his right
Philosophy, as a critical exercise or as an exercise in creating new grounds, is considered Eurocentric thumb for learning archery by watching a Brahmin
and a continuation of the colonisation of minds and cultures. Divested of its critical and creative power, tutor from a distance.
philosophy as a prestigious label is made available for calypsological appropriation: it is used to designate
the rituals of the Vedas, upanishadic discourse and the caste-race laws of the Gita. The “spiritual” discourses 20. See Jaffrelot ; also Jaffrelot, “Reconversion
on life, truth, laws, and gods alone are deemed philosophy. Moreover, it was only the Brahmins who, over Paradoxes”, 2015, http://carnegieendowment.
org/2015/01/07/reconversion-paradoxes
centuries, could conduct this discourse. The subcontinent was slow to adapt writing for the fear that it might
make this “philosophy” available to the lower castes. Hence, “philosophical discourse” was transmitted
orally.21 Philosophy, understood as the religious-caste-legal discourse, is even now the property of the upper
castes. In the universities, philosophy is conduced merely as exegesis of the canon of philosophy with a
careful avoidance of disagreements, thus ensuring that the politics which underlies European philosophical
works never leaks into the Indian scenario. However, philosophy, understood as the secular discourse that
is counter to racism and theocracy, is a subject which only the religious minorities, particularly Christians
and Dalits, are interested in.

Divya Dwivedi
In the long epoch of caste, Dalits, Muslims, and Christians have been a people in exodus in their own
land. The secular constitutional structure of the Indian Union which is the legacy of the Dalit leader and
intellectual Dr B. R. Ambedkar exists in a conflict with the ethno-racist social order. The legal apparatus and
public institutions remain inaccessible to Dalits. They have been gradually entering the universities in the
past two decades. Suffering intense caste violence on campuses, they have begun to organise themselves into
study circles and alternative left organisations to study human rights, the Indian constitution, anti-religious
writings, anti-racist theories and other secular literature with a hope to obtain a new sense of self that is not
defined by the caste epithets under which they are appellated. In philosophy and critical thinking, they find
the means to overthrow centuries of caste conditioning and caste oppression. Painfully, their striving often
ends before they can graduate from universities, whose vocation it is to treat a man as a mind, to convert
the social specific being of women and men into a universal taking-place of learning and thinking. The
university is an interval for such taking-place; painfully they have to interrupt the subcontinental universities
with protests and demonstrations in order to insert themselves into this promise of an interval. They have
to generate another interval.
Such an interval was the students’ protest that irrupted in 2015 in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Madras where the anti-caste Ambedkar Periyar Studies Circle (APSC) of leftist Dalit students mocked the caste
system and the government. They were punished for criticising neoliberalism and the national government.
Like a wave, protests surged from the southern tip of the subcontinent northwards to Hyderabad Central
University where the members of another anti-caste organisation, the Ambedkarite Students’ Association
(ASA) had been expelled from their hostels and barred from the mess and administrative block because they
demonstrated against the death penalty awarded to a Muslim man, Yakub Menon, convicted for conspiracy
in the 1993 Bombay blasts. The duress that their prolonged expulsion and the discontinuation of fellowships
heaped on top of the poverty and oppressiveness of their Dalit status led one of those protesting research
scholars, Rohith Vemula, to commit suicide on 17 January, 2016. It is the inescapability of the curse of
birth dictated by the caste system that Rohith Vemula remarked when he wrote in his suicide note, “my
birth is my fatal accident”. Other movements in 2014-16, like the the Kiss of Love (freedom to express love
in public) protests, students’ protest in the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune against an

Divya Dwivedi
incompetent right-wing director, the Pinjra-tod movement (Break the Cage) in Delhi University all over the
country resounded like harmonics. The wave reached the capital city of Delhi in February 2016. Ambedkar
Study Circles sprang up in many university and IIT campuses in the country. Students’ groups in JNU
celebrated Mahishasur Martyrdom Day to mark the fact that gods like Mahishasur worshipped by tribal
people and Dalits were termed demons in Hindu mythology which celebrated the slaying of Mahishasur
by a Hindu goddess. They were called anti-nationalist. Students started the “Occupy UGC” protests against
sudden and drastic reduction of research fellowships in the country. A massive mobilisation of students and
faculty took place in Jawaharlal Nehru University: commemorative campus protests against death penalty
to the Kashmiri separatist Afzal Guru, convicted in the 2001 Parliament Attack, were suddenly portrayed
as seditious although they were held annually. Student leaders of left organisations, Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar
Khalid, and Anirban Bhattacharya were taken into police custody for several days, and Kumar was beaten
22. The introduction to What the Nation Really Needs
inside the court room in the presence of the judge and policemen. Many students were fined and banned
to Know was forced to admit that they had “glaring
from hostel. Anti-terrorism investigations were launched on them as government ministers, right-wing absences…of themes from the north-east, the
apologists and television channels raised nationalism to a hysterical pitch and, calling this historic university minority communities of India… too little discussion
a hub of anti-India activity, demanded that JNU be shut down. of the virulent communalist and divisive legacies of
which we are heir. Did the inaugural moment of the
Over four months, the students protested with their union leader Shehla Rashid Shora, and they courageously JNU struggle, Afzal Guru and the Kashmir issue, retreat
into the background? Was the somewhat muted
confronted the crackdown by the state. Teachers responded to the so-called “crisis in JNU” by holding a
struggle with the Dalit struggle of the Hyderabad
public teach-in where every evening eminent faculty (historians, economists, political scientists, literary Central University also not a sign of failure?”
scholars, digital humanists) and intellectuals lectured on ‘nationalism’, since it was this version of Hindu
nationalism that was leading the attack. They were then published under the apt title What the Nation
Really Needs to Know. Postcolonial theory provided the framework for most of the lectures, so that in the
preoccupation with recovering genealogies of the nation and an expansive, ‘good’ nationalism for India, the
questions of Kashmir’s autonomy was suppressed as were the innovative gestures and revolutionary writings
of the Dalit student groups with which the protests had begun.22 In May, in a searing essay in The Caravan
titled “My Seditious Heart”, Arundhati Roy reminded that,
While big business has had tens of thousands of crores of rupees worth of loans written off, tens of thousands
of small farmers trapped in a cycle of debt—that will never be written off—continue to kill themselves. In
2015, in the state of Maharashtra alone, more than 3,200 farmers committed suicide. Their suicides too are

Divya Dwivedi
a form of institutionalised murder, just as Rohith Vemula’s was. […]
The manufactured crisis in JNU has also, extremely successfully, turned our attention away from a terrible
tragedy that has befallen some of the most vulnerable people in this country.
The interval was lost sight of. There is a parable in the story of these protests. The institutional murder of
Rohith Vemula and his suicide note—a philosophical work shorter than the Oldest System Programme—
pose the question why it is that on the subcontinent “never was a man treated as a mind”. Why woman is
reduced to the vocation of the womb so that caste can perdure.
The measure of danger is the ferocity and methodicity with which it strives to accommodate the forces
that resist it. But not all resisting forces carry the possibility to disenthrall, to deliver new futures. They
may remain merely reactive, responding to the danger it in its own terms, nestling in the provenance of the
comprehending law of caste. They would thereby iterate the comprehending law of the danger, submitting
to the functional isolation it establishes for all principalities: for a little while longer, students will protest,
citizens will march, hashtags will mushroom around the viral images of the killed. Otherwise, the resisting
forces must create new laws and new principalities by converting the same means to new ends or by creating
new means to the old end, freedom. They must, in turn, frame the danger in its true outline by gaining a
vantage on it from the new zones of their own making. They may still slip back into the calypsological spell,
but the power to break free towards future transformations lies—at least—in the interval.
The interval remains to be seized again. This issue of Women Philosophers’ Journal is an effort to dwell in the
interval by means of contributions by philosophers, scholars, pedagogues, writers, artists, photographers,
lawyers, activists, publishers and journalists. It dwells on the danger, both mortal and theoretical, that besets
public intellectuals, philosophers and women in India, and all those whom Roy’s recent novel The Ministry
of Utmost Happiness calls “the unconsoled”.

Public Intellectual

Interview

Nationalism and the Public Intellectual - January 2017
Siddharth Vardarajan: Professor Romila Thapar, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview, the
broad theme of which is a question that has been animating a lot of people in India of course, but also well-
wishers of India around the world, which is, is critical thinking in India somehow under threat? In posing
this question, I had in mind not just overt or covert pressures from the state, or political figures or political
authority, but also, in a sense, public attitudes. The growing, at least to my mind, tendency for the public
to acquiesce in the state’s own intolerant attitude towards dissent, towards difference, the ease with which
the middle class buys into hero worship, cult of personality, excessive valorization of the nation; these are
all very much a part of present day India. If you look at the election of Donald Trump, or if you look at
political trends in Europe, then clearly this may also be, in some sense, a global phenomenon, even though
the “closing of the Indian mind”, if I were to call it that, has been going on for some time, and I would say,
longer than the tenure of the present government, you can trace it back a decade or longer. There is a sense
in which these negative trends have accentuated or sharpened over the past two and a half years. If in 2015,
we saw in this country the debate over tolerance and intolerance, which is really a critique on the part of
artists, writers, cultural personalities, of the government’s own toleration of violence or chauvinism and its
failure to act when minorities were being targeted, and we saw the way in which the government was very
prickly when intellectuals wrote against the government or returned their awards and so on. And then in
2016, the attack seems to have shifted to the university, we saw the way events unfolded in Jawaharlal Nehru
University, I would say things have moved on, we have a very toxic media environment where excessive
jingoism seems to have become the norm and broadly speaking you have a situation where the executive
branch of government is encroaching on, or making inroads in, virtually every countervailing institution that
this country has: the judiciary, parliament, the central bank, the media etc. In this kind of an environment,
where, to my mind, critical thinking in India is under threat, how do you see the role of public intellectuals?
What should they be doing, what is their role, if any, in dealing with this kind of a situation?
Romila Thapar: Well, you have raised a host of issues. Before I get on to the “public intellectual”, let me just
say that I have been disturbed like all of us have been disturbed, by not just what has been happening in our
country, but worldwide, and the election of Trump was certainly a startling wake-up call. I think it does raise
a couple of questions which need to be answered, like why are we losing the sense of critical inquiry that we
always appreciated? It is true that the idea of a critical inquiry is usually associated with the middle class, and

there is an element there of very conventional thinking, largely, but there is also an element of dissent, and I
think one should really look at what is happening with dissent as well. Admittedly, it is true that the dissent
has not been as vocal as one would have liked, which does add to the notion that there is a decline, and there
is in fact a decline of critical inquiry. But I think that the two issues it does bring up very strongly: one is
the question of the institutions and structures of democracy, have we come to a point today, where we have
to rethink what those institutions and structures should be? We have always based ourselves on elections,
representation – how to represent people and opinion and so on, the articulation people’s ideas, the whole
question of majoritarianism and so on. Is this sufficient or do we have to go beyond this now and consider
the fact that there seem to be all these people coming into power on really a minority vote? I mean, one-third
is hardly a majority vote, and the process is such that they have to come to power. Even Trump’s vote is not
such an overwhelming vote.
SV: In fact, he lost the popular vote.
RT: So I think there is a need now, for people to say right, democracy means these basic institutions, but
how do we make them effective? How do we make them more representative, how do we allow people to
participate much more, and determine in a sense, other than just giving a vote, the one man one vote, I think
has been now overplayed. I am not suggesting that we take away the vote, but how do we strengthen that
vote, how do we do something to make that vote much more effective and encourage people to come out
and vote, because there is a lot of sitting back and saying “I don’t like the system, I’m not interested, I won’t
vote”. That’s one set of questions we have to address.
The other, I think, was that America was always presented as not just a democratic system but also a highly
educated society, and by all accounts it is a highly educated society. What went wrong with the education?
What is it about the content of education, that we need to now consider much more seriously than we’ve
done before, and this applies to India equally, or much more even, because how many people ask the question
“what are you actually teaching the child?”. You’re giving the child information, you’re expecting the child to
repeat that information, and you give objective-type questions with “yes” and “no” answers. It is really the

old catechismic style of you’re given a predetermined question and you’re given a predetermined answer,
and that’s what you reproduce. Now, for me, the essential qualifier in any kind of educational system is
teaching a child to think critically and ask questions. We are not doing that. In fact, we have ministers who
say, “you can’t ask questions”.
SV: Or it is anti-national to ask questions, or if you ask questions about black money, it is because you have
black money.
RT: This is an absurdity which I think needs to be torn apart, because the whole purpose of education is to
train people to ask questions, and unless you produce a citizenship that is questioning, it’s going to be very
difficult to have intelligent debates on the representation of people in a democracy. That is very important,
and it is all very well to say that America has very good schools, but what are they teaching? Are they, in
fact, teaching this, or does this critical inquiry element come in at the university level, and even then for the
majority of the Americans it doesn’t exist. So I do feel very strongly that there are these institutions that we
take for granted in a democratic system which maybe we need to look at now, more critically, and question
the effect that they’re having on the whole issue of the kind of governance that is coming our way. Now this
is something, that yes, educationists and other people need to think about very carefully and certainly the
public intellectual plays an important role in this. When I say the public intellectual plays an important
role, how do I define the public intellectual? The public intellectual is a person who is in a profession, a
professional person, and a person who is respected in his profession. It is not just anybody, not just any
journalist but a journalist who has a reputation of being good or a social scientist or a scientist, somebody
who is respected. The person is respected for the fact that the knowledge that he tries to convey to the public
is reliable knowledge and not fantasy. He is not just getting up and spouting, but knows what he is talking
about. Thirdly, a person like that must have a sense of ethics, and that is something that we are rapidly
losing, in the practice of politics, in the practice of governance, in the practice of education, and so on. The
bringing back of, not saying this is good and this is bad and being moral about it, but the sense of asking this
question each time: is this ethical or not, which is a question we have ceased to ask of late. So I think that
that is very important in the making of a public intellectual. The relation of the public intellectual to society
is that the public intellectual must have a concern for civil society, must have a concern for the duties, the

rights, the obligations of citizens to a state. Wherever this is not being brought to the fore, they must help
to bring it to the fore. And finally and very importantly, the public intellectual is there to protect the rights
and the obligations of the citizen. That protection is fundamental, especially in situations where people get
by with all sorts of gimmickries and dishonesties, and it is terribly important that there be a scatter of public
intellectuals: visible, audible, saying “sorry, this is not the way to do it” and to protect those rights.
SV: If you’re right in tracing some of the recent developments that people find unfathomable in some ways,
to problems in the way the university systems function, that would in a way, suggest a reason why for the
current dispensation in India, zeroing in on universities is so important, and why universities have emerged
as a frontline for official interference and action as well as resistance. What has been remarkable over the
last two and a half years, beginning with the film students at FTII, Pune, to the agitation of the students of
University of Hyderabad over Rohith Vemula’s suicide, and in JNU and other campuses is that students and
faculty members don’t seem to be taking this assault on their autonomy and right to think critically lying
down. Do you think that holds some promise for the way the situation may evolve?
RT: Well, I think up to a point it is logical. We have had an element of two things: we have had an element
of suggesting that education means critical thinking, and in universities like JNU for example, from day
one we have said to students “you have got to ask questions, think about what you’re reading and writing,
enquire into what you are reading and writing”, so that has been an element in some institutions. What is
interesting is that the institutions that are currently being accused of being troublesome by the authorities,
are the institutions that have had a trace of critical inquiry. I mean they are not picking on any university
and any institution, they pick on those where people have learnt to think slightly independently. In addition
to that, you have got the other feature, which is terribly important, and that is that in any kind of democratic
system, and I think up to a point we have been developing this in the past, that there are certain institutions
that can claim autonomy, and universities and research institutions of a higher level are amongst those. They
must not just claim this autonomy but also protect it. I think part of this problem has been precisely that
people have seen that the autonomy of the university or the institution is being infringed in a very serious
way. It is important to maintain this autonomy because you cannot have a democratic system in which the
government controls absolutely everything. You have to have some institutions that are beyond government

control, that are autonomous. Take the case of textbooks, many of us have been arguing for the last decade
or more that the agencies that produce textbooks should be: a) handled only by professionals; b) they should
be autonomous of the government. So agencies like the NCERT should be autonomous bodies manned by
social scientists and scientists who supervise the writing of textbooks, and this means that every time the
government changes, the textbooks do not have to change.
SV: This is what happens now.
RT: This is what happens now, we have reduced it to an absolute joke. No one takes them seriously. I get
phonecalls from parents saying, “What do I tell my child who’s sitting for the CBSE exam, was Akbar married
to Jodhabai or was he not?”. History has been reduced to those kinds of questions. So I think the autonomy
of institutions must be underlined and protected, and this is one area in which public intellectuals do play
an important role in addition to the professionals. Professionals as a group in this country, tend to argue
that because the funds are coming from the government, we have to listen to what the government says. But
when you have changeability in government policy, surely it is the right of the professional to say “this is the
policy that we require”, and this is the change that has to come from professionals and not from a bureaucrat
or a politician who has a whim or a fancy that it should be done in a particular way.
SV: In a way here, you’re battling an older legacy issue, which is the overbureaucratization of education,
where even to change or update a syllabus requires several committee meetings and perhaps going various
levels higher than the immediate faculty in order to reach that.
RT: The fact that this can be done much more simply, is something that we demonstrated when we started
the JNU. It was a university that did not follow any other syllabus of any other university. We talked about
it, we discussed it, we debated it, we worked it out very carefully and we made a bid for that, and it worked.
Those of us who are in academia are really frightened that the autonomy to think, the autonomy to work out
a syllabus and a curriculum and teach it, that may go.

SV: For some time you’ve been zeroing in on the importance of asking questions. Now this is the fundamental
problem of our times. Academia is of course the one place this has to take place, but also the media is the
other important sector of society where a questioning attitude has to be adopted and it’s quite alarming to
me as a journalist, to see how the practice of journalism has shifted from a profession where one could pride
in being adversarial against those in authority, to a situation where big media today prides itself in being
the conscience keeper of the state, of the nation, egging the state on to battle in a more determined fashion
against enemies, be they external or internal. How troubled are you by the way in which media culture in
this country has evolved? I don’t know how much of a television news watcher you are, but there’s a lot that’s
pretty horrid that’s out there night after night.
RT: Oh, I think one of the reasons why I’ve ceased to be a television news watcher is precisely because I find it
absolutely indigestible. I mean, you sit there and look at what is being presented and you say, how can they
do this? In many cases, in many channels, it is a deliberate misleading. In other channels, it is a refusal to
ask questions. You have a crisis, for example, which involves the Adivasi community, whether it is worship
of their sacred mountain, whether it is the demand for a better life that is going on in central India and
Bastar and so on, how many news channels have actually gone to Adivasi villages and asked the Adivasi
people, why they are supporting or opposing the Naxals? Hardly ever. You get people from Delhi who are
commenting on this all the time, but go ask the people who are actually involved in it. You don’t do that.
With the exception of one or two channels, by and large, there is a tendency to have pontification from
certain predictable people on every issue and that is really not what is the media’s role, at least as I see it.
There might be people who say the role of the media is only to entertain, which I don’t accept, because I
think if the media is, in fact, the medium of communication, then it has to do much more than that. Then it
has to do things like having serious discussions. Every time I talk to television or media people and say why
don’t you raise the level of your discussions, or have a half hour discussion every evening by people who are
professionally equipped to talk about the subject, they say we lose our viewership, and I don’t buy that at all.
SV: So this whole alibi that we are giving our viewers what they want doesn’t work for you.

RT: No, I think you can change a readership’s or a viewership’s demands by giving them something better.
French television, for example, is a lovely case of where years ago they started a programme of half an hour
or forty minutes, of book reviewing. They took one book, and they got three people to discuss that book,
and it became one of the most popular programmes in France. Now, France is not an extra highly educated
country, it is normal like any European country. I think the point is that you have a variety of people who are
looking in, and you give them that variety of programmes, but somewhere you make sure that the quality
of the variety you are giving them is a little higher than the lowest common denominator, and that is where
I think the media doesn’t really reach out. When there is a problem, it doesn’t really reach out to the people
who are concerned with that problem, and ask questions about why they are concerned, what their concern
is, what the problem is. You can’t generalize sitting at a distance, you have to go out and even that going out
is not always enough.
SV: This shift in official discourse, if you were confronted with an uncomfortable point of view in the past,
the obvious tactic would be to ignore it or to starve the department of funds, or to ensure that in future,
hiring took place in a different kind of way. Today, the government or the people in authority seem to have
successfully mobilized a section of the media to actually assist them in the attack on university autonomy,
critical thinking, differences of opinion. A bunch of kids shouting slogans, or a professor videotaped giving
a lecture, and clips of that being shown to incite public sentiment, is something very new and dangerous.
RT: Well, I think it’s using media now not to communicate the reality but to propagate ideology. This is a
different use of the media altogether. I was struck by the idea that last year when we had this outburst on
intolerance, various TV channels asked me to do interviews, and I did some, and those were shown, even
though I said things in a very direct fashion. Two important channels invited me, we fixed the day and the
time and then I was rung up and told that “we are very sorry, we were not given permission to interview
you”. And I thought to myself, that if for a simple interview of ten minutes you have to take permission from
jo upar baitha hai, then really, where is the autonomy of the media?
SV: Right, exactly. Media has always had problems in this country. I’ve been a journalist for twenty years,

and have worked in media organizations in a situation where we’ve had 4 or 5, maybe 6 Prime Ministers:
Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda, Vajpayee, Gujral, Manmohan, and Narendra Modi but the climate today is
really quite different, in the sense that media proprietors are far more risk averse, far less willing to ask or
have their people ask questions, and far more willing to clamp down on an interview, or a debate topic,
or an op-ed. There’s a sense in which certain kinds of questions will not be tolerated, and I think this is
really what’s alarming, that you still have media and academic freedom for all intents and purposes, but if
important areas of questions, of enquiry are shut out and not aired, that creates a problem.
RT: You see there are two reasons for that. One is that you shut it out because you don’t want anyone to have
a dissenting opinion and you want everybody to agree to what is going on, but you do that because you have
a sense of insecurity. You yourself are not confident and secure enough to say “it doesn’t matter, we can have
a discussion where some people will take an opposite point of view and some people won’t”. But when you’re
frightened of opposition and dissent, then you resort to the idea of shutting people up or not allowing people
to speak only.
SV: Right. One of the aspects of present day politics in India is that you have a ruling party, the Bharatiya
Janata Party, and its parent organization the Sangh Parivar, and a host of affiliated bodies which give the RSS
and the BJP plausible deniability because when they act and do things that are quite terrible, the government
or the ruling party can say “well, we have nothing to do with them”, but they all essentially sing to the same
broad tune. That tune, in logical terms has been Hindu nationalism and Hindu chauvinism, or Hindutva
ideology and we’ve seen elements of that ideology come into play in the last two and a half years. I get the
sense that somewhere down the line, not just the Prime Minister or the BJP or the RSS but the whole wider
Sangh Parivar has latched on to the idea of the nation and the nation under threat as being a far more potent
vehicle for their kind of politics. We’ve seen in the campaign against JNU, which is where in a way this whole
thing started, where they accused students of being anti national on the basis of shouting slogans, they
accused them of being seditious. Then you had this whole controversy where politicians and people must say
“Bharat mata ki jai” and if you don’t then somehow you are being anti-national. Then, of course, the entire
discourse over terrorism, the so-called surgical strikes, the campaign against black money, is all being cast in
the language of “nation khatre mein hai”, the nation is in danger, and if you don’t stand with the government

at this time, then somehow you are being unpatriotic. Most recently we have seen that even the Supreme
Court of India passed a judgement making it mandatory for the national anthem to be played in movie halls,
and they have prescribed in minute details that the doors must be closed, the flag must show on the screen.
As a historian and a public intellectual, you have a long view of these things, where is this coming from?
Why is nation, nationalism, Bharat mata, why has this acquired so much of salience today and is there some
easy way in which critics of the government can deal with this kind of pressure because once you go down
that nation-under-threat jingoism, it’s a slippery slope. You have TV channels now, I don’t recall earlier,
referring to every dead soldier as a martyr. The whole language of public discourse has become very overtly
nationalist, which leaves me a little bit worried as a journalist and I’m sure it worries you as a historian. How
do you explain this new found salience that the “nation” has acquired?
RT: Well, I think it hasn’t become overtly nationalist, it has become overtly nationalist of a particular type.
One of the problems is that nationalism is a stage in history, it’s not something that goes back to the Vedic
period or the Gupta period or the Mughal period. It is a change that societies undergo when they start
turning towards industrialization, capitalism and so on and the middle class emerges as the most important.
I mean this is just simple history, but there it is. Nationalism emerges as a way of restructuring different
communities into a new identity and value system, and the identity is that of the citizen. You move from
being a subject of a kingdom to being the citizen of a nation. The nation is one category among a whole
series of states. You’ve had clan societies, kingdoms, monarchies, empires and now you have a nation state
where the state is a nation. What has happened in this process is a form of disguising nationalism to mean
the community you wish to give priority to. This happened in the Indian case where you had an all-India
nationalism that talked about the coming Indian citizen in colonial times, and you had a series of other
nationalisms, pre-eminently Islamic or Muslim nationalism, Hindu nationalism, that talked about the
coming of the state of a religious kind. You had Pakistan on the one hand and the Hindu Rashtra in the 1930s
being defined. The difference is that a general nationalism of the nation brings all the communities together,
gives them a new identity as a citizen, and the new identity is the equality of everybody: equal rights to
social justice and the law, equal rights to resources, distribution and so on. Human rights are guaranteed in
the course of being a citizen. But what happens in the case of narrow varieties of nationalisms whether it’s
religious or caste or linguistic, a particular group is to be given priority. In the Hindu Rashtra, you have the

Hindu citizen being a notch higher because he has the territory of British India as his “pitri-bhoomi” and
his “punya-bhoomi”, which is Savarkar’s thesis and is what BJP’s, Sangh Parivar’s and RSS’s thesis is based
on. There is, therefore, a contradiction here, a tension between what many of us understand as nationalism
as such, and what they understand as nationalism which is Hindu nationalism. It’s not the same thing at all,
and in a democratic setup where you’re talking about the representation of everybody, every citizen, you
cannot say some citizens are a notch above. You cannot give priority to some citizens, everybody has to be
absolutely equal. What do you do then, in order to get around this question of defining nationalism as the
ideology of the citizen which means equal rights and observing of laws. So you take to slightly edging in a
religious or linguistic or caste group. You do it through slogans. When you look at the slogans they’re giving
you, they are suggestive of a particular religious identity. They’re not slogans which deal with the citizen as
such, the a-religious citizen.
SV: They in fact negate that concept.
RT: This kind of nationalism is suggestive of another problem in democracy, which is dependent on being
secular. You cannot have a democracy where you have pre-determined majorities of whatever kind. In a
democracy, an issue comes up, and the majority comes from every part of society and takes a decision and
the next issue that comes up has a totally different constituent of majority. Therefore, how do you ensure,
without saying that you are a Hindu state, that these little indicators are going to give an identity to the
citizens. This whole vigilante activity, as it is called, which is meant to create terror in the country...
SV: By people who are formally outside the state but who are fully implicated in it.
RT: They’re doing precisely this, they’re bringing this element into the definition of what is the nation.
SV: When the BJP or the RSS says it embraces genuine secularism, and criticizes others as being pseudo-
secular, what they do is that they question the democratic state’s need to act in defence of sections which
may be linguistic, or religious minorities who are disadvantaged in some way. They would decry that

as appeasement or pseudo-secularism and latch on to the protections that are very Gandhian in any
philosophical sense, but they would hold that as somehow subverting the concept of citizenship.
RT: But in fact, it’s not, because your own concept of the nation is not supporting equal citizenship fully
and your programmes are not supporting equal citizenship. If your programmes were supporting equal
citizenship one would say “yes, it’s alright”, but you can’t allow a situation where some people are more
vulnerable than others and yet talk about equal citizenship. This also ties in a little bit with our definition
of secularism, where we keep on talking about the coexistence of religion. I’ve been trying to argue that
it’s more than that, it’s not just the coexistence of religions but the equal right of every person irrespective
of religion to human rights, constitutional laws etc. Secondly, there are certain areas of social functioning
where you don’t allow religious organisations to call the shots. They have to be through secular institutions
and should not be governed by any religious organization. In a sense, education is also one of those issues
which is going to come up in a big way if we do move on to being genuinely secular.
SV: If the rise of the concept of citizen and citizenship is central, along with the need for equal rights and
equal claim to resources is central to the idea of the nation and the way it historically evolved, it’s ironic that
in today’s hypernationalist times you have valorization of the nation happening side by side with attempts
to convert the citizen back into being a subject. You will stand up, you will surrender your money and
if you don’t do what we say, then somehow you are against the nation. So in the language of nation and
nationalism, the citizen is stripped of...
RT: You see, again, to me it seems, there is an element of insecurity there, where you have to tell the citizen,
that you will do such and such to prove that you’re a good national.
SV: They take out ads in papers saying these are your fundamental duties, they don’t do it for rights.
RT: No, that’s it. They don’t talk about rights and don’t concede that the citizen has the right to say “I’m sorry,
I would like that the issue of Kashmir, Bastar, the Adivasi, the Dalits, the burning of churches, or whatever

the issue is, I would like it discussed publicly. The media should be taking up these discussions and saying
that there are different points of view and there is nothing anti-national about it”. But again, if it is a sense of
insecurity, then you start saying “you have to do this”.
SV: Some liberals and intellectuals respond to the excessive nationalism of our times by, in a way, rejecting
the idea of the nation. How should the public intellectual negotiate her way around this question? Is the
language of the discourse of the nation still an essential part of public discussion or is it a category that no
longer enjoys the salience that it once did?
RT: Well, I think that the fact that there is a debate on what is meant by the “nation” and “national” and
“nationalism”, means that the nation really hasn’t gotten firmly embedded. This discussion will go on, but
because it is a historical phase as I see it, I also see that there are some parts of the world that have moved
beyond the nation. European Union was one, I mean if you consider the relation between France and
Germany and how deeply nationalism, there and here, is tied to territory, I think this is partly a side-effect
of cartography and the ability to draw maps and boundary lines, and the boundary line becomes the firm
divider, all of this is part of a historical phase. If this can be changed as it was changed in Europe (though
goodness knows, they might be coming back to the idea of the nation again, but at least for a period of time
they weren’t) one can think of a possibility of a future, fifty years down the line, when national boundaries
may not be so important. Who knows, historians don’t make predictions, but there is an openness about the
future. Historically, the idea of the nation is not something that will go from now to eternity, it will undergo
some changes, but what those changes will be one doesn’t know.
SV: One of the things that alarms me personally and I’m sure a lot of other people who watch what has
happened in India, or Europe or the US, is a growing tendency in the middle class to buy into the cult of
leadership, to be seduced by vacuous slogans of one kind or the other, wild and completely crazy proposals
that politicians make as means of addressing perhaps not even real problems, which is why I feel the pressure
on critical thinking and the pressure on the public intellectual comes not just from the state and those who
echo its concerns indirectly but also from the shifting terrain among the public. What explains this? Is it a

product of political culture, education? What explains the public willingness to go along with a certain kind
of retrogressive narrative?
RT: Well, it is sometimes explained by the uncertainty and the insecurity of the times we’re living in. Now,
I don’t know if this is particular to our times or whether it was the case earlier. If I look back on my own
lifetime, I was a child in the 30s and in school in the 40s, one had the feeling that life was secure, it was
determined, and yet at the same time the national movement was going on so as one grew a little older and
became aware of the world around, one realized that there was an extreme tension which, somehow, one
didn’t feel so much. Now, I think, one of the things that has happened is that we have really, especially in
the late 20th century, gone through tremendous revolutions of change, apart from actual revolutions, both
the Russian and the Chinese, and the aftermath of those which have demonstrated that what was desired
didn’t actually happen, creating uncertainty there, and others like the technological revolution. Some of
us who were reasonably intelligent and able to handle technology and so on, are still very uncertain about
how we are going to handle this because it’s going so fast, and I’m constantly ringing up younger people
and saying “Can you tell me how I do this?” because it is beyond me. That’s very exciting if you can handle
that technology, on the other hand if you’re uncertain about it, it creates a certain insecurity, will I be able
to manage or not? Everyone says now you have to switch to net banking and I’m sitting there saying how
does one do net banking and will someone please teach me. Then you’ve been living as an isolated nation,
you’re very proud of your independence and autonomy and so on, of which your economic growth in the
60s and the 70s was a very major part, as indeed was the crisis of the 90s when you switched to a market
economy, where you’re mixing and battling and being friends with all kinds of people, and you’re really a
little uncertain because your own economic future is not any longer independent. It is tied with the future
of others, which adds to a further kind of uncertainty. I think in all of this, it must be very comforting to feel
that there is somebody up there who’s looking after you, and if I express my loyalty and faith in this person,
slightly like the tendency towards religion, you put your faith in something else and you do it in all honesty
and you do it with absolute clarity that that is where you want to put your faith. Maybe an element of that,
that when the uncertainty goes or lessens or becomes different, people will begin to become much more
autonomous.

SV: Ambedkar, back in the 40s, had warned against the tendency to have the cult of hero worship. He of
course, was referring to Gandhi and Jinnah, but that’s something that could equally apply to modern day
India.
RT: That is certainly something nationalism does bring, the cult of hero worship everywhere in the world
where you’ve had strong nationalist movements because in a sense it is the hero that leads you on and takes
you to places and makes a different human being out of you and makes a citizen out of you. We have always
taught history from the point of view of the hero, it is only recently that it’s begun to change, that people are
talking about the past in different terms. Then there’s this sense of the utopia, that India was great in the time
of Ashoka and Akbar. Who knows what the reality was as we cannot go back into the past, but nevertheless
there is that faith and so even today you feel that if there is a strong person who’s handling governance, then
you put your faith in that person.
SV: On that note, we’ll end this and thank you so much for this conversation.

Academia, Education, Culture

Making the Nation Habitable
(English summary, Not in Open Access)
French Text
Shahid Amin
In this essay,23 the historian Shahid Amin lays out the contours of the rise of majoritarian politics-
cum common sense, especially in India, in the last three decades. Referring to the increasing stridency
in the discourse about nation and nationalism in India, but also in equal measure to Pakistan and
Bangladesh, he excavates the recent history that has had the unfortunate effect of sacrificing those 23. This essay has had a long gestation history. An
citizens who embody cultural diversity and difference at the altar of majoritarian certitude, that is, the earlier version was written at the invitation of Peter
ways and mores, as currently defined, of the majority Hindu community. Ronald DeSouza for an international conference, “Goa:
1961 and Beyond”, held at Goa University in late 2011.
I am grateful to Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Maria
Paula Meneses for our conversation at that conference
and in the years since. I am also grateful to Homi
Bhabha for giving me an opportunity to try out some of
my ideas at a talk at the Mahindra Humanities Center,
Harvard University, in April 2016. The original in English
will be published in Santos, Boaventura de Sousa,
Meneses, Maria Paula (eds.) (2017), Conocimientos
nacidos en las luchas: construyendo las epistemologías
del sur. Madrid: Akal. The French translation is being
published in this issue of The Women Philosophers’
Journal for the first time.

Classikrit: the Lofty and the True
T. M. Krishna
In the artistic universe, the word “classical” comes with its own understanding, a comprehension that is
felt, heard, sensed and implicitly embraced. For the people inside this is just so obvious that it needs no
articulation. I know the classical, and bathe myself in its mystique. I love and celebrate all other art that
abounds in my cultural construct, but sub-consciously place the classical on a pedestal and genuinely feel
that my perceptions are aesthetic. I do think that this reflects a deeper societal attitude, in fact, a malice. This
predisposition is a kind of software that drives the functioning of puritanical, hierarchical and condescending
cultural structures. These socio-cultural identities seem benign but finally manifest as hate and violence.
It is essential to understand the belief and faith systems that govern the classical in Indian culture and break
them down. I will use classical music to discuss these ideas, though conceptually they will be applicable to
most other classical art forms. One essential quality that we seek in the classical is an antiquity, an oldness
that connects the music to the “ancient” a time beyond memory. Somewhere hidden in the ancient is
civilizational pride, especially in a land like India where “those bygone times” are eulogized as a period
of greatness, strength, power, celebration and cultural prosperity. The classical is seen as a product of that
era and hence is an intangible umbilical cord that gives us contemporary vitality. Even when academics
provide evidence that demolishes this notional linearity, the classical community refuses to engage with
these observations. And there are reasons for this difficulty.
The classical is seen as a cleansing process that gives the classically privileged a way of disassociating from
the reality that surrounds them. It removes us from the mundane discriminatory environs, the servitude
that presents itself in subtle and not so subtle manifestations and the all-round oppressiveness that governs
the human condition. It transports us on to a plane of the superior, a transcending state of awareness that
removes the self and by default all that the self-experiences in the real life. This unique articulation of the
classical socio-politically perpetuates the false mysticism that surrounds it and places at a lower level all
other art that directly and indirectly without apology addresses the complexity that society is. The classical
adorns itself with a pre-eminent sense of the pure, unadulterated real, which is always at war with the rest,
the impure polluter. The classicist will try protecting this purity and when asked to define it, will be unable
to concretize the idea in aesthetic terms. If we dig a little deeper into the arguments placed before us, we
will find that the aesthetic camouflages the desire for a deeper social identity. The classical lives in fear of

T. M. Krishna
pollution. And let us be clear, the pollutants are not surface level technicalities that come and go, which the
classical will embrace as change. The real pollutants are those that aesthetically question the very bases that
give the classical its status. These pollutants are therefore naturally rejected or accepted when re-designed in
such a way that they do not destabilize that which is.
The pure and polluted binary naturally leads to the insider-outsider narrative. The insider in the classical
sphere usually belongs there by the right of his birth. His family and community have been part of this musical
sound and hence he inherits that ownership. Therefore the socio-cultural-political is directly responsible for
the creation of the insider. This does not mean that all insiders by birth participate in the classical, but that
those from that community get easy and unfettered access to the classical. The outsider has no passage by
birth. In fact, the psychological and emotional scars that problematize access are far more restrictive than
overt obstructions. In a modern world, in-built and subconsciously cultivated barriers are so much more
effective in keeping the outsider truly out. But the people from the outside can come in, and for that they
may have to undergo what tantamount to rites of purification. They may have to change, modulate, hide
or even erase many aspects of themselves, such as, appearance, linguistic accent, cultural mores, religious
beliefs and, most important of all – social address. They hope thus to emerge pure insiders. Then they are
celebrated, and in the celebration their origins are allowed to lapse only to be conveniently recalled so as to
use these outside-insiders as poster icons to prove the classical’s evangelism.
Larger socio-political changes influence the very notes that make up the insider’s music. The upward or
downward movement of communities based on their religion, race, colour, gender, ethnicity or caste also
allows entry or closes doors. On the top of the caste ladder is the Brahmin and right at the bottom, the
“untouchables” (Dalits). Like any other hierarchy, caste hurts in all directions. There is constant downward
oppression, upward aspiration and lateral blocks to common access. Today, the Brahmin is not just one caste,
but an idea – Brahminism – that a group of castes belonging to the middle and upper seams of Indian society
celebrate and want to emulate. The ones below hope to break out of misery by moving up. Brahminism by
its very nature denigrates lower cultures and validates itself, creating a plethora of complex individual and
collective emotional traumas. While a few from the underprivileged castes fight it by celebrating their own
identities, many hope to escape by becoming like the ones above.

T. M. Krishna
Therefore, the insider-outsider division is not entirely boxed, but it is defined by what characteristics allow
for a sense of belonging. And I will say this with assertion that almost always these parameters are non-
artistic but clothed in the stage-costumes of artistic authenticity. Many explain this in terms of economic
mobility, but that would be reductionist since economic status is itself shaped by social factors rather than
just financial conditions. Hence those from the “lower” social strata who become economically enabled also
re-curate themselves socially so as to enter this new social platform and veer towards the culturally classical.
It must be clear that the classical is an upper-crust phenomenon, established by those on the top who retain
ownership, keeping tight control. These high arts become aspirational and hence their control systems more
difficult to demolish. This hauteur relegates the rest to spaces that aesthetically are never equated to that
which is produced by those from inside classical fiefdom. Thus, even if the popular and financially most
lucrative are the mass consumed art forms, the artistically respected and revered remains the classical,
irrespective of the culture. Effectively, art forms practiced and nurtured among marginalized communities
are neglected, treated as exotic, or vulgarized by market forces only to further enable the classical to say “But,
we are special”.
The privilege of those occupying the classical interior allows them to build false intellectual assertions about
the nature of the classical which society at large seems to consume as the truth. The classical is considered
far more complex, rigorous, difficult and endowed with an unquestioned halo of sophistication. Its training
is presumed that much harder, requiring so much more commitment, and a theory that is complete, rational
even scientific. In contrast, the non-classical may be appreciated and enjoyed but is the lesser. “Folk” is often
understood in this sense. Classicists often claim that classical music drew from the folk and the subtext of
this observation is that the folk were raw material, like some rough ore, to be improved upon, polished,
refined to become the gem that is classical.
Anyone who spends even a little time with a few so-called folk forms will discover new meanings to all those
words I used to describe the classical. All these qualities exist in the folk, but we do not allow ourselves to
inhabit that space and hence will never realize them within every art form. The very fact that social and oral

T. M. Krishna
family music that is passed on from generation to generation is equated to structured, systematized non-
classical art forms that various sections of society practice establishes the hauteur of the classical.
It is essential to understand the social identities that have fabricated the classical within the Indian music
context. India is home to two art forms tagged as classical – the genre prevalent in the North, East and West
of the country broadly referred to as Hindustani, and the classical of the South – Karnatik. Hindustani and
Karnatik music are melodic forms that do not use harmony in their expression. The primary intention of
both must be to use raga-s (abstract unified melodic identities), tala-s (defined rhythmic structures) and
texts to abstract human experience into the aural sphere. While Karnatik music does this using both complex
compositions and improvisational techniques in balance, Hindustani music leans much more towards just
improvisation with a lesser emphasis on compositions. Compositions in Indian classical music always have
text but can contain linguistic or non-linguistic sounds, though the predominant type of text is language.
Language in Indian music is a musical creation and therefore must be seen to convey more than what it does
linguistically. Language becomes a body of sound, an aural phenomenon that uses its form and semantics
to allow for its own abstraction. Whether this really happens is a different question, since all participants in
these traditions have had socio-religious and political agendas.
Both traditions seek their ancient validation by connecting their origins to the Vedas. This connectivity is
established via treatises such as the Sangita Ratnakara (13th century), Brhaddeshi (9th century) and the Natya
Sastra (between 2nd century BCE and CE). It is not difficult musicologically to prove that this perceived direct
artistic link is a figment of self-deluding glorification, but throughout musical history, scholars and performers
have reached for these texts to give these art forms sanctity, purity and thence superior aesthetic content.
Without going into a long discussion on the musical nature of these classical traditions, let me just say
that both evolved through complex inter- and intra-cultural osmosis, which included music from diverse
sections of society beyond political boundaries that define our present. The often-repeated story that India
had one classical tradition that split into two after the arrival of the Mughals in the 13th century is nothing
but simplistic reductionism with Islamophobic undertones, an account that gained prominence from the

T. M. Krishna
late 19th century. Without doubt, Islam and the cultures of Persia and Iran influenced Indian classical music
but to divide its historical time-line into pre- and post-Mughal is simplistic at best, pernicious at worst.
This land was host to innumerable musical traditions. In what was an organic and lateral coming together
of traditions that included the classical, religious, spiritual and social, these two forms attained distinct
aesthetic identities. The Hindustani and Karnatik of today are creations of the last 200 years and not a
continuum of a 2000-year-old unbroken musical tradition. Certainly, ideas, interpretations, musical layouts
and even terminologies from the past are part of Karnatik and Hindustani. But this comes about through
discontinuity rather than continuity as ideas that were used for a while disappeared and then resurfaced
completely metamorphosed and in some cases transformed depending on the aesthetic context. Their
meaning and method have changed with time, as have even principles. The music we hear today may have
its seeds in a distant past but we can claim nothing more.
The tagging of these forms as classical in the modern era (20th century) comes from the patronage they
have received from the upper classes and upper castes. As patronage moved from the courts and temples to
large landowners and businessmen, and later the socially empowered moved from rural India to the newly
evolving urban centres in the early 20th century continuing until the 1960’s, the “creamy layer” character of
the control group persisted. Much of contemporary “Indian culture” has been conditioned by socio-political
movements that began in the late 19th century continuing through much of the early 20th century. This was
the period when the Indian freedom movement was at its zenith and unfortunately also triggered a surge in
Hindu nationalism. The Hindu Nationalists sought to recover Indian culture from the hands of those who
they believed had maligned, destroyed, defaced or misinterpreted its “original” character. Indian pride got
conflated in lesser hands and through bigoted minds as Hindu pride. They developed forceful explanations
of its spiritual/religious depth, sought specious scientific validation to prove a point to the British that we
were not just an ancient but an ancient scientific culture, and looked to re-establish social respectability
for Indian classical music and dance. These three ideas seem to be in divergence with each other yet in a
trapeze act of sorts, musicians and scholars established Hindustani and Karnatik music as intellectually
evolved, pristine art forms whose history dates back to a time when India was a country of spiritual, divine
insiders – in other words, Hindus. Hindustani and Karnatik music addressed different perceived enemies,
but followed a broad script that was similar.

T. M. Krishna
Even until the early part of the 20th century, three Hindu communities – Brahmins, Devadasi and Isai
Vellalar – actively and in large numbers practiced Karnatik music. Brahmins were the scholars, musicians,
musicologists, priests, ministers and landlords who had access to every kind of knowledge. The musicians
and composers among them were the super-stars of the courts. Every king and local chieftain displayed
them as a prized possession. Devadasi were women dancers and musicians dedicated and symbolically
married to the presiding deity of the temple. By way of their role in temple rituals they acquired a spiritual
essentiality that gave them respect, aura and status. Some were also attached to the courts as celebrated
writers, poets, dancers and musicians. They had romantic relationships with the Kings or rich upper caste men
and, contrary to common perception, these were usually long-term associations. Dasi-s were independent,
strong-minded, free people who lived by matriarchal rules established within their community. Isai Vellalar
were men belonging to the same community and were dance conductors, performers of the nagasvara and
tavil (musical instruments played at the temple both as part of ritual and as art), percussionists and singers
performing both at the temple and the court. It is important to note that Devadasi and Isai Vellalar were
not a caste group but a community of artists and they were accepted as being part of society’s upper crest.
Karnatik music evolved as a result of the triangular relationship between these artist groups. They shared
and exchanged art freely which resulted in Karnatik music acquiring the “art music” character that it has
today.
When we celebrate the independence of the Devadasi we must be careful not to romanticize their life.
Society was patriarchal and misogynist and Devadasi were sexually exploited by high-caste men. With the
weakening of the Maharajas following the take over of India by the British and of their control over the
governance of the temples, exploitation of Devadasi’s only increased, forcing many into prostitution.
This worsened in the 18th century which saw a rush to Madras, the premier urban city of the South. There
was a need for social reform and Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi (1886-1968), herself born into a devadasi family,
who later became a member of the Madras Legislative council, successfully campaigned for the abolishment
of the Devadasi system, an act that was passed by the Madras Legislative council in 1947. This meant the
abolishment of the socio-religious order that made Devadasi integral to temple ritualism. Collectively the
social changes over the latter half of the 19th century pushed the Devadasi down the caste ladder making her

T. M. Krishna
unacceptable as an insider to the Karnatik community. It was also a time when Victorian ideas of morality,
sexuality and fidelity were gaining immense influence in Indian society, especially among the upper castes.
Removing the Devadasi’s physical presence from the Karnatik stage was found necessary to purge Karnatik
music of its “impure” connections. At the same time via storytelling traditions, written biographies and
oral transfer of knowledge, numerous imagined folk-lores that included fantastic acts of divine powers of
legendary composers (all Brahmins) were introduced, endowing the music with spiritual, unfathomable
awe. In this project, the most important was Tyagaraja (1767-1847) – one of the three master composers
who gave shape to Karnatik music as it is today, the other two being Muttusvami Dikshitar (1775-1835) and
Syama Sastri (1762-1827).
The Devadasi, though freed from the temples, lost their financial rights and faded from the Karnatik
firmament. Social reformation did not recognize the aesthetic value of these women and did very little to
support their artistry. The Isai Vellalar too were slowly sidelined from the art world, their relevance relegated
to social functions thereby reducing their role to mere background music and a ritual presence at temples.
Those Devadasi and Isai Vellalar who came into the Karnatik field in the 1940s were the last generation to
significantly participate in it as mainstream musicians. Worse still, their great music was appropriated by
Brahmin musicians who openly praised their musicality but did not nurture musicians from the community.
Within but a handful of decades Devadasi and Isai Vellalar were erased from our memory, leaving only a
few who fought lone battles that they inevitably lost. Replacing Devadasi artists, women from Brahmin
homes took the centre stage. At one time they were prohibited from singing in public which was considered
immoral, a stigma assigned to Devadasi. Now, high culture was, for them, “in”. It was classical, after all.
By the 1950s, Karnatik music had become the preserve of Brahmins and they reframed the music not only
socially but also in terms of its aesthetic presentation. Karnatik music, essentially an art of aural abstraction
where compositions and improvised music co-exists in equality steadily became quasi-religious music.
All this was part of the purification that the Brahmins had undertaken. Brahmins and upper castes also
established institutions such as The Madras Music Academy in order to bestow on it what they believed
was an organized, scientific approach. This was as much anti-colonial as born from the perception that
the Isai Vellalar and Devadasi did not understand the science behind the music, and established the need

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for the educated Brahmins to systematize it. Even the establishment of Sabhas (membership driven music
organizations) in cities and towns was seen as a way of giving our music a formal proscenium stage replacing
the informal courts, Temples or Salons.
This was not a preplanned upper-caste attack, but nevertheless the mindset of people in power in and around
culture pushed forward this agenda. Today Karnatik music is almost exclusively the domain of Brahmins
and their like both on and off the stage.
Hindustani music, especially Khyal (one performative that comes under the Hindustani tradition), went
through a similar process of Hindu re-affirmation. For the Hindustani community, the target was primarily
Muslim musicians who were the housekeepers of the music and had passed on musical knowledge through
oral transmission. Like in the South, Kings and local chieftains patronized these musicians. The women
musicians were either Tavaif-s (women dancers of varying skill, not quite prostitutes, who were “at home”
to patrons ) or Devadasi attached to temples, especially in Eastern India. Coinciding with the changes in the
socio-aesthetic texture of Karnatik music, Hindustani music also went through a series of internal changes
influenced by the Hindu Nationalist spirit. In the attempt to reclaim Hindustani music for the Hindus two
personalities played a cardinal role : Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872-1931) and V.N. Bhatkhande (1860-
1936).
The eminent musician Vishnu Digambar Paluskar addressed this challenge through performative and
educational interventions. He brought into the concert repertoire of Hindustani music Bhajans, which
are primarily religious devotional songs with very little improvisational possibilities. Paluskar was well
networked with the Congress (the primary political opposition to the British occupation of India) and hence
wielded immense cultural clout. The content of most of the texts in Khyal were romantic since the form came
out of the confluence of local and Mughal cultures. His Bhajans became immensely popular and brought to
the forefront the devotional intensity of Hindu saints such as Tulasidas and Meera. Paluskar also established
schools to teach Hindustani music where a large number of upper caste Hindu-s enrolled. Paluskar’s was
a two-pronged strategy that hoped to fill Hindustani music with the spirit of Bhakti (the unconditional

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surrender of one’s self to the lord) and the propagation of the music among Hindus. He used modern
disciplinary instruments such as the establishment of music schools through which he wanted to reduce the
control of Muslim musicians in passing on the music to subsequent generations. He hoped to change the
ecology of the art by training more Hindus in this music. Here too, the music moved to the cities and larger
towns where upper caste men patronized the form, aiding his agenda. Patriarchal cleansing of non-Brahmin
women, the Devadasi, also occurred in Hindustani music. They have almost entirely disappeared from the
Hindustani firmament. The very few who remain are those that emerged as social changes were in progress.
Bhatkhande’s approach, on the other hand, was musicological and intellectual. He was convinced that the
“unlearned” Islamic musicians were singing whatever they wanted and passing it off as tradition. He sought
authenticity by studying old Hindu musical treatises and restoring the art to its past glory, and putting
Muslim musicians and their followers in their place. Travelling all over the country, he gathered knowledge
from musicians and musicologists with the hope of creating a national music that united the country. He
was unsuccessful in this specific endeavour, but was effective in creating discussions and conferences on
Hindustani music that pricked holes in the oral organic musical understandings of Muslim musicians. His
theorization of Hindustani music is taught in colleges across India. Significantly, Bhatkhande’s musicological
techniques were largely those introduced by British scholars from the 18th century when they began engaging
with Indian Music.
Though Muslim musicians have continued to participate in Hindustani music, modern theory and practice
of the art form has been greatly influenced by the Hindu nationalistic nudgings. Paluskar’s intervention in
bringing Bhajans into the concert platform also proven successful. The spirituality that is attached to the
music is subliminally a Hindu construct, which everyone, including Muslims have bought into. The Sufi
order is also acceptable because to the Hindu conventional mind Sufism is considered quasi-Hindu. Just as
patriarchy is not practiced only by men, Hindu spiritualism in Hindustani music is universally accepted.
This argument will be challenged on the basis that most compositions even today are romantic or non-
religious in content.

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We must understand that the religious, if allowed, can subsume all these facets including the secular by
establishing the spiritual in the over-all experience of the art itself. This certainly happens in Hindustani
music and is often expounded by its practitioners. It is interesting that whenever the Hindustani firmament
wants to display its secular credentials stories of Muslim musicians and how they have adapted Hindu ways
are displayed as examples of their inclusivity. And the Muslim musicians too have not resisted being used in
such a manner. We have to recognize that the Islamic within the sub-continent has over centuries imbibed
the Hindu, as much as the Hindu has the Islamic. But due to the demographic disparity between the two
communities, the Islamic is seen as the greater borrower! For many Muslim musicians, Hindu spirituality is
natural and not extraneous. But the temptation among the majority community to use this beautiful osmosis
as a way to prove the Hindu-ness of the Muslim is disturbing, especially when the Hindu musicians will never
see the Islamic within his/her musicality. In this scenario, there is a need for musicians to begin a discourse
that investigates the Islamic nature of Indian Classical music. And here I call for rigorous philosophical
inquiries that go beyond naming great Muslim practitioners.
Over the years, I have also noticed another curious change. The vocal tradition in Khyal is today more or less
dominated by Hindus, especially of the upper caste, many hailing from Western India (Pune and Mumbai).
This movement away from Muslims needs to be looked at more seriously because it has happened over the
last three or four decades and gone unnoticed. Instrumental music though does remain the preserve of
Muslims from North and Eastern India.
It is imperative for me to stress that neither of the two art forms have ever embraced those in the lowest
reaches of society. And though both traditions have had and still have a number of women musicians, the
musical construction, performance and control over organizations that run the art forms remain in the
hands of men. The women have always played the game according to the rules set by the men. They have
had to submit and conform to the patriarchy or subvert it in innovative ways so as to get acceptance from
the male dominated classical canvas.
For the Hindu, a Muslim who is engaged in Indian classical music is somehow subconsciously part Hindu,

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and has accepted Hindu-ness—a way for the outsider to become an insider. In Karnatik, we find a very
similar play with the few non-Hindu musicians or connoisseurs extant. One could argue that these inner-
exchanges must be seen as celebrations of the coming together of people of different faiths. But I am unable
to view them purely in that fashion because the underlying feeling is Hindu pride and not universality.
In this environment, the secular finds very little space. I am not referring to a secular that negates religion,
but one that allows for an aesthetic intent that is not clouded in socio-religious conditions. Art contributes
to the secular when a religious word or image becomes an object of objective beauty. Here the secular and
the religious do not live in dichotomous cabins. The secular in fact is inspired by the religious, abstracting its
ideas beyond its linguistic and visual, religiously specific, interpretations. Most music aficionados will agree
that this does happen in Indian classical music when at precious moments the religious or spiritual become
irrelevant. But we are creatures that constantly need socio-religious crutches and hence rush back to the
safety of their hold. The other mechanism we have used is the creation of explanatory literature that seats
Indian classical music inside the Hindu spiritual. This makes it next to impossible to keep it permanently
beyond the control of the religious. For me, this need for the secular does not come from the point of view
of the well-established discussions regarding the state and the private or the public and personal. To me the
secular is a possibility of beauty that is de-baggaged from our conditioned ideas. A secular dis-passionate
experience allows for an interaction between human beings and creativity that extracts from every temporal
experience a human spirit that grounds us in our reality providing an ethical perceptive to life. The secular
is not a counterpoint to the religious. The secular is an umbrella of humanity under which every other faith,
belief and most importantly the democratic must seek refuge. Neither Indian classical traditions in their
present form engage with this idea. These dispassionate experiences may still happen, but those are more
accidents or an individual’s own ability rather than something the artistic community seeks to enable.
Indian classical music has very little interaction with common life. Musicians, connoisseurs, impresarios and
organizations that arrange concerts do not bring into the music what they see, feel, hear, experience on the
outside. The spirituality infused in these art forms unfortunately inculcates detachment of the experience of
the art from reality. Even when the art has been created by flawed, self-doubting human beings, we elevate
them and the music to a place where the mundane cannot hope to reach. Therefore, in the course of a

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musical concert everyone within lives separated from the real, where the art becomes the acoustic pathway
to the spiritual philosophies expounded by the innumerable saints of the land. So, even if the religious and
ritualistic is not directly invoked, the real is for certain denied entry. Innumerable legends handed down
through generations have bestowed upon composers their sainthood. And even if some of the stories that
we hear are normal, everyday happenings the community constantly uses them to convey the “beyond” or
reinterprets them to suite the classical narrative. The beauty of Indian classical music is that it is not just
spiritual music, it is at the same time highly technical and specialized. It is this combination of virtuoso and
saintliness that allows those inside to walk with a chip on their shoulder. This combination is in fact what
many people aspire for in everyday life – we want to be modern, innovative pious and reverent at the same
time and Indian classical musicians and music lovers do that with aplomb.
What is claimed to be equality in classical Indian music are, in fact, adjustments, negotiations and subversions
under the watchful eye of the spiritual and religious. Women within the classical domain are constantly
fighting for equality in their own terms. This does not mean that there are aren’t strong women musicians, of
course there are, but we have to dig a little deeper to ask the harder questions about whether the aesthetics,
understandings and socio-political structures that define these art forms have a woman’s voice, rather than
a man’s perception of the women’s voice. Most Indian Classical Music aficionados belong to middle, upper-
middle and elite classes of society and hence their societal perceptions are similar in which male-dominated
patriarchy is the norm. Between Hindustani music and Karnatik music there are differences in their
composition with regards to caste, class and religion but I shall not go into that in this essay. The response
to the charge of the resultant insularity is almost always, “we never stopped anyone, there are so many free
concerts, anyone from any community can come!”. There is no understanding that those on the outside,
especially from “lower” sections of society have to feel welcomed and with respect in order to overcome
the emotional and societal barriers. Let me also say that the reason for seeking openness from the classical
universe is not to do a favour for anyone, it is for the enrichment of the music itself. Every art form needs
people from diverse cultures to engage actively in it. Therefore, Indian classical music needs to step outside
its elitist zone. The elite do not accept the fact of rejection, but negate it by denigrating those disinterested in
the classical as aesthetically or intellectually deprived. This is a vulgar defence mechanism. Indian classical
music has to make itself vulnerable to rejection.

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Another component of this obliviousness is the classicists’ attitude towards every other art form. While
they are used as examples to display India’s cultural diversity, in everyday artistic life they are ignored. If an
art form belongs to marginalized communities, we can be sure that they will very rarely, almost never, find
place alongside the classical. Classicists just do not realize that to truly celebrate every art form with respect
and dignity we have to bring them on to the premier stages. Providing exclusive platforms for art forms
and artists who are beyond our frame only further demeans them. This is similar to Western orientalism
that we so often complain about. Social justice in Indian Classical music is non-existent and many of those
who engage in outreach programmes and music awareness projects still do so with a privileged outlook of
being aesthetic saviors of the musically under-privileged. Mutual respect as a basis for artistic engagement
is almost unseen.
One aspect of Indian Classical music that all of us hold as special is the freedom that it provides for
improvisation and interpretation to every musician. Unlike Western Classical music where the scope for
individual creative flights of performing musicians is extremely limited, here at every concert the musicians
can explore unchartered spaces within the structural limitations of the form. Both Karnatik and Hindustani
music use compositions as a nucleus around which the musicians can weave their own musical story.
Reading this brief summary of improvisation in Indian Classical music the reader would see freedom as
something that is inbuilt into the musical system. While I entirely agree with this observation, I doubt
whether freedom as a larger idea exists within the classical idiom. Freedom to question the socio-political
foundations of the art is not available and anyone who does so is accused of destroying the soul of the music.
Superficial innovations that tinker with technicalities or arrangements in the music are accepted. Those
changes that result in the furthering its classical superiority are applauded. Aesthetic changes that not only
ask musical questions but directly challenge the religious, social and political are pooh-poohed. They are
seen as threats to the very existence of the art, since they force those within to discard beliefs and engage
with directness. Freedom is a responsible spirit that is born from a deep investment in the art. It frees the
seeker from the burden of the music’s socio-religious-politics and allows her to grasp art that questions the
status-quo rather that surrenders to it. This makes the free artist dangerous, especially in the Classical arts.
Although we universally celebrate art as a form of intervention that artistically articulates political, social,
aesthetic and philosophical questions. In Indian Classical music (and I would say in all classical genres) art

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translates to a form of inner conformism. Conformism that never shakes the societal, political or religious
base on which the art has been built. So, talk of freedom in Indian Classical Music in my book is just a smoke
screen, behind which lies unshakable orthodoxy.
It is from internalizing these social features of Indian classical music that we should attempt any understanding
of its response to the attacks that India’s secular, liberal society has been facing over the last few years.
Before turning to the present, I have to say that those in power have always projected the classical as the
ultimate representation of Indian culture. Therefore, this form of upper-caste/class sanctioned culture has
been accepted as the foremost, refined idea of Indian-ness. This propaganda has been consumed within
and outside the country. If we ask the government for the basis on which art forms have been classified as
classical and folk you will get no logical cogent answer. All other art forms including the folk are featured
as examples of India’s cultural diversity, but individually they will never be representative of India as one
cultural entity. That prime position is always given to the classical, an all-encompassing symbol.
Therefore, even before the events of the recent past, the classical community has seen itself as inner India,
music that goes beyond the present bringing to us Bharat, that untainted gem. And this has been politically
sanctioned. In spite of this, the Classical music community always felt threatened by the music outside.
Since the community was very small numerically and economically it felt that the contemporary, especially
the emergent cinema music as the most popular Indian musical genre, would corrupt their art. Though
everyone including the film-world has always revered classical musicians, this feeling remains enshrined.
People who enjoy classical music are as human as everyone else, but the fact that they were practicing a
‘high-sacred’ art has also given them a fortress which they have always felt the need to defend.
We often meet visibly modern, outspoken, free people from the Classical world who hold intense conservatism
within. They reconcile this obvious polarity by explaining the need for conservatism as a contemporary
relevant modulation. Inevitably, a majority of people in Indian Classical Music see the present attacks on
freedom, civil rights and the insidious takeover of educational and cultural institutions as much needed,
or else only minor blemishes in an otherwise great story of revival. Very much like the perpetrators, they

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believe that Hindutva needs to be established, and see classical music as a form that epitomizes that idea.
When Mr Modi won the elections in 2014, my city of Chennai saw a rather curious occurrence. At an event
that celebrated World Music Day (21st June, 2014) I found musicians rendering Karnatik compositions that
had the word Modi in them. It did not matter that the meaning of that word in Telugu (the language of
those compositions) had nothing to do with Modi, the name of our Prime Minister. This was, in my view,
an obscene celebration of the elected Prime Minister. But the event and the support that this received only
confirmed my point. As an individual who writes on matters political, I have received abuse, even boycott
of my concerts, by many ardent Karnatik music fans. Some have stopped attending since they violently
disagree with my socio-political opinion. They are unable to separate the two since listening to the music
is itself a reiteration of their belief systems. My appeal that we can dive into the music with the same sense
of inquiry and derive profound an experience even when we are acutely aware of the problems that lurks
within its socio-political basis is unacceptable to most Karnatik musicians and connoisseurs. I am accused
of thrusting communist, western ideas on an age-old form. My using the history of the form itself to ground
my argument makes me a traitor in the eyes of the classical thoroughbreds.
Even the feminists and the liberals within the Classical fold are careful not to openly demand the dismantling
of its existing structure. Belonging to the same socio-cultural group, they meet their limit here. They retreat
into the safe haven of their own memories and identity, which they worry will be destroyed. The art form
gives them a way of connecting with their “traditional” self without worrying about the politics of it. A
cultural elitism creeps in which in reality is a blindness that only strengthens the fundamentalist forces. And
even if they do not subscribe to this ideology, by protecting the Classical they play right into the hands of
these forces. Furthermore, they are party to perpetuating the myth of the Indian Classical as an aspirational
ideal.
This begs one final question on the way forward for Indian Classical Music. If it remains as it is, it is nothing
but soft power for society’s divisive forces, such as caste, religion and patriarchy. And all these are the back-
end hard drives on which Hindu fascism operates. If we want to go beyond, it is imperative that people of the

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classical world be willing to place the art form completely out in the open and look at it with detachment.
Art needs this perspective and we owe it to ourselves to make it possible. Until now the Classical arts all over
the world have been private chambers of mutual appeasement. All change and movement, though artistically
admirable, has almost never resulted from questioning the socio-cultural nature of the art, which directly leads
to aesthetic questions. We cannot segregate the two as has been done in the past; they have to be seen in unison.
The Classical must acknowledge that aesthetically it is a political animal and that is the first step. I would call
for discarding the word Classical completely from artistic vocabulary. The way it is understood and treated
is purely on societal terms with no aesthetic basis. The forms that we call Classical music today must be
called ‘art music’ with the understanding that their artistic intention is musical abstraction and not directly
political, religious or social affirmation or change.
I will end by saying that there is a desperate need for a philosophical rediscovery of Indian Art Music. This
must be a process of introspection performed in humility. We need to come to a realization that we are only one
musical possibility among the innumerable ones that exist in this land. We need to discover the consciousness
in the Karnatik and Hindustani and for that we also need to let ourselves be within other musical traditions
without judgment and measurement. In opening ourselves to experience without burden, an awareness will
emerge, an awakening by which we experience the earthiness of our art and invaluableness of the “others”. This
will also provide a channel for all of us living in protected pseudo-paradises a way of understanding people
from diverse, social and religious backgrounds. If we do not make this effort to de-classicalize ourselves, we will
continue to be a form that uses its socio-political power to contain, limit, restrict people within and those who
want to enter, while all the time falsely displaying ourselves as the quintessential. We will continue to feed the
anger and fear that perpetrates the violence that permeates the Indian mind today.
The Art will then be permanently lost.

Thanks You for Watching and Please Subscribe my Channel
S. Anand
These are the most chilling words I have read in a long time. The words of a man called Ashutosh Kumar
who runs a YouTube channel—it’s free in a free world where anyone can start a “channel”, like a Facebook
page, link all this to the Twitter handle to maximize reach, and broadcast oneself with a phone. Each one
of us can beam our inner light, or darkness—the Buddha did say, atta deepa bhava, be your own light. It all
anyway ends in nothing, for a lamp always is aware it is dying. But Ashutosh Kumar suddenly threatened
to snuff out the lamp in me that wishes to burn in its shame a little longer. Sharing the video of a Dalit
schoolboy being mercilessly pummeled by Bhumihar bullies on his personalized channel, Kumar added a
two-line description, a testimony to how his mind works, a fragment of literature (if our faculty for language
can ever match up to the things we are capable of doing):
hero of school beating single boy in class room.
shame on school Administration.
Ashutosh Kumar is everyman in India. Among those of us who have come this far in our lives as to click
this link and watch this video, however honourable and noble our intentions, a few even make the time to
respond, comment, react—offer their byte, their piece of mind, shed a little light. Some vent right there and
then—this affirms the medium’s existence—and some take a longwinded route like the one I’m taking now.
One such, very much one of us, says, “what a shame this is... these motherfucking pakki kids should be
punished for this... ”. To this, Ashutosh Kumar—who does not offer any context to the savagery on display, as
if it were a scene of a lone deer being pinned down by a pride of lions on the NG channel—says in response:
“thanks you for watching and please subscribe my channel”. He offers this stock response to anyone who
bothers to make a comment on the video: “thanks you for watching and please subscribe my channel”.
When I checked this ‘channel’, it turned out he had posted just two other videos, both added a week ago,
with sixteen and three views each. The new video of a young boy being beaten up in a Kendriya Vidyalaya
classroom in Muzaffarnagar, Bihar, had gone viral. So Ashutosh Kumar has used it to plug his channel. Each
of us is a channel. Each of us a corporation. In each of us hides a little Arnab Goswami, a Smriti Irani—
public figures, each a Trump, who wave their blazing though tiny fist of power at anyone who they think
does not conform. There are always people uglier than us, we console ourselves. Meanwhile, to the right of

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my screen, YouTube’s algorithm lines up a list of recommendations on what I could watch next: videos of
school fights in India, of abuse; “Deadly Student fight at school Must See”; a teacher beating up a student;
and topping it all is an educational/titillating prank video (with actors), “Girl Sexually Abused in Classroom
by Professor!” produced by Funk You that has had some 5.3 million views.
So, what happens in the video in which Ashutosh Kumar invested his time and hope? At an elite school
overseen by the central government, a pack of damaged and frenzied Hindus of the Bhumihar caste
(Brahmin landlords), born to powerful local criminals, are pulping one Dalit student for being Dalit and for
his academic excellence. For having the temerity to be a frontbencher in class. All this. He tells a television
channel that he’s tired of “repeating my story time and again—for the cops, for my classmates, for the media
which discovered what happened to me because of a video that was posted on social media”.
At a time when Dalits and Muslims have to fear for their lives, caste-Hindu chauvinists have become so
delusional and psychotic that they see themselves even where they are not; hence the “pakki kids” comment.
“The victim is always Hindu” is what the BJP and the RSS have managed to make many think. The Hindu
right projects the idea of the nation as a jati in itself. The Indian nation is now officially an upholder of caste,
and itself a caste. The preservation of this idea of a “caste nation” depends on the preservation of each caste,
each jati. So, a nationalist necessarily becomes a casteist, and every casteist is wittingly and unwittingly a
nationalist. Such fantastic ways in which truth can be spun make me impatient with the middle path they
say the Buddha walked, the path Ambedkar followed, and with him many. When it comes to this, when I
begin doubting the Buddha and Ambedkar, I begin to doubt myself. I doubt if this light within, with which
I’ve been trying to get a connection, even exists. When I helplessly shared the boy’s testimony and the video
with a few friends over email wondering “How do we live with this?”, one of them replied cynically: “Shanti...
Om Shanti...”
I take my eyes off this picture awhile. The same day, 19 October, the Poetry Foundation inboxes me its Poem
of the Day, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”. I am reminded of how
there are such beautiful ways of speaking about autumn and the autumn of one’s life, and the difficulty of

S. Anand
loving someone you’re going to lose soon to death: “To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” I allow
myself to be distracted by the pleasure this poem gives me. Despite keenly listening to Kabir, who exhorts us
to meditate on our in-breath and out-breath and treat breath like a precious jewel, I’m not able to singularly
focus on the boy who was beaten for his excellence, the boy who excels because he is being beaten, because
his success against the odds hurts them in ways their blows do not break him. He stands there taking in all
the beating, every time they feel like punching him. This happened for over two years, he says. He seems
to define Dalit in the etymological sense: broken, yet unbreakable. He may not be where he is now without
reservation—the one weapon of Ambedkar—and for this very reason, he is broken on behalf of everyone
who thinks a Dalit cannot be in their midst, be their equal. And there’s a mob out there everywhere that
thinks so.
At this point, I wanted to check myself. I spoke to a few Dalit friends about this news, this video. This, in
sum, is what they said: “Yeah. What’s new? This is so common. It happens ever so often Anand. You guys are
seeing such stuff in a video for the first time. So, it comes as a shock. Yeah, it’s gone viral. But it always was
viral. Caste is a virus, Dr Ambedkar had said. This is the daily experience of millions of Dalits who try to
educate themselves in this world. Every Dalit carries an ancestry of violence on her and his body. The threat
of violence and violation is pervasive for most of us. But for you, it’s all of course new. You react differently.
You need to read a few Dalit autobiographies and watch Fandry and Sairat to know what life can be for us.
You have to do research and go through a lot of stuff to know our pain that you have no experience of. Often
we are amused, and these days even angered, by your sudden sense of outrage and helplessness over such
violence or your newfound love for Ambedkar—even when those outraged are a moral minority. We don’t
need to watch the Una video either. Yet our best actors ask, does one have to be Dalit to play a Dalit? Our
finest writers have decided they don’t have to be Dalit to write with such conviction about Dalits. What else
is human imagination for? Now, it’s a luxury for a few of you to stop by and ask, ‘How do we live with this?’,
and then get on with life. Ours is to live with it.”
Such is the unspeakable divide they insisted on speaking about.

S. Anand
I decided to take my mind off the video and what I was trying to write by turning to the routine that is my
life: I could not after all pretend for too long that I was so disturbed by the world around me that I had
stopped functioning. The ordinariness of such a day had to be established; otherwise, it becomes difficult for
the living to pretend they should not be dead. So I got up to fix dinner. I heard a Ghalib ghazal being recited,
without music, on repeat mode.
24. Jajman, and from it jajmani, derives from the term
I suddenly remembered that I had never once stopped to ask, till one Dalit friend had pointed it out to yajamana, literally the ‘sacrificer’, the performer of the
me, how and why India’s finest and brightest, the best Marxist historians, sociologists and economists, who Vedic yagna sacrifice who does not perform the actual
taught in Jawaharlal Nehru University had never once appointed a Dalit or Adivasi to the social sciences and sacrifice but hires priests to do the same in exchange for
humanities faculties (the ‘pure’ sciences, it seems, did better) for over thirty years while the constitutionally a fee, dakshina. This Vedic template got adapted, rather
transmogrified, in the pre-monetary economy era and
mandated quota was 22.5 percent—and these were supporters of the Civil Rights Movement in the US, they became the bulwark of a ritualised exploitative system
took a firm stand against Apartheid in South Africa, many of them know their Dylan from Marley (and some of economic extraction where services were rendered
fervently joined the fights on Twitter and Facebook about whether Dylan deserved it or not), they opposed (often for free or in exchange for grain or any gift) to
Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, they have always passionately supported Palestine (though they can be iffy about the landlord (not necessarily a brahman) who was
Kashmir), they have opposed India’s nuclear program, they oppose Section 377, and they see themselves as seen as the jajman (lord/master). Many scholars and
ideologues have seen the jajmani system as integrative,
natural born leaders at the vanguard of the good fight against the Right. They tick many, many boxes. Yet they a way in which various jatis interacted if not socialised.
never read Ambedkar. Never cited him. They shut him out. They have almost never had Dalit friends. A similar It is a system that also evolved differently in different
and often scarier script attends to the lives of those who inhabit India’s vaunted IITs and IIMs and medical parts of the subcontinent just like languages and the
colleges where Dalits are seen as anathema, institutions at the vanguard of the anti-reservation sentiment jati networks that exhibit a mind-boggling diversity,
which makes generalizations both fraught and
that craves inequality and viscerally hates Dalits. If at all they have Dalits around, it is as servants. The lines of
necessary at once. Often the untouchables-as-slaves
segregation in India are very clear yet render themselves opaque—they are many levels worse than Jim Crow. were (and often still are) forced to offer labour that was
Sometimes, the left-liberal progressives do not mind untouchables or tribals doing the cooking; they would seen as vetti or begār. The jajman or yajaman is often
even let them use their toilets; let them drive their cars. It is the same old jajmani system24 adapted to the seen as the owner of the bodies and labour of the serf
city and seamlessly woven onto a veneer of modernity. Many well-meaning leftists and academics have live- obliged to work for him.
in servants and they are rather nice to them (better than rightwing jajmans, it is hoped). We’re talking here
about some very fine people, the ones clothed in the finest handloom fabrics, the ones that drop their guard
and speak in interviews about the labels they wear (we are friends), the ones that have holidays abroad (if they
don’t head to the hills) when the heat in Delhi gets too much, the ones that never wash their own underwear
(even in a machine) and do not iron their own clothes, the ones that get the Others to wash their commodes,

S. Anand
many of whom have achieved excellence in their chosen fields, some with Padmashris and Magsaysays and
Sahitya Akademi awards or at least Fulbright scholarships adorning their cupboards. Many would say they
have never asked anyone their caste; nor do they have the need to take a pause and become conscious of caste-
as-power their own lives are all about. They have always said this is a “class” issue.
The Ghalib distraction did not do me any good.
Having seen what they did to the boy in the video, and then hearing him speak with such dignity, it might
sound patronizing but I appreciate his words, his poise, his courage under fire. He says his father had given
him a name that means “the best”. We already saw how Rohith Vemula had to die so that we may posthumously
know what an excellent mind and a great writer he was. Rohith may have found it difficult to get anything
published had he lived. Had his hunger strike with a few other Dalit scholars in the Veliwada continued,
the strike would have dissipated and the strikers forgotten. He would have been condemned to live, having
been suspended for saying Yakub Memon had the right to live. Apparao Podile would have gone on with
his life a little easier had Rohith lived, and Sunkanna Velpula may have not experienced the terrifying and
bewildering loneliness of being the only scholar in the University of Hyderabad to have refused to accept a
degree from the vile vice-chancellor while all fellow students at the convocation turned up in their glittering,
smiling best. But we have been saying it over and over, to console ourselves, that Vemula’s death did not go in
vain. We made up rousing slogans; there are books and films being made about him; you could download an
annotated edition of his Facebook posts on your phone; he finds a mandatory mention in poems, especially
those written about the need for writing poems. We hide behind what Brecht said:
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

S. Anand
There will always be singing. Perhaps in this Republic at war with itself, poets must be banished. They ought
not to be allowed to win and accept awards in the first place so that they can gloat over having had the
chance to return them; their resistance gleaming like a righteous medal. Those further damaged will make
poems about not making poems.
One of the brothers who beat up the Dalit boy every other day over the past two years boasts to his victim
that he derived pleasure from the assaults. He got off on it, and had a lackey shoot a video on the phone so he
could watch it by himself before he showed it around. This is as bad as a poet who reads his own poem over
and over, and then publishes it, saying poems have to be written “lest poets be reduced to a moral minority”,
because what else can poets do? The poet has the uncanny knack of turning what’s about you into something
about himself; his excuse being he has the capacity to speak for you; he’ll say I contain multitudes; he’ll be
reminded by a friend of Neruda’s lines the postman uses to woo his love in Il Postino: “Poetry doesn’t belong
to those who write it, it belongs to those who need it”. Such are the excuses a poet gives himself to say what
he needs. Faiz sang so well about being torn between guilt and love. Poets are no different than those who
beat a classmate within an inch of his life and make an album of their cowardice so that they can get off on
it. This is porn, and that is why this rant here reads like pornography of the self.
It’s time I said it too: thank you for reading and please subscribe my channel.

Science in Saffron
Meera Nanda
Edited version of the Introduction to Science in Saffron: Skeptical Essays on History of Science, Three Essays 25. See, for instance, Georg Feuerstein, Subhash Kak
Collective, 2016, Delhi. and David Frawley, In search of the Cradle of Civilization:
New Light on Ancient India, Wheaton, IL: Quest Books,
1995.
There is a delusion as deep-rooted as it is widespread in our country: India is the cradle and the end-point of 26.Al-Bïrünï, the Islamic scholar who recorded what
civilization itself.25 All roads to knowledge and wisdom originate in India, and will be brought to perfection he learned from his travels to India in the entourage
in India. Answers to the questions that continue to puzzle modern scientists were already known to our of Mahmud of Ghazna in the 11th century, wrote
ancient sages, who could “see” them in their mind’s eye, endowed as they were with divine insight. despairingly of Hindu mathematicians who kept on
inventing new words for ever larger numbers “without
observing any fixed order.” He attributed this to his
We have a long tradition of protecting the core of the dharmic tradition from falsification by declaring observation that “…they hate having to avow their
ignorance by a frank I do not know – a word which
potentially threatening ideas to be nothing more than trivial re-statements of the Eternal Truths that were is difficult to them in any connection whatsoever”;
already known to us. We have a long tradition of never admitting that we could be mistaken, that our beliefs Al-Bïrünï, Alberuni’s India, trans. Edward Sachau, ed.
could be falsified by new and better evidence. We have a long tradition of never admitting that “we don’t Aniselie Embree, W. W. Norton & Co, 1971, p. 177.
know.”26 27. The prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and
Science, in collaboration with Bhaktivedanta Institute
now offers M.Phil and Ph.D. degrees in “consciousness
Consciously or not, this style of disarming any potential source of falsification by embedding it in the studies.” This program sells itself as an “equivalent of a
dominant tradition was the guiding spirit of the 19th century Indian Renaissance. Swami Vivekananda graduate program in ‘cognitive studies’ in any Western
was exceptionally skilled in the art of finding parallels between Yoga sutras and Vedanta philosophy, and university.” But it is hard to imagine any respectable
cognitive studies school in the West accepting the
modern evolutionary theories and Newtonian laws of physics. However, this instinct was shared equally
fundamental premise that this program operates
by Brahmo Samaj in Bengal, Arya Samaj in northern India, and the Theosophists in the southern parts with: that consciousness is a pre-existing constituent
of the country and by famed philosophers like Sri Aurobindo and Saraswati. It has been the dominant of matter. This is simply Advaita by another name.
trope for accommodating modern science with the Hindu belief-system of Advaitic variety27. Sarvepalli Bhaktivedanta Institute is the “research” wing of
Radhakrishnan and accomplished scientists like J.C. Bose and P.C. Ray provided the scholarly- scientific the International Society for Krishna Consciousness,
aka “Hare Krishnas.” See http://www.bvinst.edu/
gloss to this alleged harmony between the ancient and the modern ways of knowing the natural world.
gradstudies.
This eagerness to create an illusion of harmony between modern science and traditional worldview can
also be found in Sri Lanka, Japan, Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, whose pre-Islamic civilization is seen as the
original source of Greek sciences. “Creation scientists” in the United States and elsewhere are also guilty of

Meera Nanda
this deception, as well as any number of science-invoking new religious movements (like Transcendental
Meditation, Zen Buddhism, Christian Science, Scientology, etc.).
In India, the Vedic origin of all knowledge is not as contested an idea as, say, “creation science” is in the US,
where powerful voices from within the scientific community and mainstream Christian denominations
oppose it. There are of course opposing voices in India as well who speak out against this mishandling of
history, but they are relegated to the margins, and are increasingly in mortal danger of being murdered at
the hands of religious fanatics. In the West, the notion of seamless harmony between modern science and
religious faith is largely limited to the think-tanks and foundations where retired scientists come to find
God. In India, on the other hand, this eclectic mix of science and faith needs no hot-houses, for harmonizing
opposites is a deeply ingrained part of the dominant culture.
The illusion of a harmonious accord between modern science and Vedic cosmology pervades the public
sphere in India. Its supporters come from all political persuasions: from fanatical saffrons, to modern gurus,
chic New Agers and even otherwise left-leaning “alternative” or “indigenous” science movements. The Indian
scientific community has been largely complicit in perpetuating this myth. While we have many prominent
scientists promoting the glories of the ancients (the late Abdul Kalam, for example), the larger community
of scientists has remained mostly silent on these issues.
What sets India apart is its long and complicated experience of British colonialism, which triggered an
exceptionally aggressive defense of our ancient traditions. The colonial administrators and Christian
missionaries held up modern science, technology, and medicine as signs of superiority of the Christian
civilization of the West over the superstitious and scientifically backward India. It was understandable that
this would provoke a passionate and aggressive defense of ancient Hindu traditions as the mother of all
modern science and technology. With the exception of Dalit and non-Brahmin movements, a small number
of pandits who defended the orthodoxy against the sanitized versions of their dharma, and a small minority
of secular-humanists who unabashedly embraced the scientific outlook, the idea that Hinduism is the cradle

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of science and therefore inherently scientific in nature received the blessing of the religious, cultural and
political leadership of anti-colonial movements, regardless of whether they were allied with the supposedly
secular Congress, or with Hindu nationalists.
While it does cut across political affiliations, the scientific legitimation of Hindu dharma is more actively
and self-consciously fostered by Hindu nationalists and their allies. Attribution of great scientific discoveries
to ancient Hindu rishis has been an integral part of the indoctrination of swayamsevaks since the very
beginnings of the organized Hindu Right in the early decades of the 20thcentury.
During their first stint from 1998 to 2004, the BJP-led NDA pushed for introducing degree-courses in
astrology, karma kanda (rituals) and consciousness studies in colleges and universities. Now that the BJP is
back with enough votes in last year’s general elections to rule by themselves, history of science is again on
the top of the list of “reforms”.
Forming government at the centre in 2014, BJP 2.0 has lost no time in extending its campaign rhetoric of
“India First” to the history of science. Claims of India’s priority in everything from mathematics, medicine
and surgery—to say nothing of Star Trek-style technologies—have been made by prominent people at
prestigious national-level gatherings, including the members of “Shiksha Bachao” (“save our Education”).
Given the unabashed attempts to use science to bolster claims of Hindu superiority, and the fact that a new
education policy is in the process of being formulated, fears of a fresh round of saffronization of elementary
and higher education, including science education, are well-founded.
The Hindu nationalists are not in the business of history-writing, even though they may use historical
evidence if and when it suits them. They are fabricating a heritage that we are supposed to kneel before in
awe and wonder and feel special about. While no history is completely free of biases and errors, historians
at least try to correct their narratives in the light of better evidence. Heritage-makers, on the other hand,
thrive on errors and biases. The torturous logic, the flights of fancy, the mental gyrations are no circus:

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they are the tools of the trade needed to create the myth of the “scientific Indian”, the bearer of the ancient
Hindu heritage which was scientific – in the sense of Science as We Know it Today, or SaWKiT) – even before
SaWKiT was even born. The distinction between history and heritage brought out by David Lowenthal is
relevant to the Indian situation: 28
Heritage is not a testable or even a reasonably plausible account of some past, but a declaration of
faith in that past… Heritage is not history, even when it mimics history. It uses historical traces and
tells historical tales, but these tales and traces are stitched into fables that are open neither to critical
analysis nor to comparative scrutiny…29
28. David Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the
Spoils of History, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Prejudiced pride in the past is not a sorry consequence of heritage; it is its essential purpose.”30 Press, 1998, p .X. emphasis added.
29. Lowenthal, p. 121. Emphasis added.
The “scientific Vedas” rightfully belong to the “Incredible India!” campaign which sells Indian heritage 30. Ibid., Emphasis added.
primarily to foreign tourists, with the difference that the “heritage sites” for the former are not physical but 31. The complete Hindi address is available at the PMO
textual, and the target audience includes Indians first and foreigners only secondarily. The way the “scientific website http://pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/
heritage” is constructed and sold, however, is turning Indians into tourists to their own history. The very text-of-the-prime-minister-shri-narendra-modis-
address-at-the-ceremony-held-to-rededicate-sir-h-n-
idea of such a narrative being taught to school children as history of science is frightening indeed. This
reliance-foundation-hospital-and-research-centre-in-
enterprise is aimed not at educating but, to use Lowenthal’s apt words, at creating a “prejudiced pride” in mumbai/?comment=disable. Translation is mine.
India’s past through “celebration” and “declaration of faith” in it. Indeed, this is exactly what the heritage-
fabricators openly profess.
A case in point: When the Prime Minister Modi invoked Ganesh from mythology, and Karna from the
Mahabharata as “evidence” that plastic surgery and genetic science existed in ancient India, he explained his
motive for this foray into mythology in the following words:31
We have our own skills. Now, we are not new to medical science…. We can take pride in the world of

Meera Nanda
medicine. Our nation was great one time. … What I mean to say is that ours is a country that once
32. This group largely includes those scholars who
had these abilities [for advanced medicine]. We can regain these abilities.” have accepted the multiculturalist and relativist view
of science wherein modern “Western” science is seen
as only one form of science at par with other cultural
The PM is hardly alone. Indian Firsters routinely claim that by highlighting the scientific accomplishments constructions. This view has become quite pervasive,
of ancient Hindus, they are actually trying to promote a culture of science and scientific temper. This is how especially among feminist and postcolonial scholars
the argument unfolds: Indians are heirs to a great civilization which promoted reasoned inquiry, which of science. See Sandra Harding (ed.) The Postcolonial
Science and Technology Studies Reader, Durham:
then led to scientific ideas which are only now being “rediscovered” by modern science. As the beneficiaries Duke University Press, 2011, for a recent overview.
of this great civilization, we ought to be inspired by it, reclaim its scientific spirit and produce world-class Multiculturalism in science assumes that all standards
science again. While they would not put it so starkly, even some secular historians of science have bought of evaluation of evidence and judgement as to the
into this business of promoting “cultural ownership” for the goal of doing good science. 32 soundness of a belief are internal to the culture, gender,
social class/caste one is born in, and therefore, when
students are exposed to modern science they are
Once we see the “science in the Vedas” discourse for what it is – a fabrication of heritage – three questions being asked to embrace culturally alien definitions of
nature and standards of judgments. If the students
arise. The first question has to do with the relationship between the glorious past and the present state of were exposed to science using “their own” cultural
affairs. Here we will ask if it is really the case that because we were, presumably, great in sciences once, we vocabulary, they will become better learners and better
will be great again. The other two questions have to do with how the “scientific” heritage is put together and scientists. Sundar Sarukkai offers a well-articulated
made to appear reasonable. There are two favorite ploys of heritage-makers: presentism and parochialism. statement of this position; see Sarukkai, “Indian
Experience with Science: Considerations for History,
Philosophy and Science Education”, International
We seem to think that if we can establish continuity between ancient and modern modes of inquiry, we will Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science
Teaching, ed. Michael R. Matthews, Dordrecht Springer,
gain confidence in our presumably “innate” acumen to do science. But the notion of continuity between pp. 1691-1719.
the science of the antiquity – not just the sciences of Indian antiquity, but of any ancient civilization in Based upon my experience first as a young woman
the world – and modern science is unwarranted and unproductive. It is unwarranted because it does not trained in microbiology in India, and now as someone
acknowledge the break from the tradition that happened with modern science. The science that emerged who teaches history of science to science students in
the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research
after the Scientific Revolution through the 16th to 18th centuries was a very different enterprise from all
in Mohali, India, I believe that the cultural relativity of
earlier attempts to understand nature. Most historians of science33 agree on the following revolutionary standards of evidence and judgment is overstated.
transformations that marked the birth of modern science:
33. At least those historians of science who have not
written-off the very idea of a scientific “revolution” as a
a. Mathematization of nature, i.e. a growing attempt to describe natural things and events Western ploy to project its superiority over all others.

Meera Nanda
in mathematical terms which could be quantified, using increasingly precise tools of measurement
(clocks, compasses, thermometers, barometers and such).
b. Fact-finding experiments, in addition to direct observations. In the hands of early modern

scientists (represented by the paradigmatic figure of Galileo), mathematization of nature was brought
together with controlled experimentation.
c. Development of a mechanistic world picture which tried to explain the workings of the
natural world in nothing but corpuscles of matter in motion.
d. An uncommon appreciation of manual work, which led to the relative lowering of barriers
between university-trained natural philosophers and artisans and craftsmen. 34
34. See Floris H. Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: a
Historiographical Inquiry, Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 1994 and also by Cohen, How Modern Science
Undoubtedly, this revolution was made possible by a confluence of a multitude of earlier achievements of many Came into the World, One 17th Century Breakthrough,
civilizations – the ancient Greeks, Christianity, Islam, and through Islam, the contributions of ancient and classical Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010.
India and China. But the new science that emerged after the Scientific Revolution was most unlike any of the
nature-knowledge traditions that went to into it, including the Greco-Roman, and Judeo-Christian tradition, that
are the direct ancestors of the Western civilization. While it took on board some elements of mathematical and
observational stock of knowledge from earlier civilizations, modern science – the SaWKiT – turned the ancient
cosmos and ancient methods of speculative reason upside down, and produced a new conception of the cosmos
and the humanity’s place in it. So revolutionary and sweeping have the changes been that it is oxymoronic to say
that any pre-modern knowledge tradition – be it Hindu, Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, animistic – had
the answer to the questions asked by modern scientists. Of course the nature of the natural world (its composition,
the fundamental laws governing its operations) has not changed, but the conceptual categories, methodological
criteria and the aims of inquiry have undergone such a radical transformation that it is safe to say with Thomas
Kuhn that the ancients and the modern scientists practically live in different worlds.

Meera Nanda
If one accepts this picture of the birth of modern science, then the very idea of ancients having the answers
that have emerged only in the last 500 years or so makes no sense. Of course, there are nuggets of useful
empirical knowledge –the knowledge of useful medicinal plants, or organic methods of farming, for example
– that can be incorporated into the modern corpus provided they pass the stringent tests that all empirical
claims must go through to be deemed “scientific”. But beyond that, it is simply vainglorious to claim that
modern science is only repeating what the ancients already knew.35
Not only is the insistence of continuity between ancient and modern sciences unwarranted, it is entirely
unproductive. Admitting to being an ignoramus – Latin for “we don’t know” – is the first step toward
acquiring knowledge. This is what allowed modern science to emerge and flourish in Europe in the early
modern era, from the 16th to the 18th century. It was not a matter of some special “Faustian Spirit” that
existed only in the West, but rather a coming together of theological justifications for empiricism, political 35. The classical Indian statement of this sentiment
comes from Swami Vivekananda who in his famous
and mercantile interests, technological breakthroughs, along with a regard for manual labor that set the
Chicago address insisted that that the discoveries of
stage for the Scientific Revolution. modern science are only restating “in a more forcible
language…what the Hindu has been cherishing
in his bosom for ages”; Complete Works of Swami
This process was by no means smooth. There was resistance from the Church and the Aristotelian professors Vivekananda, Advaita Ashrama: Mayavati Memorial
who controlled the medieval universities. Even though all the pioneers – Copernicus, Vesalius, Galileo, Edition, 2006.
Newton and later, Darwin – were devout Christians working from within the traditional medieval view of
the world derived from parts of Greek philosophy and the Bible, they managed to set a process in motion
which ended up overturning the inherited framework. More importantly, the scientific revolutionaries were
not so compelled by the forces of tradition that they felt forced to “harmonize” their theories and methods
with those prescribed by Aristotle and the Bible. Despite initial condemnation on the part of religious forces,
it was the bastions of tradition that had to capitulate to the force of evidence. (Yes, there are creationists
among fundamentalist Christians who still believe in the literal truth of the creation story, but they are
opposed by the mainstream of Christianity.)

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In India, on the other hand, the forces of tradition have managed to overpower and tame any idea that
threatened to challenge the essential Vedic outlook of the primacy of consciousness, or spirit. History of
Indian science abounds in examples of self-censorship by otherwise fine minds; whenever they perceived a
contradiction between the Puranas and the mathematical astronomy of the Siddhantas, for example, some
of our well-known astronomers allowed the Puranas to overrule the Siddhantas. Disheartening examples
include Brahmagupta in the 7th century opposing Aryabhata’s theory of eclipses in favor of Rahu and Ketu,
as well as Yaj̃neśvara Rode in the 17th century “crushing the contradictions” that the Copernican astronomy
posed to the Puranic worldview.36 When confronted with conflicting arguments, our learned men did not
stand up for what they knew to true and backed by better evidence. For the most part, they chose to kneel 36. See Christopher Minkowski, “The Paṇḍit as
before the Eternal Truths of Vedas and Puranas. The forces of conservatism and conformity have been so Public Intellectual: The Controversy Over Virodha
or Inconsistency in the Astronomical Sciences”, The
deeply entrenched in the system of rituals, social habits, and beliefs that govern our society, that our learned Paṇḍit: Traditional Sanskrit Scholarship in India, ed.
men did not have to be hauled up before an Inquisition (as Galileo was) to force them to renounce what Axel Michaels, Heidelberg: South Asia Institute; New
they knew to be true – they did that willingly, on their own volition. Delhi: Manohar Publications, 2001, pp. 79–103; Robert
Fox Young, “Receding from Antiquity: Hindu Responses
to Science and Christianity on the Margins of the
The same compulsion to let the Vedas and Puranas have the last word is evident in how the torch-bearers Empire 1800-1850”, Christians and Missionaries in India:
of the Indian Renaissance co-opted scientific theories of physics and biology. The current crop of heritage- Cross Cultural Communication since 1500, ed. Robert Eric
Frykenberg, London: Routledge, 2003. p. 183-222.
makers, including the Prime Minister and the academics who made the Science Congress so memorable
are travelling down the road carved out by two of the most illustrious leaders of Indian Renaissance, Swami 37. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-
others/at-science-congress-vedic-aeroplanes-and-
Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda.37 Like the two swamis, they too are intent on picking out those modern
virus-proof-suits/; http://www.thehindu.com/news/
scientific ideas and methods that they can then fuse with the Vedas and the Puranas. national/telangana/Bhargava-blasts-ISC-for-equating-
science-with-spirituality/article16981938.ece .
Far from being a source of critical thinking that accepts that our holy books, our ancestors, and our traditions
could be wrong; far from accepting that the old ways must be given up if they do not measure up to best
available evidence, this celebration of “harmony” between modern science and traditional views has only
co-opted science into religious dogmas.

Meera Nanda
Fabrication of heritage is, thus, a process of domesticating the past, turning it into stories that serve our
purposes today. Presentism, or anachronism, is how the past is domesticated and history turned into
heritage. Presentism is to see the past through the lens of the present. It has been called the “fallacy of nunc
pro tunc” which is Latin for “now for then”.38 In history of science (and intellectual history more generally),
presentism works by simply introducing contemporary conceptual categories and aims into the depictions
of what the “scientists” of earlier epochs were trying to do.
Professional historians are taught to recognize and avoid at all costs this fallacy of presentism. “The past is a
foreign country: they do things differently there” is the mantra of professional historians.39 The objective of
history then become to study the past ideas and practices within their own social-cultural milieu.
38. David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a
Logic of Historical Thought, New York: Harper Perennial,
While historians shun presentism as best they can, those who peddle heritage find it indispensable. The 1970.
whole purpose of fabricating a heritage is to infuse the past with present meanings. This requires that the
39.This is the opening line of The Go-Between, a novel
present be projected back into the past. For our purpose at hand – to understand how history of science is
by L. P. Hartley, published in 1953. It is also the title of a
saffronized – we have to understand how conceptual categories available to modern science (genetic science, well-known book by David Lowenthal.
quantum physics, nuclear energy and such) are read back into the minds of our ancestors. In this book,
40.Eric Hobsbawm, On History, New York: New Press,
especially in the final chapter, we will examine the use of resemblances and parallelisms that are deployed to 1997, p. 7, 5.
make such projections look reasonable and plausible.
Presentist history is not just bad history; it is dangerous history as well. I agree with Eric Hobsbawm’s
observation that “the most usual ideological abuse of history is based on anachronism rather than lies”. This
kind of history, again quoting Hobsbawm:
is the raw material for nationalist or ethnic or fundamentalist ideologies, as poppies are the raw material for
heroin addiction. The past is an essential element, perhaps the essential element in these ideologies. If there
is no suitable past, it can always be invented… The past legitimizes. 40

Meera Nanda
The other major tool for fabricating a suitable heritage is to cordon off your own past from the rest of the
world. I believe there is an absence of a serious and honest comparative perspective in the Hindu nationalist
history of science. Or rather, to put a finer point on this statement, the comparative perspective is not
entirely absent from their analysis, but it is deeply colored by what can only be called a “jagat-guru complex”:
invariably, India appears as the giver of science, but never a taker.
While this kind of history might be tonic for the Indian ego, it happens to be bad history for the same
reason not stepping outside the boundary of your village limits what you can see and experience. It does not
allow you to ask new and interesting questions about social and cultural differences that might have made a
difference in the trajectories that science and technology followed in different societies.
This kind of Indo-centric historiography is a distortion in that it fails to see and acknowledge how ideas
cross national and cultural boundaries: circulation of ideas did not have to wait for the World Wide Web; it 41. Joseph Needham, The Great Titration: Science and
has been a part of human history from the very beginning. I share Joseph Needham’s call for taking what he Society in East and West, London: George Allen, 1969,
calls an ecumenical view of the world: p. 16.
The different civilizations did have scientific interchanges of great importance. It is surely quite clear
by now that in the history of science and technology, the Old World must be thought of as a whole.41
Once we see the Old World as an interconnected whole, we have no choice but to see our civilization as
one among others bound to them by mutual exchange of goods, people and ideas. Ideas were not always
radiating from India to the rest of the world, but also coming into India from the rest of the world. Like every
other sister civilization, we were givers and we were takers, with no monopoly on giving.
Once we get over our Jagatguru complex and see India as one in the network of civilizations, a newer, more
complex appreciation of India’s achievements begins to take shape.

Opera in India: Mozart at the Maharaja’s or Verdi on Rickshaw?
(English Summary)
French Text
Aude Engel
Aude Engel is an opera singer and a philosopher who has had a relationship with India from her
childhood. As she puts it, India is the chosen country of her father. She has been raised in the meantime
amid the European opera culture as well as the innumerable possibilities of Indian music. She wonders
what could be the status and role of an essentially European art form in a country tired by centuries of
colonization? Can India stand out of globalization—which touches not only jeans and Coca-Cola but
also art and music?
The Fakir of Benares, an unknown opera by the also unknown Leo Manuel was the first opera ever
played in New Delhi in 2003. While this was the beginning of more opera performances in different
places in India, it was also a foundation promoting the art itself of opera in India.
From musical awakening to adult chorus, the Neemrana Music Foundation offers music lessons for
people of all ages. Following the maxim of “India always gives you more than it takes”, Aude looks after
the Neemrana Music Foundation, and has built a place for opera in India. With a personal voice, Aude
Engel gives us her India—a country with many languages where she can be understood thanks to a
common, and almost natural language, which is music.

Photo Essay – ‘Veli Wada’ in the Hyderabad Central University
Javed Iqbal

Javed Iqbal

Javed Iqbal

Javed Iqbal

Javed Iqbal

Javed Iqbal

Javed Iqbal
Photoreportage on the ‘veli vada’ in the Hyderabad Central University by Javed Iqbal, photojournalist. Dalit
students, members of the Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA,) were protesting against their expulsion
from the hostel, canteen and administrative areas of the university. This disciplinary action was based on
a complaint by the Hindu Right students’ group ABVP. The fellowship of these ASA students had been
stopped and they had nowhere to live, eat and study, in the same way that Dalits have been boycotted
from social spaces and facilities for centuries. And then, one of them, Rohith Vemula, a PhD. scholar took
his life in a hostel room, leaving behind a note. For one month, the expelled students of ASA lived and
protested in an open space, like a ghetto to which Dalits have been confined by the old Indian caste practice
of untouchability. The boycotted students had embraced their zone of segregation within the university by
calling it ‘Veli Wada’ which means the untouchable ghetto. Thus, after Rohith’s institutional murder they
continued to highlight the discrimination continuing in the public sphere of the university.

Media and the Public Sphere,
Censorship

Presstitute
Hartosh Singh Bal
The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, first came to public prominence when he was appointed the
chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat in 2001 by the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which claims
to speak for India’s Hindu majority. His transformation from a person thrust on the state to someone with
a popular mandate was achieved not by what his government did, but by what it did not do. In February
2002, months after his appointment, as violence broke out between the majority Hindu community and
the Muslim minority in the state, his administration largely stood by as his political supporters led and
collaborated in the violence wrecked on the minority by organized mobs. His election as the Prime Minister
of India in 2014, on the majoritarian platform of his party, is the logical culmination of an imagery that,
since 2002, has projected him as the Hindu Hriday Samrat (The emperor of Hindu hearts).
The mythology of a man who is larger than life is fragile. Myths crumble when people stop believing in
them. This is why his rise to power has been accompanied by an organized attack on individuals and
institutions who dare to differ or criticise. But this focused assault on dissent could not have taken place
without structural changes in the media, now being replicated in academia, which precede his rise to power.
The word most often used for the media or journalists by Twitter trolls backing Modi is presstitute – a
portmanteau word with evident origins indicating the organization or person in question is willing to sell
services for a fee. It is a strange charge to hurl in a country that has, ever since the process of liberalization
of the economy began in 1991, effectively worked to ensure precisely this result. The very notion of media as
a public good serving ends other than profit has been set aside. The country has over the past few decades
designed an environment that ensures the presstitution of the media, with other sectors such as academia
which contribute to public discourse now on the same trajectory.
Well before Narendra Modi came to power, successive governments, largely headed by the Congress party,
had encouraged this process in order to exercise control and influence the message being sent out through
the media. If that messaging was not as consistently in its favour as it is today for the BJP, it is because the
Congress party lacks the ideological coherence of the current government. Moreover, with the Gandhi family
that controls the party largely inaccessible to the media, the Congress has multiple centres for disseminating
information, often conflicting, about events within the party and the government. The current dispensation
brings to power a coherent ideology, and a strict hierarchy where Narendra Modi and party president control

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every aspect of information that comes out regarding the party or the government.
Thus the trolls who today use the term presstitute for the few journalists who do disagree or criticise this
government, are actually missing the point, these individual are the only exception in a media industry that
has been presstituted. The government has been so successful in achieving its ends that it is now attempting
much the same approach in the education sector. It is proving to be marginally more difficult because
the structural changes that have unfolded in the media have not progressed quite so far in academia. In
the media, the organizations controlled by the state – such as Doordarshan and All India Radio – have
functioned as propaganda outlets, but many of the universities funded by the government have enjoyed a
fair degree of independence. With the increasing privatization of higher education, faculty members and
students at the growing number of new private universities, like journalists in private media organizations,
are learning to cope with the idea that profitability is the ultimate determiner of the services they provide.
And the result is much the same as in the media, the ability to articulate debate and dissent is disappearing
from the universities.
To understand the extent of the current crisis, we need to understand its origins. It was in the early 1990s, as
the finance minister Manmohan Singh opened up the economy that the Times of India (ToI) first ushered
in changes that have shaped the current media environment. Journalist till that point were governed by a
law passed by Parliament, the Working Journalist Act (WJA), that determined their working conditions,
promotions and salary structure. The ToI offered them the option of better wages if they opted for a direct
contract with the organization. The contract, among other things, allowed the employer to fire a journalist
without giving an explanation after giving notice of a pre-specified period.
Legally, the contract was a piece of fiction, for the WJA is clear that any contract could only improve on
the working conditions it prescribed, but in practice since any recourse to the law could potentially take
several years to resolve, the contract system, illegal as it is, became entrenched. The new system changed
the interaction between the media owner and the editor. In the absence of norms of seniority, as well as
prescribed criteria for promotions, owners could hand pick their editors, moreover an editor so appointed
could be fired at will. What was once a relationship between equals, had now become an employer-employee
relationship. This is not to say that the media before these changes was exemplary, but the biases it reflected

Hartosh Singh Bal
were the result of the views of individual editors, now these gave way to institutional biases that were largely
reflective of the bottom-line of the owners of media.
The new relationship ensured that editors would, or rather could, not stand up to the introduction of changes
that tended to treat news as entertainment. Supplements with page 3 photographs of celebrity parties became
the norm in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai. Soon enough these supplements took this idea to its logical
conclusion, people could pay for the coverage of their parties in such supplements and it would appear as
editorial content.42
As advertising revenue increased with growing economy, a new class of owners came into existence. Much
of the India media had been owned by families who had been in the trade for several generations, but the
new owners came because they saw new financial opportunities in the sector. By the time the financial crisis
hit India in 2009, it became clear to many of them that they had read too much into the profitability of the
media, yet this did not lead them to shut down the institutions they had funded.
42. http://presscouncil.nic.in/OldWebsite/Sub-
By then it had become clear to them that the profit the media generates is miniscule compared to the power CommitteeReport.pdf
it wields. In a semi-liberalised economy where the government still decides how, where and which private
enterprise can function, owners of media houses found that the power they wield can be traded off for
returns in other more profitable sectors where they are operating.
The large investments required to set up a new media venture had already made sure the new owners were
from among those who owned large businesses in other sectors of the economy. This was more so the
case with news televisions which came into existence after the newspaper industry had already made the
transition to the contract system. The WJA was never extended to those working for news televisions or
for that matter later to online portals. The protection under law that exists for print journalists, at least
notionally, does not extend to those working for television or online media.
This post-liberalisation expansion of the media took place in the absence of any regulations over ownership,
the result today is that there is far greater scrutiny of who goes on to become a trainee journalist than there
is of someone who starts or buys a media organization. In this situation, of owners with diverse business

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interests running media organizations with pliant editors, the stage was set for the presstitution of the media.
This became apparent with the episode of the Radia Tapes. The tapes were the result of a government-
authorized wiretap on Niira Radia who was in charge of public relations for two of India’s top corporates, the
Reliance and the Tata group. Her conversations with top journalists, politicians including cabinet ministers
and business persons revealed a network of power brokers influencing every aspect of policy making
including the appointment of cabinet ministers. In this hitherto invisible world, the walls between media,
politics and business did not exist; the only commodity that was traded was power.
The story of how the Radia Tapes got published is illustrative. I was political editor of the Open Magazine
that first carried the story. It took us two months to verify the internal consistency of the several dozen hours
of tape recordings as well as prepare the relevant transcripts. Finally, when we went to print, my editor, Manu
Joseph, and I decided not to reveal the nature or content of the cover story to the publisher or the owner of
the magazine. The impact of the story was so huge that the owner, Sanjiv Goenka, head of a Rs 17,000 crore
business empire, when asked, could not distance himself from the story. Three years later, when it started
becoming clear that Narendra Modi was coming to power, I was sacked. Joseph told me that according to
Goenka, he (Goenka) had made several political enemies due to my writings. The man who replaced me was
PR Ramesh, a close acolyte of Arun Jaitley, who was to become finance minister in the new government as
well as head of the Information and Broadcasting ministry, the messaging of this combination of portfolios
clear to owners and journalists.
After Modi came to power this was a process that was repeated, if not quite so obtrusively, in many instances
across the media. The message that went out to journalists was clear. Dissent was not welcome at a time media
owners were seeking to build bridges with the new finance minister. It was a message that soon extended
to NGOs, after an intelligence report prepared during the Congress regime became the basis for scrutiny of
foreign funding to these organizations. The NGO signaled out for special scrutiny was Greenpeace which
was strongly critical of government’s economic policies that impinged on the traditional rights of India’s
tribal population. Today most prominent NGOs steer clear of direct criticism of the government’s policies.

Hartosh Singh Bal
In an evident fallout of the crackdown, a number of so-called liberal media outlets and NGOs that are
engaged in activist intervention have figured out the limits of this government’s tolerance for dissent and
prefer to operate within it. This considered self-censorship actually creates a zone of limited criticism, which
never strays into areas that truly impact the government, allowing the BJP to proclaim that dissent and
criticism are still alive in the public sphere.
The BJP has used its success in taming the media and the NGOs as a model for a similar assault on the
universities. Unlike the media, many government aided universities such as Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JNU) still have legally laid down conditions for employment and remuneration that cannot be
violated by the government. With direct pressure unlikely to work, the government relied on the ABVP, the
student wing of its parent body the RSS. A clash between student demonstrators protesting the government’s
action in the state of Kashmir and students from the ABVP became the pretext for the police to enter the
campus. Charges of sedition were framed against some of the demonstrators and faculty at the university
who spoke out against were labeled as anti-national, an internal fifth column intent on sabotaging the state.
A similar sequence of events unfolded at a government funded university in Hyderabad.
Again, the lessons the government wanted to teach were readily learnt. At Ashoka University, the best known
of India’s recent spate of private universities (which charge high student fees and give remunerative wages
for faculty who work on contract), a petition by some students protesting Indian action in Kashmir led
to action against staff who had signed it. The university also put in place new regulations that require the
university to whet any future statements.
The cumulative effect of this coordinated assault on the media, the NGOs, and the Universities, has ensured
that dissent is now the work of a few individuals who are willing to risk their job and career, rather than the
result of any institutional disagreement with government policies. Moreover, in this environment the battle
to protect the right to express dissent, under the guise of freedom of expression, has been rather ineffectual
because it has focused on the wrong targets. When the government has passed a diktat preventing one of
India’s prominent news channels – NDTV India – from broadcasting for a day on the pretext it had betrayed
national security guidelines in its coverage, the uproar forced the government to back down, but when the
channel on its own issued a statement that it would not broadcast any statement questioning government

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claims about an Indian army strike across the border in Pakistan, there was little examination of the media
environment that had coerced it to do so. The reality of the second case is far more representative of the
Indian situation today, than the success in the first case and the impact of this on public discourse has been
evident.
This is the first time that the BJP has had an absolute majority in the Indian Parliament. The genesis of this
party is in the RSS, a cultural body with a uniformed cadre, with the word culture used in its broadest sense,
whose tentacles extend to every aspect of Indian society. It comprises a network of affiliated organizations,
which work in areas such as labour, gender, tribal education, student politics and Hindu mobilization, all of
which feed into the work of ruling party.
The RSS, founded in 1925, has upward of 10 million members, though accurate estimates are difficult as
it does not keep records, and has a set of core beliefs that are common to its affiliates. According to the
RSS, the term Hindu must apply to everyone who is a citizen of India. A Hindu, according to them, is one
who considers India not just as a fatherland (changed to motherland in subsequent formulations) but also
a sacred land. The definition is circular, because India, the sacred land, is then defined as the land where
Hindus dwell. But the lack of logic is hardly high on the list of concerns of the organization.
In practice, this definition is deliberately meant to exclude Muslims and Christians who think of Mecca
or Palestine as their holy land, while seeking to include those who practice Indic faiths such as Sikhism,
Buddhism or Jainism. The RSS view of India sees citizenship as a privilege that does not extend to everyone,
and in fact rules out Muslims and Christians if they practice their faith as they are meant to. As a view of
India, this directly contradicts the Indian Constitution, which gives no importance to religious origins, a
sacred geography or a shared history, but instead emphasizes a set of shared pluralistic values, including
special protection to all religious minorities.
Through its history, the RSS has been at odds with the main currents of Indian thought that drove the
Indian independence movement, and the politics of India for the first few decades after independence. The
organization did not participate in the Quit India movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in 1942 and some
of its members were involved in the assassination of Gandhi in 1948. The movement for liberating the

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birthplace of Rama (a mythological figure) that brought down a mosque in the town of Ayodhya in 1992 and
led to the political rise of the BJP, was spearheaded by an RSS affiliate organization.
Given this past, and its core beliefs, it is not much of a surmise that the RSS has a view of India that can only
become reality if the Constitution itself is rewritten. But any changes to the Constitution would require that
the BJP have a two-third majority in Parliament. This is not achieved simply through winning a one-time
large mandate since the upper house, or Rajya Sabha, is elected by the state legislatures. It would also require
that the BJP win elections in the vast majority of the states that constitute the Indian Union.
The kind of majority they need to achieve their ends requires a change in the Indian imagination so that the
Indian view of history, of the subcontinent past, is no different from the RSS view of the Indian past. This
history is based on an imagined golden past where the Indians of the Vedic period possessed much of the
knowledge that we count as modern, from mathematics to aircraft. Under the new establishment, this farce
has reached the stage where Hindu holy men attend science conferences organized at India’s premier science
and technology institutes such as the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. A fad called Vedic Mathematics,
a grab bag of simple tricks has a purported connection to the Vedic past based on an appendix to one of the
Vedas that was actually written in the 20th century.
For the RSS to continue its subversion of the past in order to manipulate the present, political power is a
necessity. Without political power, it will not be able to place its own men in charge of institutions such as
the Indian Council of Historical Research. It will not be able to have ministers such as the one in charge
of education, Prakash Javdekar, long associated with the RSS, who has been consulting the RSS on a new
education policy being drafted for the country. Through control of such institutions, they can then seek
history in Indian mythology while downplaying or contorting much of the actual medieval history of the
subcontinent with includes the substantial impact of Islam.
For the RSS, control of political power is achieved by its affiliate, the BJP. The BJP’s hold on power in turn
revolves around the political fortunes of Narendra Modi. In the 2014 elections, a Congress-led government
weakened by a number of corruption scandals was unable to provide much of a contest for Modi who does
not face much of a challenge from a Congress party that seems to be in terminal decline.

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He embodies the RSS worldview. Through his years in power, Muslims have been marginalized in public
life (never has there been lower representation of Muslims in the Cabinet) and on the receiving end of what
virtually amounts to a campaign of hatred. Through affiliates of the RSS the issue of cow protection has
become an assault on the consumption of beef by Muslims. Hostility against Pakistan, which has increased
considerably under Modi, is used as a means of extracting constant declarations of patriotism from Muslims,
as if their commitment to the Indian Republic must be under consistent scrutiny.
The fear of journalists, academics and activists who speak their minds and are unafraid to take on Modi
stems precisely from the corrosive impact they can have on the mythology that surrounds Modi. In this
sense, a desire for curtailment of debate in the public sphere is something that binds Modi and the RSS
together. While the RSS need for Modi is evident in its bid to control the political sphere, the relationship is
symbiotic. It is not just that Modi has been involved with the RSS from a young age, or that he is ideologically
sustained by the RSS view of the subcontinent, it is also that he constantly requires RSS help to sustain his
political career and the BJP’s political future.
After the overwhelming BJP victory in 2014, the party has faced several state elections but has emerged
successful only when it has been locked in a direct contest against the Congress. Each time it has faced a
non-Congress opposition, the AAP in Delhi, the JDU-RJD in Bihar, the TMC in West Bengal, it has lost.
Clearly, it is the schisms within the Hindu fold of caste and region that pose the greatest challenge to the BJP.
It is precisely these schisms that the RSS vision of Hinduism – Hindutva seeks to eradicate.
Already, the RSS work among India’s tribal population has manifested in a huge change in voting behavior
with the BJP accruing a substantial benefit. The RSS has sought to do much the same among the Dalits, with
mixed results. While in many states it has managed to reach out to Dalits, it is running into the intractable
problem that despite its claims caste remains central to Hinduism as it is practiced. As a result, Dalits who
do join the BJP find themselves marginalized in its predominantly Hindu ethos.
But if there is anything that the RSS has proved, it is that it is persistent and has a long-term vision. Unlike
almost any other organization of comparable scale in India, political or corporate, the RSS has never been
a personality cult. The leadership transitions in the RSS have invariably been smooth and have had done

Hartosh Singh Bal
little to change the nature of its work. Its cadre, in large measure, do work selflessly, with personal ambition
largely kept secondary to organizational requirements.
In the face of this substantial threat, the political charisma of Modi’s autocratic vision and the organizational
strength of the RSS, the decline of the institutional ability of the media, academia and activism to voice
dissent, the possibility of India transiting to a neo-religious (neo only because the RSS’ vision of Hindutva
is rooted in modern ideas of nationalism – one people, one culture, rather than in any vision of Hindu
thought) autocracy is real.
What then is the possibility of a considered response that goes beyond acts of individual conscience and
courage? The path to autocracy is slow, and there will be occasions over the next two decades when the BJP
is not in power. At such times, it is necessary to restore the belief that the media and academia are public
goods, not to be judged solely in terms of commerce. We need to reiterate that the safeguards that should
protect journalists, activists and academics are not means of making them unaccountable for their work but
necessary to their ability to freely express views critical of any dispensation is institutional.
Some of this is so evident that we should not have to point it out, but we have actually wished away the most
evident of truths. The BJP government and the RSS led by Modi have not created the current situation, they
have just exploited the steady erosion of the media and academia by earlier government. Today, individuals
who found nothing wrong with this process when the BJP was not in power, have little credibility when they
speak of the dangers the RSS or Modi pose. When we seek to restore institutions, we need to restore their
ability to express dissent under any dispensation. The media or academia do not have to be restructured to
detest the RSS worldview, they have to be restructured to consistently look at the exercise of power critically.
It is only such institutions that will have credibility. In the meantime, we must rely on the individuals who
have the courage to speak freely.

“You Hate Me? Now Go to Jail”: When “Hate” is Criminal
Karuna Nundy
The day Bal Thackeray died, even the national dailies described him as “the tiger”, one who “ruled Mumbai”.
“He was a great cartoonist”, a leading magazine said of the far-right Hindu founder of the Shiv Sena party, a
“journalist, politician and above of all a leader who had a very, very (sic) special place in his followers’ heart”.
A judicial commission had, by contrast, found him guilty of inciting and directing riots: “Bal Thackeray…
like a veteran General, commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organised attacks against Muslims”.43
The Shiv Sainiks remained vigilant for insults to their leader, perceived or otherwise, after Mr Thackeray’s
death. Under their watch, stories of Mr Thackeray’s greatness sounded from media offices, edited by fear
for cameras, presses and reporters’ physical safety. The Shiv Sena takes the speech of others very seriously,
they have attacked theatres because they did not like the film “My name is Khan”, thrown ink on the face of
a discussant at a book talk by a Pakistani and harassed a columnist for days because she did not think that
43. Justice Srikrishna Report on Mumbai Riots of
Mumbai’s residents should only be able to watch vernacular films in theatres at prime time. 1992, 1993; https://justiceprojectsouthasia.files.
wordpress.com/2013/08/srikrishna-report-bombay-
Over at Facebook, a young woman named Shaheen Dhada did, say, what many were thinking. “With all riots-1992-93.pdf
respect, every day, thousands of people die, but still the world moves on…Just due to one politician died a
natural death (sic), everyone just goes bonkers... Respect is earned, given, and definitely not forced. Today,
Mumbai shuts down due to fear, not due to respect.”
The Shiv Sena sprang into action and Ms Dhada was kept in police custody that night, apparently to “protect”
her from hundreds of Shiv Sainiks protesting outside. The next morning however, she was formally arrested
under a law that criminalises “deliberate and malicious” insults to religion, and a second law that penalized
“annoyance” and “inconvenience” online. The Shiv Sainiks also attacked Ms Dhada’s uncle’s hospital while
four patients were still inside; they destroyed expensive machinery and supplies. The weekend Mr. Thackeray
was given a State funeral, 21-year-old Shaheen, and her acquaintance who had liked the post, were in police
custody.

Karuna Nundy
Low hanging fruit
Versions of Mr Thackeray and Ms Dhada’s story play in police stations and courtrooms all over the country. Our
laws against hate speech are broad, so broad that a sound insulting to religion can send one to jail for a year:
Section 298 in the Indian Penal Code
298. Uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person.—Whoever,
with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of any person, utters any word or makes
any sound in the hearing of that person or makes any gesture in the sight of that person or places, any
object in the sight of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term 44. The Heckler’s Veto doctrine is based on the US
which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both. Supreme Court case Hill v. Colorado 530 US 703, 735
where the court found that the government cannot
The Constitution of India and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the permissible bounds of free speech allow a heckler to silence a speaker through threats
leave a lot of low-hanging fruit for the constitutional courts to strike down. Our courts, though, are wary of of violence. Local government refused permits to
civil rights marches in the U.S., because they said the
giving the Penal Code a good old sweep. It is wiser, it is widely believed in judicial circles, for courts to be
participants would be endangered by the violence that
restrained and leave such laws to be amended by a democratically elected legislature. might follow. The Supreme Court held this to be an
unconstitutional violation of the free speech rights of
The courts’ restraint is not driven by constitutional propriety alone. First, even if a law is struck down as the civil rights movement.
unconstitutional, and the court recommends that a new, well-tailored version take its place, a legal vacuum
could exist for decades until Parliament enacts new law.
Second, an offensive speaker must be protected by the State, even from a rampaging mob that is “incited” to
violence if a “reasonable person” would not be. In 1989, the Supreme Court denounced the Heckler’s Veto44
in Rangarajan’s case [1989 SCC (2) 574] and said that the State must protect a speaker who offends while she
exercises her constitutional right, that to act otherwise is to surrender to the “blackmail and intimidation” by
those who object to her speech. Yet, India’s police per population ratio being one of the lowest in the world,
a judge may worry about violence that would not be contained by the few and ill-equipped police personnel
available on the spot.

Karuna Nundy
So even though much of the Penal Code of 1860 is pre-constitutional, has outrageous speech laws devised
by a colonial British sovereign interested in keeping the peace between communities and with interests
antithetical to free speech, these laws persist.
A Law Commission report on press and media laws is on the anvil. In an ideal world, they would have the
resources to run a massive public campaign of consultation and truly lead a buy-in on draft laws that are
firmly constitutional.
In an ideal world, Parliament would make laws that are constitutional in the first round, leaving representation
of their voters’ perceived sectarian interests behind.
On what basis can India criminalise hate speech?
Colonials, by definition, are not invested in the democratic catalyst of free expression, indeed it is in the
architecture of colonial governance to suppress it. In India, this British colonial impulse found expression
in the anti-speech laws of the Penal Code; they preserve religious and community sensitivities, a veneer of
peace at the cost of free expression. Little has changed in Section 295A, for instance, since it was enacted. It
reads today:
Section 295A: Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any
class of [citizens of India], [by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or
otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished
with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 4[three years], or with fine, or
with both.]
The temptations toward ease of governance have kept Parliamentary enactments on a fairly steady course
in the direction originally set by the colonials. Indeed, examples of politicians supporting free speech when
in Opposition, and cracking down on it while in government are manifold. Section 153A of the Penal Code

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was only inserted in 1969, 22 years after Indian independence:
153A. Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence,
language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.—
(1) Whoever—
(a) by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, promotes or
attempts to promote, on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community
or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different
religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities…
Thomas Macaulay, who lead the drafting of the Indian Penal Code of 1860, was, for all his colonial sins,
good at drafting. The drafting of modern criminal speech laws is sometimes more sloppy and inconsistent.
Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 struck down as unconstitutional in the Shreya Singhal
case (supra), was defended by the Union Government in court though their leaders had censured it while in
opposition. Ironically, the law is based on a loosely worded and oppressive modern law in England: section
127 of the Communications Act. Section 66A is phrased as below:
Section 66A: Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,—
(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or
(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience,
danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making
use of such computer resource or a communication device,
(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience
or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages,

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shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.
At its lowest threshold, therefore, anyone who found say a text message “annoying” or “inconvenient” –
which was not defined anywhere – could ask a constable to arrest the person texting, since the offence was
“cognisable”.
In all these laws, no distinction is made between hate speech by speakers who speak against powerful
majority communities or against those minority communities that have been historically discriminated
against. Often, the intention required by the law to “insult” religion for instance, is deduced mainly from the
words themselves.
The Supreme Court has limited the ambit of these provisions in a variety of ways. For instance, for a charge
under Section 153A to stick, there must be two communities between whom the speaker’s words “promote
enmity”. It is not enough for the speaker to be from one community and the subject of the speech from
another. For a conviction under Section 295A, the Court has found that the insult must be “aggravated” and
with a “calculated tendency” to disrupt public order.
The test is this; the court must uphold free speech under Article 19(1)(a), it may strike down a law that places
limits on speech that are:
Not “reasonable restrictions” under article 19(2) and
If the restriction does not fall within: “sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State,
friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt
of court, defamation or incitement to an offence”
Yet, the laws cited above are too broad and have a chilling effect, like Section 66A that was struck down by
the court for those reasons. Moreover, the process is the punishment under the criminal justice system,

Karuna Nundy
where many struggle through it for years, in part because the average constable and even on occasion trial
courts do not have in front of them the Supreme Court judgments that have amended the law.
The case of the national anthem
Not all orders of the Supreme Court have been progressive. “Hate” against the country has now been
criminalized. On November 30 a two-judge bench at the Supreme Court ordered cinema halls to close their
doors during the anthem, and directed India’s 1.25 billion citizens to stand up for the song while gazing
upon the flag displayed on the movie screen. What was earlier framed as a “duty” now makes criminals
of internationalists, humanists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses who do not wish to stand for the anthem. Ultra-
nationalist goons have a legal tool to wield now. The statute – the Prevention of Insults to National Honour
Act – only has a negative duty, to refrain from disturbing others when the anthem is in progress. The anthem
order has created a positive requirement to stand for the anthem.
This comes against a long line of constitutional jurisprudence. In the Rangarajan case (supra) the Supreme
Court directed the State to protect speakers from hostile audiences. In Bijoe Emmanuel vs State of Kerala,
the Supreme Court honored the choice of three school-children not to sing the anthem, and their identities
as Jehovah’s Witnesses that prevented them from doing so – on the occasion in question they happened to
be standing. The Court has, in this case, extended the limitations on speech rather than construing legal
limitations strictly. This is contrary to Article 19(2) that allows Parliament alone to restrict free speech.
Indeed, in Shreya Singhal (supra) the Supreme Court stated:
The nexus between the message and action that may be taken based on the message is conspicuously
absent – there is no ingredient in this offence of inciting anybody to do anything which a reasonable man
would then say would have the tendency of being an immediate threat to public safety or tranquility.
The anthem order is an interim order which may be overturned by the end of the case. Until that happens,
those who want to respect the anthem sitting down hands folded, those who do not wish to stand and some

Karuna Nundy
of those who cannot, all face likely criminal prosecution.
Meanwhile in the United States, an international outlier in its traditional dedication to free speech, President
Trump has already proposed a penalty for burning the American flag. Punishment, he says, could include a
year in jail or loss of citizenship. In Trump’s way are two Supreme Court rulings that protect the act as a form
of free speech. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided in Texas v Johnson:
“Though symbols often are what we ourselves make of them, the flag is constant in expressing beliefs
Americans share, beliefs in law and peace and that freedom which sustains the human spirit. The case
here today forces recognition of the costs to which those beliefs commit us. It is poignant but fundamental
that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt,”
The late Justice Antonin Scalia joined the majority opinion in Texas v Johnson, but with SCOTUS soon to be
dominated by nominees of an administration that includes alt-right Republicans, the fate of these freedoms
may be in question.
Onward
What might better laws against hate speech look like? The bounds of hate speech are difficult to legislate.
They leave a lot of room for individual prejudice to drive arrests and jail time. India and other legal cultures
around the world struggle today with questions that have not, as yet, been answered completely:
How can legal systems ensure curbs on majoritarian bullying that puts those who speak for minority rights
through the legal wringer of ‘hate speech’?
Should only that speech which reinforces the diminished humanity of historically oppressed identities be
silenced?

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Must empirical evidence be presented to demonstrate that a reasonable person would be incited to lawless
action, when guilt is argued?
These questions are at the edge of what should and should not be criminalized hate speech. In Shreya Singhal
judgment [(2013) 12 SCC 73], a case I argued along with other counsel, the Supreme Court for the first time
struck down a speech law because it was overbroad and had a chilling effect on writers and speakers. In Arup
Bhuyan [(2011) 3 SCC 377], the court said that to survive constitutional scrutiny a law can only prohibit
speech that “incites imminent lawless action”.
In the global spectrum of speech laws, Indian law is restrictive. As we saw above, even according to our own
constitutional standards there is low hanging fruit that causes speakers to rot in our slow criminal justice
system, laws that can be struck down today as unconstitutional. On the other end of the spectrum are “free
speech fundamentalists”, those who believe there should be no hate-speech laws at all, because restrictions
on speech are used often enough to silence minorities. It is fashionable therefore in such discourse to abhor
any restrictions at all. The “free speech fundamentalist” view fails recognize that hate speech does, over time,
reinforce structural discrimination and in extreme situations, genocide.
Incendiary speech published in Bal Thackeray’s newspaper Saamna before the Mumbai riots, and the
speeches in Kenya and Rwanda preceding the sectarian violence in those countries, must be considered. In
Rwanda, inflammatory speech broadcast via radio station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (Radio
RTLM) has been widely documented. Reportedly, broadcasts incited people to participate in the violence
because “the enemy is the Tutsi”. Tutsis were compared to cockroaches, and survivors said that the genocide
might not have happened but for those broadcasts.
Susan Benesch, a Harvard political scientist is evolving categories of “dangerous speech” – while this appears
to be “hate speech” in different packaging, the ideas are gaining traction and provide a useful guide to ideal
hate-speech laws. These include the level of a speaker’s influence, the grievances or fears of the audience,
whether or not the speech act is understood as a call to violence, the social and historical context, and the

Karuna Nundy
way in which the speech is disseminated45.
The world is not ideal, the politics in many countries favours the dominance of a single identity and the
world is faced with difficult questions on hate and hate-speech. We can get close to what ideal hate speech
laws would look like, but it is the political negotiations that challenge us in the road ahead.
Shaheen Dhada, having been through a brief wringer in the criminal justice system, got lucky. Her case was
one of online speech, and it caught the imagination of middle class journalists. She was a great plaintiff – her
post was that inoffensive, the violence against her egregious. The case against her was closed; the High Court
even awarded damages. Dr Abdul Dhada, Shaheen’s uncle, did not hold the damage to his hospital against
her. Shaheen is back on Facebook; her last few public posts are strongly political.
Bal Thackeray rests in peace, never prosecuted for inciting riots in Mumbai. 45. The Dangerous Speech Project, “Dangerous Speech:
A Proposal to Prevent Group Violence”, Susan Benesch,
February 23, 2013, http://dangerousspeech.org/
guidelines/

Modi, Majoritarianism and Media Manipulation
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta46
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi is a consummate spin-doctor. He and his army of followers have
been adept at manipulating much of the mass media in the world’s largest democracy to propagate the right-
wing, Hindu nationalist and majoritarian ideology of the political party he heads, that is, the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). More than his predecessors, Modi has been able to advantageously use the media to
build his “brand” as a sort of a “supreme leader” of the “second republic of India”. The fact that his political
opponents are considerably weak and fragmented has helped this process through which the Prime Minister
and his supporters have successfully stifled dissent and browbeaten their critics.
-I-
Now in the middle of his five-year term, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has displayed adroit abilities 46. Research assistance was provided by Advait Rao
to manipulate the media to shape public opinion with the help of sympathetic journalists. A recent example Palepu.
of these abilities is the media support he has garnered for his controversial decision to demonetise high-
denomination currency notes on 8 November. By making illegal 85 per cent of the currency in circulation,
the government disrupted the working of the economy and put to great hardship large numbers of ordinary
people, especially the poor. It was a huge, unprecedented shock to the system. Indian society has never been
shaken by an economic decision as it has on this occasion. While sections of the media did indeed highlight
the problems that demonetisation had caused, much of the media “balanced” reports and commentaries
by highlighting the “good” impact the move would have in the long term by removing black money and
curtailing the use of counterfeit currency by terrorists.
One of the more egregious examples of the attempts to shape public opinion was to publicise a “national
survey” using a mobile phone application in which some 500,000 people participated. It was claimed that 90
per cent of those surveyed supported the Prime Minister’s decision to impose an overnight ban on the use of
high-denomination currency notes. What was not emphasised in sections of the media was a simple fact: the
very manner in which the questionnaire was structured ensured the outcome of the survey. Many Indians,
especially those living in rural areas, do not have the facility to use mobile phone apps but the publicity given
to the survey was typical of the way his bhakts (or blind followers) operate.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
A few weeks earlier, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in the government had made a somewhat
crude attempt to first penalise a Hindi language television news channel, NDTV India, for apparently
disclosing information that could have adversely affected the operations of the country’s military forces and
jeopardised “national security.” After there was a hue and cry against the government’s decision to order
the channel to stop broadcasting for a day as a form of punishment, the Ministry backtracked and kept
its decision on hold. While the decision against NDTV India was ostensibly taken by an inter-ministerial
committee, it was evident that the decision could not have been taken without the approval of Modi himself.
The order against the television channel came a day after the government’s Minister of State for Home
Affairs Kiren Rijiju argued that the habit of the media to raise questions was not “good culture”. His remark
came against a backdrop of sharp questioning of the police version of the killing of alleged supporters of the
extremist group, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), following a jailbreak in Bhopal, Madhya
Pradesh, a state ruled by the BJP. A few days later, Modi was the chief guest at a function to award journalists 47. See P. Chhibber and R. Verma, “The BJP’s 2014
‘Modi Wave’: An Ideological Consolidation of the Right”,
for their professional excellence, the Ramnath Goenka Memorial Awards – Goenka founded the Indian
Economic and Political Weekly 49.39 (2014): p. 27.
Express newspaper group. On this occasion, the Prime Minister reminded his audience about the days of the
Emergency in 1975-77 when the Indira Gandhi regime had sharply abridged the fundamental rights of the 48. See also J. Pal, “Banalities Turned Viral: Narendra
Modi and the Political Tweet”, Television & New Media
country‘s citizens, including the right to free expression, and placed many journalists behind bars. 16.4 (2015): pp. 378-387.
A distinctive feature of the 16th general elections in India that took place in April-May 2014 was the manner
in which large sections of the mass media extended wholehearted support to the candidature of Modi.
Never before47 have big business houses and industrial groups so openly advocated the candidature of an
individual in the way corporate captains extolled his virtues in the run-up to the elections, the results of
which were declared on 16 May that year. Since a substantial section of India’s mass media is owned and
controlled by corporate conglomerates, the corporate media can be credited to a considerable extent with
Modi’s resounding victory in the polls. The media, in turn, was greatly benefitted by an unprecedented
advertising campaign launched to promote him – the scale of the campaign was unparalleled in Indian
history not only in the traditional media (print, radio, television, outdoor banners and hoardings) but even
more so in the new media (internet websites, blogs and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter48).
“The vague but exhilarating promise of good times was not only translated into catchy campaign slogans

but also acquired its own fast-circulating hashtags, domain names, and strong everyday presence on social
media. The impending arrival of the long awaited “good times” emerged as a powerful meme in the 2014
general elections in India.”49
The expenditure incurred by the BJP was not limited to the traditional media. The use of holograms and
virtual sets to broadcast Modi’s speeches across the length and breadth of the country was unmatched in
terms of sheer scale and spread. Live audio-visual feeds of each one of his public rallies were provided to
television channels for free, thereby enabling media organisations to cut costs considerably. This was not the
only nor? the first of its kind in his campaign. Never before had the internet been used in India in the way
it was in the run-up to the elections. A number of observers have pointed out that Modi’s Twitter campaign
has been one of the most successful by a public figure. The campaign was coordinated and sustained through
various social media outlets and was integrated into his larger election outreach campaign, which included 49. R. Kaur, “Good Times, Brought to You by Brand Modi”,
a website (www.narendramodi.in), a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and profiles on Google+, LinkedIn, Television & New Media 16.4 (2015): pp. 323-330.
Tumbler, and Instagram. Each of these were (and continue to be) updated regularly with news, statements, 50. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, “Media Savvy Modi or
and images of the leader (Pal, 2015). His image management consultants have included some of the most Modi Savvy Media?”, NewsClick.in
prominent figures from the world of advertising in India and heads of top agencies, including individuals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLokxXHW7ac;
and “Media Ethics and Democracy”, NALSAR University
such as Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather, Prasoon Joshi of McCann and Sam Balsara of Madison World. of Law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGyuNQGFcoA
A study by the Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi, found that Mr Modi’s campaign took up a third of the
prime time on television news channels in March and April 2014, and this proportion crossed the half-way
mark in the first ten days of May that year. Modi got seven times more coverage than the Vice-President
of the Indian National Congress Rahul Gandhi and three times more coverage than Arvind Kejriwal of the
Aam Aadmi Party who went on to become the Chief Minister of Delhi. From the day the elections were
announced till the day the polling ended, 29 million people in India made 227 million interactions (posts,
comments, shares and likes) regarding the Indian elections on Facebook. That was two-thirds the daily
active Facebook users in India and an average of ten interactions per person. In addition, 13 million people
made 75 million interactions regarding Modi.50 One of the big successes of the media campaign for Modi
in 2014 was that India’s multi-party democracy – in which the two largest parties, the BJP and the Congress
have together (but without their coalition partners) obtained roughly half the popular vote in successive

elections held in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009 – was converted into an American-style Presidential
contest in which two personalities (Modi versus Rahul Gandhi) mattered.
While the 2014 campaign was Modi’s first national election campaign, he had earlier used the media
effectively to win elections to the legislative assembly of the western Indian state of Gujarat on three occasions.
He served as Chief Minister of Gujarat between 2001 and 2014. Soon after he became Chief Minister for
the first time, Gujarat witnessed widespread communal riots which saw Hindu mobs killing nearly 1,000
Muslims over a period of a few months. The incidents were apparently triggered off by the burning of a train
compartment in which Hindu pilgrims were travelling at Godhra railway station in February 2002. State
assembly elections took place later in the year which saw Modi winning the elections with comfortably high
margins. As Christophe Jaffrelot subsequently wrote:
During the 2002 Gujarat assembly election campaign, one of BJP’s television commercials began with
the sound of a train pulling into a station, followed by the clamour of riots and women’s screams before 51. C. Jaffrelot, “Narendra Modi and the Power of
the ringing of temple bells was blocked out by the sound of automatic rifle fire. A few frames later, Television in Gujarat”, Television & New Media 16.4
Modi’s reassuring countenance appeared, hinting to voters that only he could protect Gujarat from (2015): pp. 346-353.
such violence.51
Techniques of influencing voters using emotional appeals through media campaigns were improved and
polished by the time the 2014 general elections took place. At a panel discussion organised by the Media
Foundation in New Delhi on 20 March 2014, Zoya Hasan, recently retired professor of political science at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, rued the tone and tenor of Modi’s campaign in the media:
the argument that the media is uncritically presenting is that Modi could steer the country out of the
crisis by giving a strong leadership... I think some media houses have gone along with the argument
that the ten years of UPA (United Progressive Alliance, the coalition led by the Congress that was in
power between 2004 and 2014) rule is a wasted decade and further we have been told that nothing has
happened in the last 60 years which is why the voters must give Narendra Modi at least 16 months to
transform India. As a social scientist, I find this very troubling because in one stroke the whole past

has been demolished and what is surprising is that none of this has really been challenged and in fact,
the media has lent credence by simply repeating this perversion of our contemporary history.
- II -
The outcome of the 16th general elections in India was significant for more than one reason. For the first
time after 30 years, a single political party was on its own able to win more than half the 543 seats in the Lok
Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. The BJP won 282 seats with 31.4 per cent of the vote, while the vote
share of the Congress came down below the 20 per cent mark for the first time – it managed to win only 44
seats, the lowest ever. The results were a consequence of the Westminster style of Parliamentary democracy
followed in India, often described as “first past the post, winner takes all”. The BJP’s strategy of concentrating
its electoral campaign to roughly 300-odd constituencies, ignoring some 250 constituencies where the party
perceived that it had little chances of winning, clearly yielded rich political dividends. What also helped the
party was that the voter turnout in 2014 was the highest ever, exceeding the previous high recorded in 1984:
more than two out of three voters eligible to vote actually exercised their franchise.
Significantly, only two out of the 282 members of the Lok Sabha belonging to the BJP are non-Hindu in a
country where one out of seven Indians (or around 14 per cent) is Muslim. (India has more Muslims than
all but two countries in the world, Indonesia and Pakistan.). The party won two out of every three seats it
contested, or 282 of the 428 seats for which it put up candidates and its vote share was close to 40 per cent
in the Parliamentary constituencies it contested. “In its traditional strongholds of northern, western and
central India, the BJP managed a virtual sweep”, it was observed (Chhibber and Verma 2014). A surprise
of the 2014 Lok Sabha was its impressive performance in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most-populous province in
which one out of six of the country’s citizens reside. The Bahujan Samaj Party, led by Mayawati (she uses
one name) which has large following among the lower-caste Dalit community, could not win a single Lok
Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, whereas the BJP and its ally Apna Dal together obtained 73 out of the 80 seats
in the state, indicating once again how the “first past the post” system tends to exaggerate both victories and
defeats.

Following its victory, the BJP under Modi zealously sought to propagate its majoritarian agenda which is
inherently against minorities in general and Muslims in particular. The BJP and the Sangh Parivar – the
family of organisations belonging to the ideological fraternity led by the RSS – has always claimed that under
successive Congress governments minorities were “appeased” to serve as “vote banks”. The fringe groups
owing allegiance to the Parivar sought to curb consumption of beef, would suggest which films should not
be viewed, rewrote school textbooks on history to play up the achievements of Hindu nationalist leaders
over the more secular ones and attempted to emphasise the role of the country’s first Home Minister Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel over that of India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. As far as the media
is concerned, eminent journalist and winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Palagummi Sainath noted
that behind the electoral mandate and the usurping of media power was a careful, if not, uncomfortable
alliance between religious fundamentalists and corporate captains, namely, those who headed large private
enterprises and were convinced about the virtues of free enterprise capitalism:
“All of this happening within a context [...] that it is not just politics, it is not just communalism. I would
argue that India is today ruled by an alliance […] it’s an alliance of socio-religious fundamentalists and
economic market fundamentalists. The two are meeting in a bed called the media. Therefore when you
speak of ‘media as the fourth estate’, it is very difficult now to tell the difference between fourth estate
and real estate”.
Since the BJP came to power under Modi’s leadership, it has made concerted attempts to put its own supporters
to control important segments and institutions in Indian society: from universities to the bureaucracy and
media organisations. The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) was one such educational institution
which was roiled in controversy in December 2015 over the appointment as its chairman of Gajendra
Chauhan, an ardent supporter of the BJP and its ideological parent, the social organisation the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The students’ body of the FTII subsequently staged protests over the following
months against this appointment. Many alumni and stalwarts from the film industry also voiced their
concerns over the appointment, but to no avail. The appointment of the Chairman of the FTII was hardly
the only one of its kind. The person who was appointed to head the Central Board of Film Certification
(CBFC), Pahlaj Nihalani, had made a number of publicity films for Modi’s election campaigns. Ideologues of

the RSS and the BJP were appointed to head other cultural and academic bodies, such as the Indian Council
for Historical Research, the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and the Indira Gandhi National Centre
for the Arts.
- III -
Crucial to the sustenance of democracy is the free expression of views, including views that are contrary
to those espoused by ruling elites – the spaces for which have been shrinking in India in recent years,
even before the BJP came to power. The independence of the media, which is meant to ensure checks and
balances in the working of other institutions of the state (including legislatures, bureaucracies, the judiciary,
the defence services and so on), has been considered indispensable to democracy. During the elections that
took place in April-May 2014, the pernicious phenomenon of “paid news” continued unabated. Paid news
entails illegal payments in cash or kind for content in publications and television channels that appears as if
it has been independently produced by unbiased and objective journalists. Simply put, paid news is a form
of advertising that masquerades as news. In different forms, paid news has existed for many years; but when
this phenomenon becomes prevalent during elections, the democratic process gets subverted.
On 16 April 2014, Akshay Raut, director general of the Election Commission of India, stated that as many
as 368 show-cause notices had been served to candidates standing for Lok Sabha elections, on the basis of
complaints filed by media certification and monitoring committees appointed in various districts, alleging
that the candidates had paid money to get their news published or broadcast on television channels. Out of
these, in as many as 198 instances, the Commission’s allegations were not refuted or challenged. There is a
nexus involving certain politicians and representatives of the media to deploy money power to undermine
the democratic right of ordinary citizens to receive credible information. News is supposed to be neutral and
differentiated from opinion, articles or commentaries on the one hand, and advertising on the other. But this
does not happen, especially in cases of paid news, as the reader or viewer is unable to distinguish between
content that has been paid for and that which has not.

Unfortunately, the Press Council of India (PCI) – which could have curtailed corruption in the media – is
an ineffective body. The Council is a quasi-judicial authority set up by an act of Parliament but it has no
statutory powers to punish. Far from putting a person behind bars, the PCI cannot fine anyone. The writ
of the Council does not extend beyond the print medium to television, radio or the internet. The majority
of its 30 members represent the media industry. The Council has no mandate by which to enforce the
observation of its own code of ethics, as there is no legally binding quality to them which could justify a
court’s intervention. There is, consequently, little motivation for the PCI (or for that matter, the country’s
courts) to promote good journalistic practices and to curb corruption in the media.
In July 2009, the Press Council of India constituted a two-member sub-committee (of which this author
was a member) to examine the “paid news” phenomenon. The report of the sub-committee mentioned
scores of instances of paid news, named names and detailed the phenomenon, before making several diverse
proposals that could curb malpractices in the media. Among those named were some of the country’s most
widely circulated daily newspapers in different languages, such as the Times of India, the largest circulated
English daily in the world, the Dainik Jagran and the Dainik Bhaskar, the first and second most widely
circulated Hindi dailies, Lokmat in Marathi, Punjab Kesari, the most widely circulated Punjabi daily and
Eenadu, one of the most widely circulated Telugu dailies. All the allegations in the sub-committee’s report
were attributed and opportunities were provided to those against whom allegations were levelled to exercise
their right to reply.
In April 2010, following the submission of the PCI sub-committee’s report, the Council’s then Chairman
Justice G.N. Ray appointed a “drafting committee” which prepared a shorter report (running into roughly
3,600 words or a tenth of the length of the sub-committee’s report) that, by and large, contained the
concluding observations and recommendations in the report of the sub-committee. On 31 July that year,
the Council decided by a show of hands of the members present and voting that the full report of the sub-
committee would not be appended with the report that would be presented to the Ministry of Information
& Broadcasting.

The voting process was such that no formal record of it was made and no votes for or against were recorded.
Twenty-four of the thirty members in the PCI (including its chairman and secretary) attended the 31 July
meeting – making it one of the most well-attended meetings of the Council. Twelve members opposed the
sub-committee’s report being attached to the final report, and three abstained. Only nine members of the
PCI, less than a third, voted in favour of the proposition. The result was that the 36,000 word indictment of
the corrupt practices of a section of the Indian media contained in the sub-committee’s report was sought to
be reduced to a footnote, as a document for “reference”.
Despite the best efforts of certain vested interests in the PCI, the report of the sub-committee entered the
public domain because at least 30 copies of the document were in cyberspace since copies of the report had
been e-mailed to all members of the Council. In fact, the report probably gained more attention than it
otherwise would have if it had been made public by the PCI in the first place. Nevertheless, the report was
not an “official” document and did not remain one for around 14 months, that is, till the Central Information
Commission, acting on a complaint by Manu Moudgil under the Right to Information Act, ordered the
Council to make the report available on its website by 10 October 2011, which it did.
- IV -
With a relatively small number of corporate groups dominating the industry, there is a concomitant tendency
to narrow the agenda of journalism and, at deep cultural levels, simultaneously make it self-serving. For
democracy to strengthen and mature, the presence of people with informed opinions and plurality of
dialogue become imperative. The boundaries between the boardroom and the newsroom have become
increasingly blurred. Though a free media is fundamental to the existence of a liberal democracy, questions
about the accountability and transparency of media companies need to be addressed.
There has been an exponential rise in the use of the internet as a medium of mass communication as well
as personalised communication. Despite the apparent proliferation of the mass media in India and the
existence of numerous publications (around 100,000 titles were registered with the Registrar of Newspapers

for India at the end of March 2016, including nearly 6,000 in the last two years), radio stations, television
channels (almost 900 have been given uplinking or downlinking permission by the Ministry of Information
& Broadcasting) and internet websites, a few players exercise dominance over specific market segments.
In other words, India’s media markets are often oligopolistic in character. There is another rather unusual
aspect of the media in the country – India is the only major democracy in the world where news and current
affairs programmes on radio are monopolised by the government by executive fiat despite the existence of
hundreds of privately-owned radio stations and community radio stations.
There are many media organisations in the country that are owned and controlled by a wide variety of
entities including corporate bodies, societies and trusts, individuals and Hindu Undivided Family (HUF)
units, a uniquely Indian legal entity. The concerned corporate entities too are of different kinds: from small
proprietary concerns, partnership firms and closely-held private limited companies to larger companies
whose shares are listed on stock exchanges. Many of these groups have complex ownership structures with
complicated cross-holdings by multiple related entities. Information about such organisations and people is
scattered, incomplete, and dated, thereby making it rather difficult to collate such information, leave alone
analyse it.
A notable example of corporate ownership of the media is the case of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)
becoming one of India’s biggest (if not, the biggest) media groups after acquiring full ownership and
managerial control over the Network18 group and part of the Eenadu group in May 2014. What Reliance has
achieved by becoming one of the biggest player in the country’s news media is that it has enhanced its ability
to influence public opinion, thereby also strengthening its hold over the working of the country’s political
economy. The Network18 group owns television channels such as CNBC-TV18, CNN-IBN, CNBC Awaaz,
IBN7, IBN Lokmat and Colors, websites like Moneycontrol.com, Firstpost.com, In.com, IBNLive.Com,
Cricketnext.in, Bookmyshow.com and Homeshop18 (a television cum internet venture), besides printed
magazines such as Forbes India and Overdrive, among other media and non-media properties. Many of these
dominate their respective market segments, in particular, the segments providing news about shares and
other financial instruments as well as the activities of corporate entities. In short, the media conglomerate
owned and controlled by the Reliance group has its footprint spread not only across the length and breadth

of the country, but also across different genres of news and entertainment. The Reliance group has financially
supported other media organisations like New Delhi Television.
There are other notable recent examples of large corporate groups acquiring ownership interests in media
organizations. For instance, in May 2012, the Aditya Birla group led by Kumar Mangalam Birla announced
that it had acquired a 27.5 per cent stake in Living Media India Limited, a company headed by Aroon
Purie. Living Media acts as a holding company and also owns 57.46 per cent in TV Today Network, the
listed company that controls the group’s television channels (Aaj Tak and India Today TV, earlier Headlines
Today) and a host of publications (including India Today, Mail Today and Cosmopolitan).
The emergence of cartels and oligarchies could be a sign of an increasingly globalised but homogenized
communication landscape, despite the growth of internet technology bringing about a semblance of
democratization by allowing for more user-generated content by “pro-sumers” (producer-consumers). On
12 August 2014, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) published its recommendations on 52. Sukumar Muralidharan, “TRAI Report on Media
Issues Relating to Media Ownership. The key issues highlighted in this report included (a) plurality, (b) Ownership: Press’s Curious Response”, Economic and
internal plurality and (c) the need to define ownership and control separately in media companies and Political Weekly 49.36 (September 6, 2014): p. 10-12.
groups. The TRAI report stated that the identification of who controls a media outlet is the first step in
documenting plurality. There may be thousands of newspapers and hundreds of news channels in the news
media market, but if they are all “controlled” by only a handful of entities, then there is insufficient plurality
of news and views presented to the people.
The TRAI paper stated that it has come across issues, practices and trends that may jeopardize “internal
plurality” of media outlets and that such threats are no less pernicious than cross-media ownership issues.
The recommendations of the regulatory body include the need for drawing a clear distinction between
the terms “ownership” and “control”. Ownership implies a pure economic interest in the form of equity or
shareholding in a company. Sukumar Muralidharan has pointed out that it would be a difficult proposal
to prohibit certain kinds of entities, such as political parties and religious bodies, from entering the news
broadcast domain.52 Not surprisingly, much of the mainstream media discourse has not tried to engage with

the TRAI’s recommendations. One reason for the silence could be that many powerful media houses (such
as the Times group led by its flagship company Bennett Coleman & Company Limited) have complicated
ownership structures with cross-media holdings whose implications have been critically reviewed in the
TRAI paper.
Political parties and persons with political affiliation are owning and controlling increasingly larger sections of
the media in India. Particular politicians from the country’s “grand old party,” the Indian National Congress,
have done well for themselves as owners of media companies. Vijay Darda, who has been a Congress member
of the Rajya Sabha, is the chairman of the Lokmat media group that controls the television news channel in
Marathi, IBN-Lokmat, apart from the newspaper Lokmat, the largest-circulated Marathi daily. Political lines
are not always well delineated; it is often all in the family. Thus, Rajeev Shukla, a three-term Congress MP
from the Rajya Sabha, a former Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, secretary of the All India
Congress Committee and an important functionary of the cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India
(BCCI), controls the News 24 television channel together with his wife Anuradha Prasad. The husband-
wife duo controls the group which owns television channels News 24, Aapno 24 and E24 and radio channel
Dhamaal 24 through News24 Broadcast India Ltd.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) controls quite a media conglomerate at a national level. Its central
organs are People’s Democracy in English, published from New Delhi, Kolkata, Kochi, Hyderabad, and
Agartala, and the Lok Lehar in Hindi. The CPI(M) publishes a theoretical quarterly, The Marxist; five dailies
in different Indian languages; several weeklies and fortnightlies in Assamese, Odia, Bengali, Malayalam,
Punjabi, Kannada, Marathi, and Gujarati. Its Hindi weekly, Swadhinata, and its Urdu fortnightly, Abshar, are
published from Kolkata.
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena has the Saamna in Maharashtra. The RSS’s Organiser is of 1947 vintage, prior
to the partition of the country the same year. Over the years, this publication was edited by leading political
personalities, including senior BJP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister of India Lal Krishna Advani.
The Hindi publication of the RSS is named Panchajanya.

The realm of corporate media ownership or the profitability aspect of owning a media company or news
organisations, unfortunately does not fit into the free-market economics principles, neither does it make good
business sense to own a media organisation as Hartosh Singh Bal, Political Editor of the Caravan magazine
and website argues. Instead of economic profit, there is a political profit motive that drives corporations and
businessmen to buy and manage news organisations. Bal stated:
I would suggest that far more than even the question of advertising, in the context of the Indian media,
it is today ownership that is the real problem and one of the simplest things we can point to is that
in the post-liberalisation age from 1992 onwards, if we look at the new media launches, if you look
at NDTV, TV 18, Outlook, Open (magazines), think of any organisation, none of them are making
money. There are all loss making enterprises. So why are they in the business? Media is actually not a
very lucrative business, you actually lose money in media. So why are you there? It is basically influence
peddling, you are influencing governments, you are influencing things to gain in other ways with
your ownership. As a result, the owners are in a position where they are parleying their influence for
various things. Their closeness to government and big business is what is actually what is controlling
media mostly today. [...] The Television News Broadcasters Association after the 2009 crash, went to
the government basically asking for a bailout. Basically because there was not enough money in the
market, they just asked the government to subside them through advertising, that is what happened.
That sends a clear message.
The media watchdog website, thehoot.org, set up by the Media Foundation and edited by Sevanti Ninan,
conducted a quantitative and qualitative analysis in April-May 2012 to determine coverage across Indian
states across among five English news dailies – The Times of India, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times,
The Hindu, and The Economic Times. It was found that politics, crime and sports had been prioritized
overwhelmingly and an issue like agriculture had not got its due. Urban infrastructure and construction
of roadways were two of the most widely covered subjects. Merely three per cent of the total coverage was
devoted to the issue of agriculture while development news formed twice the coverage of agriculture with
6.13 per cent of the total coverage.

Robin Jeffrey, noted scholar on the Indian media, says that the absence of “Dalit men or women even in
minor editorial jobs on Indian language dailies meant that aspects of the life of Dalits were neglected.”53 In
his November 1996 article, “In Search Of a Dalit Journalist” in the Pioneer, B. N. Uniyal wrote that in all
the 30 years he had worked as a journalist he had never met a fellow journalist who was a Dalit. None of
his friends, editors or columnists knew of a Dalit journalist. Of the 686 accredited journalists listed by the
government of India’s Press Information Bureau that year, 454 had upper caste surnames, and none of them
suggested that they were Dalit. Of the remaining 232, Uniyal called 47 at random, but drew a blank.
-V-
The spread of information and communication technologies (ICT), including the internet and mobile
telephony, has been rapid and has irrevocably changed the way information is gathered and disseminated. But
access to the internet and mobile telephony has been uneven across the world and in India – a phenomenon 53. Robin Jeffrey, India’s Newspaper
often euphemistically described as the “digital divide.” There have been incredible changes in the media Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and the
Indian-language Press, 1977-99, London:
landscape across the globe over the last 20 years. The internet is only 25 years old. And the real changes the
Hurst, 2000, p. 178.
internet has brought about in the way human beings or human society exists is really been evident in the last
10 years. The internet has changed human society in ways very few of us could have ever imagined. Today
you carry in the palm of your hand your newspaper, your weekly magazine, your library of books, your
radio, your television set. It is not only a means of mass communication but personalised communication as
well. Roughly, half of the global population of 7 billion, had not used the internet at the time of writing this
article in late 2016.
In India, these inequalities are reflected in the way in which the internet has worked. In China and India,
the two largest countries in the world one can see this divide. In China, roughly a little more than half of
the population actively use the internet. In India that proportion is lower, possibly somewhere in the region
between a fourth and a third. But what has happened in India is something quite amazing, which few of us
could have anticipated. Here is a country of 1.3 billion people, with 700-750 million handsets, out of which
a third are internet-enabled smart phones. In most Indian cities, there are more SIM (Subscriber Identity

Modules) cards than human beings. This change has happened in a very short period of time.
At present, two contrasting (and contradictory) phenomena are visible in the Indian media. One section of
the media has become increasingly corrupt and even criminalised. At least three journalists, two of them
heading television news channels, had to spend time behind bars on charges of extortion, blackmail and
fraud. As already mentioned, the insertion of paid news or the masquerading of advertising as news is
rampant, especially in the run-up to elections. Particular media companies have cosy shareholding and
financial relations (“private treaties”) with advertisers and sponsors. Information considered unpalatable to
specific individuals and organizations (including political parties and corporate conglomerates) is blacked
out and favourable information highlighted.
Whether it be from government-owned or privately-owned media organizations, there will remain an

unfulfilled demand for quality reporting of facts and in-depth analyses of information. Since quality reporting
requires time and money, owners and controllers of profit-maximising media organisations will find enough
reasons to scrimp and scrounge. Thus, funding for in-depth, long-form, investigative journalism will have
to come from a variety of different sources, including from philanthropic organizations, civil society groups,
international and multilateral bodies, and perhaps even, government-supported agencies that share common
goals and aspirations.
Over the past two years, one sees an implicit and collusive campaign on the part of news anchors, journalists,
media owners to further state propaganda, the BJP’s agenda of Hindutva, nationalism and ultimately now,
a sustained campaign to redefine the boundaries of journalistic conduct so as to “reform” the role of a
professional journalist to that of someone who does not question the government beyond a point and who,
when issues or events of national security is concerned, is amenable going along with the government’s view
and that of the wider ideological fraternity in power. Any deviation from the preferred line unleashes the
wrath of not only internet trolls making abusive comments and calling names, but other supporters of the
ruling dispensation. Lawyers in Delhi physically attacked reporters on duty when students from Jawaharlal
Nehru University or JNU (including Kanhaiya Kumar) appeared in court after they had been arrested.

Former Army Chief who is now a minister in the Modi government, General V K Singh, has frequently
described journalists critical of the BJP as “presstitutes” and this pejorative term is regularly purveyed in
the social media against all those who do not toe the line of Modi and the government and party he leads.
Delivering the annual Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture titled “Political Free, Imprisoned by Profit” in 2016,
Sainath makes a case of how the evolution of the corporate media has influenced public discourse:
You can look at how the media have functioned. For me the ownership part is very critical: who we
are, what do we cover, who owns us, what are their interests? Is the media some kind of independent,
neutral entity or who are they anyway? But you can look at the coverage, say in the last two years,
of very major events, which are actually processes, covered as events. You can look at the coverage
of JNU and the fallout that happened there, how it was covered, where a couple of channels went
after the University’s progressive elements, created this national hysteria... and lack of patriotism and
everything else. You can look at it in the completely inane and vapid way in which they have covered
and continued to cover the murder of three rationalists (Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.
M. Kalburgi). Where were those great investigations you should have seen? Where was that serious
digging? Or you can look at how we have covered the fastest growing inequality in the world which is
happening in your country.
In January 2016, amid student protests condemning the “judicial killing” of Afzal Guru, reports began to
swarm the social media stating that JNU students had raised anti-India slogans calling for the breaking-up
and destruction of India and apparently to support the “independence” of Jammu & Kashmir, the only state
in India with a Muslim majority. It later transpired that the video footage (of these slogans being shouted by
JNU students) that had been circulated by the mainstream media and on social media had been doctored.
As Viju Cherian wrote in the Hindustan Times:
There was a time, in Independent India’s recent past, when the media was associated with words
like ‘truth’, ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’. Today, unfortunately, that’s not the case. Many people ‘fear’ media

persons and loathe what they represent — much like they do the police or goons who masquerade as
lawyers. Perhaps that is why words like ‘dalal’, ‘agents’ and ‘fixers’ are associated with certain sections
of the media. Perhaps that is why when a minister chooses a derogatory tag like ‘presstitutes’, many
people nod in agreement… [...] These five students are facing charges of sedition for allegedly raising
anti-national slogans in the university campus. The police have so far shown restraint and seem to
be handling the situation better than how they did little over a week ago when they stormed into the
campus and arrested a student leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, on what now appears to be doctored footage
— ‘evidence’ freely shown by some media outlets who either did not care to check the veracity of the
video, or, worse, did not mind in distorting facts in their line of duty.
Anurag Kashyap, who directed and produced a film, Udta Punjab, depicting the stories of the lives of
four individuals caught up in the hard drugs economy of Punjab, found himself in the midst of a major
controversy in June 2016 when the CBFC headed by the Prime Minister’s propagandist Nihalani claimed
that the film was “defaming” the people of the agriculturally-prosperous state in northern India where
elections are scheduled in early-2017. This is hardly the first instance of Nihalani seeking to protect Indian
audiences from allegedly defamatory content. The board has denied certification for a documentary film on
the lives of people working in and around a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Karnataka claiming it is “more than
education” and that it is “misleading” with a “political motive”.
Leslie Udwin, a British documentary film maker, produced a documentary called “India’s Daughter” in 2015,
on the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on the evening of December 16 2012 in Delhi. The documentary
was to be aired by India’s NDTV 24x7 television news channel (as well as on BBC World), but the Home
Ministry order that it not be broadcast on the ground that it contained “objectionable content”. Video copies
of the film were widely circulated over the internet even as NDTV adhered to the government’s order.

- VI -
On 31 October 2016, at the Ramnath Goenka Awards for Excellence in Journalism instituted by the Indian
Express group (which practises feisty and aggressive journalism critical of those in power and authority)
three significant developments took place. First, what many found ironical was that the chief guest was
none other than Prime Minister Modi who, while claiming his support for quality journalism, has also often
displayed his contempt for journalists who have been critical of him and who have questioned the actions
of his government and his party. Modi has walked out of interviews (including one by Karan Thapar in
October 2007) because he was unhappy with the questions that were asked. Second, a senior editor with
the Times of India Akshay Mukul who had been given an award for his book “Gita Press and the Making of
Hindu India” chose to boycott the function saying “he couldn’t live with the idea of Modi and me in the same
frame”. Third, the editor-in-chief of the Indian Express Raj Kamal Jha, while delivering his vote of thanks, put
up a defence for journalism that took on the establishment. He recounted an anecdote about the late Goenka
sacking a staffer because he had been praised by a chief minister, saying this journalist was clearly not doing
his job well. Jha remarked:
In this [era of] selfie journalism, if you don’t have the facts, it doesn’t matter. You just put a flag in
the frame and you hide behind it. Thank you very much sir for your speech, for your wonderful
underlining of the importance of credibility, I think that’s the most important thing that we journalists
can take away from your speech. [...] That’s very, very important, especially in this age, and I turn 50
this year and I can say that when we have a generation of journalists who are growing up in an age
of ‘retweets’ and ‘likes’ and they do not know that criticism from a government is a badge of honour.
[...] This year for Ramnath Goenka Awards, we got 562 applications. This is the highest ever and this
is very important to me to underline this number because this is the reply to those who say that good
journalism is dying, that journalists have been bought over by the government. Good journalism is
not dying; it is getting better and bigger. It’s just bad journalism makes lot more noise than it used to
do five years ago.

It is easy to be pessimistic about the current state of the Indian media. But just as a section of the media is
not just corrupt but criminal as well, another section is relentlessly continuing to struggle to hold truth up
to power, to play the role of an adversary and antagonist to the rich and the influential – by the politicians,
bureaucrats or industrialists. This section of the “fourth estate”, by fulfilling its role and responsibilities
with not only truthfulness, fairness and objectivity but also with diligence and tenacity, ensures greater
transparency in society and also holds accountable those who may be misusing or abusing their discretionary
powers.
Across India, even as one group of high-profile television anchors adopt jingoistic and hyper-nationalist
positions that are ventilated in an arrogant and patronising demeanour, another section of less well-known
journalists who quietly work out of small towns and remote rural areas regularly face threats, including
threats of bodily harm if not physical liquidation, for doing their job with honesty and sincerity. This is the
dichotomous reality of the complex and diverse world of the mass media in India, a lot of it pretty terrible
and depressing but some of it also displaying hope and optimism – despite the best efforts of Modi and his
minions to enforce subservience and uncritical uniformity.

இலக்கியமும் தணிக்கையும் Literature and Censorship
முனைவர் பெ.முருகன்
நாம் ஒவ்வொருவரும் தணிக்கையாளர்கள்தான். சுயதணிக்கையாளர்கள், அதேசமயம் சமூகத்

தணிக்கையாளர்களும்கூட. சிந்திப்பவற்றை, மனதில் த�ோன்றுபவற்றை அப்படியே யாரும்
வெளிப்படுத்துவதில்லை. அவற்றை வடிகட்டி இதைப் பேசலாம், எழுதலாம் என்று முடிவுசெய்து
பின்னரே வெளிப்படுத்துகின்றோம். மனம் சிந்திக்கும் வேகம் நமக்குத் தெரியும். சிந்தனையை
வெளிப்படுத்த நேரும்போது எச்சரிக்கை வடிகட்டியையும் மனமே முன்னால் நீட்டிக்கொண்டு
நிற்கிறது. ஒருவரின் மனம�ொழியை அப்படியே வெளியே வைத்தால் அவரது காலம் உடனடியாக
முடிவுக்கு வந்துவிடும். வடிகட்டியில் எங்காவது சிறு ஓட்டை விழுந்து க�ொஞ்சம் பெரிய துணுக்குகள்
- அது ஒற்றைச் ச�ொல்லாகவும் இருக்கலாம் - வெளியேறிவிட்டால் எத்தனைய�ோ பிரச்சினைகளைச்
சமாளிக்க வேண்டி நேரும். உறவுகளின் க�ோபத்திற்கு ஆளாக நேர்வத�ோடு சமயத்தில் உறவுகளையே
முற்றிலுமாக இழக்க நேரும். நட்புக்குள் பிணக்கும் பிரிவும் நேரும். சமூக வாழ்விலிருந்து
வெளியேறிவிடுவதைத் தவிர வழியில்லை.
நாம் சமூகத் தணிக்கையாளராகவும் விளங்குகிற�ோம். நம் எதிரில் இருப்போர், உறவுகள், நட்புகள்
எல்லாம் எப்படிப் பேச வேண்டும், எதைப் பேச வேண்டும், எங்கே பேச வேண்டும் என்றெல்லாம்
தீர்மானிக்கும் ஒரு தணிக்கையாளரும் நமக்குள் இடைவிடாது செயல்பட்டுக்கொண்டே
இருக்கிறார். அவற்றிற்கு மாறாகச் செயல்படுவ�ோரை ஏளனப்படுத்தவும் புறக்கணிக்கவும் முத்திரை
குத்தி ஒதுக்கவும் தயாராக இருக்கிற�ோம். இந்தச் சமூகத் தணிக்கையாளர்தான் ப�ொதுவெளியில்
கலை, இலக்கியம், ஊடகம், திரைப்படம் உள்ளிட்ட அனைத்தைப் பற்றியும் தம் கையில்
கத்தரியை வைத்துக்கொண்டு கருத்துச் ச�ொல்கிறவராக இயங்குகிறார். ‘ச்சே… இப்படியுமா
ஒருத்தன் எழுதுவான்?’, ‘இதையெல்லாம் சென்சார்ல எப்பிடி விட்டான்?’, ‘காலம் கெட்டுப் ப�ோச்சு’
என்கிற குரல்கள் சமூகத் தணிக்கையாளரிடம் இருந்து வருபவை. சுயதணிக்கையில் இருக்கும்
வேகத்தைவிடவும் சமூகத் தணிக்கையின்போது நம்முள் செயல்படும் வேகமும் க�ோபமும் மிகுதி.
அந்தச் சமயத்தில் சமூகப் ப�ொறுப்புணர்வு நமக்குள் க�ொப்பளித்துப் பெருகுகிறது. க�ொஞ்சம்
அதிகாரமும் வயது மூப்பும் இருந்துவிட்டால் சமூகத் தணிக்கையாளரின் அடாவடித்தனத்தைச்
சமாளிப்பது பெருங்கடினம்.
தணிக்கையே இல்லாத காலம் ஒன்றிருந்திருக்குமா? இருந்திருக்கலாம். ம�ொழி உருவாகாத காலமாக
அது இருக்கும். ஓவியம், நடனம் உள்ளிட்ட கலைகள் மிகவும் மூத்தவை. அவை ப�ோலச்செய்தலின்
காரணமாகவும் நம்பிக்கையின் அடிப்படையிலும் உருவான கலைகள் என்கிறார்கள். அவற்றின்
ஆதிக்காலத்தில் தணிக்கை இருந்திருக்காது. இன்றைக்கும்கூட பெரிதும் தணிக்கையற்ற கலைகள்

என இவற்றையே ச�ொல்லலாம். நிர்வாண ஓவியம் மனித உடல்கூறு வரைதலின் முக்கியப்

பயிற்சியாக விளங்குகிறது. நடன அசைவுகள் எதை வேண்டுமானாலும் உணர்த்தலாம். திரைப்பட
நடனங்களும் சரி, மரபான நாட்டியமும் சரி, அவற்றின் அசைவுகளில் பாலியல் கூறுகளின்
உச்சபட்சத்தைக் க�ொண்டிருக்கின்றன. ஆனால் ம�ொழி வழிக் கலைகள் அப்படியல்ல.
ம�ொழியை ஆதாரமாகக் க�ொண்ட கலை, இலக்கிய வடிவங்கள் த�ோன்றியது நாகரிக காலம்.
நாகரிகம் என்பதன் ப�ொருளே கட்டுப்பாடும் ஒழுங்கும் ஆகும். இன்றும் ‘நாகரிகம் தெரியாதவன்/
ள்’, ‘நாகரிகமாக நடந்துக�ொள்ளல்’, ‘நாகரிக உடை’, ‘நாகரிகப் பேச்சு’ ப�ோன்ற ச�ொற்களை
நடைமுறையில் பயன்படுத்துகிற�ோம். இவற்றில் கட்டுப்பாடும் ஒழுங்கும் இணைந்த ப�ொருள்
ப�ொதிந்திருக்கக் காணலாம். ம�ொழி என்பதே கட்டுப்பாட்டுக்கும் ஒழுங்குக்கும் உட்பட்ட
வெளிப்பாட்டுக் கருவிதான். இந்தக் கருவியை ஒவ்வொரு காலத்து மனிதனும் தன்னால் ஆன அளவு
தீட்டிக் கூர்மைப்படுத்தியிருக்கிறான். ஆகவே ம�ொழியையும் நாகரிகத்தையும் இணைத்தே பார்க்க
வேண்டும்.
ம�ொழியை ஆதாரமாகக் க�ொண்ட இலக்கிய வடிவம் நடைமுறை வாழ்வின் தணிக்கைக்கு எதிரானது
என்றும் ச�ொல்லலாம். அன்றாட வாழ்வின் நடைமுறைகள் தணிக்கை சார்ந்து நிகழும்போது மனம்
அவாவும் தணிக்கையற்ற சூழலை இலக்கியம் ஓரளவு சாத்தியமாக்குகிறது. இலக்கியத்தைக்
கற்கும்போது தணிக்கையற்ற சூழலில் உலவும் வாய்ப்புக் கிடைப்பதும் இலக்கியத்தை
அனுபவிப்பதன் காரணமாகலாம். இலக்கியத்தின் சாரமே தணிக்கையற்ற சூழலை அவாவுவதுதான்
என்றாலும் அது சமூக விளைப�ொருள் ஆன பிறகு தணிக்கையின் கரங்களுக்கு இலக்காக
நேர்ந்திருக்கிறது. அச்சு வசதி உருவாகாத காலத்து இலக்கியத்தின் படைப்பாளர்கள் மிகவும்
குறைவானவர்கள். புலமைக் குறுங்குழுவினர் என்றே ச�ொல்லலாம். இலக்கியச் சுவைஞர்களும்
எல்லைக்குட்பட்டவர்களே. கல்வியறிவு பரவலாகாத காலம் என்பதை நினைவில் க�ொள்ளலாம்.
அத்தகைய காலத்து இலக்கியம் முழுமையாக நமக்கு வந்து சேரவில்லை. த�ொகுத்தவர்கள் செய்த
தணிக்கை முக்கியமான காரணம். தமிழின் மரபிலக்கியம் பெரும்பான்மை த�ொகுப்பு நூல்கள்.
அவற்றில் நேர்ந்த தணிக்கை கணிசமாக இருந்திருக்கும் என்பதில் ஐயமில்லை. காலத்தைக்
கடந்து பல்வேறு கைகள் வழியாக வரும்போது திருத்தங்கள் செய்யப்பட்டிருக்கலாம், நீக்கங்கள்
நேர்ந்திருக்கலாம், சேர்க்கைகள் இடம்பெற்றிருக்கலாம். எல்லாவற்றிற்கும் வாய்ப்புக்கள் உண்டு.
அத்தணிக்கைக்குக் காரணம் த�ொகுத்தோர் க�ொண்டிருந்த இலக்கியத் தரக் க�ோட்பாடு, த�ொகுத்தோர்
கருதிய அல்லது அவர்கள் காலத்துச் சமூக விழுமியங்கள், அவர்கள் பின்பற்றிய இலக்கண

வரையறைகள் முதலியவை காரணங்கள் ஆகும். புலமையாளர்களிடையே மட்டும் வழங்கியவை

என்றும் க�ொஞ்சம் இருந்து அவை காலத்தில் சிந்திக் கரைந்திருக்கக் கூடும்.
வாய்மொழி இலக்கியங்களும் ம�ொழியை ஆதாரமாகக் க�ொண்டவையே. அவற்றிலும்
சிலரிடம் மட்டும் ரகசியமாகப் புழங்கிய பல கதைகள், பழம�ொழிகள், விடுகதைகள் முதலியவை
மறைந்திருக்கும். ஒரு தலைமுறையிடம் இருந்து அடுத்த தலைமுறைக்குச் செல்வதற்கான வாய்ப்புகள்
இத்தகையவற்றிற்குக் குறைவுதான். கைமாற்றித் தரும் சூழல் கனியாமல் மடிந்து ப�ோனவை ஏராளம்
என்பது உறுதி. அத்தகையவை புதிது புதிதாகத் த�ோன்றிக் க�ொண்டே இருக்கும் என்பதும் சரிதான்.
காலம் கடந்து வருபவை அதிகம் இருக்காது. இன்றும் பாலியல் கதைகளை, பழம�ொழிகளைச்
சேகரிப்பது சுலபமல்ல. ஏட்டிலக்கியம், வாய்மொழி இலக்கியம் ஆகிய ம�ொழிவழிக் கலைகள்
அனைத்திலும் தணிக்கையின் செயல்பாடு த�ொடர்ந்திருக்கிறது.
அச்சு வசதி ஏற்பட்ட நவீன காலத்தின் பின் உருவான இலக்கியத்தின் தன்மைகள் வேறு. பல
பிரதிகள், பெரும் வாசகத் திரள் ஆகியவை இதன் முக்கியக் கூறுகள். பெரும் மக்கள் திரளிடம்
ஒரு விஷயம் சென்று சேரப் ப�ோகிறது என்பதே எச்சரிக்கை தருவதாகிறது. உரைநடையின்
காரணமாகப் பலருடைய கருத்துக்கள் வெளிப்படும் தளங்கள் உருவாயின. பத்திரிகை முக்கியமான
தளம். இதுவரைக்கும் இல்லாத வகையில் எவ்வளவ�ோ விஷயங்களைப் பேசவும் விவாதிக்கவும்
தளம் அமைந்தது. அறிவுசார் உரையாடலில் வெகுமக்கள் பங்கேற்புக்கும் வழி கிடைத்தது. எனினும்
கருத்தை வெளிப்படுத்துபவர் தம்மைப் பற்றிய பிம்பக் கட்டமைப்பை மையமாகக் க�ொண்டே
செயல்பட்டுள்ளனர் என்பதையும் கவனத்தில் க�ொண்டு காண வேண்டும். இவ்வாறு அச்சுக்
காலத்தின் தணிக்கை முறைகளை விரிவாக ஆராய்வதற்கு வாய்ப்புக்கள் உள்ளன.
அரசின் தலையீடு இக்காலத்தில் ப�ோல வேறு எப்போதும் இருந்திருக்க வாய்ப்பில்லை. அச்சுத்தளம்
பற்றிய அச்சம் அரசுக்கு மிகுதி. இன்று வரைக்கும் அப்படித்தான். கருத்துருவாக்கத்தைச் சமூகத்தில்
நிகழ்த்திவிட முடியும் என்பது அச்சு ஊடகத்தின் சாதனை. ஆகவே சட்டங்கள், நடவடிக்கைகள்
என்று அரசின் செயல்பாடு விரிவு பெற்ற காலம் இது. நூல்களையும் பத்திரிகைகளையும் தடை
செய்தல், தண்டனை விதித்தல் ஆகிய நடவடிக்கைகளாக அரசின் தலையீடு நேர்ந்த காலம். எனினும்
சட்டங்களும் விதிகளும் இலக்கியத்தைச் சுருக்கிவிட முடியவில்லை. தெளிவான வரையறைகளைக்
க�ொடுக்கவும் இயலவில்லை. அவை ‘புண்படுத்துதல்’, ‘சமூக அமைதிக்குப் பங்கம் விளைவித்தல்’
என மிகப் ப�ொதுமையான ச�ொற்களையே க�ொண்டிருக்கின்றன. அவற்றை எந்தச் சூழலிலும்
பயன்படுத்தலாம் என்னும் நிலையும் மறைந்திருக்கிறது.

ஓலைச்சுவடிகளில் இருந்து அச்சுக்குக் க�ொண்டு வரும்போது செய்யப்பட்ட தணிக்கைகள் ஏராளம்.

அச்சுப் பிரதிகளுக்கு வாசகர் மிகுதி என்பதுடன் அதன் நிலைத்தன்மை பற்றிய அச்சமும் காரணம்.
அச்சில் வரக் கூடாது எனக் கருதியே சில ஓலைச்சுவடிகளை அழித்திருப்பர். ஓலைச்சுவடிப் பிரதிகள்
அச்சில் வரும்போது நிகழ்ந்த மாற்றங்கள் பல. விடுபாடுகளும் திருத்தங்களும் சாதாரணமாக
நிகழ்ந்திருக்கக் கூடும். அவற்றை எல்லாம் ஒப்பிட்டு ஆராய்தல் அங்கொன்றும் இங்கொன்றுமாகவே
நடந்திருக்கிறது.
எல்லாக் காலத்தும் இணை ஒன்று செயல்பட்டுக் க�ொண்டே இருக்கும் என்பது அச்சுக்கும்
ப�ொருந்தும் உண்மை. அவ்வகையில் மஞ்சள் பத்திரிகைகள், புத்தகங்கள் ப�ோன்றவையும் ஒருபுறம்
ரகசிய வாசிப்புக்கு உரியவையாக இருக்கின்றன. அவற்றை அச்சிடுவதும் விற்பதும் சட்ட விர�ோதம்
எனினும் அவை பரவலாக வாசிக்கப்பட்டன. கல்வி நிறுவன விடுதிகளில் சில பத்தாண்டுகளுக்கு
முன் இத்தகைய பத்திரிகைகள், நூல்கள் சகஜமாகக் கிடைக்கும். இளைஞர்கள் இருக்கும் வீடுகளில்
ரகசிய இடங்களில் இவை பாதுகாக்கப்பட்டிருக்கும். நடுத்தர வயதுப் படிப்பாளிகள் பலர் இதன்
தீவிர வாசகர்கள். ஆனால் இவை ப�ொது வெளிகளில் உலவுபவை அல்ல. இவற்றின் வளர்ச்சிக்
கூறுகளை இன்றைய சமூக வலைத்தளங்களில் பார்க்கலாம்.
பின் நவீனத்துவம் முதலிய க�ோட்பாடுகள், உலகமயமாக்கம் ஆகியவற்றின் விளைவாக நவீன
இலக்கியங்களில் சில திறப்புகள் உருவாகியுள்ளன என்னும் பிரமை கடந்த இரு தசாப்தங்களாக
நிலவி வருகின்றது. எல்லாவற்றையும் எழுதும் காலம் இது, இதுவரைக்கும் புறக்கணிக்கப்பட்ட,
ஒதுக்கப்பட்டவை எல்லாம் இலக்கியத்திற்குள் வரும் காலம் இது என்றெல்லாம் கணிக்கப்பட்டது.
அதுவும் முழுமையல்ல. உலகமயமாக்கம் இன்னொரு புறம் வேர்களைத் தேடி இட்டுச் செல்வதால் தம்
வேர்கள் குறுங்குழுவுக்குள் இருப்பதாக உணரும் பிரிவினர் நவீன இலக்கிய வெளிகளைத் தம்மால்
முடிந்தவரை அடைத்து வருகின்றனர். அவர்களைப் ப�ொருத்தவரை தம் வேர்கள் அனைத்தும்
யாராலும் அசைக்க இயலாத ஆணிவேர்கள். சல்லி வேர்கள் இருப்பினும் அவையும் பலம் வாய்ந்தவை.
நைந்தவை, மழுங்கியவை, அழுகியவை, மண்ணுக்கு வெளியில் துருத்திக் காய்ந்தவை என எதுவும்
கிடையாது. அப்படியே இருப்பதாக ஒத்துக்கொண்டாலும் அதன் பக்கம் பார்வை திரும்பக் கூடாது
என்பது ஆணையாக வெளிப்படுகிறது. ஆகவேதான் நவீன எழுத்தாளனின் கணிப்பு சரியானதல்ல
என்று உணர வேண்டியிருக்கிறது. அவன் விரும்பும் ‘பேசாப் ப�ொருளைப் பேசுதல்’ என்னும் கூறு
இன்னும் சாத்தியமாகவில்லை. இன்று எழுத்திற்கான தணிக்கையாளர் கூட்டத்தில் எண்ணிக்கை
பெருகியிருக்கிறது.

இத்தகைய குறுங்குழுக்கள் வைக்கும் வாதங்களில் சான்றுக்கு ஒன்றை மட்டும் பார்ப்போம்.

‘நவீன இலக்கியங்களை நாலு பேருக்கு முன்னால் வாசிக்க முடியுமா?’ என்பது அவர்கள் எழுப்பும்
முதன்மையான வினா. இந்த வினாவின் எதிர்வினையாகவே சிறந்த நாவல்கள், சிறுகதைகள் எனப்
பலவற்றைப் பாடத் திட்டத்திற்குள் க�ொண்டுவர இயலாத சூழல் இன்றுவரை நிலவுகிறது. பாலியல்
ச�ொற்கள் ஏதும் இடம்பெறாத, சாதிப்பெயர்களைப் பயன்படுத்தாத படைப்புகளைத் தேடிப் பாடமாக
வைக்கும் நிலைதான் நீடிக்கிறது. நவீன இலக்கியங்களை வாசிக்க விரும்புவ�ோரும் தம் வீட்டு
நூலகத்தில் இவற்றை வைத்துக்கொள்ள விரும்புவதில்லை. ‘நாலு பேருக்கு முன்னால் வாசிக்க
முடியுமா?’ என்னும் வினாவை நாம் ப�ொருட்படுத்தியாக வேண்டும். இந்த வினா எழுவதற்கான
சூழல் நம் மரபிலிருக்கிறது.
குழுவாக, கூட்டமாக இருந்து கலைகளைத் துய்த்த சமூகம் நமது. அதன் த�ொடர்ச்சியாகவே கதா
காலட்சேபம், ச�ொற்பொழிவுகள் ஆகியவற்றையும் சுவைத்தனர். கல்வி ஓரளவு பரவலாகிய
நிலையில் புராணக் கதைகள், நாட்டுப்புறக் கதைகள், கதைப் பாடல்கள் ஆகியவற்றைப் பெரிய
எழுத்து நூல்களாக அச்சிட்டுச் சந்தைகளிலும் மக்கள் கூடும் ப�ொது இடங்களிலும் விற்றனர்.
அதில் ஊருக்கு ஒரு பிரதியை வாங்கினால் ப�ோதும். வாசிக்கத் தெரிந்தவர் நடுவில் உட்கார்ந்து
வாய்விட்டு வாசிக்கச் சுற்றிலும் மக்கள் அமர்ந்து கேட்பர். பெரிய எழுத்துப் புத்தகம் பெரும்பான்மை
வாய்மொழிப் பாடல் தன்மையில் அமைந்திருக்கும். வாசிக்கத் தெரிந்தவர்கள் சிலர் இருப்பின்
மாற்றி மாற்றி வாசிப்பதுண்டு. சற்றே ராகம் ப�ோட்டு உணர்ச்சிகரமாக வாசிப்பவர்களுக்கு
மிகுந்த மவுசும் மரியாதையும் கிடைக்கும். திரைப்படங்கள் வாழ்வை ஆக்கிரமித்து இரவுகளைத்
தன்வயமாக்கிக்கொண்ட பிறகு பெரிய எழுத்துக் கதை வாசிப்பு க�ொஞ்சம் க�ொஞ்சமாக மறைந்து
ப�ோயிற்று. 1980களில்கூடக் கிராமத்துப் பெரியவர்கள் சிலர் பெரிய எழுத்துப் புத்தகத்தை எடுத்து
நீட்டி ‘பள்ளிக்கொடம் ப�ோயிப் படிக்கறயே, இதப் படிச்சுக் காட்டு, உம் படிப்பப் பாக்கறன்’ என்று
சவால் விட்ட நிலையைக் காண முடிந்தது.
குழுவுக்கு முன்னால் வாய் விட்டு வாசித்தல் என்பது அச்சு வசதி வந்த பின் கிட்டத்தட்ட இரு
நூற்றாண்டு காலம் நீடித்த வழக்கம். நம் கல்வி முறையிலும் வாய் விட்டு வாசித்தல் முக்கியமான
நடைமுறையாக இருக்கிறது. ஏட்டிலக்கியம் செய்யுள் வடிவிலானதால் ஓசையுடன் வாசித்தலே
அதன் அழகை வெளிப்படுத்தும் முறையாகும். இன்றும் பள்ளிகளில் வாய் விட்டு வாசித்தல், ஒருவர்
வாசிக்கப் பலரும் பின் த�ொடர்தல் ஆகிய நடைமுறைகள் நிலவுகின்றன. வாய் விட்டுப் படித்து
மனப்பாடம் செய்தல் இன்றும் த�ொடரும் கற்றல் முறை. மனதுக்குள் வாசித்தல் என்னும் ம�ௌன
வாசிப்பு நமக்கு எந்த அளவுக்குச் சித்தித்திருக்கிறது என்பது கேள்விக்குறிதான். மனதுக்குள்

வாசித்தல் நடக்கும்போதும் பலருக்கும் உதடுகள் அசைகின்றன. அந்த அசைவை உற்றுக்

கவனித்தால் அவர்கள் வாசிப்பது என்ன என்பதைப் படித்துவிட முடியும். இவ்வாறு உதடசைய
வாசிப்பதை ‘வாய்க்குள் வாசித்தல்’ என்று ச�ொல்வதுண்டு. இவ்விதம் வாசித்தல் மரபு நம்மிடம்
இன்னும் த�ொடர்ந்துக�ொண்டிருக்கிறது.
ஆனால் அச்சுச் சாதனம் நமக்கு ‘ம�ௌன வாசிப்பு’ என்னும் தனிச் சுதந்திரத்தை வழங்குகிறது.
நவீன இலக்கியத்தை வாசிக்கும் முறை ம�ௌன வாசிப்புத்தான். அச்சும் புத்தக வடிவமும் நம்
வசதிக்கேற்ப உட்கார்ந்தபடி, நின்றபடி, படுத்தபடி வாசித்துக்கொள்ள வாகானவை. புத்தகத்துக்கும்
வாசிப்பவருக்குமான தனிப்பட்ட உறவ�ொன்றை ம�ௌன வாசிப்பு வழங்குகிறது. ஆனால் ம�ௌன
வாசிப்பின் மகத்துவத்தை இன்னும் நம் சமூகம் முழுதாக உணரவில்லை. குழுவுக்கு நடுவில் வாய்
விட்டு வாசிக்கும் மரபிலிருந்தே நவீன இலக்கியத்தை இப்போதும் அணுகுகிற�ோம். குழுவினிடையே
வாசிக்கும்போது அவை நாகரிகம் அவசியமாகிறது. ப�ொதுவெளியில் ச�ொல்லக் கூடாத ச�ொற்கள்,
பேசக் கூடாத ப�ொருள்கள் ஆகியவற்றைத் தவிர்க்க வேண்டியுள்ளது. இந்த மனநிலைய�ோடு
நவீன இலக்கியத்தை அணுகும்போது அது தணிக்கைக்கு உள்ளாகிறது. ‘இதைப் பெண்கள் படிக்க
முடியுமா?’, ‘இதைப் பாடத்திட்டத்தில் வைக்க முடியுமா?’ என்றெல்லாம் எழும் வினாக்களையும்
விவாதித்துப் புரிந்துக�ொள்ள வேண்டியவர்களாக இருக்கிற�ோம்.
நவீன எழுத்தாளன் ச�ொல்லும் ‘தன் படைப்புக்குத் தேவையென்றால் எதை வேண்டுமானாலும்
எழுதலாம்’ என்னும் வாதம் சமூக வெளியில் எடுபடுவதில்லை. ம�ௌன வாசிப்பு என்னும்
சுதந்திரத்தை நம் சமூகம் பயன்படுத்தவே இல்லையா என்றால் பயன்படுத்துகிறதுதான், ஆனால்
அப்படி வாசிக்கக் கூடியவை இலக்கியம் என்னும் அங்கீகாரத்தைப் பெற்றவை அல்ல. நவீன
இலக்கியம் பேசாப் ப�ொருள�ோடு இலக்கியம் என்னும் அங்கீகாரம் பெற்று வருகின்றது என்பதுதான்
உறுத்தும் விஷயம். மேலும் நவீன இலக்கியம் தான் பயன்படுத்தும் ச�ொற்களாலும் கையாளும்
ப�ொருளாலும் இதுவரை ப�ோர்த்திக் காப்பாற்றப்பட்ட புனிதத்தை உடைக்கிறது, கேள்விகளை
வெளிப்படையாகவும் நேராகவும் எழுப்புகிறது என்பவையெல்லாம் இங்கு பிரச்சினை ஆகின்றன.
நவீன இலக்கியத்தைத் தணிக்கை செய்யத் துடிக்கும் குழுக்களின் பின்னால் இத்தகைய
மன�ோபாவங்கள் நிறைந்திருக்கின்றன. அவற்றின் தன்மைகள் எவை எவை என்பதைக் குறித்து
இன்னும் சிந்திக்க வேண்டியுள்ளது. காலத்தைப் புரிந்துக�ொள்வது இன்றைய கடமையாகிறது. சரி,
தணிக்கையற்ற காலத்தில் வாழப் பிரியப்படுகிறீர்களா? ஆயிரக் கணக்கான, லட்சக்கணக்கான
ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன் பிறந்திருக்க வேண்டியவர் நீங்கள். காலம் தப்பிப் பிறந்துவிட்டீர்கள்.

Literature and Censorship
Perumal Murugan
translated by Dickens Leonard M. and P. Vellaisamy
Perumal Murugan grew up in Tiruchengode in Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu, and his wife Ezhilarasi and he
were professors of Tamil literature at Namakkal’s Government Arts College. His novel novel Madhorubhagan
(One Part Woman) came under attack, threats and violent protests by Hindutva and caste organisations, who
claimed that the book portrayed the Kailasanathar temple in Tiruchengode, god Shiva, and women devotees in
bad light. The BJP, RSS and other Hindu outfits burned copies of the book, and demanded a ban and the author’s
arrest. Murugan was forced by the local administration to tender an unconditional apology for his writing.
Anguished, Perumal Murugan declared on Facebook his decision to give up writing altogether:
“Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead. As he is no God, he is not going to resurrect himself. He also has no
faith in rebirth. An ordinary teacher, he will live as P. Murugan. Leave him alone.”
According to V. Geetha, editorial director of Tara Books, and translator of two of Murugan’s novels, the attack on
Murugan “is the resentment of elements from his caste who are resentful of Dalits, of women’s mobility, and of
dissenting voices in general.” This article was the first piece of writing by Murugan marking his return to literature.
Censors, we are: both a self- and a social censor. No one expresses just like that what one thinks. We censor
as we write and speak. Once we censor and filter our thoughts, we decide what to express in writing and in
speech. We know while thinking the process and the speed of our thought. While thought can be expressed
we check and filter it threateningly. One’s life comes to an end if an unfiltered thought is expressed. If there
is a small hole in the filter and a piece escapes, even if it is just a single word, one would face problems. Not
only do we have to face the wrath of our family relations, we also face the death of certain relationships.
Friends may fight and separate. There is a loss and an end. There remains no other way but to be detached
from social life.
We are also social censors. A censor within us that restrains the people with us, family and friends, dictating
what and how and where they should speak. We ridicule, neglect, and categorize those who act against our
wishes. With a profound prejudice, it is this social censor that judges opinions in the public sphere, be it art,

Perumal Murugan
literature, media, cinema and so on. This social censor often asks: “how can one write like this?” “How did the
censor allow this?” “Times have gone bad”. The social censor is much more furious than the self-censor. One
could be furiously motivated by social anger through it. Difficult it is, if a social censor is elderly or powerful!
Would there be a censor-free world? Possible, but in a world before language; in a language-less world. Painting,
dance and the other such arts are therefore considered as the oldest arts. Those arts are considered mimetic and
belief-oriented, which may have been censor-free in ancient times. Even today, these arts are largely censor-
free. Nude painting and portraits of the human body are a principal drawing practice. Dance movements are
sexually appealing – be it film dance or classical dance. But language-based arts are not the same.
When language-based art and literary forms emerged, civilization emerged along with its terms and
condition. Uncivilized/civilized, civilized dress, and civilized talk became public expressions that are in
usage even today. Rules and regulations were the basis of civilization. In fact, language as a tool is the result
of terms and conditions. This tool is only further sharpened by humans at every point in time. So, in order
to analyze language one has to analyze civilization too. It is pertinent to connect language and civilization.
Language-based literary forms are basically against the censorship of practical life. Where practical life is
censor-oriented every day, the wish to have a censor-free world is possible in literature. Reading literature
and having a taste for it, establishes a censor-free world. Though literature wishes to have a censor-free
world, it becomes a target of the censoring-hands once it becomes a commodity. Literary writers were fewer
in number before print emerged. And so were the readers, as the masses were largely illiterate then.
The literature from before print did not reach us as a whole. Primarily because the compilers and editors’
censored them. Firstly, classical literature is a compiled anthology. No wonder, those works were censored.
There were changes, erasures, and insertions as literature transferred and transformed across people, places,
and times. The compiler might have censored it according to literary principles, social values, and the norms
of those times. The literature that remained with the scholars might have vanished over a period of time.

Perumal Murugan
Secondly, oral literature, which is also language-based, circulated in secrecy in the form of stories, proverbs,
and riddles. It is possible that these too are lost. People may not have transmitted it from one generation
to another. Many might have been lost because of non-transmittance. However, they continued to emerge
anew all the time as extensions and continuities. They may not have travelled across time. Hence, it is not
that easy to collect oral narratives – especially on adulterous and sexualized proverbs and riddles. Hence,
censorship was practiced vehemently on language-based arts such as print literature and oral literature.
The characteristics of modern print literature are, however, different. This is due to the availability of multiple
copies and a larger reading public. The very idea that a message could reach a larger public was alarming.
Prose narratives create spaces for many to express thoughts. Journals were one such space, and an important
one. Hitherto un-discussed issues were debated here. And a majority could participate in an intellectual
discussion. However, one is aware that the person who expressed in this space was also governed by a self-
image that was constituted in public. And censorship was governed by this self-image. Research possibilities
on this, i.e. on censorship in the print period, are yet to be explored.
No period matches this present one in the intervention of the state; the state fears the print public sphere like
never before. The possibility of creating a thoughtful, informed public is the triumph of print media. Hence,
the state creates many laws and rules, and expands its presence in this period. The state intervenes, and then
increasingly punishes and bans publications. However, laws and rules cannot affect literature, as the state
could not create a clear cut procedure for censorship. It used the vague parlance of “hurting sentiments” or
“threat to public peace and order.” Even this cannot be used in any which context, now.
A lot was censored when palm-leaf manuscripts were brought into print. Print-copies had a larger reading
public and a relative longevity; and they were a reason to fear. Many palm-scripts were destroyed simply to
deny their entry into print. And when palm-scripts became print copies, the changes were enormous: gaps,
corrections, and edits! Not much has been researched on this.
A similar phenomenon would have appeared in all ages, this is true even for print! Yellow journals and
obscene literatures, as a counter-part, were for secret readership. Though it is illegal to publish and sell them,

Perumal Murugan
they are read widely, but in secrecy. These journals and books were easily available in student-hostels just a
decade ago. Young people read them in a secret, secured place in their houses. Middle-aged people too were
its avid readers. However, they do not generally circulate in public. One can witness its extensive growth in
social media and the internet today.
For the last two decades, it has been argued quite vehemently that post-modernism and globalization have
un-packed and opened-out modern literature as this is a period to write everything. All that was kept apart,
subjugated and marginalized, paved entry into literature, or so it was expected! This is not the whole picture
though; because, alternatively, globalization pushes one to search for one’s roots. Groups search them in their
small collectives, and they arm themselves to vigorously close off modern literary spaces. To them, their roots
are un-shakable tap roots. Even if they are fibrous, they are strong. Nothing is rotten, weak, tattered, or dried
outside soil. Even if somebody accepts it to be so, one is decreed not to recognize it to be so. Hence, the modern
writers’ formulations are not always correct. Therefore, the desired “pesap porullai pesudhal” i.e., “un-spoken
speech” remains unrealized. And today, censors as collectives, have only increased their action against writing.
These small collectives generally ask the question: “can modern literature be read in the midst of people?”.
The inability to include the best novels and short stories in the syllabi, too owes to this question. Works that
are devoid of sexualized language and caste references are alone included in the syllabi even today. Though
people read modern literature, these books are a big “no” in their personal libraries. “Can it be read in the
midst of people?” is a serious question to be considered as this question has its genealogy in our tradition.
Our society practiced its arts as groups and collectives. The taste for “kadha kalatchebam”, i.e. story-telling,
commentary, and long speeches, is a continuation of this tradition. Later when print and literacy spread,
epics, folk-stories, and lyric-stories were published and sold in marketplaces as “periya ezhuthu”, i.e. upper
case lettered books. Just one copy for a village was enough. It was read aloud to the community, as others
sat around and listened. These writings were lyrical in nature. They were recitation-centric. Readers took
turns and some added a tune to it so as to be popular. As soon as cinema occupied our lives and nights, this
community-reading/listening tradition slowly waned away. Even as late as the 1980s kids were asked by
elders to recite from these “periya ezhuthu” books so as to test their literacy.

Perumal Murugan
Reading aloud before a group continued for more than 200 years even after print was introduced. Reading
aloud, interestingly, is also a traditional learning technique. Written literature was in poetic form, and voicing
it expresses its beauty. Even today, schools practice group recitation. Reading aloud and learning by heart is a
prevalent learning practice in schools. Candidly speaking, there is, therefore, a question around the validity
of silent reading itself as a learned practice. Even when people read in silence, their lips move to pronounce
without sound! If one carefully observes the movement of the lips, it is not impossible to know what they are
reading. People call this silent reading with a lip movement “vaikul vaasithal” – “reading inside one’s own
mouth.” This kind of reading, as a tradition, continues to be practiced.
But print provides “silent reading” as an individual freedom. Modern literature is practiced to be read in
silence. Print and the shape of the book allow us to read at our convenience: sitting, standing, lying down, as
we want to! Perhaps, silent reading establishes a specific, individual, relationship between the reader and the
book. However, our society did not fully realize the specialty of silent reading. We tend to approach modern
literature, by projecting on to it the tradition that reads aloud in a group. Decorum and civility become
important while reading aloud amidst a group. Words that shouldn’t be uttered and issues that shouldn’t
be spoken of are avoided in the public sphere. Modern literature ultimately undergoes censorship when
approached with this mind-set. It is therefore imperative to understand, obviously, the meaning of questions
such as: “Can women read this?”, “Can it be included in the syllabi?”.
The modern writers’ claim that “I can write whatever I want to write” doesn’t hold in the social space. One
may ask then: hasn’t silent reading as freedom been exercised by people? Yes, but those writings that are read
in silence are not recognized and authorized as literature. It is intriguing to note that modern literature is
being recognized as “un-speakable literature”. Moreover, modern literature, through its use of diction and
the issues it handles, breaks the purity that is hitherto secured and protected. The frank and direct questions
it raises are seen as problematic here!
This is the mindset of those groups that passionately desire to censor modern literature. Their characteristics
and views have to be deeply thought about. It is our duty to understand our time. Fine, do you wish to live
in a censor-free world? Well, you must have been born ages ago, not today!

जनता का निर्माण
रवीश कु मार
भारतीय राजनीति के मौजूदा दौर को अगर कोई एक शब्द सिंबलाइज़ करता है तो वह है एरोगेंस। एरोगेंस भारतीय राजनीति
की देह-भाषा है। भारतीय राजनीति के तमाम विमर्श सरकार और उससे जुड़ी राजनीतिक पार्टी से तय होते हैं। आप इसे
डोमिनेंट डिस्कोर्स कह सकते हैं। आम तौर पर जो भी पार्टी सत्ता में होती है, उसके काम और बोली में एरोगेंस झलक जाता है
या देखा ही जाता है। मौजूदा सरकार को एरोगेंट कहना भी एक किस्म का एरोगेंस ही होगा लेकिन उसके प्रतिनिधियों और
समर्थकों की भाषा एरोगेंस से भरी हुई नज़र आती है। किसी लिंग्विस्ट के लिए भारतीय राजनीति की देह-भाषा पर काम करने
का यह सबसे अच्छा समय है। मंत्रियों और प्रवक्ताओं की भाषा, प्रेस कांफ्रेंस, टीवी इं टरव्यू के दौरान उनके बॉडी लैंग्वेज, रै लियों
में मंच पर आने का अंदाज़ का अध्ययन किया जाना चाहिए। सोशल मीडिया पर सरकार समर्थकों की भाषा एरोगेंट भी है और
अब्यूसिव भी। एक ख़ास बात और है। आम तौर पर एरोगेंट अग्रेसन से कं फ्यूज़ हो जाता है और अग्रेसन में एरोगेंट ब्लेंड होता
है लेकिन मैं बात कर रहा हूं कि एरोगेंस में अब्यूसिव के ब्लेंड होने की। रवीश कु मार सोफिस्ट्री इस एरोगेंस का एलिट फे स है।
आज की राजनीति एंटी ह्यूमिलिटी है। ह्यूमिलिटी एक पोलिटिकल कर्स है। कमज़ोर सरकार की निशानी है। विनम्र सरकार
कमज़ोर होती है। एरोगेंट सरकार परफार्मेंस वाली सरकार होती है। कांफिडेंस ज़रूरी है लेकिन विनम्रता के साथ नहीं। एरोगेंस
इज़ दि न्यू प्लस फॉर कांफिडेंस। भारत की राजनीति का डोमिनेंट कै रे क्टर एरोगेंट के अलावा विचारधारा से बहुत ज़्यादा
डिफाइन नहीं होता है। दिल्ली से सटे दादरी में अख़लाक की भीड़ बीफ के शक में मार देती है, लेकिन सरकार के मंत्री भीड़
के साथ हो जाते हैं। उनकी सहानुभूति मारे गए व्यक्ति और उसके परिवार से नहीं होती है। भारत के एक राज्य तेलगांना की
राजधानी हैदराबाद स्थित हैदराबाद सेंट्रल यूनिवर्सिटी के एक छात्र रोहित वेमुला की आत्म हत्या का मामला आता है, सरकार
ह्यूमिलिटी के साथ आगे नहीं आती है। संसद में उसके मंत्री उस हद तक अग्रेसिव लगते हैं जहां किसी को भी एरोगेंस साफ
साफ दिख सकता है। जवाहर लाल नेहरू विश्वविद्यालय के मामले में भी यही रवैया रहता है और गुजरात के दलित को नंगा
करके पीटे जाने के वक्त भी। जब यह मामले ठं डे पड़ गए और विपक्ष चुप हो गया तब भी सरकार के प्रतिनिधि खाली मैदान
का लाभ उठाकर अपनी पुरानी राय पर पब्लिक में दोहराते रहे। हम किसी बात से पीछे नहीं हटते और हम कभी ग़लत हो ही
नहीं सकते।
पोलिटिकल साइं टिस्ट के लिए भले ही एक तथाकथित सेकुलर और लिबरल सरकार की जगह तथाकथित नेशनलिस्ट और फार
राइट की सरकार आ गई हो लेकिन वास्तविकता यह है कि इकोनोमिक आइडिया के स्तर पर कोई बदलाव नहीं है। मौजूदा
सरकार की मौलिक और नई दक्षिणपंथी आर्थिक विचारधारा नहीं है।आर्थिक नीतियों और सुधारों में ग़ज़ब किस्म की निरं तरता
है। यही अंतर है कि पिछली सरकार की नीतियों को तेज़ी से लागू होने का दावा किया जा रहा है। पुरानी सरकार की मिलती
जुलती नीतियों की नई पैकेजिंग है। उनकी लांचिंग बदल गई है। उनका प्रचार अब बड़े पैमाने पर होता है और रोज़ होता है।
इस लिहाज़ से मौजूदा सरकार धुर-दक्षिणपंथी है तो पिछली सरकार भी वही थी। ऐसा नहीं होता तो मौजूदा सरकार की एक
मंत्री जिनकी छवि क्रूड रूप से एक धार्मिक राजनीतिक नेता की रही है वो अपने प्रधानमंत्री के फै सले की तुलना कार्ल मार्क्स की
सोच से नहीं करतीं! हिन्दुत्व की सबसे बड़े चेहरे की तुलना कार्ल मार्क्स से। इसका मतलब है कि संकट में हिंदतु ्व है। राष्ट्रवादी
राजनीति है। फिलहाल उस सकं ट को उभारने वाली शक्तियां कमज़ोर हैं लेकिन अमीरों को चोर बताकर ग़रीबों की बात करने

वाला नेता किस्सों में तो मिथक बन जाएगा मगर हकीकत में मार्क्स नहीं बन सकता है। उसके करीब भी नहीं पहुंच सकता है।
पिछली सरकार के भी कई मंत्रियों की भाषा एरोगेंट हो गई थी लेकिन तब तक उनका जनाधार खिसक चुका था. मौजूदा दौर
में सोशल मीडिया के ज़रिये सरकार समर्थकों की भाषा को एरोगेंट बनाया जा रहा है। धार्मिक और राष्ट्रवादी शब्दावली के
सहारे जनता की भाषा को एरोगेंट बनाया जा रहा है। बुली होना अब पोलिटिकल कै रे क्टर हो गया है। उसके रिफ्लैक्शन में
समर्थकों की भाषा भी वैसी हो गई है। 2014 से पहले मीडिया सरकार की चुप्पी को एरोगेंट बताता था, 2014 के बाद सरकार
के समर्थन में मीडिया खुद एरोगेंट हो गया। लिंग्विस्ट को मीडिया की भाषा को अध्ययन करना चाहिए। जब टीवी का एंकर
सरकार के बारे में बोलता है तो कै से बोलता है और जब वही एंकर विपक्ष के बारे में बोलते है तो किन शब्दों का चुनाव करता है।
भारत में एक नई तरह की पब्लिक का निर्माण हो रहा है। पब्लिक अब सिर्फ मतदाता नहीं है। वो दौर चला गया जब कोई
पार्टी अपने सदस्यों का विस्तार करती थी, कार्यकर्ता बनाती थी। अब पार्टियों की निर्भरता ऐसे कार्यकर्ताओं पर कम है। वोटर
को ही लगातार सपोर्टर या फै न बनाने की प्रक्रिया चल रही है। वो लगातार वोटर बना रहे या लीडर का समर्थन करता रहे
इसलिए राजनीतिक क्षेत्र में नए नए विर्मश की सप्लाई की जाती है। सरकार के सहयोगी संगठन बड़े पैमाने पर ऐसे मटीरियल
की सप्लाई करते रहते हैं ताकि लोग उसके पाले में बने रहे। आम तौर पर जनता के बीच से पैदा हुए मुद्दों पर सरकारें अपनी
लाइन लेती हैं लेकिन ढाई साल के हिन्दुस्तान में सरकार की तरफ से फें के गुए मुद्दों पर जनता को लाइन लेने के लिए मजबूर
किया गया है। यह वो जनता है जो लाइन लेते लेते पार्टी की राजनीतिक सोच में ढल गई है।
यही कारण है कि 8 नवंबर को जब हाई वैल्यू के नोट अवैध घोषित किये गए तब बहुत दिनों तक जनता सरकार के समर्थन
में बैंकों में घंटों लाइन में लगी रही। बेहद कम समय में सरकार ने लोगों को बोलने के लिए एक वाक्य की सप्लाई कर दी कि
फै सला ऐतिहासिक है। साहसिक है। कु छ दिक्कतें आ रही हैं जिसे हमें देश के लिए बर्दाश्त करना होगा। लोगों ने भी इसे सही
माना और चुप रहे। देश भर में बैंकों के आगे लंबी लंबी कतारें लग गईं। वहां उफ्फ करने वालों पर चिल्लाने वाले लोग पहुंच गए
कि सीमा पर सैनिक जान देता है, क्या आप इतना भी नहीं कर सकते। लोगों को लगे कि वे वाकई सीमा पर सैनिक की तरह
बैंकों के आगे दुश्मन से मुकाबला कर रहे हैं, इसके लिए सरकार समर्थक प्रतिनिधि और संगठन चाय और जूस लेकर मदद करने
पहुंच गए। जैसे बैंक के मैनेजर के टेबल पर पहुंचकर वे नोट नहीं, बंदक
ू और गोली लेंगे और पीछे के दरवाज़े से निकल कर सीधा
पाकिस्तान या चीन की सीमा पर पहुंच जायेंगे। अलग अलग कारणों से बैंकों के आगे घंटों खड़े लोग बीमार पड़ने लगे। मीडिया
रिपोर्ट के अनुसार करीब सौ लोग मर भी गए। किसी को कोई फर्क नहीं पड़ा। जब तक वे लाइन में खड़े रहे उनके बलिदान को
एक सैनिक के बलिदान जैसा बताकर प्रेरित किया गया लेकिन जब सौ लोग मर गए तो उन्हें इस तरह छोड़ दिया गया जैसे
मरने वाला भारतीय ही नहीं था। यहां तक कि बैंकों ने भी अपने ग्राहक की मौत पर कोई अफसोस ज़ाहिर नहीं किया। मीडिया
ने लोगों की चीख पुकार को मोटे तौर पर नज़रअंदाज़ किया। असहमति की आवाज़ को स्वागत और सहमति की आवाज़ के
सामने कम जगह दी गई।

यह प्रमाण है कि पिछले ढाई साल में सरकार और उसके सहयोगी संगठनों-समर्थकों की तरफ से जिन मुद्दों की सप्लाई की गई,
वे अपने मकसद में कामयाब रहे। लव-जिहाद, बिरयानी, बीफ, पाकिस्तान, कश्मीर, गौ-मांस, तिरं गा, योग, राष्ट्रगान, वंद-े
मातरम। लोगों को लगा कि इन मुद्दों के ज़रिये अल्पसंख्यक को निशाना बनाया जा रहा है। मगर यह आधा सच है। इन मुद्दों
के ज़रिये बहुसंख्यक आबादी के एक बड़े हिस्से को ट्रेनिंग दी जा रही थी। सौ पचास कार्यकर्ताओं को पार्टी में लाकर उन्हें पद से
लेकर टिकट तक देने का वादा करने की जगह मास मीडिया के उपकरणों का इस्तमाल कर लाखों करोड़ों लोगों को लगातार
प्रशिक्षित किया गया। अब वे अपनी ट्रेनिंग के ख़िलाफ़ नहीं जा सकते हैं। एक हद तक जनता के एक बड़े हिस्से का राजनीतिक
रूप से कु छ समय के लिए स्थायीकरण हुआ है। बीच-बीच में इसके कु छ हिस्से छिटकते भी हैं लेकिन कमज़ोर विपक्ष और
विपक्ष के खेमे में किसी नई नैतिक शक्ति के नहीं होने से वे फिर किसी राष्ट्रवादी मुद्दे के सहारे अपने पुराने पाले में लौट जाते हैं।
राजनीतिक शास्त्रियों को जनता के इस हिस्से के निर्माण की प्रक्रिया को गहराई से देखना चाहिए। यह वो हिस्सा है जो मीडिया
और सोशल मीडिया के लगातार संपर्क में रहता है। हमें नहीं भूलना चाहिए कि करोड़ों जनता को छह महीने के लिए मुफ्त में
हाई स्पीड इं टरनेट कनेक्टिविटी देने वाली कं पनी सरकार के प्रति अपने अनुराग को नहीं छिपाती है। यह सही है कि उस कं पनी
के तमाम सरकारों से बेहतर रिश्ते रहे हैं लेकिन यह कं पनी मौजूदा सरकार की अन्य नीतियों को भी ऐसे सपोर्ट करती है जैसे
वह उसी का अंग हो। हाल ही में जब सरकार ने नोटबंदी लागू की तो रिलायंस कं पनी ने मुफ्त हाई स्पीड इं टरनेट इस्तमाल
करने की सीमा तीन महीने के लिए बढ़ा दी।
आलोचकों को राजनीति में विचारधारा पर फोकस करने की जगह जनता के लगातार कं स्ट्रक्शन की प्रक्रिया को देखना चाहिए।
एक गवर्नेंस का दायरा है और दूसरा सियासी मुद्दों का दायरा। विशुद्ध गवर्नेंस के मुद्दों पर सरकार के दावों की पड़ताल कम
होती है। होती है लेकिन उसे कभी डोमिनेंट डिस्कोर्स में बदलने का प्रयास नहीं किया जाता है। विपक्ष और मीडिया दोनों
औपचारिकता भर पूरी कर छोड़ देते हैं। गवर्नेंस के मुद्दे एकतरफा प्रचार के ज़रिये लोगों तक पहुंच रहे हैं। फै सलों का एलान
इतने व्यापक और विश्वसनीय तरीके से किया जाता है कि आम लोगों को अहसास हो जाता है कि फै सला लागू हो चुका है और
लाभ उनतक पहुंच चुका है। जिन सियासी और धार्मिक मुद्दों को लेकर सरकार को खूब घेरा जाता है, दरअसल उनकी सप्लाई
भी सरकार ही करती है। इसके बहाने वो अपने राजनीतिक एजेंडे को जनता के बीच में अलग अलग तरीके से स्थापित करने
का प्रयास करती रहती है। एक नज़र में आपको लग सकता है कि सरकार को कितना घेरा जा रहा है। सरकार भी कहती है कि
इतना किसी प्रधानमंत्री को नहीं घेरा गया। लेकिन हमें देखना चाहिए कि क्या सरकार की यह आलोचना उसकी नीतियों,
दावों की सच्चाई को लेकर हुई या राजनीतिक मदुदों को लेकर । आप कह सकते हैं कि जनता का कं स्ट्रक्शन और एजुकेशन हुआ
है मगर सिर्फ सरकार के सियासी एजेंडों को लेकर।
सरकार ने लोगों के इस कं स्ट्रक्शन के ज़रिये कारपोरे ट पर भी कमांड कर लिया है। इसकी टेस्टिंग वो बहुत पहले से कर रही थी।
बालीवुड के मशहूर फिल्म अभिनेता आमिर ख़ान ने एक टीवी इं टरव्यू में कह दिया था कि उनकी पत्नी को कभी कभी लगता
है कि भारत में रहना ठीक नहीं है। उन्हें डर लगता है। सरकार और उसके समर्थक दल की तरफ से तैयार जनता ने अभियान

चला दिया कि आमिर जिस ब्रांड को एंडोर्स करें गे वो ब्रांड नहीं ख़रीदेंगे आमिर को अपना ब्रांड बनाने वाली कं पनी ने उनसे
नाता तोड़ लिया। यही घटना कई और फिल्म कलाकारों के साथ भी हुई। सरकार को यकीन हो गया है कि उसके इशारे में पर
जनता के बीच से बने ये नए समर्थक ज़रूरत पड़ने पर चीनी प्रोडक्ट का बहिष्कार कर सकते हैं और ज़रूरत पड़ने पर इस बात
को नज़रअंदाज़ भी कर सकते हैं कि कै शलेस सोसायटी बनने के लिए प्वाइं ट आफ सेल मशीनों चीन में बनकर आ रही हैं। कु ल
मिलाकर यह तबका हर हाल में सरकार के साथ है। भले ही यह कई राज्यों में चुनाव न जीता सके लेकिन सरकार के साथ खड़े
होकर बाज़ार का गणित भी बदल सकता है। इसलिए जब भारत के प्रधानमंत्री ने नोटबंदी का एलान किया तो कु छ अपवादों
को छोड़ सभी मुख्य कोरपोरे ट ने स्वागत किया या फिर चुप्पी साध ली। जीडीपी में आधे से लेकर एक प्वाइं ट की गिरावट
पर कराहने वाला कारपोरे ट जगत छह महीने तक की जीडीपी में गिरावट को खुशी खुशी बर्दाश्त कर रहा है। 30-40 प्रतिशत
बिजनेस और उत्पादन ठप्प है मगर भारत का कोरपोरे ट जगत चुप्प है। कारपोरे ट भले ही इस राजनीति की सहायक हो मगर
फिलहाल वो अधीनस्थ ज़्यादा नज़र आती है।
राष्ट्रवादी राजनीति की यह नई कामयाबी है। नेशनलिस्ट होना पोलिटकल ज्यादा है। इसका नेशन के प्रति डेडिके शन से कम
संबंध है। नेता के कमांड के प्रति समर्पित होना है। लीडर में ही नेशन है। लीडर नेशन का ही स्वरूप है। देश का मतलब शिफ्ट
हो रहा है। लीडर जो सोचता है, जो फै सले लेता है, वही देश का फै सला है। भारतीय राजनीति में देश की तरफ से बोलने का
चलन पुराना है। नेता देश की तरफ से बोलने का दावा करते रहे हैं। उनके वाक्यों में 125 करोड़ का यह देश बार बार आता
है। 2011-13 के बीच के अन्ना आंदोलन के समय देश शब्द ने राजनीतिक कल्पना को बदल दिया। लोग बड़ी संख्या में राष्ट्रीय
दिवसों के अलावा तिरं गा लेकर आए। नेता और न्यूज़ एंकर देश की तरफ से बोलने और सवाल करने का दावा करने लगे। हिन्दी
और अंग्रेज़ी के एंकर बोलने लगे कि आज देश ये जानना चाहता है। आज देश वो जानना चाहता है। अन्ना आंदोलन के समय का
देश अब ग़ायब हो चुका है। एक नया देश आ गया है। जो 125 करोड़ की आबादी में नहीं रहता है। एक नेता में रहता है।
भारत, फ्रांस,अमरीका और ब्रिटेन को फिर से महान बनाने की बात हो रही है। सबको ग्रेट अमरीका चाहिए। ग्रेट इं डिया
चाहिए। ग्रेट फ्रांस चाहिए। मैं जानना चाहता हूं कि वो कौन सा ग्रेटनेस था जो इन मुल्कों ने गंवा दिया। क्या हम प्रथम और
विश्व युद्ध सहित उन असंख्य युद्धों का फिर से इं तज़ार कर रहे हैं? जिनमें फिर से लाखों सैनिक और करोड़ों जनता मारी जाए,
बहादुरी की नई गाथाएं लिखी जाएं, नई नई क़ब्रें बनें ताकि कारपोरे ट में बदल चुके मुल्कों के मुनाफा बढ़ने लगे। दरअसल हम
कोरपोरे ट और सरकार को दो अलग अलग यूनिट की तरह देखते हैं। हम देखना ही नहीं चाहते कि धुर-दक्षिणपंथी आर्थिक
नीतियों के दौर में सरकारें कारपोरे ट में बदल चुकी हैं। ये वही दौर हैं जिन्हें हम तथाकथित लिबरल दौर कहते हैं। सरकार की
भाषा कं पैशन की होती है मगर अब गर्वनेंस की ज़ुबान में सरकारें बोलने लगी हैं। भारत का लोकतंत्र ख़तरे में है। मैं अलार्मिस्ट
नहीं ह।ूं तंत्र तो हमेशा ही लोक से दूर रहा है लेकिन मुझे डर लगता है कि अगर लोक भी इसी तरह के तंत्र की वकालत करने
लगे तो क्या होगा।

The Construction of the People
Ravish Kumar
If there is one word that symbolizes the current phase of Indian politics it is arrogance. Arrogance is the body-
language of Indian politics. All discussions of Indian politics are decided by the government and the political
party that runs it. You may call it dominant discourse. It is a matter of course that any party that comes to
power begins to display arrogance in its conduct and its language. To call the present government arrogant
may itself be a kind of arrogance, yet the speech of its representatives and supporters exudes arrogance. This
would be the best time for a linguist to research the body language of Indian politics. The language used by
ministers and spokespersons, during press conferences, their body language in television interviews, their
style of arriving on the stage in rallies, all should be studied. The language of their supporters on social
media is arrogant as well as abusive. It is common for arrogance to be confused with aggression, and for
“aggressive” to blend into ‘arrogant’, but what I am referring to is the blending of “arrogant” and “abusive”.
Sophistry is the elite face of this arrogance.
Today’s politics is anti-humility. Humility is a political curse, a sign of a weak government. An arrogant
government is associated with performance. Confidence is desirable provided it is devoid of politeness.
Arrogance is the new plus for confidence. The dominant character of India politics is defined by hardly any
views, beliefs or ideology other than arrogance.
Close by Delhi, in Dadri, a mob kills Akhlaq on suspicion that he possessed beef, but government’s ministers
side with the crowd. Their sympathy does not lie with the killed person and his family. In the Hyderabad
Central University located in Hyderabad, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana, a student Rohith
Vemula commits suicide, but the government does not step up to the incident with humility. Instead, its
ministers respond in the Parliament with such aggression that it reeks of arrogance. Their attitude persists
in the case of Jawaharlal Nehru University and in the case of Dalits who were stripped and flogged in Una
in Gujarat. Even when these matters die down and the opposition grows silent, the representatives of the
government continue to repeat their old opinions in the absence of any contention. We never retreat from
any position and we are never wrong.

Ravish Kumar
Although for political scientists, a so-called secular and liberal government may have been replaced by so-
called nationalist and far right government, in reality there is no change in the economic agenda. The present
government has no original or new right-wing economic creed. There is an amazing continuity with the
previous one in financial policies and reforms. The only difference is their claim to speedy implementation
of the policies of the last government. They have been merely repackaged. They are being launched in a
new way. They are publicised at a massive scale, and daily. In this regard, if the existing government is arch
right-wing, so was the last one. If this were not the case, then one of ministers, who has the image of a crude
religious leader, would not have compared our prime minister with Karl Marx! Comparing the greatest
Hindutva leader with Karl Marx. That would mean Hindutva is in trouble. And nationalist politics too. For
the moment, the powers that would rescue them from these straits are weak; and a leader who likens the rich
to thieves and talks of the poor can certainly sound mythological in tales, but in reality he cannot turn into
a Marx. He cannot even approach it.
Arrogance began to afflict the ministers of the last government too, but by then their mass base had eroded.
Now, the supporters of the present government are being trained in arrogance through social media. And
members of the public are being trained in it through religious and nationalist vocabulary. “Bully” is now a
political character. It is reflected in the expressions of all those who are pro-government. In 2014, it was the
silence of the government that was termed arrogant. Since 2014, the media has followed the government and
itself turned arrogant. Linguists should study the discourse in the media today as to how an anchor speaks
when discussing the government in contrast to his/her semantic choices for the opposition.
A new kind of public is being constructed in India. It is no longer a voting public. The times are gone when a
political party expanded its members and created cadre who would work among the people. It now depends
less on party-workers. Rather it is in a continuous process to turn the voter herself into a supporter or fan.
Ever new issues are supplied in the political arena on which people are continuously asked to vote and express
support for the leader. The organizations linked to the party in power have been supplying such material
on a large scale within whose parameters the people may be contained. Normally, it is the government that
takes a position on issues raised by the public, but in the past two and a half years, the public is being forced
to take a position on issues generated by the government. This is a public that has fallen into positions so

Ravish Kumar
frequently that it is now acquired the mould of the government.
That is the reason why the public queued for days in support of the government’s decision to declare high
currency notes invalid on November 8, 2016. In an extremely short time, the government supplied a
statement for the public to repeat: the decision is historic. It is bold. There are some inconveniences but they
must be borne for the nation’s sake. The people too held it correct and held their tongues. Long, snaking
queues appeared outside the banks. Minders turned up to reprimand anyone who so much as sniffed, saying,
soldiers are laying their lives at the borders for the nation, can you not endure this much? Supporters of the
government arrived to pitch in with tea and juice, so that the people feel as though they are actually at the
frontier battling the enemy. As though they would take bullets at the manager’s desk, and step out of the back
door straight into Pakistan or China. Standing in the queue for hours with some or the other money related
need, people began to fall sick. About a 100 people died according to media reports. It made no difference to
anyone. While they remained standing, their sacrifice was termed martyrdom, but when on falling dead in
the queues, they were abandoned as though they were not even Indian. Even the banks did not express any
grief at the demise of their customers. Broadly speaking, the media ignored the cries of the people, giving
them less coverage that to voices welcoming and approving demonetisation.
This is proof that the governing party and its allied organisations that have fed these issues to the public
have succeeded in their goal. Love Jihad, biryani, beef, Pakistan, Kashmir, national flag, yoga, national song
“Vande Mataram”. People felt that these were methods of targeting minority communities. But this is a half-
truth. Using these issues, a large section of the majority population was being trained. Rather than induct
a hundred odd workers into party and promising them ministerial posts and election tickets, instruments
of social and mass media were used to tutor millions and millions of people. Now they cannot go against
their training. To an extent, a large section of the public has remained thus politically consolidated for some
time. From time to time, a tiny section gets veers off, but has to return to the nationalist fold since the weak
opposition and their camps have not mustered any fresh ethical power. Political scientists should deeply
reflect on this process of the construction of the public. It is a section of people that is digitally connected
through media and social media. Let us not forget that a company that offered six months of high-speed
internet connectivity to millions of people free of cost does not hide its affection for the government. It is true

Ravish Kumar
that this company has had good relations with all previous governments but it supports all other policies of
the present government with such enthusiasm as though it were one of its own subsidiaries. Recently when
the government announced demonetisation, this company Reliance, extended its free internet facility by
three months.
Critics should focus, not on the views and policies in politics, but on this constant construction of the
public. One is the domain of governance while the other that of political issues. There is very little scrutiny
of the government’s claims of governance, and where it does occur, it does not transform the dominant
discourse. Both the opposition and the media go through the forms of raising them and leave it there.
Issues of governance reach the people through a biased publicity. Decisions are advertised so widely and
with such conviction as to give people the impression that they have already been implemented and their
benefits already yielded. The political and religious issues concerning which the government is cornered by
the oppositions and critics are in fact supplied by itself. In this way, it keeps trying to establish its political
agenda within the public through different means. From a certain angle, it seems that this government is
under fire. The ruling party itself claims that no prime minister has been thus hounded. But we should check
whether such criticism was directed at the government’s policies and claims or at political controversies. It
can be said that the people have been educated, but only in the political agendas of this government.
By means of this construction of the people, the government has gained control even over the corporate.
It had been testing this power for a while. Recently the famous Bollywood film actor Aamir Khan said in
a TV interview that his wife sometimes expressed anxieties about living in India, that they are fearful. The
people, prepared by the government and its supporting organisations launched a campaign to boycott the
brands endorsed by the actor. Companies that had signed him for their promotion cancelled his contracts.
This happened with many other film artists as well. This government is confident that, at its instance, this
public of new supporters will boycott Chinese products; and if required, it will also ignore the fact that the
Point of Sale machines needed for a cashless society dreamt for them by this government are themselves
made in China. Altogether, this class of society is fully behind the government. Even if it cannot win many
state elections for the ruling party, it can stand with them and upset the mathematics of the market. That is
why other than a few complaints, most of the prominent corporate houses praised demonetization and then

Ravish Kumar
retreated into silence. The same corporate world that used to raise hell if the GDP fell a point or a half, has
been grinning and bearing the six-month slide of GDP. There has been a 30-40 percent fall in business and
the production but Indian corporate world is mum. Even if the corporate was instrumental in establishing
this politics, it now appears subjugated to it.
This is a new achievement of nationalist politics. Being nationalist has more to do with politics than with
dedication to the nation. It has to do with submission to the leader’s command. The nation is in the leader
alone. The leader is the figure of the nation. The meaning of nation has shifted. Whatever the leader thinks
and decides is the decision of the nation. Indian politics has had a long trend of speaking on behalf of the
“nation”. The reference to “125 crore nationals” is frequent in the sentences of leaders. In the Anna Hazare
movement between 2011 and 2013, the invocation of “nation” transformed the political imagination of the
time. Large numbers of people came out with the national flag on an occasion other than the usual nation
days. Both leaders and news anchors started claiming to speak for and question on behalf of the nation:
today the nation is asking… the nation wants to know… The nation of the time of Anna’s movement has now
vanished. A new nation has appeared. Which does not live in a population of 125 crore. It lives in one leader.
There is a talk of making India, America, France, Britain great again. Everyone wants a great America, a
great India. I know the shape of that greatness whose loss is being invoked in these statements. Are we once
again longing for the First and the Second World Wars, along with all those other innumerable wars? In
which, once again, thousands of soldiers and crores of people will be killed, new legends of valour will be
penned, new graves will be dug to profit nations that have turned into corporations? Actually, we continue to
see corporates and nations to be separate entities, for we do not want to recognise their fusion as a result of
right-wing economic policies. These are the ones we also call neoliberal. The language of the state used to be
compassion, but now it now speaks the language of governance. The democratic state of India is in danger. I
am not an alarmist. The state has always been distant from the people, but I fear what will happen when the
people themselves begin to advocate for this state.

Philosophy

The Between: The Dangerous Occupation of the Philosopher
Shaj Mohan
For there is a hazard in it and perhaps there exists no greater hazard.

– Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Our concern is for the philosopher in India;54 the philosopher as an idea, as in the idea of a Dryad or
54. The term “India” is as complicated as “Europe”; the
that of a pious woman, and also of her life as that which is devastated and reconfigured by the seizure—
schema which complicates the former is distinct from
like an epileptic fit where the seized and that which seizes are both the same body and, in another sense, the latter, although they share certain thematic traits
neither—of philosophy. We should also concern ourselves with philosophy in India. Has there ever been any and historiographic investments. For example, the
philosophy in India? This question falls in the family of several others. Such as, has there been a religion of “Aryan myth” and its relationship to the “Nazi Myth” is
the subcontinent? Has there ever been a conception of man in the subcontinent? What does it mean for a a case in point where the historiographic investment
in the former gives a thematic return to the latter. In
man to die in India? the present context, we are to understand by “India”
the social systems of the subcontinent which are
There are several who die—either killed by others or killed by themselves—in India for the only reason determined by caste order. But most of the time we
refer to the political entity “Indian Union” which is
that they were born into the wrong castes or religions, who are often Dalits and Muslims. Their speech gets
presently ruled by the Hindu Fascist organization BJP,
codified into a species of non-sense poetry; as the speech of those marginal humans which has not come to whose parent organization RSS was described as a
have the maturity to appear before mankind yet. The institutional romance and the containments of these “Nazi styled organization” by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first
speeches are to be found in two related developments—postcolonial theory and subaltern theory—which prime minister of the Indian Union.
guard the “yet”. These two theoretical programmes are complicit in the rise of Hindu Nazi politics in India, 55. Today, while one is reading the inaugural speech of
which wills the problematic of the appearance of the human in the subcontinent itself as colonisation; that Donald Trump, the danger for philosophy is not a local
the subcontinent was colonised with the idea of the human, which arrogated itself between the event of phenomenon peculiar to the subcontinent; rather, the
the self-destining of the soil and blood. We will find that the essential relation between death and thinking world being drained of philosophy is what we should
be concerned about.
determines the reproduction of all the other relations in India. We roam the liminality of death and
philosophy, the metaxu—the substantivation of the relation “between”, as in “the between”—of philosophy.
We cannot take philosophy, its poverty and its powers, for granted in India, or anywhere else today55.

Shaj Mohan
The seizure of the world
The reality of the world is the result of our attachment

– Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
We have already constituted a “pre-formal something”56 of the philosopher, which does not grant us the
figure who is capable of willing the form of thought which can confer an object—say, Idea following Plato—
such that the world is oriented, and that it articulates correctly. The philosopher is not she who, like an
orthopaedist setting a bone into a joint, lets the world articulate, or speak to us; she is rarely the most
articulate person. Instead, she is made up of dis-located joints and dis-oriented words which fail to fall back
into the given bauplans. She mourns the irretrievable loss of a Bauplan. She trains herself to let the obscure
tarry within her homeless language as she gathers the confused shards of this—always catastrophic—world
56. We are alluding to Emil Lask and Edmund Husserl
in her concepts. She is ignorant of her innocence and innocent of her ignorance.57 here.
57. Deleuze prompts us to think the dis-orientation
There are instances of philosophising where a dynamic of concepts, distinct from the dynamics of energies of the philosopher by bringing in contact “innocence”
in Simone Weil’s system, refers to that which is not exhaustible by any contraction, that which is not the and “metaphysics” when he said “I have been doing
wholly other to any contraction, and that which is at the same time not inconvertible with things; we can metaphysics innocently”.
call it Being, or Ishmael, while keeping in mind that Being designates—designation as a representation
for thinking—this or that problematic rather than a thing. This characterisation falls within the doctrinal
debates about Being (of analogy, equivocity, univocity) since we appear to be suggesting a certain analogy
of equality (as in, animality is said of both man and the beast, where it is said of man more nobly than of the
beast) with Being, which can also be termed a certain kind of univocity.
If we think of philosophy as the concern with that which is capable of seizing itself and casting for itself the
metaxu which would apportion this world, rather than a concern with the other world which apportions
this world and its actions, then for this while the doctrinal warfare should be safe. Within the history of this
doctrinal warfare, there is a tendency for caring to bring nothing between this world and some wholly other,
but to think of all the betweens, the metaxu, as belonging to the world, and this tendency should be allowed

Shaj Mohan
to extend towards us, with the help of its opponents; we will be granted this room by Simone Weil.
The doctrinal warfare should not be dismissed in the name of the sudden exigencies of politics which
surrender to the popular will today, the pure contingencies of data which reveal their form only to the
machines, and the technological grace of our time conferring a form to the world as the “inevitable”. The
alarm about “how little time there is for thinking” gives rise to the paucity of language, the paucity of language
gives rise to the relentless filling of the room apportioned for language with images, and images are invested
with stimuli and their regulation. This scenario already unfolded with neoliberalism, the internet, and their
techno-synthesis resulting in a new conversion of the world. Its politics is popularly, and euphemistically
termed “populist politics”: Populism, a politics conducted in an impoverished language about poverty.
It is possible that the tradition of philosophy—which comes to matter only when the form of the philosopher
falls over it—and language too, not as the sum of all that was said, but as the potential to say things which
are algorithmically incalculable, will not remain forever with us. However, for now we can think of this
impoverishment of language and philosophy as their withdrawal from the domain of those who appear as
“people”, those who are commanded by “populism”, as the expurgation of this potential from “the people”
through the politics of neoliberalism and complacency. Hence, ‘populist’ politics is the mockery of the
“people”. Today, the potential for the un-algorithmizable—which is opposed to the “one percent” who are
the lords of the infrastructure of the algorithms—exists in the hands of a few, just like the wealth made of the
whole world’s labour. Unlike the wealth for which there are guardians, this potential is unguarded.
The philosopher remains in the pre-formal seizure of philosophy; without there being someone in the
seizure of philosophy there is no philosophy. The pre-formal grasping is not the entelechy of Being disclosed
to the philosopher as the pre-understanding of Being. This grasping is not the potentiality of that which
dispenses in its withdrawal from all that is given by it; the dispenser which does not increase and decrease
with respect to the giving. The grasping of the philosopher is not represented by the vector of this kinesis—
the withdrawal and the dispensing—in such a way that the traces of this vector would be the object for
philosophy. Instead of these late variations of Aristotelianism, the problematic—the configuration of the

Shaj Mohan
tendencies which direct possible problems—is the seizure of the world by itself, as it allows its conversion
into worlds unknown. Philosophy does not have an infinite dispenser and it is a perishable venture, unless
there always be philosophical adventures.
The challenge before her is to conceive the many conversions of the world without letting those worlds
sunder and become sepulchres to each other. For example, to conceive the worlds which are not set apart in
equivocity; when one says world of the “subaltern” and of the “techno-political”, the term “world” does not
designate two different concepts. Plotinus conceived a modulating world—a world which is not uniform 58. Plotinus, The Enneads, Trans. Stephen MacKenna,
everywhere and yet one under the aspect of the soul—through the analogy of the sciences: “we may think New York: published for the Paul Brunton Philosophic
Foundation by Larson Publications, 1992. There is a
of a science with its constituents standing as one total, the source of all those various elements: again there
substance logic; the underlying substance of the world
is the seed, a whole, producing these new parts in which it comes to its division”.58 The pre-formality of the lets it be converted and then converge into unity before
self-convertible world is the problematic of philosophy today; today, when populism seeks to make wilted thinking.
sepulchres of each worlds. It can be modulated in the form of certain questions. Why do we insist on “the
59. Being is not a special kind of being for Heidegger; it
world” in our most distant techno-phantasies? How should we name in this difficult moment the apparent designates an act akin to a seizure.
world-form which is continuous between worlds?
60. Proposition 6.41, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus
Logico Philosophicus, trans. D. F. Pears and B. F.
The world conceived as a genus would receive each conversion—receive in so far as the reason is given for McGuinness, ed. Ted Honderich, London: Routledge &
each conversion—in accordance with the specific difference. Heidegger practiced this logic in his thinking Kegan Paul, 1961. Adorno’s criticism of Wittgenstein
follows from the concluding proposition of the
of the epochs of Being,59 where the specific difference between epochs was given by the contraction of the
Tractatus, of which he said that the task of philosophy
difference between Being and beings, or by the understanding of Being; although the general logic of Being’s was to articulate precisely those things which do
difference was not conceived as a specific difference. The world conceived under the logic of potentiality not yield to language—philosophy speaks the
would imply that there is an extra-being to the world which holds itself away in a duratio noumenon. The unspeakable.
act of secretion of this secret extra-being would give the world as a metaxu, between itself and us—the
world experienced as an interim between us and the truth of the world. For early Wittgenstein the goal of
philosophy was to realise this truth— “The sense of the world must lie outside it”.60
Heidegger’s risks in philosophy arise from grounding the Being-question in this model which combines
the two logics. In the general logic, he conceived the world as something given according to the potential

Shaj Mohan
difference between Being and beings—the metaxu of Being. A potential difference requires there being at
least two things and between them a third thing—Dasein, who need not be man—which is capable of the
modes of conducting and resisting the difference. This conductor being, since it regulates the potential
difference, is essentially the world. Heidegger derived this intuition from his study of Aristotle, in whose
words,
Let us now summarise our results about the soul, and repeat that the soul is in a way all existing
things; for existing things are either sensible or thinkable, and knowledge is in a way what is
knowable, and sensation is in a way what is sensible […].61
61. Book 3, 20, On the Soul, The Complete Works of

The potency of the world is in proportion to the difference as the devastation of a lighting strike is in
Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, Princeton: Princeton
proportion to the potential difference between the earth and clouds, or between clouds. Man, “the shepherd University Press, 1984, p. 686.
of Being”, regulates the potency of the world by thinking attentively of this difference. There is a strict ratio
62. For the relation between Heidegger and Hegel
between the potency and the thinking of this difference—the more forgetful we are of the difference the less
concerning the logic of phase transitions see Robert
fecund the world becomes. Heidegger found a parameter of phase transition in this ratio under the notion Bernasconi, The Question of Language in Heidegger’s
of “the forgetting of forgetting” of the potential difference, which would result in absolute impotency.62 History of Being, New Jersey: Humanity Press, 1985.
63. See Martin Heidegger, “End of Philosophy and the
In our maintaining the potential through essential thinking and poetic attentiveness, the world remains Task of Thinking”, Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell,
fecund. The thinking that corresponds to the potential such that it can be represented under possibility is San Francisco: Harper, 1993, pp. 427–452.
essential thinking; essential thinking is the reciprocal seizure of the ground of possibility and the philosopher.
The thinking that is attentive to the potential as it is, without seeking to represent it under concepts, is poetic;
and later63 this notion is displaced by piety and silence. Are silence and piety the mode of conductance or
of resistance? Do they—conductance and resistance—make any difference when they are absolute? These
questions are essential to understand Heidegger’s failed quest to institute the concept of a philosophical
Nazi, to which we can only allude here.

Shaj Mohan
The seizure of the philosopher
Professional thinkers, whether philosophers or scientists, have not been “pleased with freedom”
– Hannah Arendt, Life of the Mind
These two valuable logical directions—of genus and of potentiality—give reason to the things in this world,
although not exhaustively and not to the world itself; they remain subjected to the charges of “transcendent
principles”. Instead, the problematic is to conceive the world as that which seizes itself; the conversion of the
world which is capable of the potential which does not require its other to generate it—the world itself as
sufficient in itself, with its own betweens for the accrual of potentials and conductance. Such conductance
of the world should be philosophised in opposition to Simone Weil: “The world is the closed door. It is a
barrier. And at the same time it is the way through”.64
The philosopher is to be understood as she who is in the seizure of this world which leads into itself; the 64. Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, trans. Emma
Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr, Routledge and Kegan
conductance and the resistance of the philosopher modulates the dimensions of the world to make room for
Paul, London, 1952, p. 132.
worlds. Philosophy understood as the philia for wisdom would be cancelled out in the instance in which the
philosopher is consummated with it, and with it she will have achieved everything the world had to offer as
metaxu. The peculiar discipline of the philosopher is to tarry along the promises of consummation and at
the same time to be in the seizure of the world—she experiences the world as that of which no predication
is possible. The philosopher in all times and places — whether Greek, Jews or a bionic woman—is seized by
this contagious concern. The pre-formal grasping reticulates the philosopher—like the earth cracking in the
summer sun to make room between itself to receive the rains—in such a way that no thing, no world, neither
this one nor the other one, grasps her into a containment, or a containment of sense.
Philosophy is not the entirety of thinking and speaking freely, although it is a discipline entrusted with
a tradition that thinks of the entirety of thinking and things. When we speak in the mode of “Philosophy
is …” it risks being an autobiography, of both the philosopher and of philosophy. Nietzsche spoke about
this problem as determined by the instincts which unconsciously write, distinctly in each philosopher—

Shaj Mohan
“It has become gradually clear to me what every great philosophy has hitherto been; a confession on the
part of its author and unconscious memoir”65. Although it is only in this difficult mode of speaking, which
is experienced by the philosopher as intolerable gravity and graceful catastrophe, can she speak. When
she opens her speech with “Philosophy is …” she is aware that her gesture is poorer than that of Freud’s
“An Autobiographical Study”; the autobiography of Sigmund Freud and that of Psychoanalysis—“They
are intimately interwoven”66—are one. The philosopher speaks more in the manner of Husserl who wrote
introductions; she introduces with “Philosophy is …” the conditions of her speech. The philosopher’s speech
speaks of the torsioning of herself by the self-conversion of this world. It is more like “I am getting done by
philosophy” than “I am philosophy”. The thing which gets her done without relent makes the accursed being
of the philosopher.
The philosopher—be it a phenomenologist in Europe or a philosopher under the post-colonial condition

(without being the subject of its theory) in the subcontinent—experiences politics as the freedom of the 65. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R.
world in that seizure: politics as the experience of the parting of freedom and its other. The other can be J. Hollingdale, London: Penguin Classics, 2014, p. 12.
security, prosperity, nativity, technological progress, religion. This experience of the philosopher does not 66. Sigmund Freud, An Autobiographical Study, trans.
lead to an act of will affirming either a strict necessity—such as, declaring an essential contingency in the James Strachey, London: Hogarth Press, 1946, p. 131.
world—or affirming chance through a paradoxical willing which wills that which it concedes under a form 67. Weil, p. 12.
of tragedy. In Simone Weil’s system, the affirmation of chance is the opening to the oriental experience of
the annulment of desire— “The extinction of desire (Buddhism)—or detachment—or amor fati—or desire
for the absolute good—these all amount to the same”.67
The conception of the convertibility of the world is renewed with each philosophical act and in that the
freedom of the worlds are released—Philosophy is the creation of freedom. The philosopher is not the
monopolist of the experience of the self-conversion of the world; the sciences and the arts too are founded
on this it. However, in thinking the world in its essence—conceiving the convertibility of the worlds which
are never given in algorithms—philosophy thinks the world itself, and not a domain of the world. Philosophy
creates something more than algorithms in its act. It seeks and gives reason—the more-than-algorithm—
which makes the world respond to algorithms: As in the principle of sufficient reason, which was not a
mechanical thought, but that which sought the ground of the mechanical.

Shaj Mohan
The principle of reason—that reason must be given every time—is a certain responsibility, and at the same
time it is a demand, or gravity, on the philosopher. The gravity of the principle can be thought through the
difference between necessary truths and contingent truths: Necessary are those truths which are finitely
analysable, such as the definition of prime numbers; and contingent are those truths which are infinitely
analysable, in other words even for God they would not be analysable. The “essential distinction between
necessary and contingent truths”68 is given by the degree of their analysis. Giving reason and receiving
the world are inseparable; should we receive more or less of the world it would be a confounding inequity
or catastrophe. From the principle of reason Michel Serres derived a moral imperative—“it would be an
injustice, a disequilibrium for us to receive this given for free”.69
Reason is the responsibility of the between, and nothing else. Reason keeps open the conduit between us and
the worlds; it is always between worlds and not between a particular world and its outside. The failure of the
model of multiculturalism was in its refusal of reason as the conduit between peoples and the surrendering 68. G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters Vol. 2,
trans. and ed. Leroy E. Loemker, Chicago: University of
of peoples to inconvertible containments. The principle of reason is also the ground of our experience of the
Chicago Press, 1956, p. 412.
exigency of the world—reason must be given—and the experience of sapience—there is a reason; it hastens
us into action and at the same time tempers us into contemplation. Freedom in a world is created through 69. Michel Serres, The Natural Contract, trans. Elizabeth
MacArthur and William Paulson, Ann Arbor: The
these two experiences, by giving reason, and the freedom to let other worlds. University of Michigan Press, 1995, p. 90.

Shaj Mohan
The metaxu and the world
What makes wishes dangerous is the fact that they are granted.
To wish that the world did not exist is to wish that I, just as I am, may be everything.
Simone Weil
Simone Weil constructed a theology on the basis of three concepts—gravity, void, and metaxu—using the
resources of metaphysics, which are always presupposed by theologies. Weil’s theology is oriental in its ethos
and its transcendent principles. The principle whereby she conceived the world as a metaxu is oriental,
although this name is extracted from Plato’s Symposium. Metaxu designates this world as the between; the 70. Weil, p. 33.
world is both the interim, and something standing between man and his essence, akin to a prison wall— “The 71. This word “brahman” did not always designate
being of man is situated behind the curtain, on the supernatural side.”70 By curtain, we are to understand the supernatural truth. In the Rig Veda, this word
world, and in the subcontinental counterpart the world understood as “maya” (the illusory) which conceals designates the language in which the verses were
composed and Brahmins were the men (never women)
the truth of “brahman”.71
who were competent in this language.
72. Luis Althusser, Philosophy and the Spontaneous
What really should be designated by the oriental? Other than the rhetoric of postcolonial theory which Philosophy of Scientists, trans. Warren Montag, ed.
sees in it the construction of a colonisable object, and the touristic mystique of new age cults which is a Gregory Elliot, Verso, London, 1990, p. 75.
continuation of orientalism, this word holds a certain temptation, or a directive, which continues to orient
all places, like the pied piper. Perhaps, the orient and the occident are not places at all. They should be
submitted to another conversion. Althusser wrote about the political activity of philosophy, which is its
commitment to theory, that “Philosophy ‘divides’ (Plato), ‘traces lines of demarcation’ (Lenin) and produces
(in the sense of making manifest or visible) distinctions and differences.”72 Instead of thinking of this couple,
orient/occident, in terms of the fragile arrangements of geo-politics such as “the west”, and according to the
confused lines of demarcations on the maps, they can be understood as tendencies of thinking; occident and
orient are not places but the dominance of two distinct tendencies.

Shaj Mohan
The tendencies of thinking can exist anywhere as they possess their own incline, and also overwhelm
anywhere, given the conditions. The occident is the tendency of ends—it tends to the ends; ends as in the
outer bounds of things and the world of things, ends as in the goals of things, and the outer bounds of the
goals we conceive for things. The Kairos which awaits at the ends is the foundry upon which the occident
recasts for itself new worlds, whose ends it seeks again. As long as this tendency leads the problematic
of a region it is an occidental place, wherever that might be, someday even Mars. The occident is a rare
occurrence, even in the loci designated by “the west” for the geo-political and the militaristic agreements.
The orient by contrast is that which tends towards the beginning, and nothing else. A special case of the
oriental tendency is the Spinozist notion of conatus and its modern variants, as the tendency to remain
what it is, or to remain in its own being. In Gandhi’s words, “it behoves every lover of India to cling to the
old Indian civilization even as a child clings to the mother’s breast”.73 The Indian obsession to identify in its 73. M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, Ahmedabad: Navajivan
recently constructed mythical past the origin of all that makes modern political power—nuclear bombs, Publishing House, 1938.
plastic surgery, space travel, cloning, quantum mechanics—and its lack in the present are explained by the
74. It is important to discern the leading tendency
tendency to guard and remain at the mythical beginning; since India must tend to the beginning of all things in the postcolonial theoretical affair without falling
it could not participate in the ends. prey to the challenge that it is a vast enterprise which
absorbs and adjusts to the academic trends and
fashions.
This tendency in India lets the a posteriori of the modern guide the construction of the a priori of its mythic
past. This mythic past itself is a construction of orientalism and, postcolonial theory and Hindu Nazi politics
are the attempts at creating the objective conditions for the myths. Postcolonial theory74 is the work of the
a posteriori in the universities; it is a theory which works at de-theorisation of the subcontinent. It deploys
European critique and the self-criticism of Europe against Europe; the value of the gesture does not arise
from its originality but from the region on behalf of which it is raised. Since critique is the coloniser’s
method it would not be applicable in the subcontinent; and if there were to be a critique of the subcontinent
it would risk its own unwitting Europeanisation. The cleverness of this gesture was such that it could provide
a theretico-critical isolation to the festering of Hindu nativism which has come to be Hindu-Hindi Nazi style
rule of today: postcolonial theory was the international preparatory work for the dominance of “Hinduness”,
or the pro-Hindu-nationalist theory. It prevented for decades—through its control over institutions and
publications—any political thinking which would disturb the social orders of the subcontinent. In this

Shaj Mohan
way, it tended to the beginning, since “good governance” in the subcontinent always meant the protection
and maintenance of caste hierarchies or “dharma”; politics could never appear in the subcontinent until
colonialism. Colonialism was the disturbance of the caste order, for example, “caste disabilities act” of 1860
recognised discrimination on the basis of caste as a crime. One of the most valiant acts of the mythical king-
god Rama was the beheading of a low-caste man for the crime of learning the Vedas, which was in violation
of an originary rule that only a Brahmin shall have access to the Vedas. De-colonisation, the beheading of
politics, would be the return of the mythic kingdom of Rama.
The orient too is not a place; it is a provincializing tendency. It is the tendency that overwhelms in all the
75. When we speak of governing in this moment it
places on earth the most. As men try to tend only to their own natum, race, language, soil, blood, wealth it is should not be confused with the theory of “oriental
the orient which governs;75 then, one might think of the present predicament of the world as the dominance despotism” of Wittfogel. See Karl August Wittfogel,
of the oriental tendency. Mircea Eliade had anticipated the risks of letting the oriental tendency dominate Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power,
everywhere, although his own determination of “oriental wisdom” and the alternatives to history are at work New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1957.
in postcolonial theory— “Western philosophy is dangerously close to ‘provincializing’ itself (if the expression 76. Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of
be permitted).”76 We can divide them one more time: the occidental tendency is to convert the worlds and the Eternal Return, trans. Willard R. Trask, New York: Harper
oriental tendency is to conserve in one particular world. The tendency to conserve in a particular world, to Torch Books, 1954, p. xii; emphasis ours.
protect it and to be protected in it, is also the proskynesis—such as the caste order—of that world, which in 77. Weil, p. 35.
turn can be projected upon a single individual—the essence of the politics of charisma.
In Simone Weil, the oriental tendency seeks to conserve the beginning of man, as God had given it to man.
The minimum of man as that was bestowed upon him by God is that which man keeps without diminishing
it through his acquisitions in order to return it to God— “God gave me being in order that I should give it
back to him”.77 In order to receive this “being” from man God needs the void as a condition or conduit. Void
is opposed to gravity. Weil interprets the relation between being and thinking anew under the schema of
gravity. Gravity is not merely the weight of the body experienced as the force which pulls at the flesh. But it
is also the weight of thoughts and desires, which suffer the force of the sufferings of others, and the wrench
of desires which create the worlds in which it finds its new regulae. Thinking and desire are the weighing
of things, demands, pains, and ideas. But gravity—the force of the reciprocal demands between us and the
world—is prior to each thought and desire.

Shaj Mohan
For Weil, the pre-formality of gravity—there being a weight of things, of thoughts—is the sin given at the
beginning78. Gravity, for her, is that which brings things and thoughts down to their “baseness”. It designates
the ground which holds men to one another and to the worlds of their making; the force of gravity gathers
men down into queues for an egg when food is scarce. The world of gravity into which men are delivered
turns them the wrong side up; that which is low—base—in men lies above that which is high—“We are
born and live in an inverted fashion, for we are born and live in sin which is an inversion of the hierarchy.”79 78. “Obedience to the force of gravity. The greatest sin”,
The oldest moment for the reversal of man’s vertical organisation, which implies the reversal of the order Weil, pp. 2-3.
of world as determined by gravity, is found in the subcontinent—“reversal of the positive and the negative.
79. Weil, p. 30.
That is also the meaning of the philosophy of the Upanishads.”80
80. Weil, p. 30.
However, we might ask after the social order in which the reversal of the vertical organisation is possible. 81. The meaning given by Weil to grace is closer to
Kant in its relation to the universal, to justice and the
The caste system which condemns men into positions in a hierarchy in which that which is considered notion of training which makes one the vessel. It is
base—dealing with death and that which is dead—is the Dalit oppressed by the gravity of existence, and that not justice which lets a man who has done his duty
which is considered the highest—the summit from which the lightness of Brahman is accessible—allows return the being given to him by God back to Him, but
only the Brahmin, who alone can revert to the true vertical order of man. The true vertical order is the grace. However grace is explained through a certain
opening in which the void—the receptacle of grace which must also be given by grace81—is prepared by the energetics by her: Man is a thing in the order of energy
determined as gravity and in order to access the
renouncer of the world. The void receives the truth which cannot survive the gravity of the world—“Truth void, which is a distinct order of energy, man has no
is on the side of death”.82 That is, the one who is voiding is the non-participant of this world designated as resources of his own, except grace. All that man can do
metaxu. Philosophy as the concern with worlds and their ends must be brought to its end for her—set free is to make himself lighter, by refusing the call of the
from the gravity of the flesh—in order to set the right side up again, or to come back to the origin. Metaxu: world and words—“To accept the void in ourselves
It holds apart the beginning and the end which are indistinguishable without it. is supernatural […] The energy has to come from
elsewhere”, Weil, p. 10.
82. Weil, p. 11.

Shaj Mohan
Fight for Freedom
A philosopher recuperates differently and with different means
Nietzsche, Will to Power
In each situation where the world is experienced as metaxu the beholder of the experience awaits the creation
of the void through a decreation of the world; the persistence of the hierarchies of the world and those who
suffer under the hierarchies absent themselves. The absence in thought of those who suffer was not a matter
for the dominant social organisational principles of the subcontinent for millennia. This social order is
launched from two principles. First, the world is an illusion or maya. The truth of the illusion which lies 83. “But it seems the notion of metamorphosis linked
outside the world is termed Brahman; the same principle is replicated in the individual as the distinction to the vegetal form was spread in Greece by Eastern
between the body, which is illusory, and the atman which is true. The second principle insists that the religious beliefs which were not that important in the
time of Plato”, Gilbert Simondon, Two Lessons on Animal
release from the illusory world is conditional upon the obedience to the caste system. The illusory body and Man, trans. Drew S. Burk, Minneapolis: Univocal
is the sole sufferer of the caste order. The atman, which is capable of transmigration, remains entrapped Publishing, 2011, p. 41.
in the body without being affected by its passions. As long as men performed their caste duties without
question they held the possibility of ascending in the social order in their next births, and will ultimately
be born as a Brahmin. The two principles are dependent on one another—the world’s truth is given to the
ones who ascent through their adherence to the caste order to its summit through re-births. The Brahmin
at the summit and the Dalit at the bottom are both at the risk of falling further towards the animal in their
future births if their obedience to the caste order is not strict. The present suppression and assassinations
of philosophers and public intellectuals in India are born out of the refusal of those few who declined to
participate in the games of Brahman, transmigration of the atman and the caste order.
Transmigration of the soul and the hierarchy of existence found a way from the oriental domain into Plato’s
Timaeus in which the form of man degrades and creates the animal in a certain evolution from above.83 The
oriental tendency, which tends to the origins of the social order, does not leave room for philosophy: Nor
does it leave room for politics, since the idea of the state in the subcontinent is as that instrument which

Shaj Mohan
is in the service of the social order; postcolonial theory understands the appearance of the modern state
as a disruption of the relation to the origins. The dangerous occupation of the philosopher and the para-
philosophical discourse of “the end of philosophy” are distinguished by their respective conceptions of the
world. In a world in which truth has been left outside philosophy must arrive at its own end, enacted in
thought as the journey to the end of the world; and opposed to it, in a world which is the conversion of many
worlds the philosopher is born of the seizures of the conversions. The operation of the oriental tendency
should be examined in the historicality of Heidegger’s works too, in order to diagnose the meaning of “the
end of philosophy”. Heidegger himself alluded to the activity of this tendency in the context of Hölderlin—
“We have still scarcely begun to think of the mysterious relations to the East that found expressions in
Hölderlin’s poetry”.84 The experience of the indifference between philosophy and the world can be heard in 84. Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism”, Basic Writings,
Gilles Deleuze’s “What Is Philosophy?”. The autobiographical address of philosophy which referred to his own Trans. David Farrell Krell, Frank A. Capuzzi and J. Glenn
old age as the season in which wisdom ripens sufficiently is simultaneously the autobiography of philosophy Gray, San Francisco: Harper 1993, pp. 213-267, p. 241.
as that which has come to the end, ripe enough to fall and return to the concrete ground of origin—“The
85. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What Is
question what is philosophy? can perhaps be posed only late in life, with the arrival of old age and the time for Philosophy?, Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham
speaking concretely”.85 Perhaps, the lingering discourse of indifference between philosophy and the world is Burchill, London: Verso, 1994, p. 1.
the void which endangers those philosophers who are in the seizure of the world everywhere. 86. Hannah Arendt, Life of the Mind: Willing, New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978, p. 199.
Arendt characterised philosophy as the activity which conceives freedom as that which exists outside the
making of the worlds, and philosophers as the fragile men sheltered from the forces which tear worlds
and conjoin them to make new worlds. This freedom for her was a contemplative experience of the will—
“Philosophic freedom, or freedom of the will, is relevant only to people who live outside political communities,
as solitary individuals” 86. Arendt’s philosopher is indifferent to politics, the fight for freedom. We found that
this style of contemplation in solitude, the piety of quietude, and the understanding of politics as awaiting
are the others of philosophy; such thinking seeks to make a screen of this world, and to tear it down to be
let into the un-worldly. Instead, philosophy is the creation of freedom of the worlds; the activity of the creation
of freedom cannot be separated from politics understood as the fight for freedom. The conjuncture of two
statements—philosophy is the creation of freedom and politics is the fight for freedom—is the weight which
torsions the philosopher today, everywhere.

Rohith Vemula
Rohith Vemula, the Dalit PhD

scholar and writer who was led
to suicide by the conditions
created by the Hyderabad Central
University, and pressure from the
government on behalf of the ABVP.

Vemula’s suicide note
Rohith Vemula
“Good morning,
I would not be around when you read this letter. Don’t get angry on me. I know some of you truly cared for me,
loved me and treated me very well. I have no complaints on anyone. It was always with myself I had problems. I
feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A
writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.
I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan.
I loved Science, Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from
nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. Our originality valid through
artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt.
The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a
thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in
streets, in politics, and in dying and living.
I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense.
My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my
past.
May be I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no
urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some people, for them, life itself is curse.
My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my
past.

Rohith Vemula
I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s
why I am doing this.
People may dub me as a coward. And selfish, or stupid once I am gone. I am not bothered about what I am called.
I don’t believe in after-death stories, ghosts, or spirits. If there is anything at all I believe, I believe that I can travel
to the stars. And know about the other worlds.
If you, who is reading this letter, can do anything for me, I have to get 7 months of my fellowship, one lakh and
seventy five thousand rupees. Please see to it that my family is paid that. I have to give some 40 thousand to Ramji.
He never asked them back. But please pay that to him from that.
Let my funeral be silent and smooth. Behave like I just appeared and gone. Do not shed tears for me. Know that I
am happy dead than being alive.
“From shadows to the stars.”
Uma Anna, sorry for using your room for this thing.
To ASA family, sorry for disappointing all of you. You loved me very much. I wish all the very best for the future.
For one last time,
Jai Bheem
I forgot to write the formalities. No one is responsible for my this act of killing myself.
No one has instigated me, whether by their acts or by their words to this act.

Rohith Vemula
This is my decision and I am the only one responsible for this.
Do not trouble my friends and enemies on this after I am gone.”
Ann Druyan, wife of Carl Sagan, who was Rohith’s inspiration.
“To read his (Vemula’s) suicide note and to learn the details of his predicament is to get a vivid inkling of
the actual cost of bias to our civilization.”

Rationalists Murdered
NARENDRA DABHOLKAR GOVIND PANSARE M. M. KALBURGI GAURI LANKESH

(Writer, shot dead in Pune, (Writer and activist, shot dead in (Former vice-chancellor of Hampi (Veteran journalist, editor of
Maharashtra 2013) Kolhapur, Maharashtra, 2015) University shot dead in Dharwad, Lankesh Patrike shot dead in
Karnataka 2015) Bengaluru, Karnataka 2017)
Assassinated outside their homes for campaigning and writing against superstition and the sway of religion, caste
and communalism in people’s lives.

The Ideal Subject of Totalitarianism
Rather than going for the new object of study, the new product to consume, one should work on
new ways of seeing, of being, or of living the world. Perhaps it is time to look at the nature of our
own understanding of what you just called “productive resistance” and to assess how – in our very
“resistance” -- we may have been working in complicity with what we set out to criticize.
Trinh T. Minh-ha, D-Passage, p.122 87. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison
Notebooks (NY: International Publishers: 1971), pp.
Given the rate of change in the global political situation, this publication will most likely be woefully out 275-276.
of date by the time the ink has dried on it. At the moment, the world is caught in a shifting of orders and is 88. To name but a few: the range of article penned
experiencing a period which Antonio Gramsci described as an interregnum, when “the old is dying and the in the pages of Kafila Online Magazine assessing the
new cannot be born.” The interregnum, Gramsci writes, is accompanied by “all sorts of morbid symptoms.”87 changes in India https://kafila.online/, the work of
Among these morbid symptoms are democracies such as India and the United States which have set into Nancy Fraser in Dissent magazine is exemplary; See
also Drucilla Cornell and Stephen D. Seeley, “Seven
motion their dissolution by democratic means, in the process giving rise to what we will refer to in this essay
Theses on Trump” at http://criticallegalthinking.
as totalitarian democracies. Over the past three years Narendra Modi, the democratically elected leader of com/2016/11/28/seven-theses-trump/
India, has presided over the humanitarian crisis in Kashmir and is successfully undermining the education
89. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New
system especially critical humanities, all while committing atrocities against minorities, Muslims and Dalits.
York: Harcourt, Inc., 1968; see also Wendy Brown,
Meanwhile the ascension of Donald Trump to President of the United States in 2017 emerges as one of the Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution,
most visible moments in a worldwide rise of ethno-nationalist movements and the solidification of rule by Cambridge: Zone Books, 2015.
a diffuse yet potent global right that is radicalizing at a rapid pace. 90. The term is drawn from Alfred Jarry’s 1896 absurdist
play Ubu Roi.
Public intellectuals across the world have scrambled to respond, retooling existing theories to adapt to
rapidly changing circumstances.88 Thus while standard works such as Hannah Arendt’s classic text The
Origins of Totalitarianism have newfound relevance, scholars across the world are aware that existing theories
of totalitarianism may be insufficient for explaining the political configurations of these contemporary
movements which arise in a thoroughly neoliberal world foreign to Arendt.89 Instead of focusing on further
dissecting the charismatic “Ubu Roi” figures at the helm of these totalitarian democracies, we will instead
focus on the demos of these democracies in order to ask who—in Arendt’s words—is the “ideal subject of
totalitarian rule” within neoliberal totalitarian democracies?90 According to Arendt, the ideal subject of a
totalitarian system such as Nazi Germany is not a devotee of the regime, but instead a person who has lost

the ability to draw certain fundamental distinctions about reality. At stake, therefore, in the creation of
totalitarian regimes are fundamental questions of education and even re-education. What can the examples
of India and the US teach us about the role of education, public intellectuals and specifically the humanities
within a democracy that elects to dismantle its own democratic structures? And what can they show us
about the trajectory of when a democracy’s transformation into totalitarianism?
Modi’s rise to power on the slogan of acche din, or “good days to come” was open, ambiguous and capacious
enough to bring a terrifying resurgence of the Hindu fundamentalist RSS. This group has sought to rewrite
the cultural and political history of the nation through force and lies and the direct economic fallout is
marked through the precipitous rise in farmer suicides in the last few years.91 We have already asked ad
nauseam “acche din” for whom? We have dissected down to the tiniest detail the cataclysmic effects of
Modi’s economic plans. Yet, India remains one of the most largest and vibrant democracies in the world. If
that is the case, then there are still questions left to be answered.
91. According official numbers farmer suicides between
2014 to 2015 went up from 5650 to 8000. For a
Since the inauguration of Trump, the pace of change in America has been so rapid that one can hardly develop critical understanding of the data see P. Sainath, “The
a coherent response to one day’s travesties of human rights before the next day’s travesties overwhelm the Slaughter of Suicide Data”, http://psainath.org/the-
slaughter-of-suicide-data/ accessed January 20, 2017.
previous ones. In foreign policy, this means—to name but a few issues—the construction of a wall upon
the Mexican border as a fantastic symbol the resurgence of white supremacy, the return of torture, a ban
on refugees, a troubling flirtation with nuclear weaponry and the unilateral withdrawal from international
trade pacts. Domestically, this means the resurgence of white supremacy as a publicly acceptable ideology,
the rolling back of women’s reproductive rights and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And between
scripting the earlier paragraph and this one, Trump’s much-taunted “Muslim ban” has become a reality as
well as his promise to “ramp up” deportations in order to make good on a campaign promise of 11 million
deportations. While America still remains a democracy, the active collusion in both parties in the process
of rapidly dismantling democratic structures is transforming the nation into what is best described as a
totalitarian democracy. If this could occur so quickly at the legislative level, this is because the demos had
long been prepared to accept and embrace these transformations. What prepared them for this?

In this brief essay, we will turn to Hannah Arendt’s classic work On the Origins of Totalitarianism to gain
some insight into the nature of emerging totalitarian democracies. However, we will also raise the question
of whether Arendt’s classic analysis focusing on the Stalinist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany still leaves
room for a new theory for understanding the rise of authoritarianism in a neoliberal age. Specifically, we
are interested in diagnosing the structures of coordination and assimilation in the early stages of totalitarian
rule—the process referred to as Gleichschaltung in Nazi terminology.92 According to Arendt, the essential
element of coordination is not so much the process of populating the civil service, police or government
structures with regime sympathizers, which is something that Modi has successfully done, but instead the
isolation and atomization of the population as a way of breaking their grasp on reality. Thus, we see both
these leader proclaiming and disseminating their versions of truth, not to gullible populations, but vast
sections of the populations conditioned and trained to believe and inhabit this shared “alternative reality.”
92. For an in-depth analysis of Gleichschaltung see
The atomization that conditions the normalization of “alternative facts” goes beyond what Aristotle identified Peter Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1999.
when he said in the Nicomachean Ethics that no friendship is possible under tyrannical rule since it breaks
the bonds of trust and creates conditions of paranoia. Arendt is identifying not only a break with other 93. A mainstream Bollywood film director was attacked
people, but instead a profound rupture with the fundamental nature of reality and truth which allows for the by a regional outfit of the RSS members on grounds
that he distorted “history” in his film Padmavati, based
replacement of reality and truth with one created by a coherent ideological structure. By alienating people on a fictional Rajput queen when he was shooting on
from themselves and form reality, totalitarian movements do not just create “alternative facts,” but can the sets in January 29, 2017.
even produce an alternative vision of reality that is only coherent based on the fundamental mythological
commitments of a particular ideology—that is, of white supremacy or Hindu nationalism. Thus the fictive
narrative of the Rajput Queen Padmavati can come to take on proportions for a crowd of people to carry
out acts of violence against a filmmaker as the state looks the other way.93 Therefore, if Arendt is correct in
identifying atomization as the fulcrum point for leveraging totalitarian movements, and if atomization is the
fundamental consequence of a neoliberal order, then is it possible that democracies in a neoliberal age will
be fundamentally indistinguishable from totalitarian regimes? Does neoliberalism introduce democracies
that are so feeble that they need not even go through the pretense of eliminating themselves? And if so, then
what sort of education will be necessary to return the demos to democracy?

Arendt and the Paradox of Totalitarianism
According to Arendt, there is a paradox at the heart of totalitarian regimes. On the one hand, they are based
on a logically coherent ideological structure derived from a reality explainable in its totality. On the other
hand, however, the actions and decisions of totalitarian regimes are highly unpredictable and illogical. We
will deal with these two elements sequentially.
Totalitarianism has at its foundation an ideology which offers the possibility to explain everything derived
from a fundamental truth. Arendt describes this as follows: “Ideological thinking orders facts into an
absolutely logical procedure which starts from an axiomatically accepted premise, deducing everything
else from it; that is, it proceeds with a consistency that exists nowhere in the realm of reality.”94 Within
the cohesive logical structures of an ideology, reality is not what is, but instead what should be based on a
glorious mythical past and “a purely fictitious reality in some indefinite distant future.”95 This reality is not so
much a set of beliefs that one has and could presumably change, but is instead a cohesive vision of the world 94. Arendt, p. 471.
and one’s place it. For Modi’s supporters, in its most pungent form, this means the fundamental historical
95. Arendt, p. 412.
commitment to the idea of India as originally a purely Hindu land. For Trump’s supporters this means the
commitment to the United States as a nation that belongs to white men, whose place of superiority has
withered away and must be restored to make America great again. By severing individuals from their social
bonds and bonds with the world, totalitarianism provides an entire alternative world for its adherents.
Hence, if utterly outlandish fake news seemingly grew in acceptance as Stephen Bannon, a blogger for the
white-supremacist website Breitbart, occupied the most important advising role in the White House, this is
because adherents to the American version of white supremacy believe it when the news is aligned with their
fundamental ideological commitments: hence Obama can be a Kenyan-born Muslim or Hilary Clinton a
planetary criminal simply because it does not fit within the racial and gendered hierarchies for a black man
or woman of any color to aspire to the presidency of the United States. This fits quite closely with Arendt’s
analysis of propaganda under totalitarianism: “The propaganda of the totalitarian movement also serves
to emancipate thought from experience and reality; it always strives to inject a secret meaning into every

public, tangible event and to suspect a secret intent behind every public political act.”96 In Nazi Germany,
for example, this meant that the anti-Semitic propaganda had reached a point in 1939 in which Hitler could
describe his policies of expansion and annihilation as defensive acts against a Jewish world conspiracy, not
96. Arendt, p. 471.
as acts of aggression.
97. Arendt, p. 419.
Yet despite the internal logical consistency of the ideological world, according to Arendt totalitarian regimes 98. In fact the label “useless” is misleading, for border
often pursue illogical and even self-destructive policies. This is because they are based on the intentional barriers such as the proposed (and already existing)
structures around urban areas of the U.S.-Mexico
proliferation of overlapping bureaucratic bodies which purposely indulge in “wasteful incompetence”.97
border only serve to drive people to cross through more
These overlapping bodies serve to obscure the source of real power and to undermine the possibility of dangerous places such as forbidding stretches of desert.
meaningful resistance. Any given superfluous government entity can be arbitrarily eliminated, but according Hence, the wall from Trump’s perspective is quite useful
to Arendt, the more publicly that entity could be identified as an institution of power, the less powerful—and if it serves to hasten the elimination of a population
hence the more dispensable—it actually is. But the totalitarian regime does not simply stop at wastefulness, that he ultimately regards as undesirable. See Reece
Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move
for the totalitarian leader is even “mad enough to discard all limited and local interests”, be it though actions
(New York: Verso, 2016). Moreover, as some studies
such as demonetization or a useless and expensive border wall.98 Indeed, the more thoroughly a totalitarian are documenting if the wall is about keeping Mexicans
regime can secure complicity in self-destructive acts, the more thoroughly does it institute its particular out and hurting the Mexican economy, it will achieve
reality. Indeed, as Michel Foucault writes, in the case of Nazism this meant that Hitler would even go so far the opposite given that the Mexican cement company
as order the absolute self-destruction of the German people instead of accepting defeat.99 CEMEX’s shares jumped since trump’s election. See
Adam Tooze, “Notes on the Global Condition: Trump’s
“Wall” and the global cement industry that will build
Totalitarianism is logically illogical and this paradoxical tension marks the reality of the totalitarian subject. it.” https://www.adamtooze.com/2017/01/27/notes-
Hence, Arendt describes the process of producing totalitarian subjects as follows: “The ideal subject of on-the-global-condition-trumps-wall-and-the-global-
cement-industry-that-will-build-it/ accessed January
totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction
29, 2017.
between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the
standards of thought) no longer exist.”100 This is brought out most chillingly in the interviews conducted by 99. Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”:
Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976, trans.
Anand Patwardan’s documentary film Ram Ke Naam (In the Name of God, 1992) on the infamous Babri David Macey, ed. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro
Mosque demolition, where he speaks to scores of kar sevaks (volunteer workers of the Hindu Right Wing Fontana, New York: Picador, 2003.
group Viswa Hindu Parishad) on their way to demolishing the mosque. Questions of historicity about Ram’s
100. Arendt, p. 474.
existence, birth or death confound the kar sevaks, but those questions failed to raise a shred of doubt in
them. It is the absence of any doubt or skepticism about the dubious act of demolition that thousands of
fundamentalist Hindus committed and the absolute inability to imagine the truth that leaves the audience

chilled. And, yes, we are using the term imagination—as has long been the case in aesthetics—as the site
from which to grasp truth, rather than the narrow confines of believing.
Stated philosophically, this means to say that totalitarianism is not an epistemology, but instead is more closely
an ontology. The ideal subject she describes does not believe in a different world, or space of “alternative facts,”
but instead exists in a different world. These subjects are not well-known figures such as Arnab Goswami,
Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. Figures such as this are careerist ideologues of the party (be it the Nazi
party in Germany, the Bharatiya Janata Party in India, or the Republican Party in the USA). The ideal subject
is someone who is quite distant from these ideologues who churn out propaganda. The ideal subjects Arendt
refers to are the many nameless people, or what social theorists, Marxists, subaltern studies and critical
thinkers have branded as anything between the populist masses or the Lumpenproletariat, both of which
we must realize are extremely limited in their ability to explain the sweeping changes in the Indian political
scene from 1980s or American since the Clinton era. We do not claim to offer a comprehensive account of
these people, but will instead focus on one of the ways that social media has reformulated the relationship 101. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and
between these subjects and the leader in the recent past to produce conditions where doubt, skepticism, Reflections, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. and intr. Hannah
imagination – three hallmarks of political lives – have been cast aside. Arendt, New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
Twitter: The Lottery of Illusory Democratic Access
Despite all of its rhetoric of rootedness, Nazi Germany was on the cutting edge of exploiting technologies
such as film, radio and newspapers for creating a new reality. As Walter Benjamin famously demonstrated in
his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” such technologies have the duplicitous
effect of democratizing access to art and information, but of simultaneously leveling off the work into a
reproducible—and hence marketable and consumable—form of average experience.101 While Benjamin
noted that fascism had been uniquely effective at exploiting the political potential of the new genres of
reproducibility, especially film and radio, Benjamin explored them for the potential emancipatory potential.
Yet despite whatever emancipatory potential they might have, Nazi Germany was well ahead of the curve in
utilizing these media to create a false sense of proximity to a leader whom one may never see in person. Arendt

describes this leader as someone who “in his dual capacity as a chief of state and leader of the movement,
again combines in his person the acme of militant ruthlessness and confidence-inspiring normality.”102
Totalitarian democracies flourish under leaders who are both ruthless and have this “confidence-inspiring
normality.”
It is perhaps no coincidence that no two world leaders have taken to Twitter more enthusiastically than
Donald J. Trump and Narendra Modi. Next to Barack Obama, whose account as President was by and
large a stylized and heavily managed affair indicating management by a professional staff, Modi and Trump
rank respectively as the second and third most-followed politicians in the world. Like all social media, the
microblogging platform offers at once an illusory sense of proximity and infinite distance between what are
aptly called “followers”. While one can communicate directly with these otherwise unreachable politicians
in the very same manner that one communicates with one’s own friends and family members, this ‘direct’
communication is mediated through a peculiar platform whose technological and financial commitments
102. Arendt, p. 413.
are far from transparent. Moreover, there is a lottery aspect to the Twitter game, for one is teased with
the possibility—however miniscule of being—retweeted, liked, or even just quietly read by one’s leader, 103. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of
whether sending praise or scorn. In their work linking the rise of fascism to the demystification of the Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, trans. Edmund
Jephcott, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
world, social theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer focus on the importance of the lottery as a
tool of economic oppression by providing an illusory exit.103 In playing the lottery one thus has a solution
to a hopeless economic misery, but is distantly (though not quite infinitely so) from the benediction of that
solution. This paradox of distance and proximity succinctly captures the neoliberal condition, especially in
its American version. In America, you are taught that you are infinitely special and unique, all while being
subject to an economic labour system that constantly reminds you of your infinite replaceability. Twitter is
not unique in playing with distance and proximity, for this is perhaps fundamental to all social media, but it
does have another attribute that makes it uniquely adapted as the means of accessing the leader for the ideal
subjects of totalitarian democracies.
At first, the Twitter log might appear to be a uniquely strange source, yet one can find analogues. As a source
the Twitter stream harkens back to Hayden White’s analysis of the medieval chronicle, which was a seemingly
disjointed listing of events lacking a narrative with inexplicable gaps, often listing nothing more than one

key event such as a birth or death every year.104 According to White, the medieval chronicle does not require
a narrative and does not search for one. Twitter likewise does not require a narrative, but it differs greatly
from the chronicle because of the frequency of “entries,” which are in need of constant replenishment. If the
narrative rests in the background as a result of ideology, then Twitter posts become flashes of confirmation,
moments of reminder which become sufficient messages in and of themselves.
Yet despite their eager embrace of Twitter, the logs of Modi and Trump are a study in contrast. Modi’s log,
replete with visuals, is a highly polished affair signaling the polished intervention of a suave marketing team.
Modi is portrayed as the leader at the center of a national revival of a Hindu nation, with millions doing
yoga, children being educated in Hindu values, corruption being fought, and international alliances being
forged, all while development is pushed forward. Modi’s tone is positive and hopeful, with the leader as a
source of radiance in his nicely, if rather megalomaniacally tailored suits. In contrast, Trump’s Twitter feed
is a blunderbuss of a megalomaniac prophesying doomsday. Trump either takes to Twitter to denounce an 104. Hayden White, “The Value of Narrativity in the
enemy (most often the press) or to warn against a threat (whether economic or from “the enemy”) that only Representation of Reality”, Critical Inquiry 7.1 (1980):
he can protect the nation against. Far from being managed by his staff, Trump boasts of Twitter being his pp. 5-27.
direct link to the “real” people of America, as opposed to the “lying” and “fake” media which is always in his 105. See his website for his monthly messages to the
words “failing.” nation http://www.narendramodi.in/mann-ki-baat
Whether prophesying doom or radiating hope, both leaders’ use of Twitter has the effect of reinforcing the lack
of desire for a narrative or explanation. At its core, Twitter is a technology that thrives on the destruction of
memory. If the pace of replenishment, including all of the concomitant and ancillary commentary produced
by a tweeter with so many followers, then a public that interacts with its leaders through Twitter does not
necessarily need to impose a narrative upon this ever-growing stream of events. Instead, the mind’s desire
for more can always be satiated with an increase in quantity, all while distract from the need to explain. If
Modi and Trump can so effectively pull the minds of their followers away from the need for explanations,
then this is because their minds have already thoroughly been prepared for a replenishment of a quantity
over the quality of information. Yet, it must be remembered, Modi unlike Trump uses multiple venues to
communicate, especially his very own radio to the nation, his mann ki baat – his heartfelt musings.105

Commentators will long be thrashing out what could allow for the democratic election of authoritarian
leaders such as Modi, Trump, Erdoğan, Putin, and Duerte to name but a few. In the American case, one
must certainly be attentive to widespread practices of disenfranchisement ranging from gerrymandering,
the outdated electoral college, repressive voter identification laws and mass incarceration. However, the
mechanics of Twitter as medium of exchange highlight at least one possible way of understanding how voters
interact with information about their candidates. In the Indian scenario, one of the important aspects that
has scripted Modi’s rise to power is the use and abuse of history. Not history as a common noun, but History
as a disciplinary practice in India and the demotion of humanities and critical thinking in the USA. This is
all to bring us back to the question we opened the article with: Who is the perfect subject of authoritarian
regime? They are subjects who no longer require a story. They are people whose capacity for imagination
has been so thoroughly uprooted that the need for narrative has been destroyed. Hence, totalitarianism does
not simply rely on the lack of education, but instead on the widespread incapacity to regard education as
thoroughly tied to imagination and dreaming.
106. “O to Live Again”, Keynote address given by
Mahasweta Devi at the Jaipur Literary Festival, January,
2013. For a full transcript see https://www.dailyo.in/
Conclusion arts/mahasweta-devi-death-writer-padma-vibhushan-
bengali-literature/story/1/12046.html
What, then, does political assimilation to totalitarianism mean in a neoliberal age? The intellectual fallout
of our neoliberal condition is immense. Among many things, it includes the forgetting of skepticism, the
denigration of doubt, and the loss of imagination. Thus, it is no wonder that Mahasweta Devi, who lived
fearlessly, had proclaimed that “the right to dream is our fundamental right.”106 But let us take pause to ask
how a five-year-old child currently growing up in the US, Europe, or Asia, make sense of this right. What
are the conditions that should be in place before a child can exercise her right to dream? If the market has
taken over the space of dreams, if a child growing up saturated in advertisements believes that commodities,
real estate, money and “true love” are the stuff of which dreams are made, then how will she exercise the full
capacity of dreaming in the sense Devi intends?
The answer perhaps lies in the ability to imagine. If our pedagogy is based on training children to be good
workers, assuming roles from the factories to the corporate office, ultimately staffing some branch of the

banking sector to optimize the market and profit potentials, then how do we create a space for imagination
in this world? How do we decolonize our minds from the ravages of colonialism, capitalism, neoliberalism
and the emerging totalitarian democracies? How do we decolonize our pedagogies if there is to be any
robust resistance to our contemporary moment? And this does not just mean resistance against our leaders,
but against the totality of the markets, laws and policies that surround us. That is to say, resistance against
the discourses that produce us, the institutions that censor our dreams and our capacity to imagine. This
resistance must be a pedagogical task.
While what is at stake is very much about the slow denigration of the humanities which we have been seeing
since the 1970s and 80s, it is not merely about adding more humanities into the curriculum. Instead, it is
about a complete overhaul of our pedagogies and not a simplistic debate about science vs liberal arts. It is
about what literature, what science, what philosophy, what history? Hence, it is worth raising the question
about what is more sinister: is it Trump’s outright attack against the humanities expressed by his plan to
eliminate the federally funded National Endowment for Humanities and National Endowment for the
Arts? Or is it Modi’s strategy of maintaining and fostering the humanities, but staffing them with pseudo- 107. Arendt, p. 468.
academics who will forward a Hindu agenda? What is more pernicious? It is worth noting in passing that the
strategy of the Nazis was to maintain thriving humanities programs after thoroughly Nazifying the faculty
and student body. Tellingly, the humanities are more easily eliminated in a neoliberal world than in a fascist
one.
Therefore, the ideal subjects of totalitarianism are those people who, through generations of mal-education,
have been taught systematically to unlearn the capacity to imagine, whose idioms and scripts of dreaming
have been reorganized by the market. Arendt captures this quite succinctly when she says that “[t]he aim
of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to from any.”107
Accordingly, the transformation of the humanities which will be necessary to confront this moment is not
about making the humanities more relevant to the market, but instead about making the scripts of the
market irrelevant to the humanities. Given the absolute alignment of neoliberalism with the rise of the
global right, this may mean completely reimagining the institution of the university as such.

Poor Philosophy: the Problem of Unknowing
Alok Rai
Karl Marx admonished philosophers for aspiring merely to interpret, to know and to understand the world,
whereas the real task, he said, was to change the world. For us, living in India today – and, indeed, in
today’s world – the real challenge isn’t to know the world – the world is, in a sense that goes well beyond
Wordsworth, already too much with us, what with 24/7 media and incessant cyber-noise. The real challenge
for us is in fact to unknow that which we cannot help knowing, and must yet neither affirm nor acknowledge
but must, when push comes to shove, and often goes well beyond, even deny.
-I-
I must confess to feeling a little Ancient Marinerish in urging this at a time when, we are encouraged to
believe, India’s rockstar leader is rocking the world, dazzling us all with visions of imminent utopia. “The
guests are met / The feast is set” and it does seem a little churlish to keep tugging at the sleeve of the Wedding
guests – Cameron, Hollande, Obama at the time of writing – who are hurrying to join the party, insisting
that all is not as it seems, that something happened, that just beyond the edges of the frame, people are
dying. Who wouldn’t rather submit to the allure of the Bacardi world – the gorgeous young bodies moving
to the insidious beat that pervades the seascape, the endless sunshine, and pleasure so laid-back that even
sexuality seems hyper here – a world from which all pain and suffering, torture and discrimination, hunger
and hardship, have been airbrushed away? Alas, as Auden wrote, “day breaks upon the world we know.” And
must needs unknow, too.
So, what is the mood now, as we in India enter the third decade after the demolition of the Babri Masjid? The
ash-smeared, saffron-swathed louts of 6 December 1992, wielding their pickaxes and shovels against a 400
year-old monument produced, in one fell morning, a fitting monument to the end of the Nehruvian dream
of an innocent post-colonial future: a pile of rubble, where once the Babri Masjid stood. And now, riding
their triumphant destruction of the complacent “secularism” of the Nehruvian era, they are in power – or so
close to it it makes no difference. But one must acknowledge also the contribution of the Wunderkinder from
the Finance Ministry who, high on globalization, peddling fantasies of international levels of consumption
to a salivating middle class, just as surely destroyed the complacent – and even hypocritical – “socialism” of

Alok Rai
the Nehruvian era. It takes a Bourdieu to remind us that the underside of this promised utopia of endless
pleasure – post-“secularism”, post-“socialism” – is the utopia of endless exploitation, the infernal machine
of globalized, global capital, which maximises the profits of a few by squeezing the lives and livelihoods of
millions of others whom they will never encounter.108 It is salutary to be reminded by John Berger of the
ineluctable “pain of living in the present world.”109
And yet, caught in this dread pincer, that past is dead. Even as we struggle with problems whose roots lie –
must lie – in that same halcyon era: the glorious years, linked indissolubly with the films of Raj Kapoor and
Dev Anand, Nargis and Madhubala, with Fifties’ film songs – it is difficult to find a kind word to say about
that generation – us, I suppose – beyond saying that the best of them, probably, meant well. (It’s enough
to give good intentions a bad name!) It is entirely fitting that it is a line from an old song that provides an
epitaph for those years: Accha guzar gaya, bahut accha guzar gaya... So that’s over then. Done. Done for.
Boats and bridges burnt, there’s no past to which we may return. We’re in for the future now. In for it now. 108. Bourdieu, “The Essence of Neoliberalism”, Le Monde
Amen. diplomatique. December 1998.
109. “Written in the Night: The Pain of Living in the
In thinking about the mood of the present, I think of it as forming under two signs. The first of these signs Present World”, Le Monde diplomatique. February 2003.
reads: The party’s over. It is a multivalent sign, and alludes at one level to the gloomy inferences of Milton
Friedman’s famously missing free lunch. Thus, as an inexplicable or at least unexplained consequence of the
end of the Cold War – remember the promised “peace dividend”? – all the institutions and practices that
served to make society relatively humane – museums, music, universities, the entire apparatus of welfare
and culture – have become subject to the rule of the accountants. It signals the end of the civilized allocation
of resources – end of subsidies! – and decrees that market forces must reign supreme and unimpeded. It
is a familiar litany. But the other signification of the sign – The party’s over – alludes to the perceived or
rumoured demise of the left, the party communist. Thus, we know that the party’s over when we are assured
in the Wicked Witch’s tutored, throaty voice: There Is No Alternative. Capitalism is the only game in town,
and welfare is so, well, so yesterday. And Labour’s great tradition devolves on the shoulders of the ineffable
Mr Blair, Dubya’s pray-mate, seeking Divine Guidance in lieu of missing intelligence.

Alok Rai
But the other sign, exactly opposite, says: “The party’s just begun!” The good times have only just begun
to roll, the road ahead to the glamorous world of globalization awaits us with its promise of multicultural
delights, a sort of permanent Bacardi ad, coextensive with the world. There are – there always have been –
those shapes in the shadows, the dead and the dying, the bombed and the shattered, but the mediaworld
conspires to induce a mood in which it is the unhappiness, the anger and, indeed, the continent of pain that
seems deviant and perverse. Get with the flow, Baggy, the fun has just begun! There is no anguish in hyper-
reality – and Reality, after all, is only a game show. One can always reach for the remote. Switch channels.
- II -
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort that results from the attempt/need/requirement to inhabit two or
more contradictory states of mind, simultaneously. However, the superior Indian mind has conquered
such merely human limitations, and can be demonstrated to be so endowed. The ability of Brahminical
fastidiousness as regards pollution to coexist with filth is traditional – and is marvelled at by naive Western
tourists in India’s numerous holy, and dirty, cities. But the contemporary demands on this superior intellectual
ability can still induce a certain amount of strain, of intellectual stress. Unknowing demands a heavy price.
To tell the story in proper biblical fashion – in the beginning was the Cow, and the Cow was holy. At least
so it was for upper-caste Hindus of the heartland. And so, soon after their kind came to power in Delhi,
upper-caste vigilante groups began to enforce compliance with their beliefs – on pain of death. Item: one
Akhlaq, blacksmith, resident in a village near Delhi. He was interrupted, while settling down to dinner, by
certain Hindu others who suspected that he was consuming beef. Interrupted, then beaten to death. The
police who came, after the deed was done, promptly took into custody not the ruffians but – wait for this! –
Akhlaq’s uneaten dinner, upon suspicion of its being beef! This is not a joke. Grotesque incidents like this
were replicated over a wide swathe of north India where the cow, holy to some, is also a source of cheap
protein, and so livelihood, to many others. Elsewhere, in Maharashtra and Karnataka, certain academics
and scholars, self-described “rationalists” – Pansare, Dabholkar, Kalburgi – were shot dead by, it is credibly
believed, assassins allied to Hindu groups who felt threatened by their campaigns against superstition and

Alok Rai
religious beliefs – rather like Muslim and Christian activists in certain other parts of the world. What was
special about the Indian case, however, was the fact that protests against this growing intolerance were sought
to be drowned in a braying chorus about Indian “traditions” of tolerance – and the alarming implication,
and then accusation, that while the incidents of murderous violence were minor lapses from this traditional
tolerance, the protests against the violence were, in fact, examples of “intolerance”. This might well appear
convoluted to non-Indians, but such views were asserted vociferously on television day after day.
The greatest and most grotesque contortions are produced – and perhaps not only in India – by the discourse
of nationalism. Given that, after Renan, nationalisms are universally founded on an unacknowledged and
unacknowledgeable lie – the foundation myth, which must be simultaneously known and unknown – this is
hardly surprising. Nationalism is the ultimate Trump, and can be used to silence any demurral with respect
to the functioning of the state. The Indian state, with good reason, feels extremely vulnerable with respect
to the matter of Kashmir. Thus, it has been decreed “anti-national” merely to remember that the people of
Kashmir had been promised a plebiscite on their future in 1948. Although the Valley has been in a state of
shutdown and more or less continuous curfew for over three months at the time of writing, a senior ex-diplomat
strenuously contested on national TV the use of the phrase “the Kashmir problem.” There was no “problem,”
he asserted – but there might be, just perhaps, he urged with fine diplomatic nuance, an “issue.” This, again, is
not a joke. Certain unidentified others were actually accused of “sedition” for having raised slogans in favour
of the independence of Kashmir – surely one of the options of the promised plebiscite? But, given that the
unidentified others could not be taken into custody, the scope of the “offence” was enlarged to include certain
others – for instance, Kanhaiya, President of the JNU Students’ Union, and Shehla Rashid, Vice-President and
herself a Kashmiri – who were accused of having been present and, ipso, of having heard the “seditious” slogans
uttered! Their sedition by proxy is still being processed through the courts. Again, no joke.
The Indian state – the state as such, not party-specific, so Modi-lovers needn’t get hot under the collar – has seen
fit to preserve and maintain colonial-era laws that were used by the British, and are now used by their “nationalist”
inheritors, in order to silence all dissent. The political masters do not always succeed – there are other laws, too,
other institutions – but they certainly try and use the fearsome apparatus and process of the law to frighten people
into silence if not assent. And when certain voices are still raised in protest, despite the formidable disapproval of

Alok Rai
the State, this “failure to suppress” too is adduced as evidence of the tolerance of the State!
In a curious sort of fashion – one that will repay attention – the connection between crime and punishment
has come unstuck. Thus, the most flagrant and public and undeniable crimes go unpunished. Members of the
political elite who are suspected of various crimes (the events associated with the 2002 Gujarat killings are
only the most egregious; there are many, many others, on all sides of the political divides) flaunt certificates
of “innocence” which an obliging police provides them. The President of the ruling BJP has been provided
one such – in a case in which it has been established that several people were killed extra-judicially. The state
(and media) in India are pleased to call such killings “encounters.” And no one – certainly not the police
– seems bothered by the fact that the flaunted, and duly certified, innocence of the former suspects still
leaves the bodies just where they are, leaves the crimes unsolved, the dead dead, and the guilty unpunished
– because, even if person X or Y is innocent, someone must be guilty, right? But no matter, the necessary
equilibrium between crimes and punishment is maintained by “punishing” countless others who could not
conceivably be guilty, except by some murderous and macabre extension of the principle of collective guilt:
kill the children first, before they commit the crimes that they are born to commit! After all, the destruction 110. George Eliot, Middlemarch, intro. A. S. Byatt,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 216-217.
of the Babri Masjid in 1992 too was justified as compensation for the “violence” that Muslim invaders had
wreaked in centuries past; it is the “destruction” of the temple of Somnath by a Central Asian invader in the
10th century that is “avenged” in squalid Muslim ghettoes today. The above catalogue of infamy could, alas,
easily be extended ad infinitum, ad nauseam and worse...
- III -
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, in the famous Chandos letter, wrote eloquently about the condition of being
overwhelmed by too great a sensitivity, and implicitly, I suppose, also about how it was essential for one’s
survival – for merely carrying on carrying on, as it were – that one cultivate a certain insensitivity. George
Eliot too, in Middlemarch, wrote about a similar existential predicament: “If we had a keen vision and feeling
of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we
should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”110 And, living as we do in a country in which

Alok Rai
conscientious Jains go around wearing masks for fear that their breath might injure some unseen creatures,
we perhaps need no instruction in matters of sensitivity. However, the insensitivity – the blindness, the
unknowing – demanded of us in India today goes well beyond the squirrel’s heartbeat. Indeed, it might
well be unprecedented, and will have consequences – both the knowing, and the unknowing – that demand
reflection.
The central question that I wish to pose is, really, rather simple – what does it mean – what does it imply, in
terms of attitude and action – to know the things, the sorts of things, that I have barely touched upon above?
And, in necessary sequence – necessary existentially, and increasingly perhaps legally too – what does it
mean – what does imply, in terms of attitude and action – to unknow the things, the sorts of things of which
the above “infamous” catalogue is a bare smattering?
Once again, the first question – “knowing” – is easy. To know is to take recourse to vituperation, torrents of
abuse, curses both loud and deep – or, alternatively, adapting Keats’s “Nightingale”, say - “here but to know
is to be full of sorrow / And leaden-eyed despairs.” “Knowing” implies, must imply, ineluctably, a certain
moral responsibility, an imperative to act. And where the possibilities of action are, for whatever reasons,
blocked (even, and increasingly, the minimal “action” that mere writers may undertake is blocked because
the channels of public discourse have been bought up by Big Money) the only available option seems to be
some form of unknowing.
The German experience under Hitler – and, I suppose, the Vichy experience in France – has provided occasion
for reflection on the matter of necessary unknowing. The (mythical?) camp commandant who, presumably,
had to “unknow” the day’s business at the gas chambers before he settled down to play Mozart in the evening,
is of course iconic. But I have in mind also the good burghers who both knew – and then quickly, unknew
– that some of their neighbours had suddenly disappeared, that certain shops had been smashed, that some
people had taken to sporting yellow stars on their sleeves – and that somehow all this was connected with
a demagogue who had a fetching line in nationalist rhetoric. I think – must think – also of the good Israeli
citizens who must simultaneously know and unknow that the ever-greater territories that they are occupying

Alok Rai
were not really vacant, must know and unknow that the Palestinians who occupied that land and tended those
olive groves, for centuries, have been forced out and are being huddled, and hurt, in ever-smaller enclaves.
The psychological costs of this kind of mass “unknowing” must, no doubt, be considerable. The engagement
with Mozart can hardly remain unaffected by all that Zyklon B. One sees it in the coarsening, of sensibility
and feature, that one observes in policemen, after years of casual brutality, and fluent lying about that casual
brutality. But my concern here is not so much with the individual costs, costs antecedent and consequent:
what does it take to be, and to persist, living in denial of that which is present and transparent? My concern
here is with the social consequences of this kind of collective denial, with collective unacknowledgment.
Societies that have reflected on the process of recovery from trauma (Argentina after the colonels, Chile
after Pinochet, post-apartheid South Africa) have all come to recognize the crucial importance of the public
recognition and acknowledgment of the truth. Because without that truth, no reconciliation can even hope
to begin. However, we in India today are unimaginable catastrophes away from any possible reconciliation.
Truth, likewise.
One obvious consequence, which has a direct bearing on the philosophical predicament that is the subject
of this essay – poor philosophy! – has to do with language. At one level, this has to do with the perversion of
language. I have already indicated above the way in which, for instance, “tolerance” has been twisted out of
shape by calculated misuse. Whole ranges of vocabulary are being abducted and brutalized in the discourse
of the “nationalists.” A sanctimonious rhetoric of “honour” and “martyrdom” is readily mobilized in order to
shield the criminal actions of the state from normal democratic scrutiny. And so the “honourable” minister
of state for Home recently, in a particularly egregious case of extra-judicial murders of unarmed under-
trials, rebuked people for raising doubts about the officially-sanctioned lies – even as those lies were being
exposed, day in and day out, by amateur footage of the crime, shot even as shots were being pumped into
supine, hurt bodies.
But where the admittedly limited intellectual resources of the state are insufficient for the magnitude of
the task of linguistic perversion that is required, there is a recourse to sheer extra-legal force, to delegated,

Alok Rai
vigilante violence. The murdered “rationalists” of Maharashtra are not as extreme an instance as might
be supposed – people who dare to raise questions, who continue to protest against flagrant illegality, are
routinely subjected to violence. This has become so commonplace that it is, here as elsewhere, hardly news
any more. Viewer fatigue sets in. And suffering makes a poor sauce.
There is one further dimension to this linguistic casualty. This has to do with the peculiar status of English
in India. Thus, while English continues overwhelmingly to be the language of “higher” discourse – public
and academic – the social reach of English is extremely limited. And, in any case, the real political strength
of the BJP does not derive from the Anglophone elite. And so, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter
what the members of this English-gabbling elite think or say – because they are finally only talking to each
other, all two percent of them. The real violence is reserved for those who work in the so-called vernaculars,
in the languages of the people, in Hindi and Marathi and Kannada.
- IV -
There is one further twist to this vicious spiral, this descent into the abyss, and that has to do with the
fraught relation between legality and legitimacy. The state – all states, even the colonial state – is ultimately
a creation as well as being the guardian of the apparatus of legality. The distinction between legality and
legitimacy should be instantly evident to us as Indians. It is, after all, the distinction that underlies –
implicitly if not explicitly – Gandhi’s famous speech to Judge Broomfield in the sedition trial of 1922, after
the hastily withdrawn satyagraha code-named “Chauri-Chaura” in our collective memory. Indeed, by far the
most crucial contribution of Gandhi to the anti-colonial struggle was, arguably, to establish the distinction
between legality and legitimacy firmly in our public political discourse – so that the colonial regime, armed
with the formidable apparatus of legality, was exposed in all its equally fearsome nakedness, shorn of the
vestments of legitimacy. Unfortunately for the statist bias of Gandhi’s nominal inheritors – the ones who ply
their nefarious trades today under the benign gaze of Gandhi’s portraits, in police stations, in the corridors
of bureaucratic and political vice, where they traffic in what is theirs only in trust – that crucial distinction is
still available. A deficit of legitimacy cannot only be experienced, it can also be named.

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This distinction may perhaps best be approached via a consideration of the two senses of the word “right”
that Ronald Dworkin distinguished in 1977 in Taking Rights Seriously. Thus, while you may have a right
to do something, it may not be the right thing for you to do, and correspondingly, you may not have a
right to do something that may well be the right thing for you to do. Whether or not one has a right to
do something derives from a certain framework of legality. (This applies even to “natural” rights – as the
temporary suspension of the right to life by the Emergency-era Supreme Court in India made evident:
legal it was, but hardly legitimate.) Whether or not something is the right thing to do derives from a whole
other set of considerations, including moral ones. Thus, one may have a right to be cruel to one’s wife and
children – or to abandon one’s parents – it still may not be the right thing to do. Or, to take an example from 111. Cf. Justice J.S. Verma’s remarks a propos rape in
a different domain – AFSPA confers on security personnel the right to do many things that are not, either the Report of the Committee on the Amendments to
Criminal Law: that even though the defence of the
morally or politically, the right things to do.111 state and the national interest may require the armed
forces to do many things that may appear wrong under
The distinction between legality and legitimacy is analogous to this distinction. Legality is easier to identify normal circumstances, the “exceptional circumstances”
defence could still not be extended to the act of rape.
– and narrower in its scope – rather like “right” in its enforceable legal sense – e.g. habeas corpus. Legitimacy
Rape can never be right, even though the Armed Forces
is amorphous and ill-defined, but is still real enough, both in its presence and, more to our present purpose, Special Powers Act does, in effect, confer or at least
its absence. However, while legality – particularly that which is accrued by democratic means – cannot be allow such a right to the armed forces.
taken away, legitimacy can be eroded, or even seep away, mysteriously. And, it would appear, in modern as
in premodern conditions, legitimacy is subject to democratic affirmation: legitimacy is subject to a daily
plebiscite. The contract of legitimacy is, in this respect, significantly different from the contract of legality
– it is, and remains, subject to revision and revocation. Consent is crucial to the claim of legitimacy, and
the literature alerts us to a further and crucial distinction between two kinds of consent – procedural, and
dynamic, i.e. provisional. Hobbes’s account of sovereign power recognizes a limit beyond which legitimacy
falls away: when the sovereign can no longer assure the protection of its subjects [Leviathan, chapter 30].
Somewhat later, Hume objected to the notion of consent deriving from origin of the putatively legitimate
order, i.e. procedural consent: such “consent,” he argues, is often merely fictional. Hume therefore shifts the
ground of legitimacy to the “consequences” that flow from a particular political order. Thus, a “sovereign”
that turns upon its own subjects and strips them of the protections of the law is no longer legitimate, even
when (and where) it is enshrouded in the regalia of legality. This idea is present even in the contemporary
discourse of legitimacy: “Legitimacy turns out to be created, maintained and destroyed not at the input but

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at the output side of the political system. Hence, political legitimacy depends at least as much on the quality
of government as on the capacity of electoral systems to create effective representation.”112
There is, however, another and relatively subtler way in which the socially transformative potential of
democracy is sought to be contained – has been leached, leaked out, seeped away. This story goes back
to the origins of managerial discourse in the 1930s and 1940s, to the time when James Burnham looked
longingly at Germany and Russia, and contrasted their “disciplined” populations, their “streamlined” and
“efficient” decision-making systems, and contrasted these with the lax and chaotic democracies, and offered 112. B. Rothstein, “Creating Political Legitimacy:
managerial ideology as an alternative to democracy, if, indeed, the democracies wanted to survive at all.113 Electoral Democracy versus Quality of Government”,
American Behavioral Scientist 53 (November 2009):
pp. 311-330. Also see Allan Buchanan, “Political
In the post-war period, however, when the “democratic” side won (so to speak) it was no longer politically Legitimacy and Democracy”, Ethics 112.4 (July 2002):
viable to trash democracy directly in the manner of Burnham. After all, Burnham had argued that democracy pp. 689-719.
was incompatible with the survival of capitalism, and so democracy had to go. Therefore, in the postwar era,
the institution of managerialism as the ruling ideology was articulated differently. This may be indicated, 113. Burnham is the original prophet – and author – of
“the managerial revolution” that engulfs us today.
in shorthand, by a brief consideration of the rise of “governance” as a political ideal. The most evident
aspect of governance-discourse is the foregrounding of public order issues, the policing functions of the 114. See Claus Offe, “Governance: An Empty Signifier”,
Constellations 16.4 (2009): pp. 550-562.
state. But the real key to “governance” is the insulation of economic decision-making from the democratic-
political process. Obviously, a democracy that has no say in economic decisions (which are deemed to be 115. Moral Blindness, 2013. p. 60.
the domain of “experts” whose expertise consists, fundamentally, in their unquestioning loyalty to neo-
liberal economics) can only be a sham democracy, a charade.114 This is Zygmunt Bauman on the consequent
“Crisis of Politics”: increasingly, Bauman argues, “power and politics live and move in separation from each
other and their divorce lurks round the corner. On the one hand, there is power, safely roaming the global
expanses, free from political control and at liberty to select its own targets; on the other, there is politics,
squeezed and robbed of nearly all of its power, muscles and teeth.”115
On the one hand, the tax base of the state is systematically eroded, pursuant to the ideology of “small
government,” of “privatization.” This erosion leads, in predictable and now clearly observable ways, to the
erosion of public services, not only in India but also in the devastated urban landscapes of the West. Obviously,

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there is a direct connection between the economic insensitivities of the “reformed” and “minimalized” state,
and the social desperation that it increasingly needs to police – but this is not a connection that is even
visible to the ideologues of “governance.” The “reformed” state is thus caught in a pincer: one the one hand,
its capacity to act is minimized, and on the other, its reduced capacities have an ever more urgent and even
exclusive focus: crime, and in a recognizable sequence, security.
However, the hegemony of managerial discourse – “There Is No Alternative” – has an even more directly
damaging effect on the legitimacy of such “reformed” democracies. Like “reform” itself, entire ranges of the
historical vocabulary of critique and resistance have been systematically abducted and perverted. The effect
of this on the process of legitimizing – or, as I suggest, illegitimizing, rendering illegitimate – a whole social
and political order is subtle. After all, one of the important functions of democracy is to offer institutional
spaces for opposition, critique, resistance – languages of opposition, of rejection. But when these spaces
and languages are systematically denied, rendered merely perfunctory and even polluted, important
consequences follow. Violence rears its ugly head.
The connections between legitimacy, democracy and violence – and, alas, illegitimacy too – are complex
and need to be considered in some detail. The question of violence is, as it happens, at the very heart of the
matter of legitimacy. Legitimate states exercise a rightful monopoly of violence, and, by the same token,
are obliged to protect their subjects from non-state violence. When that monopoly is challenged, or breaks
down, or is delegated to vigilante groups, there is a corresponding loss of legitimacy. At the extreme point
of that trajectory, we talk of “failed states.” This has an immediate bearing on a state that allows the most
public crimes (mass violence, declared genocidal intent) to remain unpunished for years. But I wish to
step back from such tempting immediacy in order to make a somewhat more complex argument about the
interconnections.
In the context of the Second World War, when there was an imminent threat of a German invasion of
England and the British government had, in a bid to mobilize popular democratic sentiment, made a
somewhat ambitious declaration of war aims (greater democracy, social welfare, etc.), an excited George

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Orwell made the suggestion that the government should arm the people, “within the next three days” – rifles
to the masses, hand-grenades for all!116 Such a move would ensure widespread support for the democratic
government, but would also, though this remained unstated, ensure that the government remained true to
its stated aims, and did not move too far away from the popular understanding of right and wrong in respect
of its policies and actions. Similar thinking also underlies the constitutional protection of the right to bear
arms guaranteed in the US Constitution. It is supposed to keep the government honest, even as its most
evident consequence is exposing schoolchildren to the threat – and all too often, the reality – of random
violence. Thus, legitimacy is underwritten by the threat of violence, both on the side of the state, but also on
the side of its subjects.
The final stage in the argument, then, is the inevitable connection between illegitimacy and the threat – indeed,
the possibility and increasingly, the reality – of violence. This works at both local and global levels. Only
legitimate entities can rightfully exercise a monopoly of violence. (The “humanitarian” coalitions currently
destroying the Middle East are scarcely legal, and certainly illegitimate.) Illegitimate entities, by definition, 116. George Orwell, Collected Journalism, Essays and
forfeit that right, but acquire by way of some kind of ideological compensation, we see, an addiction to Letters II: My Country Right or Left?, London: Penguin,
“terrorism.” Let me explain. There has been a fertile, if intermittent, debate about the exact meanings of 1940, p. 9.
“terrorism.”117 No one seems to know quite what “terrorism” means, but that unknowing is paradoxically 117. See Lisa Stampnitzky’s Disciplining Terror: How
translated into vehement, indiscriminate action. At one level, we know, there is the dangerously slippery Experts Invented “Terrorism” , New York: Cambridge
assertion that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Needless to say – and perhaps better University Press, 2013.
not to say – there are other slippages also. But the most obvious meaning of the term has curiously not been
noticed: “terrorism” is the intellectual formation wherein and wherefrom the diversity and heterogeneity
of suffering in the contemporary world is sought to be denied and delegitimized, refused the attention it
deserves, let alone the action that it calls for – whether it is hunger in Africa or outrage in Palestine, carnage
in Iraq or the loot of public resources in the tribal lands in India and elsewhere. All of this diversity is sought
to be identified only with the sporadic acts of desperate resistance that are provoked from time to time.
This “desperation” is rendered actionable, manageable by being redescribed as “terrorism.” Understood
thus, “terrorism” is the intellectual manoeuvre of clubbing a disparate range of diverse, heterogeneous,
recalcitrant phenomena under one blurring catchall label, not dissimilar to the manoeuvre that Edward Said
had identified as “orientalism.”

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The rise of the security state in India and elsewhere, is usually sought to be understood under the sign of
technology: better networking, better surveillance. However, an alternative understanding of it in terms of
widespread, global distress, is too large a subject to be initiated at this stage. But within such an argument,
India – nominally democratic, desperately poor, seething with unmet needs, and with insatiable greed –
would offer a brilliant illustration of the manner in which the remaking of the state within the discourse of
terrorism and security, in lieu of the abandoned promise of welfare enables, in the short run, a calculated
unknowing, a merciful (and merciless) blindness. As for the long run, it might be shorter than we think.

Dissenting Adults: “Thoughts of a Dry Brain in a Dry Season”
Vijay Tankha
Why is philosophy, as a subject, so undervalued in the Indian educational system?
This is a question that all teachers (and students) of the subject have learnt to avoid asking themselves. Even
if one asks this question, there is no ready answer at hand. Having taught undergraduate classes for many
years I too am concerned at the dismal state of affairs. While I write from the perspective of an undergraduate
teacher in one constituent college of one university, there is little cheer elsewhere.
The sterling universities of the past have lost much of their sheen. Departments of philosophy are more
inward looking than ever and the student may search in vain for expertise in different fields of philosophy.
Philosophy, as Aristotle noted, is a product of leisure. But the increasing speeding up of all systems coupled
with a quick 12-week semester format, with two internal exams and one final exam, there is time for
everything except reflection. Also, the speed at which information is being generated and consumed makes
it difficult for rigid courses and course structures to frame a discourse that can look at the world and make
sense of it. Both students and teachers lead fractured lives within and without the classroom. Let us not
blame too quickly the system called Education, which after all is no more than a combination of diverse if
dizzying interests: students teachers, parents, society, government, big business and even the local chaiwalla
and chowkidar come together here: Colleges and Universities are nodal points where many of these interests
meet, marry and conflict. There are then good reasons why philosophy fails, not in consequence of a failed
educational system, but perhaps in consequence of an educational system aimed at the failure of philosophy.
Put it another way, the reason why philosophy as a subject has little place in our educational system is not
because the educational system is deficient, rather it is because there are no philosophical studies as part of
our educational system, that the educational system is in trouble. There is thus even greater need to rectify
this anomaly. We are not only trying to save the subject of philosophy but indeed the educational system
itself by trying to discover why philosophy has no place in it.
One of our teachers at St Stephen’s, S K Bose, after whom the road on which the college is located is named
(not of course because he was a philosopher but because he was charismatic and his students, long after he
died, had risen to positions of power), was remembered among other things, for continuing to hold classes

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even after the examinations were over. A metaphor perhaps for the endlessness of philosophy. Endlessness
here means purposeful purposelessness, complete non-instrumentality. Even though philosophical ideas
fire the imagination and will eventually, like Aristotle’s prime mover, connect with the real world, the causal
connections are not the intentional outcome of the practice of philosophy. This is, to my mind, the reason
why the ability to discuss, share, and criticize each other is such an integral part of what we might call a
democratic outlook, one which has only partially been institutionalized in our culture (imagine the nightmare
of a completely democratic household: the children, the women, the wage-slaves all of them speaking out
of turn together). But this aspect of philosophy as an academic discipline is completely obscured in the
way it is usually taught. Nor is philosophy as a meta-discipline ranging over other disciplines seen as an
integral part of its discourse. Departments of philosophy have for a very long time been narrowly focused
on epistemology and metaphysics, often oblivious to the cultural and historical dimension in which even
these seemingly abstract concerns were embedded. Kant woke from his dogmatic slumber only after being
prodded by academic skepticism. We, however, do not admit that asking difficult questions, rather than
providing comprehensive answers, is the life-blood of philosophy.
In India today, the very thought of dissent is regarded with suspicion. Shraddha, or faith, is a cornerstone of
most religious traditions, which frown on doubt, (usually identified as an obstacle rather than an aid to the
good life). Authoritative institutions like the army or police cannot tolerate dissent which is equated with
disobedience. But these institutions, necessary as they are to the nation state, are hardly models for educational
institutions. Rather, one would suppose, academic institutions should be their anti-thesis, encouraging
debate, discussion, outlandish views, even rebellious behavior, rather than an imposed uniformity. The state,
when it justifies itself on paternal grounds, is simply metaphorising its relationship with its citizens. Civic
freedoms are much greater than enforced or enforceable rights. The freedom of movement, both of bodies and
thought, like the circulation of blood, is what distinguishes modern democracies from medieval monarchies
or even modern dictatorships. An educational system from which philosophical thought is largely absent is
a symptom which calls for urgent diagnosis in the interest of civic health. The depressed state of philosophy
in the educational system is symptomatic of the devaluation of thought and argument and their replacement
by an inflated rhetoric where advertisements replace analysis and demagogy discussion until only those with
both loud voices and large sticks can forcefully demonstrate their conclusions.

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Philosophy is, in this sense, more a knowing how than a knowing that: like the logician, the philosopher is
not a master of particularities: she does not know more than other people. Perhaps we could say that she
takes an alternative perspective on things, sometimes such an elliptical one as “to be is to be perceived” or
“Everything is water”. Yet, in our curricula and examination system, we continue to treat this discipline as if it
were a matter of knowing a great many things and all kinds of details. This is like a self-imposed exile where
the student is condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past without reflecting on the untruths of the present.
And if philosophy has been so reduced, what can one say of philosophers? Plato had said of philosophers in
imperfect societies, “they have sprung up, like a self-sown plant, in spite of their country’s institutions”. Al-
Farabi described philosophers in societies of his own time as “strangers” or “weeds”. But there are not enough
of these in the gardens of everyday thought, and we need to cultivate such dissonance rather than attempt
to root it out. Education policies have to become increasingly visionary rather than narrowly pragmatic.
Universities now serve purposes and programmes that have little to do with education. Philosophy has been
unable to address the world it lives in not merely in terms of praxis, but even of theory.
118. Plato Symposium 182b
“The Persian empire is absolute: that is why it condemns love as well as philosophy and sport.” Athletics
118
is kept in a separate non-academic category in universities and colleges; love, always looked askance by
right thinking people, is left in the margin; it is only philosophy that is a problem. Monarchies, as Pausanius
noted, are shy of it. Democratic institutions more than others have need of doubt and dissent rather than
universal accord. The very birth of philosophy is accompanied by a cry of protest, a cry that usually evokes
a harsh response; exile or death were the choices given to Socrates. He was not the first or last outspoken
philosopher: having written nothing his books could not be burnt or banned. Political power has always, like
the Persian other in the Greek democratic imagination, sought to replace reason and argument with myths
of Religion and Nation. These have often been used to celebrate and bolster hierarchies of power. Occupying
the moral high ground is a tried and tested strategy: dissent and debate are seen as symptomatic of unbelief,
a form of apostasy. Philosophy itself is seen as the essence of unbelief, its practitioners dubbed nastikas or
Nay-sayers by the orthodox.

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The Usual Suspects
If you must blame somebody, it is easiest to blame the students. They are uninterested, have little conceptual
grasp, are unwilling to work hard, merely want to pass exams and get degrees. Happier outside rather
than inside classrooms, they struggle free from the fatherly embrace of their teachers, and will relish their
undergraduate years only in retrospect.
If you cannot blame them entirely, then blame the teachers: they are after all the same students ten years later.
Many of them have undertaken little or no research, read little and have more or less stumbled on a teaching
career by default, having failed to get into the civil services or land a corporate job. With increased salaries
and even substantial monthly stipends for ‘research’ scholars, it pays to study, often better than to “work”.
Some of these students eventually get jobs (to teach those who, like themselves, could not get admitted
to more attractive and desirable courses), but even this takes an inordinate amount of time. Employment
opportunities are limited and the really clever students rarely turn to teaching.
However, before we blame either students or teachers, we need to consider how it is that philosophy, devoted
to the grasp of reality, is dismissed because it “appears” to be about nothing very much.
Among the humanities, philosophy as a choice seems to occupy almost the lowest rung: in the yearly list
of colleges and courses issued by various newspapers at the start of each academic session, it is not even
mentioned as a possible choice, perhaps because the 70 or more colleges of Delhi University that have
undergraduate programs, no more than a dozen offer a major in philosophy (what is called an honours
degree), while another half dozen offer some philosophy courses for students of other disciplines. Of the 12
colleges where philosophy is taught, only three admit males.
The motivation for studying philosophy at the undergraduate and postgraduate level is rather different. A
large number of students who enter postgraduate programs have the civil service examination in their sights.
Philosophy is one of the many core disciplines that students can opt for in this exam, and so many take it up

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at the Masters level: not now a crutch, but a pole for vaulting ambition. Research degrees like M.Phil. and
PhD are limited to those interested in teaching jobs. The quality of theses in these “research degrees” is both
beyond the scope of this article and often beyond belief.
To what extent do students make informed choices? Those who choose to study philosophy could well be
a test case. Many of my own students came to it by chance, unable to get their first or second preferences.
Others, albeit fewer, came to it out of choice: some from academic households, chose it for specific reasons
(foundational, argument-oriented, analytical etc.); some were enthralled by reading (Sophie’s World, Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, the Upanishads, et al.), and some because their
fathers or cousins or friends had really enjoyed studying it.
This is a view from below. We have always had small classes. The reasons are manifold, not least of which is
that fewer students opt for philosophy. But more importantly in our institution, the authorities have always
been a little uneasy with the subject as well as those teaching it. The outspoken and critical academic is rarely
looked on favourably by administration. The relationship between academia and administrative authority is
asymmetrical both in terms of self-worth and status: administrative work gives otherwise idle or run of the
mill teachers a sense of importance as well as power over others. This will manifest itself over the smallest
domains, from deciding when and where a meeting can be held or where a class taken, to selecting deserving
students for scholarships. Once in position, admin rules over academia until all decisions even academic
ones are often made for reasons that have little to do with academics. Over academic content and academic
pursuits lies the transcendent Deity of administration.
Of Courses
You can also blame the courses that the students are offered and that the teachers have, through years of
studying them and then teaching them, come to accept as “doing” philosophy. The transmission of knowledge
is handing over the collective wisdom of the tribe from one generation to the next. What is to be taught has
today been taken out of the hands of the community and given over to a class of professionals. The content of

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what is taught is however itself often controversial, especially in the humanities, though noticeably even the
natural and purely formal sciences on occasion raise political antennae. But while the content of philosophy
courses may not be very different from what it was or could be, the form in which this content is presented
significantly alters the way in which the subject can play a pedagogical role.
The undergraduates’ course in philosophy are centrally devised and centrally administered (common
examinations, blind correction etc.). As colleges are insulated from each other, teachers have to (impossibly)
reduplicate expertise—the mechanics of teaching across the city at the more or less the same time the same
content, with engagement between teachers limited to some formalities about the conduct of examinations.
It is here that the freedom of choice is entirely illusory. Candidates can only regurgitate what they have been
instructed to learn. There are no real questions that are posed to them, and so the thought police have found
it absurdly easy to control thought. You no longer need to think, just take notes. “Much learning does not
teach sense” (Heraclitus against the polymaths). The form of the examination system controls the content,
and the content of courses in philosophy remains unchanged and unchangeable. Instead of many questions,
we have only one answer. So, while schools focus on yoga or mandate teaching the Bhagavad Gita instead of
logic, institutions of higher learning have little room for subjects like philosophy. Where they do, it is usually
transformed from an active to a passive condition driven by rote learning and repetition.
On the surface, the problem is the fixed menu that is offered by universities and their constituent colleges.
These are fixed meal plans unchanged for years, their fare much like popular fast foods: Indian, Western,
Continental. The average age of philosophy undergraduate courses is ten to fifteen years, so that teachers have,
across the board, taught the same syllabus to generations of students. What they were served as students they
have served back in turn. A slightly askew question asked in an examination and the cry goes up “out of course”.
Philosophy and Dissent
While identical basic courses in schools, especially in the natural sciences makes sense, and might well have
provided the model for devising courses for the humanities, they undermine questioning and questionable

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disciplines like philosophy, which are investigative rather than informative, which interrogate rather than
perpetuate paradigms. Philosophy, of course, has often served and will no doubt continue to serve different
ideologies, but in its essential form, the subject is non-didactic, demanding above all the space to discuss,
attack, and defend truth claims. Although it often follows the simplifying form of the natural sciences, gathering
under one general rubric myriad particularities, and formulating generalities, it can begin only by probing
the complexities inherent in what are simply assumed truths. The promissory notes of simple visionaries on
both sides of the political spectrum need the cold and critical eye of philosophy. The philosopher is as much a
naysayer as a lover of truth: it is the love for truth that makes him so suspicious of it.
This very opposition is necessary to the educational process as a whole, but lip service to such sentiments will
not turn them into settled convictions. Poorly manufactured ideas cannot be easily sold in a free market. To
force through monopolistic and authoritarian fiat the circulation of only a single set of ideas is not education
but propaganda. For those convinced they are in possession of the truth, opposition is akin to heresy.
It comes as no surprise then that in such a climate, some will even propose to close down those institutions
where differing opinions are aired, or to terminate the appointments of those who speak or write anything
that might be construed (or even misconstrued) as contrary to what authority would like to hear. Universal
education does not mean that everyone holds the same opinion. Autonomy is an important constituent of
dissent: necessary to the independent thinking of individuals and the independence of institutions where they
work.
That such institutions are few and far between is a matter of concern, but opinions can be stifled only when they
have first been fostered. Most public institutions have no philosophy departments at all. The subject has been
marginalized by keeping it in the margins. Where philosophy is taught, its content has been predetermined,
all of its courses, good bad and indifferent, are pre-packaged. This has the very opposite of its intended effect,
instead of raising, it lowers academic standards.

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Teachers and learning
Such centralization also undermines rather than nurtures and underscores any confidence teachers may have in
themselves. Driving in predetermined grooves ensures that the teacher is entrusted with little if any role in the
process of learning; she learn only what she passes on and no more is expected of her.
Teaching and learning are alas not often in sync. There are many reasons why many teachers lack knowledge of
their own subjects: there is no profit in it, and there is little need. Such academic demands as are often made of
them are more of an obstacle than an aid to learning: long teaching hours combined with the day-to-day problems
of living in the world make reading and writing, let alone real research, a near impossibility. Undergraduate
teachers are mandated to teach 18 hours per week: this means that if they take classes on 5 days, they must
be in the classroom around 3 and a half hours per day. Add an average of 2 hours travelling and their day is
full. House work for the women, kids, evaluation leaving minimal time for preparation. College teachers rarely
have rooms in their institutions; they face an increasingly large numbers of students in their classrooms, often of
uneven academic level. All this, added to the absence of a real foundation gained as students, makes the task of
keeping up with the expanding world of knowledge, nearly impossible. It is too early to tell how much difference
the information box that is the internet has contributed to increased scholarship, or whether it has turned the
ordinary teacher into another quick fixer. No studies have been done on either methodology of teaching or on the
academic competence of teachers: self-assessment forms merely quantify years of teaching, number of courses,
number of hours etc. The lack of engagement with the world is paralleled by a lack of engagement with the subject.
This lack communicates itself to students. One reason for this is that scholarship is not really respected, nor does it
command status. It certainly enjoys no financial or academic advantage, like reduced teaching loads, or enhanced
salaries. “How dies the wise man?”
East is East
Course content in philosophy also reflects a basic confusion in the marriage of Indian and western philosophy.
Lip service to a selective history of philosophy leaves it uncertain why what is taught is being taught at all. While

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Plato and Aristotle appear in persona, there was until fairly recently a quantum jump into post-enlightenment
thought (empiricists, rationalists and Kant), most of this concentrating on a few texts read if at all, without
context. Another jump lands the student on the shores of the century, petering out in the early twentieth
century with Russell and, as a fillip, near the very end, the later Wittgenstein. Folded in are some fine strands
of Indian thought. In fact, a basic course in the systems of Indian philosophy is the student’s first bewildering
introduction to the entire subject, administered as a summary of six schools whose aims and purposes are so
arcane that no one is quite sure of what the student or teacher is expected to do except to repeat the repetitions.
One way in which classical Indian Philosophy is pitched is as a way of disengagement with the world, as
precondition for either improving the world or leaving it altogether. The view itself comes to stand in for
the philosophical tradition as a whole: philosophy becomes not engagement with the world, but a means of
escape from it or at least rising above it. This ideal of philosophy has been internalized to such an extent that
many contemporaries reiterate it: “philosophy is knowledge that rises above creed and scripture, vision and
ecstasy, art and science, its sole object being a complete realization of all that life implies”,119 to cite only one 119. V. Subrahmanya Iyer: ‘Man’s interest in Philosophy:
of innumerable less subtly phrased wisdoms in deference to the inward path. But there is no single form in an Indian View’, Contemporary Indian Philosophy, ed.
S. Radhakrishnan and J. H. Muirhead, London: George
which philosophy presents itself; neither its methods nor its aims are uncontested, for unlike most disciplines Allen and Unwin, 1952, p. 595.
that have emerged from it, especially the sciences, philosophy has through its history wrestled also with itself.
Perhaps, this contentiousness has become its hallmark. But the critical stance, though often internal to the
tradition, is nevertheless a response to contemporary conditions, even if these are now remote; revisiting them
we assess them from where we are.
Where there is a dominant tradition, there are other traditions as well, and to do philosophy both within a
tradition as well as between traditions requires the ability to stand back from them. Plato in some senses is the
inventor of systematic philosophy in the western tradition. His appropriation of the entire Greek tradition in
western thought makes it central to any study of philosophy today. But the presence of Greek philosophy in the
curricula of our universities is piecemeal. We neither accept the authority of Plato or Aristotle, nor do we reject
them. And this is true of all that they bequeath. Curricula routinely jump from a quick reading of the Greeks, to
what is now designated early modern philosophy. Almost everything in between is ignored. Islamic philosophy
has especially received a cold shoulder. In consequence, teachers of philosophy are almost without exception

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ignorant of even the rudiments of medieval Arabic thought, not all of which was Islamic.
The study of Indian philosophy is poorer for this. The way in which Hellenistic thought has been appropriated
by Arabic philosophers, from Spain to Persia, for several centuries, and the way in which debates between the
different outlooks of phalsapha, kalam and orthodox theology were conducted, might have led those studying
philosophy in India to relate more thoughtfully to the traditions that developed on the subcontinent. The
influence of Arabic philosophy on Scholasticism is again a blind spot in the understanding of the history of
philosophy. Similarly, Chinese and far-eastern philosophical schools are ignored although both China and
Japan have produced excellent scholars of Indian philosophy. If there is one tendency that seems to characterize
our choices here, it is neti neti (a firm refusal to accept anything with which we are not already, or think that we
are completely, familiar).
While we have clung to classical Indian philosophy, few philosophers have devoted energy to questioning this
tradition, most seem content with expounding it. Many teachers of Indian philosophy who have studied in the
universities, have come to it after training in Anglo-American philosophy, and are ill equipped to understand
it. Very few of these have bothered to learn Sanskrit. Doctorates are routinely awarded without any linguistic
requirements whatsoever. Translations of philosophical works, when these are occasionally done, are from
English, even of works originally written in other languages. Further, Indian philosophy is often equated,
falsely, with mysticism and spiritualism. While there are strong mystical currents in the Indian tradition, and
a deep spiritualism, mainstream philosophical thought was rigorous and analytic (and so suited only to the
specialist rather than uninitiated students who do not now have the luxury of 12 years or more of traditional
learning, that is, a grounding in language, grammar, poetry, and metrics even before beginning a study of
philosophy). Currently, courses in philosophy leave to other disciplines the disturbing, foundational questions
that philosophy ought to be engaged in asking.
More important is the disengagement of philosophy from itself, from its own history and antecedents. The
inclusion of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Indian thinkers in the curricula of schools and universities
is a relatively recent phenomenon: here too, there is often less engagement than genuflection. Thinkers like

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Ambedkar and Gandhi have been hoisted on shaky pedestals. Being dead is to become an ancestor, one who can
only be felicitated and worshipped. But the idea that studying philosophy is mastering (mostly by memorizing)
a highly abstract content reduces it to unimportant nonsense.
The need for philosophy
Nevertheless, students are increasingly drawn to philosophy courses by a groundswell of disquiet, increasingly
concerned to grapple with the big questions, those that philosophers have always engaged with. Students
are both worried and thoughtful about the present and the future. Even those with well-formed ideas about
social and political issues are concerned to defend them. Public debate, even if largely inspired by the print
and visual media, has become a vibrant part of student life. This is what makes philosophy more than ever
important to the cultural and intellectual life of the community as a whole. Some ancillary ethics and logic
courses now attract large numbers of students from different disciplines. Increasing use of the internet may
have brought down reflective reading in general, but it has also increased collective recall and increased the 120. 1 Corinthians 13:11
volume, if not quality, of discussion. But bad arguments and poor thoughts, once circulated, demand better
ones. Just as Sophistic argumentation paved the way for dialectic and demonstration, the media induced
discourse has increased the demand for philosophy. To what extent this groundswell has or can be met, has
not yet been answered, because it has not been really recognized. We are still lost in the world of appearances
where the seeming lack of interest in philosophy is taken to mean that we have no need of it.
Educational institutions, if robbed of the conditions that make philosophy possible, will function as courtiers
to bureaucratic dicta, scrambling to implement whatever new idea they are called upon to. By hollowing out
the core of disciplines like philosophy, we will be left only with a façade of thought. To recover lost ground
will not be easy, but it can only start from below: freeing the subject of the shackles imposed on it and giving
to its teachers the freedom to question, to reflect and to respond. Such an investment in teachers as catalysts
for thinking rather than retailers of safely wrapped ideas and ideals, is one possible way in which those who
study and teach philosophy may finally be able to say: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”120

Drawn
Roshni Vyam
Roshni Vyam was born in Sanpuri village in the Dindori district of central Madhya Pradesh. Her parents,
Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam, are both renowned artists today. At the age of five, she started painting
based on Gond stories which she imbibed from her mother. As she grew older, she began to combine
traditional and contemporary elements in her work. Her passion for painting led her to pursue a formal
education in the same discipline. Her mother never went to school and her father was forced to drop out by
Grade 5. Vyam became the first among the Pardhan Gond artists to have graduated. As a third generation
Gond artist, she strives to break the stereotypes that surround Gond art. With her experimental bent, she
takes the traditional art form to a new level, exploring themes of caste oppression, urban life, uprooted
people, creativity, and what it means to be human in these seven independent works.
Her work has been exhibited at Lalit Kala Kendra (Delhi), Dhoomimal gallery (Delhi), Eklavya (Bhopal),
India International Centre (Delhi), Ojas Art Gallery (Delhi), Dakshinchitra (Chennai), State Tribal Museum
(Bhopal), Paramparik Karigar festival (Mumbai), Colorado, Boulder (USA), Staffordshire University (UK)
and Le Hublot d’Ivry (France). In 2015, she won the Ojas Award for ‘Young Gond Artist’ at the Jaipur
Literature Festival. She has also worked on designs for graphic books with publishers such as Navayana (for
the book Bhimayana), Tara Books (Chennai), Eklavya (Bhopal). Since 2017, she has been involved in “Metro
lands”, a collaborative project of two poets and two illustrators from India and France. She also continues
to collect and write the traditional stories of Gond and other tribal communities which are unscripted and
vanishing day by day.

Roshni Vyam
Baiga.
Not in Open Access.

Roshni Vyam
Responsibilities.
Not in Open Access.

Roshni Vyam
Journey.
Not in Open Access.

Roshni Vyam
Struggle.
Not in Open Access.

Roshni Vyam
Lion and Bird.

Not in Open Access.

Roshni Vyam
Path.
Not in Open Access.

Roshni Vyam
Image.
Not in Open Access.

Women

Patriarchy, Caste and Neoliberalism: Violence against Women in India
Subhashini Ali
Violence against women is endemic to Indian society. Social hierarchies in India are organized by an
exclusive and cruel caste system base themselves on “purity”, which is itself hierarchical. The food of the
uppermost castes aspires to one level of purity: not only is it strictly vegetarian, even “heating” foods such
as garlic and onion, often taken as accompaniments to both non-vegetarian food and intoxicants, are
considered impure. Those slightly lower in the hierarchy add to their diet slightly less “pure” foodstuffs, and
so on until we come to the Untouchables who consume “impurities” like beef, dried meat, fish and also the
left-over food from the plates and dishes of the less-, more- and most-pure castes. Even stricter than the
laws of alimentary pollution are the laws of physical pollution which are concerned with touchability, less-
touchability and untouchability. Of course, the most strictly enforced laws of pollution are those concerned
with co-habitation. Purity of the caste is ensured only by uncontested fatherhood which entails the strictest
imposition of fetters on female freedom and autonomy by means of the all-pervasive threat and fear of
violence. A threat that is carried out only too often. This system of social stratification obtains across all
religions in India (as in the whole of South Asia).
Patriarchy is not just unchanged from the beginning of time and continuing unchanged until the end.
It is a social category that is born out of changing productive relations and is an essential ingredient in
maintaining the resulting social and economic hierarchies. The close connections between patriarchy and
private property, patriarchy and capitalism are well-known. Until the early 1990s, when the rhetoric of
inclusive development, social equality and removal of poverty was replaced by the chorus of neoliberal
reform, there was a sense of hope that things would change and gender equality would be achieved. The
cult of the individual, pursued so assiduously by promoters of “real” laissez-faire and the glorification of
unrestrained exploitation and loot, were accepted in India on a scale and with an enthusiasm that exposed
the level of commitment to social hierarchy and patriarchy in most sections of society. It is important to see
the different ways in which neoliberalism impacts on women in our country.

Subhashini Ali
Intensified Patriarchy and violence against women in the “modern” age of reform
A recent development linked to the reform process is the large number of women (about 50,000,000) employed
by the Government as “scheme workers”, necessitated by the withdrawal of the State from the social sector.
Privatisation of educational and health facilities, in particular, have created an enormous vacuum that the
Government attempts to fill with this vast army of “scheme workers”. These women, belonging mainly to the
Dalit and backward castes, are entrusted with the most important responsibilities of combating malnutrition
in infants, children and expectant and nursing mothers, and of imparting basic education and literacy to
poor children. Yet, they are not treated as employees nor is “female work” recognised as work, since women
are considered “natural” care-givers in their homes and are expected to also extend these familial duties as
free labour outside their homes—for animal husbandry, dairying activities, and many functions associated
with agriculture. This understanding, often shared by women themselves, sustains their long working hours
and low wages. Unionization and protracted, militant struggles led by Left Unions, after more than two
decades, have achieved some increase in their pay which is still far below statutory minimum wages. Thanks
to their unregulated work and working-hours, child mortality, maternal mortality, and child malnutrition
levels have been reduced, but they receive neither recognition nor security of service.
The incredible economic exploitation of women occurs at many levels. The fragmentation of production
itself to outsource it to people who do not know each other or their employer, which is different from factory
production where solidarity and struggle are both possible, has led to “home-based” production consigned
to women. They make products as diverse as a safety pin and a computer chip, and are paid paltry sums at
piece-rate. Not having to go out to earn, they do not equate this work-from-home with employment but
see it as a little extra money for the children and household expenses. The damage to their eyes and general
health is incalculable. Few men do this work although many are employed in commissioning it, collecting
the finished product and making the payment. Certainly, they are not well-paid but their gender defines
their role and gives them an element of power over the women who toil relentlessly without much say in
matters of remuneration.

Subhashini Ali
Not only the withdrawal of the State from the social sector but state policy itself has to be seen as an attack on
women made possible by the strengthening of existing patriarchal norm. Privatised education and medical
care are even less accessible to women and girls than to men. Each successive Government, the worst being
the most recent one led by the BJP, cuts the health, education, and women and child welfare budget each
year. In its most recent budget for 2016-17 it has stealthily done away with the SC/ST Component Plan by
slashing—in violation of statutory requirement— the budgetary provisions for these sections so that they
are now far less as a percentage of total expenditure than the proportion of SC/STs to the total population.
Dalit women – “traditional” and “modern” work121
BELLARY, India, Apr 21 2015 (IPS) – HuligeAmma, a Dalit: “I was 12 years old when my parents
offered me to the Goddess Yellamma [worshipped in the Hindu pantheon as the ‘goddess of the fallen’],
and told me I was now a ‘devadasi’. I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was that I would not marry
a man because I now belonged to the Goddess.” While her initial impressions were not far from the truth, 121. “From Slavery to Self Reliance: A Story of Dalit
HuligeAmma could not have known then, as an innocent adolescent, what horrors her years of servitude Women in South India”, Stella Paul, http://www.
would hold (despite a ban in l980.) … As she grew older, a stream of men would visit her in the night, ipsnews.net/2015/04/from-slavery-to-self-reliance-a-
story-of-dalit-women-in-south-india/
demanding sexual favours. Powerless to refuse, she gave birth to five children by five different men – none
of whom assumed any responsibility for her or the child. After the last child was born, driven nearly mad
with hunger and despair, HuligeAmma broke away from the temple and fled to Hospet in Karnataka.
It did not take her long to find work in an open-cast mine, one of dozens of similar, illicit units that
operated throughout the district from 2004 to 2011. For six years, from dawn until dusk, HuligeAmma
extracted iron ore by using a hammer to create holes in the open pit through which the iron could be
“blasted” out. She was unaware at the time that this back-breaking labour constituted the nucleus of a
massive illegal mining operation in Karnataka state, that saw the extraction and export of 29.2 million
tonnes of iron ore between 2006 and 2011. All she knew was that she and Roopa, who worked alongside
her as a child labourer, earned no more than 50 rupees apiece (about 0.7 dollars) each day. In a bid to
crack down on the criminal trade, police often raided the mines and arrested the workers, who had to
pay bribes of 200-300 rupees (roughly four to six dollars) to secure their release. In a strange echo of the

Subhashini Ali
devadasi system, this cycle kept them indebted to the mine operators.
…In Karnataka alone, there are an estimated 23,000 temple slaves, of which over 90% are Dalit women.
(In the other profession open to them) even in an illegal mine, a non-Dalit worker gets between 350 and
400 rupees a day, while a Dalit is paid no more than 100 rupees, reveals MinjAmma, a Madiga woman
who worked in a mine for seven years. Yet, it is Dalit women who made up the bulk of the labourers
entrapped in the massive iron trade. “Walk into any Dalit home in this region and you will not meet a
single woman or child who has never worked in a mine as a ‘coolie’ (labourer).”
Sexual Violence: Female foeticide, dowry, cross-regional ‘marriages’ and the market
Two kinds of sexual violence are often associated with ‘tradition’ and ‘archaic ideas’: female foeticide and
‘honour killing’. In truth, however, both these practices, far from dying out as ‘traditional’ and ‘archaic’
practices should, are rife today. Confined mostly to prosperous but socially conservative parts of India
like Haryana, Western UP, Rajasthan until three decades ago, they have in the neo-liberal period assumed
epidemic proportions all over the country.
Modern technology today executes the most regressive purposes, as illustrated by the increasing rate of
female foeticide in India. In earlier periods, girl children were often smothered to death or poisoned or
buried alive. The ultra-sound technology has enabled a booming industry of sex-selective foeticide and
unscrupulous medical practitioners have made fortunes by taking advantage of not just the desire for male
children but the growing reluctance to bear girl children. Despite the passage of stringent laws, female
foeticide has not abated, since the privatization of health services by all Governments, except those led by
the Communist Parties, has led to the mushrooming of private nursing homes and hospitals., The neo-
liberalist ideology has transformed self-selective abortion from a social crime into the assertion of a ‘choice’.
The results are horrific.

Subhashini Ali
The 2011 Census report states that the sex ratio in India had further deteriorated since the last Census
of 2001. The deficit of 38 million women comprises young women, girl children and female foetuses that
are seldom counted as victims of gender violence: so many victims of a society that kills females before
they are born, soon after they are born and, later, because they were born. Beyond the northern Indian
regions traditionally associated with this practice, namely Western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan,
female foeticide has spread to Gujarat, one of the most prosperous states which is often been touted as a
developmental model for the rest of India. In 2001, it had been revealed that the sex ratio in the state was
920:1000 (women:men) which was a drop from 934 in the earlier Census. The child sex ratio was even
worse, 883:1000 (a drop from the earlier 928). In 2005, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi
(now Prime Minister of India), had launched a campaign to address the issue of gender imbalance in the
State. Nevertheless, in 2011 the sex ratio further declined to 919:1000.
Whenever people are asked the reason for their resorting to sex-selective abortion, the most commonly
heard response is ‘dowry and the expenses incurred in daughters’ marriages. A survey done in 18 States
by the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) in 2002 uncovered interesting details about 122. The 1961 Census stated that nearly 65% Indians
followed the practice of ‘bride price’.
this supposedly traditional and unchanging practice that should have no place in a modern, developing
country. Of those interviewed (belonging to non-upper caste families), more than 80% said that their own
weddings had been very simple with no expenditure on jewellery, clothes or feasts,122 and that ‘something
had happened’ in the last 2 decades such that weddings in all communities – tribals, Dalits, Muslims – had
become very expensive. Demands by the groom’s family for motor-cycles, consumer durables, furniture,
jewellery and clothes were becoming extortionate, sinking families into permanent debt to pay for their
daughters’ marriages. Evidently, something other than the subordination of women and the exigencies of
the caste system, which narrowed the ‘field’ within which suitable grooms could be found, was at work.
There is much evidence that points at the real culprit– the modern market which, in the era of neo-liberal
reforms, has become the most important of social arbiters. For its survival and continuous growth, the
market, in a poor country like India where most people cannot afford to make ends meet, exploits the belief
shared by most Indians (even non-Hindus) that the marriage of their daughters is the most important of
their worldly duties or sanskaras. This entails not only finding a groom of the requisite caste, sub-caste and

Subhashini Ali
region but also acceding without a word of reproach to all the demands that his family may and will make.
The market too projects it as the belief of all good Hindus (and good Indians). Those castes and communities
which did not practice dowry now do so out of their yearning for respectability and status, which had been
denied to their forefathers for centuries and which they identify with upper caste behavior. The market
then promotes not only the buying of a range of gifts as ‘essential’ to the maintenance of their new-found
status and their daughters’ future happiness, but also paints for them the vision of a ‘proper’ marriage:
elaborate clothing, multiple feats and numerous rituals that have been cloned from various regions and
various popular films, music and DJs and a plethora of expense-involving ‘customs’ that have little to do with
the traditional marriages of most Indians.
In making marriages more expensive, the market also lowers the status of women. The sales of all manner
of goods and services, from whitening creams to jewellery to two-wheelers and four-wheelers and even
heavy furniture for families living in cramped hovels, purport to secure the daughter’s ‘happiness’ and by
implication to make up for the inherent deficiencies of women.
In all religious communities—Hindu, Muslim, Christian—the obverse of the celebrated ‘big fat Indian
wedding’ is dowry violence and domestic violence. Though not the offspring of neo-liberal policies, it has
increased in the recent past. The violence that is caused by the inadequacy of dowry continues long after
the wedding as it becomes, through unending demands, a method of satisfying greed, accessing inaccessible
goods, and fulfilling various needs like investment in a business or the bribe for a job. The unequal status of
a woman becomes a reason not only for her parents, indebtedness at the time of her marriage but also for
the violence she must suffer for their inability to meet the demands of her marital family and, of course, for
her being a woman. It often results in her humiliating and unwelcome return to her natal home. The sense
of an ever-increasing burden associated with girl children in India, from the food that they consume to the
books and bags that they need to study, the insecurity that tags them wherever they go and finally everything
associated with their marriage ‒ this is what compels parents to kill them in the womb in such astounding
numbers.

Subhashini Ali
The violence against the female foetus engenders other forms of violence against women. One of them is
the growing number of trans-regional ‘marriages’ or large-scale abduction and purchase of ‘brides’. Not all
the marriages are the result of abduction. Many are negotiated by representatives of the grooms and family
members of the women. It is due to their poverty and inability to arrange the dowry demanded in their
own regions and communities that the women’s family members agreeing to this cruel separation of their
daughters from all that is familiar and dear to them.
An important study by Reena Kukreja and Paritosh Kumar123 finds that these ‘marriages’ are arranged in
mainly four ways: trafficking; through marriage brokers; by the husbands themselves; by those women who
are themselves cross-border wives. The first three routes almost always involve a degree of violence and
coercion and all four involve some deception. The main motivation for these ‘marriages’ is production and
re-production. Their labour and ability to bear children are of the greatest value in rural economies. They
are chosen from outside both region and community for a variety of reasons. The men belong to areas with
adverse sex-ratios so that finding brides within their communities is difficult, especially if they themselves 123. Tied in a Cross Knot, Cross-region Marriages in
lack education and land. What makes these marriages even more attractive is the inability of the women Haryana and Rajasthan: Implications for Gender Rights
and Gender Relations, New Delhi: Tamarind Tree films,
to offer resistance to domestic violence, overwork and subordination in the marital home. Docile domestic 2013.
and farm workers who cannot run away or return to their natal homes, they are often shared between the
husband and his brothers and other male relatives. A woman may even be sold by the husband to another
male. The children of these alliances suffer much discrimination and violence. Since the women usually
belong to lower-castes and to those regions of the country where people have darker complexions than those
in their marital home, they and their children have to suffer much casteist and racist abuse as well.
The intensely patriarchal nature of the caste-system is well illustrated by the fact that these marriages do not
invite the wrath of the khap panchayats (unelected bodies, comprising community or caste-based groups
of community leaders, that conduct arbitration and whose pronouncements have to be accepted by all
concerned) who are otherwise dedicated to preserving caste- and community-purity by strictly and, when
necessary, violently and murderously attacking those who transgress caste lines through acts of friendship,
love and marriage. The reason is not only their tacit support for a dreadful way out of the dead ends of their
own creation, that is, female foeticide and dowry, but also because ultimately a woman herself has no caste.

Subhashini Ali
She takes on the caste of her husband. It is hence that her own choice of marriage or friendship with a lower
caste male is treated as an unforgiveable transgression that invites frightful and violent retribution.
Honour killings
As per the response to a question in Parliament by the Home Minister, 30% of all murdered women have
been victims of ‘honour killing’, a kind of crime peculiar to the sub-continent. The opposition to self-chosen
marriages and friendships becomes a murderous non-tolerance when the person chosen belongs to a lower
caste or another religion. Until a few decades ago, these crimes were committed mostly in rural areas in
Western UP, Haryana and Rajasthan which were dominated by agricultural communities with strong casteist
and patriarchal views. In subsequent years, however, the occurrence of these crimes increased exponentially.
It is becoming increasingly clear that these crimes owe to the peculiar ways in which capitalist development
in India, far from progressively destroying older social formations, is drawing sustenance from every form
of inequality prevalent.
Intensification of caste- and community-based Identity politics and gender violence
The epidemic of ‘honour killings’ is related to the development and intensification of identity politics which
not only have been strengthening caste- and community-based identities but are accompanied by feelings
and actions of aggression and violence against other castes and communities, with those lower down in the
caste hierarchy and minorities bearing the brunt.
More revealing than the brutality of ‘honour killings’ in which the young couple as well as their family
members and friends are maimed and killed, however, is the way in which caste identities are strengthened
and frenzies aroused by positing woman as the keeper of the ‘honour’ of her family and community to, in
fact, inflict great violence on her along with others. The State of Tamil Nadu has witnessed a tremendous
increase in conflicts between Dalits and members of the backward castes who have been the beneficiaries

Subhashini Ali
of the political power being wielded by their caste-brethren. While these conflicts relate to issues of wages,
temple entry and even to Dalits wearing shoes or riding cycles, caste-hatred is fuelled by using the issue of
inter-caste marriages between women of the backward castes and Dalit men.
Identity politics does not develop in a vacuum. It is a potent ideological weapon in the hands of the ruling
classes and their parties, which take refuge in caste and communal mobilizations for their political ends
with greater intensity and success precisely in the decades of neo-liberal reform. The processes of de-
industrialization, outsourcing of labour, contract work, along with the growing withdrawal of the State
from social sectors like education, health, and child-care, make identity politics increasingly unavoidable
for political parties committed to the neo-liberal paradigm and, conversely, also make it more and more
attractive for the masses of the exploited. Affinity groups seem to provide more security than class-based
struggles and solidarity.
On 2 December 2016, leaders of backward caste groups and some Muslim leaders met in Tamil Nadu. It was
declared that Dalit youths were specifically targeting other caste girls. It was alleged that they ‘lure’ them,
‘spoil’ their lives and ‘leave them in the lurch’. One speaker said that “Dalit youths are luring girls by wearing
T-shirts, jeans and goggles. They present cell phones to girls and mesmerise them”. As will be mentioned
further on in this essay, this rhetoric has been already used by Hindutva groups and in preparation of anti-
Muslim riots, particularly before elections, to enhance the prospects of the BJP. Unmistakably, it takes a leaf
out of the anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda.
It is not surprising, therefore, that other than the CPI(M) and AIDWA (a left women’s organisation) very
few voices are raised against honour killings, in favour of self-chosen marriages, and in demand of a specific
law against honour crimes. A draft law was prepared by the AIDWA, and then the National Commission for
Women, after adopting most of its provisions, held wide-ranging consultations on the issue and submitted
a finalised a draft to the Government. That government has been replaced by another but the legislation is
nowhere on the horizon.

Subhashini Ali
Violence against Minority Women
Communal riots have been a feature of Indian society throughout the 19th, 20th and, now, the 21st century,
not as a matter of course as some believe, but because they yield political gain for mainstream, bourgeois
political parties. At the same time, it is important to realise that while various Governments at the State
and National level encourage communal polarization and also practise discrimination against minority
communities, most blatantly so during communal rioting, it is the Sangh Parivar (a conglomeration of
organisations inspired and led by the RSS whose political wing is the BJP) that promoting anti-minoritism
most virulently by conflating nationalism with the Hindu religion. From before Independence, the many
wings of the RSS, including its ideological ancestor the Hindu Mahasabha which now has a separate identity,
have indulged in communal rewriting of history and inciting communal hatred and violence. Its organisations
have been named as perpetrators in all the major communal riots that have occurred since Independence.
This does not, however, absolve other political parties who have led various governments that have, in one
way or the other, permitted and even encouraged the Sangh Parivar’s activities.
While the Sangh Parivar’s campaign has many dimensions, its most potent dimension is its use of the
imagery of Hindu womankind suffering abduction, rape and murder at the hands of, usually, Muslims and,
sometimes, Christians. The violence that minority women suffer at the hands of rioters inspired and directed
by the Sangh Parivar is particularly vicious.
Of the innumerable attacks on Christian homes, religious places and congregations, the most horrific took
place in Kandhamal, Orissa in 2008, in which the Sangh Parivar was not only implicated but for which it
claimed responsibility with pride. An AIDWA delegation visited the area and submitted a report and also
helped in the fight for justice for a nun who was raped on the 25th August 2008. One of the witnesses to
the incident, which took place in broad daylight in a market place in this tribal area, Latika Devi said in her
account that “I knew the nun and the priest who worked in our village. I recognise all the accused standing
in front of me; they are also from my village. I run a shop opposite the Janvikas Kendra, in whose verandah
the incident took place… A mob of 40-50 men took the nun inside the Janvikas Kendra. When they brought

Subhashini Ali
her out, her blouse and sari were torn...” Chief defence lawyer Soura Chandra Mahapatra, on the other
hand, tried to prove that it was an act of retaliation. “Allegation of rape is only secondary,” he said, “It is first
about Odisha’s reputation. Hindus in Odisha are not rapists.” His associate lawyers, insisting that they were
defending the accused pro bono, admitted that “Yes, the nun was humiliated in public and her clothes ripped
off,” and declared that this was “a spontaneous reaction” to the murder of a VHP swami in the area, for which
the Maoists later took “credit”.
The demonization of Muslims by the Sangh Parivar knows no bounds. In recent times, the worst incident of
communal rioting took place in Gujarat in 2002 when the present Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi,
was the Chief Minister at the time. During the rioting, the following leaflet was widely distributed by the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a member of the Sangh Parivar. It said:
With an intention of deceiving and defrauding the Hindu girls studying in schools and colleges they
(Muslims) take Hindu names such as Raju, Pintu, Rajan, Montu, Chintu, etc. It is a sinister design,
which is well planned and well organized. It is happening in every village and city. In the Godhra 124. (translation from Guajarati)
episode the Muslim ‘gundas’ had abducted about 25 to 30 women, then raped them, after which cut
their breasts and inserted burning rods into their private parts. If we take the total of all the incidents
that take place every day at various places, then, in Gujarat alone, there are at least 10 thousand cases
of defrauding Hindu girls and as many cases of Hindu girls being raped every year. Even after the
Godhra episode, they will continue to do the same with the same method but with a double intensity.
They have murdered thousands of Hindus in Kashmir. Right in front of the eyes of the brothers and
fathers, the Muslim terrorists raped their sisters and daughters and then killed them. On account
of this, hundreds of thousands of Hindus had to flee from Kashmir. Hindus, wake up! If you want
to save your sisters-daughters and if you want to save Gujarat and the rest of India from becoming
another Kashmir then, from today onwards, keep a watch on your girls that they don’t keep any sort of
relationship with Muslims. The Hindu boys studying in the colleges could save the Hindu girls from
the hands of the Muslim ‘goondas’ either by themselves or with the help of Hindu organizations.124
Unsurprisingly, excruciating violence was perpetrated on Muslim women during the riots. An AIDWA

Subhashini Ali
team had visited Gujarat while rioting was still continuing. Among the many, many female victims that it
interviewed, Bilqis Bano was one, the only gang-rape victim whose rapists have been convicted. She told us
that all the Muslim houses in her village were attacked by villagers and outsiders. She managed to escape
with her mother, her 3-year-old baby girl, her sisters, brothers, and some relatives. She was five months
pregnant and her cousin Shamim was near the end of her term when they fled their village.125 They were
given shelter in a mosque where Shamim was delivered of a baby girl by a midwife but they were asked to
leave soon afterwards. They then started walking till they reached Kudra village. Here some Adivasi Naiks
took pity on Shamim’s condition and kept them in their huts. Although they were very poor people, they
even gave them clothes to wear. After this, they were asked to leave this place too but two of the Adivasis
accompanied them to up to Chhapadvad village, beyond which they were overtaken by people from their
own village who had been pursuing them in a vehicle. Bilqis was raped by three of the men. She says that the
other younger women were also gang-raped. Her child was snatched away from her and killed. She was also
left for dead with all her other family members who had all been killed, including the newborn infant. They
were covered with stones. She lay there the whole night and most of the next day when she was found and
rescued by the police from Limkheda Police Station. The other bodies were left there and she was brought 125. From the AIDWA report
to Limkheda P.S. and then taken to the camp. From here she was admitted in the General Hospital, Godhra,
she was medically examined and her statement was recorded. She has named the people who killed her
family members and those who raped her.
The Sangh Parivar’s communal hate-campaign has given the name ‘Love jehad’ to what it calls the abduction
of Hindu women by Muslim men. Many cases of marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men have
been reported to the police and taken to court as the result of the idea of ‘love jehad’ but both the courts and
the police have had to conclude that such a thing does not exist. The campaign continues undeterred. An
example of the kind of propaganda material used is a pamphlet printed and distributed in Karnataka and
Kerala in 2007 titled “Warning issued to Hindu girls”:
This organisation (responsible for ‘love jehad’) makes use of groups of boys belonging to a particular
religious faith. They are taught how to lure girls… Further, the organisation orders its followers to
marry them within a short period of six months and to have at least four children… The organisation

Subhashini Ali
gives one lakh rupees to such converted women and also gives financial support to boys to start business
activities… The ‘love jihad’ organisation provides its members with mobile phones, motorcycles, good
clothing, etc. for more effective allurement of girls… The Rama Sena people saved these stupid girls
from becoming the breeding cows of Islam and joining some Muslim harem.
The Sangh Parivar then began the ‘Bahu-beti bachao andolan’ (Save daughters-in-law and daughters
Movement) in Western UP in 2012, in the run up to the 2014 general election. The campaign met with
great success. Not only were large sections of the Jat peasantry mobilized for the campaign but they were
instigated into launching terrible attacks on the poorer Muslims, mostly daily wage-earners, in their villages.
Many women and young girls were gang-raped and more than fifty thousand Muslims had to abandon their
homes and villages and live under plastic sheets in ‘refugee camps’. Some still live there.
Just like the Gujarat riots which paid tremendous political dividends to the BJP there, the Western UP riots
actually propelled the BJP into power at the Center in the 2014 elections.
Sangh Parivar on the rampage
While identity politics seem to strengthen regional and caste-based political formations, they can also be
appropriated, manipulated and utilized by extreme right-wing forces. This can be seen world-wide, and
certainly in the exponential growth in India of the Sangh Parivar, the political arm of which, the Bharatiya
Janata Party is now in power at the Center and in several States. This marks a sea-change in Indian politics.
While earlier Governments have been led by bourgeois parties who pursued pro-capitalist policies and eagerly
embraced neo-liberal reforms, and their commitment to social reform and secularism was mostly unstable
and opportunist, the BJP and Sangh Parivar represent a different stream of Indian politics altogether. They
have never, from their very inception, criticised or fought against imperialism. They have always opposed
the Constitution of free India which seeks to establish social and economic equality. They have openly
professed allegiance to the Manusmriti, an ancient Hindu law code which promotes and glorifies social and
gender inequality and the most tyrannical hierarchies. It is, therefore, only logical that this Government

Subhashini Ali
has pursued vigorous implementation of neo-liberal reforms, the worst kinds of capitalist cronyism and
the transfer of natural resources to the most rapacious corporate loot, alongside the promotion of the most
regressive and divisive social agenda. Needless to say, it is the poor, the Dalits, the minorities, and women of
all communities who are the worst sufferers of its policies.
The last two and a half years have seen different kinds of attacks. The Government has taken up the issue of
“Cow Protection” in a big way and has encouraged the activities of vigilante groups who attack those whom
they believe to be engaged in cow-trafficking (transporting cows to places where they will be slaughtered) or
cow-eating or cow-killing. While these attacks impact women as family members of the victims as in Dadri,
UP, Jharkhand, Jammu, Una, etc., women often themselves are directly attacked. For example, two young
Muslim women were brutally gang-raped in Dingerheri village, Mewat, by men from the neighbouring
village. Two members of their family including a woman, Rashida, were murdered; four, including one
woman, Aisa, were grievously injured. One of the rape victims was a minor. The rape victims said that the
accused told them that they were being punished for eating beef. They even urinated in their mouths when
they begged for water.126 126. (Fact-finding report of CPI(M) delegation)
It is not Muslims alone who are being attacked by these so-called cow-protecting vigilantes. In Una,
Gujarat, six Dalit boys were beaten almost to death when they were found skinning a dead cow. This led to
unprecedented protests and to many announcing that they would not skin dead animals anymore. One Dalit
woman had to face terrible retribution for this. In Karja village, Banaskantha, Gujarat in September 2016,
pregnant Sangitaben was beaten along with her husband when he refused to dispose of carcasses.
Thought is under attack, too. Criticism, debate, discussions are taboo as far as the ruling dispensation is
concerned. While many institutions of higher learning, research and academic excellence find their future
under threat, many women are being cruelly threatened, intimidated and viciously targeted because not only
do they dare to take on the Sangh Parivar but also because women today are highly visible in the struggle
against them. N. Prabha, an activist of the Bharatiya Gyan Vigyan Samiti (Indian Science and Knowledge
Society) in Bangalore, committed to the promotion of rational and scientific thinking, found this comment

Subhashini Ali
addressed to her by V.R. Bhat, an RSS activist, on a social networking site “How would you know about
the roots of Sanathana Dharma? People like you who read books by a Dalit writer, Devanur Mahadeva are
those who will support you…People like you must be first dragged by their hair and raped.” Sonia Faleiro,
the co-founder of the journalists’ collective Decca, reports127 how eminent writers like Meena Kandasamy
and Nilanjana Roy, activists and outspoken women in general are the target of similar gendered and castiest
abuse in the digital public sphere:
It’s clear from their online behavior that these men are largely privileged Hindus, many of whom live
outside India and enjoy well-paying jobs. Some upper. …Their obsession has also led them to target
women who belong to minority religions. … Indian Twitter wasn’t always such an inhospitable place
for women. Things changed in the run-up to this year’s general elections. The online cell of the BJP
galvanized thousands of volunteers in India and abroad to flood Twitter and Facebook with right-
wing rhetoric. (This has recently been documented in a book by Swati Chaturvedi, ‘I am a Troll: Inside
BJP’s Secret Digital Army’) These volunteers sought out tweets, hashtags, and even the handles of 127. ‘Women in India Aren’t Safe on Twitter Either’
prominent liberal intellectuals and responded to expressions of mistrust in the BJP, or disagreement https://medium.com/matter/no-safe-places-
with the views of its leader Narendra Modi – and not in ones or twos, but in the hundreds. Their d59af0c3ba58
responses – “Bitch,” “Bimbo,” “Hate monger” – were uniformly crude.
Misogyny and the subordination of women are corollaries. While violence against women is certainly not
unique to Indian society, the social institution of caste, which exists only in this country and its diaspora,
adds a dimension to the humiliation, subordination, seclusion and exploitation that Indian women face.

Women labourers
Vivek Muthuramalingam
Women’s hands and legs after scavenging the landfill at Kyalsanahalli near Bangalore (2011) by Vivek Muthuramalingam.



Quarries of Rampura by Vivek Muthuramalingam.

Muslim Women Negotiating a Historical Moment in their Lives
Flavia Agnes
A polarised environment where ‘neutral, secular, liberal progressive’ voices demanding justice for Muslim
women are heard in opposition to the bearded, misogynist and patriarchal Muslim clerics closes the space
for Muslim women to express a nuanced view regarding the present controversy and enforces upon them
an artificial identity question. B. S. Sherin, a research scholar of comparative literature in Hyderabad, states:
It is truly unfortunate that Muslim women’s identity is highlighted only in terms of personal laws,
especially after the Shah Bano case. This overarching focus on personal law presents any improvement
of Muslim women’s lives as contingent only on the reform of personal laws. By raising the question
of personal laws and of community-binding, the larger implications of culture, class and region on
the lives of Indian Muslim women are deferred. Muslim women themselves have come out in large 128. Sherin, B. S. , “Shortcomings in the Triple Talaq
numbers against the present campaign on Triple Talaq to say what is much more urgently needed is Debate”, Outlook, November 6, 2016.
empowerment and education. But their voices do not receive larger audience. The recent appearance of 129. Rizvi, Anusha, “The Indian Media’s Focus on
articulate practicing Muslim women challenging ‘progressive voices’ has been written off as ‘motivated Shayara Bano Betrays an Ignorance of Important
by patriarchal forces’ or ‘indoctrinated’.128 Precedents”, June 11, 2016, https://thewire.in/42276/
the-indian-medias-focus-on-shayara-bano-betrays-
an-ignorance-of-important-precedents/
Expressing a similar concern over the media hype following the writ petition filed by Shayara Bano
challenging the talaqnama (deed of divorce) sent to her by her husband, Anusha Rizvi, a documentary film
maker comments:
Despite the large number of positive court judgements in favour of Muslim women, the media prefers to
endorse the view that once the husband pronounces talaq, the wife is stripped off all her rights. We are
witnessing a phase where the terms of the debate are pre-decided – it’s Islamic law vs. the secular law, the
archaic vs. the modern, the oppressive vs. the civilised – without even a cursory glance at the thousands
of Indian Muslim women who file cases in courts for enforcement of their rights under various legal
provisions such as the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Prevention of Dowry Act, 1961 or maintenance
under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.PC). Articles by experts, while focusing on the
need to declare instantaneous triple talaq invalid, pay little attention to the rights laboriously secured
from the trial courts, the high courts and even the Supreme Court by many Muslim women. 129

Flavia Agnes
Dr Kancha Ilaiah (the reputed Dalit rights activist and author of Why I am not a Hindu130) comments about
the atmosphere prevailing on the campus of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU),
Hyderabad:
“The sudden discovery that every Muslim woman is facing Triple Talaq and the urgency to bring about
a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) to save Muslim women scares them [Muslim students] more. One case of
one Muslim woman in the Supreme Court is being projected as if every Muslim woman after the BJP
came to power is facing Triple Talaq and the UCC is the solution. Now the discussion among them in
small groups, is not about their ‘Vikas’ (development) but about their ‘Fear’. The women teachers and
non-teachers I talk to tell that these are not their major problems. They say ‘Our major problems are
education in English and Urdu, jobs in the market’. They further say ‘safety in the general society, not
just in the Muslim society’. I see many of them feel lost in the present situation. They are lost because
130. Why I am not a Hindu – A Sudra Critique of
Lalitha Kumaramangalam, Chairperson of the National Women’s Commission and all other ruling Hindutva Philosophy, Calcutta: Samya, 1996.
Hindu women keep telling the nation that they are worried about the divorced Muslim women more
131. Shepherd, Kancha Ilaiah, “Why is the BJP so
than the Dalit women getting raped on a daily basis. They are also not at all worried about the young concerned about Muslim women’s well-being now?”,
and old Hindu widows living a pre-Rajarammohan Roy life in Varanasi rat hole called Brindavan.131 December 23, 2016, http://naradanews.com/2016/12/
why-the-bjp-is-concerned-about-the-muslim-
When and how did the issue of lack of rights of Muslim women come to the fore? Why are Muslim women womens-well-being-so-much-now/
suddenly rushing to the Supreme Court to challenge the triple talaq sent to them by their husband rather
than approaching the local courts for securing their economic rights? Why has the media not publicized
the gains secured by Muslim women through the process of litigation during the last three decades and why
there is an overemphasis on triple talaq to the exclusion of all other gender concerns?
In order to address these critical questions, one would have to read the recent developments against the
populist grain.

Flavia Agnes
Retrospect - the Shahbano controversy and the historic Danial Latifi ruling
It is useful to examine a few basic premises regarding the personal status laws (or codes governing family
relationships) in India and revisit the Shahbano controversy which erupted in 1985-86.
Within the framework of legal plurality prevailing in India, an optional civil law of marriage coexists
harmoniously with religion-based family laws and customary practices. The aspiration to bring in a secular
and uniform family law is articulated in Article 44 of the Constitution “The State shall endeavour to enact a
uniform civil code” which is merely a directive principle of state policy.
132. See Flavia Agnes, “The Supreme Court, the
As against this, there are two contesting claims which are enforceable and justiciable fundamental rights – Media and the Uniform Civil Code Debate in India” in
gender equality and non-discrimination (Articles 14-15) and right to religious freedom and cultural identity Dingwaney, Anuradha and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
(Articles 25-30). The complex terrain of religion based personal laws (which govern marriage, divorce, (ed.) The Crisis of Secularism in India, Durham: Duke
maintenance, child custody, adoption, succession, etc.) situated within the rubric of multiculturalism University Press 2007, pp. 294-315 for a detailed
discussion on this subject.
and legal pluralism, are often in conflict with notions of secularism and gender equality.132 But within the
hierarchy of claims, secularism and gender justice occupy a higher status than claims of religious freedom, 133. Mohd. Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum AIR 1985
though this has not been a linear trajectory. SC 945.
134. Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce)
Act, 1986.
The watershed for this type of polarization between gender equality and religious freedom is the controversial
ruling in Shah Bano133 in 1985. The unwarranted comments against Islam and the Prophet and the call for
enacting a UCC, while deciding the rights of a Muslim woman under a secular statute, led to a backlash
within the conservative Muslim religious leadership. Relenting to the pressure mounted by the orthodoxy,
the government introduced the Muslim Women’s Act (MWA)134 to exclude divorced Muslim women from
the purview of the secular law of maintenance for destitute wives (under S.125 of Cr.PC.). This move by the
ruling Congress Party is viewed as a blatant violation of secular principles and gender justice in favour of
‘vote-bank politics’.

Flavia Agnes
The move to enact this law met with severe opposition, not only from Hindu right-wing parties, but also
from secular and women’s rights groups. As the debate progressed, the media projected two insular and
mutually exclusive positions: those who opposed the new Act and supported the demand for a UCC were
viewed as modern, secular and rational, and those who opposed the UCC as fundamentalist, orthodox, male
chauvinist, communal and obscurantist. This left no space for articulating shades of grey. Muslims, in turn,
were mobilized to view this as yet another threat to their tenuous identity and security. The rigid approach of
the conservative Muslim religious leadership against enforcement of a UCC provided further fuel to Hindu
nationalists in their anti-Muslim propaganda and resulted in strengthening of the Muslim appeasement
theory.
Despite this claim, the Act was of immense historical significance as it was the first attempt in independent
India to codify Muslim Personal Law. But the positions across the divide were so rigid that there was no
space to reflect upon this milestone. Since it was enacted amidst protests from women’s rights groups and
progressive social organizations, it was viewed with suspicion and foreboding and the first response of the
protesting groups was to challenge its constitutionality, rather than examine its viability. 135. Minu Jain, “Curious Role Reversal”, Sunday
Observer, January 24, 1988.
While writ petitions filed by these groups were pending in the Supreme Court, the controversial Act gradually
unfolded in the lower courts. When a Muslim woman approached the lower court to claim maintenance
under s.125 Cr.PC, the usual legal ploy adopted by the husband’s lawyer, under the misconception that
the new Act has absolved the husband of his liability of paying maintenance to his divorced wife, would
enclose a talaqnama along with the reply to the petition. But in a curious role reversal, the courts started
awarding the divorced wife lump sum maintenance as per the provisions of the new Act. The first significant
order was by a woman magistrate, Rekha Dixit of Lucknow, who in January 1988 granted Fahmida Sardar
Rs.85,000 inclusive of maintenance for the iddat period, her mehr amount and a further sum of Rs.30,000/-
as “reasonable and fair provision” under the new Act.135 This was a quantum leap from the meager amount
of Rs.179/- which was awarded to Shahbano as monthly maintenance under S.125 Cr.PC. From 1988
onwards, High Court after High Court in the country upheld the orders of significant amounts of lump sum
settlements. Aggrieved by these orders, the husbands started approaching the Supreme Court with appeals
to reverse these orders. Curiously these appeals started accumulating in the Supreme Court along with the

Flavia Agnes
writ petitions filed by secular groups to strike down the statute as unconstitutional.
Finally, a Constitutional Bench (five judges) ruling of 2001, Danial Latifi136 declared that the controversial
Act is constitutionally valid and further upheld the right of divorced Muslim women to a fair and reasonable
settlement from their former husbands for their entire life or until their remarriage (and not merely for three
months as was popularly believed). In the ultimate analysis, both sides - the secular groups who had pleaded
for the Act to be stuck down as unconstitutional and husbands who had pleaded for the orders passed under
the Act to be reversed – lost. Who emerged victorious were the divorced Muslim women who had waged
a relentless battle to defend their precious economic rights from the magistrate’s court, the first rung of
litigation, onwards to the final authority of adjudication, the Supreme Court.
However, the gains secured by divorced Muslim women under the MWA were ignored by the media which
continued to project the view that after the enactment of MWA, Muslim women have no rights to post- 136. Danial Latifi v. Union of India, (2001) 7 SCC 740.
divorce maintenance.
137. Some former judges do not endorse the demand
The political events of the intervening period since Shah Bano has led many rights based groups to change for a Uniform Civil Code.
their earlier position regarding enforcement of a UCC - the demolition of a 400 year old mosque, Babri
Masjid, in 1992 and the Bombay riots that followed which resulted in loss of life and property of Muslims; the
gruesome sexual violence inflicted upon Muslim women during the Gujarat carnage of 2002 where around
3000 Muslims were killed; attacks on Christian churches in tribal areas of Dang (Gujarat) and Khandamal
(Orissa), the continued escalation of violence in Kashmir and loss of democratic rights of civilians, the
ascendance of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) led alliance at the centre which used the demand for a
UCC as a stick to beat the Muslim minority with, are factors that have necessitated a re-examination of the
earlier call for a UCC as a means of securing gender justice. Rather than an all-encompassing uniform code,
concepts such as “reform from within” and a gradual “step-by-step approach” have acquired currency as a
more viable strategy to secure gender justice.137

Flavia Agnes
Suo motu reference in Prakash v. Phulavati138 138. [2016) 2 SCC 36)]

139. In August, 2014, this comment was made by
It is indeed ironic that the debate around triple talaq was raised while a Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice Dave, who retired in November, 2016, while
speaking at a conference at Gujarat University, “Had
Justices Anil R. Dave139 and A.K. Goel was hearing an appeal against the Hindu woman’s right to the ancestral
I been the dictator of India, I would have introduced
property. The judges reversed the ruling of the Karnataka High Court, which had granted the woman an Gita and Mahabharata in Class I.» which received wide
equal share in ancestral property along with the male heirs, and reduced her rights to a negligible percentage. media publicity.
However, even while doing so, responding to comments made by some lawyers present in court that Muslim 140. His name appears in the judgement as one of the
women are devoid of rights, in an unprecedented manner the judges made a reference to the Chief Justice lawyers for the respondents.
to constitute a special bench to examine whether gender discriminatory practices within Muslim Personal
141. Mahapatra, Dhananjay, “Supreme Court leaves
Law (triple talaq and polygamy) constitute violation of fundamental rights. Balaji Srinivasan, who had no uniform civil code to Parliament, door ajar on triple
established expertise in Muslim Personal Law, was present in court as a junior lawyer for the respondents.140 talaq” TNN December 8, 2015. https://timesofindia.
Barely five months later, he was back in court with a writ petition on behalf of a Muslim woman, Shayara indiatimes.com/india/Supreme-Court-leaves-uniform-
Bano, challenging the talaqnama (divorce deed) from her husband declaring that he had divorced her. civil-code-to-Parliament-door-ajar-on-triple-talaq/
articleshow/50083462.cms , 8 Dec 2015. India is
governed by a Constitutional scheme of separation
In the intervening months, a BJP activist Advocate, Ashwini Upadhyay, had filed a petition pleading for of power between the three arms of the state – the
the enactment of a UCC and engaged the services of two former Solicitor Generals to argue on his behalf. legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The
When the petition came up before the bench presided over by Chief Justice T S Thakur, it was dismissed power of the judiciary is confined to examining the
constitutional validity of an act or a rule but it does not
on the ground that this prayer falls squarely within the domain of the legislature.141 The Chief Justice also have the lawmaking power.
questioned the petitioner’s motive in filing the petition. However, the bench assured that if a victim of triple
talaq approaches the court, it would examine whether it violated fundamental rights of the wife. 142. Shalini Nair, “ShayaraBano’s fight against
triple talaq”, The India Express, April 24, 2016 http://
indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/
So, by the time Shayara Bano’s brothers approached Srinivasan, the ground for filing the writ petition was set and on triple-talaq-supreme-court-ban-muslim-india-
Shayara Bano fell the mantle of a crusader for the cause of Muslim women. Shayara Bano’s brothers had contacted shayara-banu-2767412/ ; There is not much
information available about the case filed by her
a local lawyer for filing a transfer petition in the Supreme Court to transfer the case filed by her husband in the husband in the Allahabad family court.
family court at Allahabad, who referred them to Srinivasan.142 Meanwhile, Bano received her husband’s talaqnama
by post. So Srinivasan advised them to file a writ petition instead, as that would have wider implications.143 They 143. Johari, Aarefa, “Meet the ordinary Muslim women
fighting an extraordinary case against triple talaq
heeded his advice and thus was made the historic Shayara Bano case. In an interview, Srinivasan comments that in India” https://scroll.in/article/809530/meet-the-
while he knew it would be a big case, the publicity it received far surpassed his own expectations. ordinary-muslim-women-fighting-an-extraordinary-
case-against-triple-talaq-in-india

Flavia Agnes
The media hype deliberately ignored Legal Precedents
It is indeed surprising that during the hearing of Prakash v Phulawathi the arguments presented by lawyers
that Muslim women are devoid of rights have not taken into account the entire judicial discourse on the
issue of instant and arbitrary triple talaq.
In 2002, in a landmark ruling in Shamim Ara v. State of Uttar Pradesh,144 the Supreme Court invalidated
arbitrary triple talaq and held that a mere plea of talaq in reply to the proceedings filed by the wife for
maintenance cannot be treated as a pronouncement of talaq and the liability of the husband to pay
maintenance to his wife does not come to an end through such communication. In order for a divorce to be
valid, talaq has to be pronounced as per the Quranic injunction.
144. 2002 Supreme Court Cases, p. 518.
In the same year, a full bench in the Bombay High Court in Dagdu Chotu Pathan v. Rahimbi Dagdu Pathan145 145. [Volume II (2002) Divorce and Matrimonial Cases
had held that a Muslim husband cannot repudiate the marriage at will. The court relied upon the following p. 315.
Quranic stipulation: “To divorce the wife without reason, only to harm her or to avenge her for resisting the 146. Sri Jiauddin v. Anwara Begum, (1981) 1 Gauhati
husband’s unlawful demands and to divorce her in violation of the procedure prescribed by the Shariat is Law Reporter pg. 358 and Rukia Khatun v. Abdul
haram.” It was held that all the stages - conveying the reasons for divorce, appointment of arbitrators, and Khalique Laskar, (1981) 1 Gauhati Law Reporter pg.
375.
conciliation proceedings between the parties – are required to be proved when the wife disputes the fact of
talaq before a competent court. A mere statement in writing or oral deposition before the court about a talaq
given in the past is not sufficient to prove the fact of divorce.
These judgements relied upon two judgements of Justice Baharul Islam pronounced in 1981 while presiding
over the Gauhati High Court - Sri Jiauddin v. Anwara Begum and Rukia Khatun v. Abdul Khalique Laskar:
“the correct law of talaq as ordained by Holy Quran is: (i) talaq must be for a reasonable cause; and (ii) it
must be preceded by an attempt at reconciliation between the husband and wife by two arbiters, one chosen
by the wife from her family and the other by the husband from his. If their attempts fail, talaq may be
effected.”146

Flavia Agnes
Despite the plethora of court verdicts which had declared instant triple talaq invalid147 and had safeguarded
the rights of women approaching the courts for maintenance, the media continued to project the view that
once the husband pronounces talaq, the wife is stripped of all her rights. It is due to this selective amnesia
regarding the earlier struggles of Muslim women, the petition filed by Srinivasan came to be hailed as the
first instance where a Muslim woman challenged the Constitutional validity of instant triple talaq.
Domestic Violence a pressing concern for Muslim women
When one reads the detailed narrative of abuse which Shayara Bano endured during her 15 years of marriage,
147. Following are some of the decisions which relied
it almost seems that domestic violence and desertion are unique problems faced by Muslim women, a
upon Shamim Ara - S. Parveen Akhtar v. Union of India,
misfortune that has befallen them due to an archaic and oppressive legal regime. It must be given a special (2003-1-LW(Crl)115); Najmunbee v. Sk. Sikander Sk.
Islamic hue for the violence to be taken seriously by the media. As Rizvi points out, the violence itself is not Rehman, (I 2004) DMC 211); Mustari Begum v. Mirza
relevant, it is her Muslim-ness and the projection that she is the victim of Muslim personal laws which alone Mustaque Baig, (II (2005) DMC 94), Shahzad v. Anisa
can give her that special status and set her apart from victims facing similar type of domestic violence, and Bee,(II (2006) DMC 229); Farida Bano v. Kamruddin,(II
(2006) DMC 698 MP); Dilshad Begum Pathan v. Ahmad
from other religious communities, also governed by their respective personal laws.148 Without such framing,
Khan Hanif Khan Pathan, [II (2007) DMC 738]; Riaz
the violence she suffered would command no special status, and may easily be dismissed as the “routine” Fatima v. Mohd. Sharif, (I (2007) DMC 26 Del; Masroor
violence suffered by women in India. Ahmed v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2008 (103) DRJ; Shakil
Ahmad Jalaluddin Shaikh v. Vahida Shakil Shaikh,
(MANU/MH/0501/2016)
Notably, though Shayara Bano, as well as the other women who have approached the Supreme Court after
her - Afreen and Ishrat Jehan, have challenged the talaqnama (or oral divorce in the case of Ishrat Jehan) 148. Rizvi Cited above.
they have clarified that they do not wish to resume marital ties with their violent husbands. While seeking to
declare instant triple talaq invalid, what they seek is that talaq be pronounced as per the Quranic procedure,
over a period of three months of iddat period, rather than instantly. What they seek is not very different from
what has already been declared by the Supreme Court in Shamim Ara.
Curiously, these PILs have also not sought protection from domestic violence nor have they sought to
safeguard women’s economic rights. Ishrat Jehan is the only woman (whose petition is also filed by Balaji
Srinivasan), whose husband divorced her from Dubai over the phone, asks a pertinent question, do I not

Flavia Agnes
have the right to reside in the matrimonial home?149 Yes, she does, and anyone familiar with the provisions of
the Domestic Violence Act will be able to advise her that she need not approach the Supreme Court to secure
her rights, as the remedy is available to her in the local magistrate’s court. It is a secular statute and several
judgements have upheld the right of residence in the matrimonial home, including the right of a divorced
Muslim woman to do so.150
This brings us to a core concern - how widespread is the problem of domestic violence among Muslims?
The National Family Health Survey – III (NFHS-III) conducted in 2005-06 brought out the disturbing
fact that 31% of married women are physically abused and 10% are subjected to ‘severe domestic violence’
which includes dislocation, broken bones, broken teeth, or severe burns and emotional abuse. It is logical to 149. Punwani Jyoti, “Muslim Women: Historic Demand
presume that it would be the same even among Muslims. for Change”, Economic and Political Weekly, 51.42 (15
Oct. 2016) http://www.epw.in/journal/2016/42/
commentary/muslim-women.html
However, we get a closer view regarding the extent of domestic violence among Muslims when we scrutinise
the report, Seeking Justice Within Family by Noorjehan Safia Niaz and Zakia Soman, founders of the Bharatiya 150. Supreme Court in Juveria Abdul Majid Patni v. Atif
Muslim Mahila Andholan (BMMA) which works among Muslim women from the lower socio-economic Iqbal Mansoori, (2014) 7 SCC 736; Bombay High Court
in Karimkhan v. State of Maharashtra, 2011 Cri.LJ 4793
strata. The study conducted by administering a questionnaire to 4710 Muslim women across 10 states in and Syed Akram Ali v. Rubina Begum, 2015 (1) Bom
2013, revealed that 2505 respondents (53.2%) were victims of domestic violence. Further, 50% were not CR (Cri) 175; Rajasthan High Court, in Khushi Mohd.
maintained by their husbands during the marriage. These findings place domestic violence and economic v. Aneesha, (2011) DMC 647; Delhi High Court in Syed
neglect among Muslims of the lower socio-economic strata far higher than NFHS- III study. Md. Nadeem @ Mohsin&Ors. v. State and Anr., MANU/
DE/2460/2011, etc.
However, the study does not further explore this important issue – whether any of these women had
approached the courts for reliefs under the Domestic Violence Act and secured protection against their
violent husbands, the challenges they faced while accessing courts or whether any of them were aware of
their rights under this statute. This is a great opportunity lost, as it would have provided valuable insight into
how a statute specifically enacted to secure the rights of victims of domestic violence is beyond the reach of
vulnerable victims from marginalised communities who need protection the most.

Flavia Agnes
Flaws in the research study
The highlights of this report released at a press conference in Delhi in April, 2015 are germane to this entire
discourse, as all the subsequent articles are based on these highlights, including the two articles mentioned
in Prakash to emphasize the point that Muslim women have no rights. Since the study makes no mention of
the gains secured by Muslim women during the preceding three decades, the media reports and the Prakash
judgement, validates this view.
The media reports and a letter written by the authors of this study to the Prime Minister with a specific
request to codify the Muslim Law and render triple talaq and polygamy illegal151 have been relied upon by
ministers of the ruling party BJP in support of its agenda of enforcing a uniform civil code to protect Muslim
women152, it is necessary to turn the spotlight on this study. 151. http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-
muslim-women-write-to-pm-modi-to-make-triple-
talaq-polygamy-illegal-2149650
Though the questionnaire formulated to collect information from Muslim women from the lower socio-
economic strata is extensive, only 42 of the 86 questions relate to the factual details of respondents, while 152. M. Venkaiah Naidu, “Why not a Common Civil
the rest merely solicit opinions. Code for all?” July 16 2016 http://www.thehindu.com/
opinion/lead/Why-not-a-Common-Civil-Code-for-all/
article14491018.ece
From the factual information on marriage, divorce, child custody, maintenance, rights to property, etc.
gathered through the first set of 42 questions, we get the figures regarding divorce. Out of the 4710 women,
525 were divorcees. In 167 cases, the women themselves or their parents initiated the divorce, 116 had
received compensation, and 110 had approached the courts, presumably under the Dissolution of Muslim
Marriages Act. Under this statute, Muslim women alone are entitled to initiate divorce proceedings in court.
But the study does not dwell upon this important fact – the causes for the divorce, the difficulties encountered
in court, time taken to obtain the divorce or legal expenses incurred.
The study states that 346 women were divorced through triple talaq, but there is a difference between instant
and arbitrary triple talaq and triple talaq through Quranic procedures as declared in Shamim Ara. There is
no specific question in the study regarding this extremely critical aspect. However, out of 346 triple talaqs,

Flavia Agnes
153. Mustafa, Faizan, “The Debate on Triple Talaq
Must be Based on Proper Research and Data - Reports
published by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan
220 were in family homes, 46 in darul kaza, 68 before the jamat, 38 in panchayats, 19 in NGOs and 24 leave several questions about Muslim personal law
unanswered.” The Wire November 6, 2016 https://
in other places. It cannot be presumed that all these were “instant and arbitrary” as there would be some thewire.in/77923/muslim-personal-law-reforms-
attempt at reconciliation prior to pronouncement of talaq.153 bmma-studies/
154. A. Faizur Rehman, an independent researcher
Many Muslim women mention that all triple talaqs are not arbitrary or unjust to the woman. Since the and secretary-general of the Chennai based Islamic
process of khula is more laborious and the woman may also be compelled to return her mehr, many a times, Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought states
that we cannot presume that women seeking khula is
the family elders or the Qazis intervene and negotiate with the husband so that he pronounces the talaq.154
a sign of women’s assertion as many atimes, in order
These can be considered as mutual consent divorces. The study does not shed light on this complex issue. to evade returning the mehr, the husband may refuse
The divorces over phone were 18, via email three, and via SMS, just one. These are clearly aberrations and to pronounce talaq and compel the wife to seek khula.
not the norm. However, in an environment of heightened anti-Muslim feelings, this becomes the title of Correspondingly, we cannot jump to the conclusion
several newspaper articles155 and the Prime Minister also commented on this.156 that all triple talaqs are unjust to women.
155. See the title, “Indian Muslim women have
expressed concern over divorce through social media
Desertion of wives among Hindus would far surpass these figures. But since there is no comparative data platforms such as Skype and Facebook” http://zeenews.
about Hindu women who are deserted and Muslim women who are divorced, the problem faced by Muslim india.com/news/india/talaq-delivered-through-skype-
women is projected as disproportionately high. Abusaleh Shariff and Syed Khalid’s article, “Abandoned whatsapp-sms-email-or-phone-valid_1853221.html
Women Vastly Outnumber Victims of Triple Talaq and It’s Time Modi Spoke Up for Them” is a telling 156. See the news report, “Can’t allow lives of Muslim
comment on the undue focus the Prime Minister gave this issue during his recent election campaign in Uttar women to be ruined by triple talaq: PM Modi” https://
Pradesh.157 timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Cant-allow-lives-
of-Muslim-women-to-be-ruined-by-triple-talaq-PM-
Modi/articleshow/55029796.cms
Though the study is elaborate, the highlights released at the press conference focussed only on opinions
157. Shariff, Abusaleh and Syed Khalid, “Abandoned
about triple talaq and polygamy - 92.1% women want instant triple talaq to be banned and 91.7% want Women Vastly Outnumber Victims of Triple Talaq and
polygamy to be abolished. Once these figures were out, not much effort was needed to popularize it. Within It’s Time Modi Spoke Up for Them” The Wire December
a highly polarized environment, the findings of the study involving a very small number of Muslim women 12, 2016 https://thewire.in/86335/abandoned-
could easily be blown out of proportion and reported as the opinion of “Muslim women in India”.158 The women-triple-talaq/
internal anti-minority sentiments seemed to be getting a mutually reinforcing boost from the escalating 158. 92% of Muslim Women In India Want A Total
global Islamophobia. Ban On Oral Talaq, Survey Finds” http://www.
huffingtonpost.in/2015/08/21/muslim-women-
talaq_n_8018674.html ; “92% of Muslim women
When doubts about the methodology of the research were raised, the BMMA leaders claimed that it was in India want oral triple talaq to go: Study” https://
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/92-of-Muslim-
women-in-India-want-oral-triple-talaq-to-go-Study/
articleshow/48565408.cms
Flavia Agnes
conducted within communities where they have a presence.159 Hence, the figure of 8% provides greater
insights into the study than the 92% who endorsed the formulation of BMMA. Why did 400 women (8%) out
of the limited number of 4710, in communities where the organisation has a presence, support anti-women
practices of instant triple talaq and polygamy? If this is the response of women within communities where
they were exposed to Quranic procedures, a similar study conducted among totally uninitiated population
of Muslim women, the findings are likely to be drastically different.
Answers to the questions on polygamy are also opaque. There is no direct question as to whether any woman
who participated in this study was in a polygamous marriage. This is revealing as this is a major concern for
BMMA. Rather than a direct question, the issue is dealt with elaborately in the opinion section. A general
question on polygamy gets a response that 91.7% want polygamy to be abolished. However, the answers to 159. Soman, Zakia and Noorjehan Niaz, “Triple
Talaq Debate is Bringing Out Multiple Shades of
specific situations vary. 27.1% stated that the husband may be permitted to remarry with the consent of the Patriarchy” The Wire November 9, 2016 https://
wife, 36.6% indicated that if the wife is unable to conceive, the husband may remarry, 37.2% expressed the thewire.in/78626/triple-talaq-debate-bringing-
view that if the wife is terminally ill, the husband may remarry and a staggering 37.4% indicated that the multiple-shades-patriarchy/
husband should be allowed to marry widows. So overall, 1750 women out of 4710 accept polygamy under 160. Rukmini S. “The Most Widely Cited Statistic On Triple
certain situations. Hence, the widely quoted figure of 91.7% demanding a total ban on polygamy appears Talaq Is Totally Inaccurate”, November 2, 2015, http://
inconsistent and contradictory. www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/11/02/the-most-
widely-cited-statistic-on-triple-talaq-is-way-off-the-
m_a_21597150/ ; Also see Mustafa and Sherin cited
above.
To Conclude
Though no scholar had scrutinised the report on its publication in 2015, when it became obvious that the
study was feeding into the anti-Muslim agenda of the government, scholars and reporters started to raise
questions regarding the validity of the research, its methodology and findings.160 However, by then the
finer details about the inadequacy of the research ceased to matter since the media reports provided the
government with the necessary mandate to tinker with the Muslim Personal Law without approval from
Muslim clerics or the AIMPLB who consider Muslim Law sacrosanct and are unwilling to change.
The message that Muslim women are devoid of rights and their situation can be improved only through

Flavia Agnes
state intervention is deeply engrained in popular psyche through a highly successful media campaign.
The struggles of individual women who approached the courts to secured their rights are conveniently
invisibilized within this formulation
Whether Balaji Srinivasan, who filed the PIL on behalf of Shayara Bano, Zakia Soman, who heads the
knowledge hub on communal harmony as a senior management team member of a U.K. based funding
agency, Action Aid, assigned with the task of building networks of Muslim women161, or Farah Faiz who is
representing the extreme right-wing outfit, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – all sharing the same space
before the Supreme Court, are working in tandem to save Muslim women from destitution and ultimate
doom, or each one is speaking from their own vantage position, political moorings or vested interests, are 161. BMMA is a project initiated as part of this
questions which have now lost their significance. assignment. See pg.30 of the Action Aid Annual Report
2014-15 available at https://actionaidindia.org/
aadocument/association-report_-14-15.pdf
For the Modi government, all its other preoccupations have been pushed to the margins – its campaign
162. “Steps to ban triple talaq likely after polls: Prasad”
against corruption, its mantra of good governance, its save the girl child project, beti bachao beti padhao, its
The Hindu, February 9, 2017 available at http://www.
flagship project, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, and even its earlier agenda of enforcing a uniform civil code have thehindu.com/news/national/Steps-to-ban-triple-
become passé as the government is poised to make a historic move of saving Muslim women from the vice- talaq-likely-after-polls-Prasad/article17198601.
like grip of Muslim orthodoxy.162 ece?homepage=true
163. Pathak Zakia and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan,
When this happens, it will be a landmark victory for the leaders of BMMA and the lawyers representing the “Shahbano” Signs Vol.14 No.3 (Spring 1989) pp 558-
582
victims before the Supreme Court. But how far this move will improve the situation of multitude of Muslim
women who are subjected to acute poverty, illiteracy, social and economic marginalization and domestic
violence is yet to be seen.
To justify the bizarre and sinister formulation, ‘Hindu men are saving Muslim women from Muslim men’,
the Muslim woman must invariably be projected as devoid of rights and lacking agency, and the Muslim
male, pre-modern, polygamous, and barbaric. This formulation alone provides the moral high ground for
an anti-Muslim government to adorn the mantle of saving “Muslim sisters”.163 It is this scary formulation
which compelled Shahbano to relinquish her claim to maintenance in 1985 and assert her Muslim identity

Flavia Agnes
as opposed to her claims of gender justice. Faced with a similar dilemma, it’s anyone’s guess how the ordinary
burqa-clad Muslim woman of faith will respond to this intervention which is being hoisted in her name.
Sherin (cited above) sums up the current dilemma:
A viable feminist approach cannot de-historicize Muslim woman as a transcendental subject of gender
negating her immediate religious and political realities. Gender is always contingent; located historically,
materially and socially. Under the current realities of Muslim existence in India, clamour for gender
justice for Muslim women cannot exclude Muslim men as part of their community identity and as equal
participants in their political destiny. The faith Muslims attempt to protect is not an ahistorical spirituality,
but the spirituality whose symbolic markers are constantly wiped out and demolished from the face of the
modern nation state.

‘Censor in the Heart’? A Feminist Publisher’s Perspective
Urvashi Butalia
As feminist publishers, the choices we make about what manuscripts to publish are always political. For
us, it is our job and our responsibility to keep our finger on the pulse of what is going on in the women’s
movement in India, and to try and reflect that in our publishing. This sometimes means taking quite difficult
decisions and being prepared to face the consequences, whatever they are. It also means – given the new
political environment in which we are functioning, and the ever-present threats of state action, or indeed
action by non-state, usually right wing, actors – having to constantly perform a balancing act and carefully
weighing the options available to us, and then taking what we feel is the right step. Let me try to explain this
with some examples.
Some months ago, we published a book (Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?) about a long-forgotten case of
mass rape by the Indian army in Indian-administered Kashmir. The history of how the book came about is
interesting and I’d like to recount it briefly here. In December of 2012 the city of Delhi exploded into major
protests by citizens over the gang rape of a young medical student, Jyoti Singh Pande, who was returning
home from watching a film with a friend. The two friends boarded a bus they believed to be going towards
Jyoti’s home, but which turned out to be an empty private bus with only the driver and his cronies in it. The
men attacked Jyoti’s friend, and repeatedly raped her and then threw the two out on a deserted road and left.
Jyoti died less than two weeks later of her wounds, her friend survived, and across India, people came out
onto the streets to mount strong and continuing protests about the lack of safety for women.
News of the rape and the protests spread quickly. In Kashmir, a group of young women associated with an
organization called the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition for a Civil Society (JKCCS) watched the protests and
began asking themselves some questions. Why, or how, was it that a single rape in the capital city of India
could raise such a reaction while in their own backyard, in Kashmir, rape happened all the time and either
hardly got reported or when it did, it did not cause any outrage? In their early twenties, these women had
no real reference to the case of army rape referred to above, as they had barely been two or three years old
when it happened. But now, galvanized by the Delhi protests to look at their own history, they began to
ask themselves questions about it. Dredging up a hazy memory, one of them called the other and asked a
question: Do you remember Kunan-Poshpora? Kunan and Poshpora are the names of the two villages where
the mass rape is said to have taken place in 1991 on a night when army units came in for a search and seizure

Urvashi Butalia
operation (routine in Kashmir) and pulled the women out of the homes and sexually assaulted many. This
question became the catalyst for a series of actions that eventually resulted in the book.
As they began researching this moment in their history, the five women came to realize that, nearly a quarter
century after the event, the survivors had not seen anything resembling justice. It was this realization that
spurred them to first file a petition to reopen the case (which, they discovered, had never been formally
closed by the army), and later, to think of writing a book documenting this forgotten history. They saw the
book they wished to write as part of the search for justice for the survivors of the Kunan Poshpora rape.
A year of so later, we became the proud publishers of the book – the story of the survivors, documented by
five young Kashmiri women, Essar Batool, Ifrah Butt, Munaza Khan, Samreen Mushtaq and Natasha Rather.
For us, as feminist publishers, this was an absolutely essential book to publish, and in the spirit of feminist
publishing, we worked together with the writers to help them to compile the information and the stories and
to put the book together. The decision to publish the book was, for us, a clearly political one, fraught with
risk we knew, but nevertheless something that had to be done. When it came to the moment for launching
the book, we thought it important that the launch take place in Srinagar, as that was where the authors are
located, and Srinagar could also be accessed by the survivors from Kunan and Poshpora, both places that are
a little over an hour away from Srinagar.
But, perhaps because we are located in Delhi, at a considerable distance from Srinagar, we had not understood
how contentious even a simple thing like a book launch can become in a situation of fraught conflict. Try as
they might, the authors were unable, till virtually the last minute, to secure a venue for the launch. Eventually,
they told us, they had to more or less “threaten” the police, saying that if they were not allowed to rent an
available space, they would hold their launch on the street. Finally, a much-too-small room on the fourth
floor of a shopping mall was allocated to them. Despite the fact that over 300 people stuffed into a room
meant for fewer than half that number, the launch was deeply emotional and moving, with the survivors
being asked to release the book.

Urvashi Butalia
It was on our way back to the hotel that other things happened. I was standing in a shop purchasing Kashmiri
almonds (perhaps the tastiest in the world!) when my cellphone rang. A voice at the end of the line referred
to me by name, and asked me where I was. Somewhat surprised – the person had given a name but I’d not
really registered it – I answered truthfully: in Srinagar in a shop. And only then wondered who it was. A
brief conversation took place, the person introduced himself, it was someone I had met many years ago, he
mentioned the book we had just launched and that he’d heard about it and wondered if I was in town for it.
And so on. Very soon the seeming randomness and innocence of the questions began to ring some alarm
bells in my head.
I wasn’t wrong. It became clear in that, and a subsequent conversation, that this seeming casual questioning
was actually an enquiry by the intelligence branch of our state: if it’s Kashmir, I was told, we have to ask.
Once they came clean, I – after all we had nothing to hide – gave them the information they wanted (about
what was in the book, did we publish books about all kinds of women or only women of a certain religion
and so on – of course they completely forgot that this was a book about sexual violence, not religion!) and
that was the end of that.
And yet, really, it wasn’t. For now, the idea had been planted in my head that were we to do other books on
sensitive subjects, we could once again be open to such enquiries and questioning. In theory, as long as you
are not publishing obscene or defamatory material, India’s laws allow publishers the freedom to bring out
whatever books they choose to. We do not have to submit our books to a censor, or have them cleared by
any authority. But in practice, increasingly, it does not work like that. In recent times, the fate of books and
other works of art that are seen to be going ‘against the grain’ of majoritarian thinking has forced more and
more publishers to be extra cautious in what they publish. Publishers are keen to stay within the bounds of
what is acceptable and this in turn influences their choices. Not only does this seriously narrow the world of
literature and writing, the world from which we learn and which enables us to grow, it also makes our work
much less meaningful. For us, the enquiry from the ‘official’ arm of the government was one thing, but we
were made very aware by that incident that objections to what we were doing could just as easily be raised
by random individuals or groups who had given themselves the right to act as moral guardians not only of
our behaviour but what they would define as our ‘nationalism’.

Urvashi Butalia
But it’s not only this that is the threat, for once intolerance and narrowness become the order of the day,
any kind of deviation from an “accepted” line becomes routine. More recently, we were faced with a similar
yet different situation – we published a book by an Assamese writer, Teresa Rehman, on the lives of twelve
Manipuri women, the Imas of Manipur, who had staged a historic nude protest outside the gates of the
army headquarters in Imphal, the capital city of Manipur, to protest the army’s rape and murder of a young
woman called Thangjam Manorama. The Imas, or mothers, all in their late sixties or seventies, were enraged
by this act of the army’s, and their accumulated anger at other continuing injustices in Manipur, and the
army’s presence there, boiled over in this protest and the women confronted the army at their headquarters,
stripping themselves naked, using their bodies as weapons of protest.
Several years after this naked protest, Teresa Rehman, the Assamese journalist, pulled together her journalistic
pieces on the lives of these women, to weave them with other stories and turned the material into a book
that was a subject of discussion at a major literature festival in the country. During the discussion the author
responded to a question about the imas and said that the protest was historic because these women were not
‘feminists’ in the traditional sense of the term, but they were essentially conservative women, some of them
homemakers, and so it was all the more striking that they had chosen this method to protest. A newspaper
reporter later interviewed the author and turned this remark into something different, presenting the
author’s statements as somewhat extreme.
As soon as the newspaper article appeared online, the internet went into overdrive. The organizers of the
festival started to receive mails from people asking how they could “allow” an author present at the festival
to say something like this. An odd sort of question at a moment when so many of us would hold out for free
speech. Basically criticism centred around a reported newspaper statement the author was believed to have
made (the book had not yet entered the market so no one had actually read it), she was held responsible
for the headline given to the article (when everyone knows that newspaper headlines are not the doing of
those newspapers write about) and some of the attacks were quite vicious, one even hinted that she had
deliberately said derogatory things about the Manipuri imas because she was a Muslim from Assam. The
subtext of this allegation clearly was that Muslims are ‘outsiders’ and not ‘legitimate’ citizens of Assam and
therefore they had no right to say anything. As publishers, we too came in for criticism, particularly for an

Urvashi Butalia
online blurb on the book which implied that Manipuri women were Indian women and Manipur was a
region of ‘low intensity conflict’.
In many ways, the concerns of the protestors were not illegitimate—for many Manipuris, their region is not
India, and low-intensity conflict does not describe the terrible violence and injustice they daily live with. But
criticism is one thing, and we as publishers were bound to accept that. For the author, however, it was another
story, she felt hurt and extremely vulnerable. Did she not have the right to write about Manipuri women
even if she was an Assamese? Could only an insider speak about a situation? These were not necessarily the
allegations that had been leveled at her, but that is what it seemed like to her.
In the growing atmosphere of intolerance and indeed fundamentalism in India, publishers, particularly
those like us who make no secret of their politics, have to be always on the alert and to tread what is often a
fine line between doing what is right, and tackling what can often be threats to their survival. But even as we
are aware of this, we need to work with this knowledge and find a way to address the problems that arise. It
is the project of those who appoint themselves guardians of public morality, to ensure that every writer feels
that she has, as the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan said, “a censor sitting in the heart”.
This censor, who comes to take up residence in the heart, can do many things. Let me illustrate this with
another example: many years ago, we discussed with a writer the idea of putting together a collection of
erotica by Indian women writers. She began to shape the book in her mind, and commission papers, but
we had not yet signed a contract with her. This wasn’t really a problem, as we knew (and continue to know)
each other well and would have done the paperwork soon enough. As the stories began to come in to her,
the editor was excited and mentioned one particular story to a journalist friend, who suggested she publish
it in a newspaper as that would be additional publicity for the book and so she did. The credits mentioned
that this was a story from a forthcoming collection to be published by Zubaan.
The story was read, it had some comments and then it was in the past. But two months after its publication,
someone filed a police complaint against it, saying that it insulted a particular community and therefore

Urvashi Butalia
should not have been published and the complaint named the writer, the editor, the publishers (us), one
of our editors and me. When the police came to investigate, I, as someone who runs a more or less women
only organization (we have two men), was quite concerned. My concern was that if this resulted in violence
by some self-appointed guardians of public morality, how would I ensure that my colleagues were safe and
could I afford to compromise their security? The little censor sitting in the heart began to make its presence
felt. In the event, nothing much happened, as because the book wasn’t actually contracted (so here an oversight
became an escape route) we could say that to the police and they, wanting to be done with things, did not
pursue the matter. But quite honestly, if the case had gone through, I don’t know what step I would have taken.
I know what I should have done and would have wanted to do, but in a real world, choices are not so easy.
In an increasingly right-wing and coercive world, which is what India is becoming today, it is becoming
increasingly difficult, and challenging, to produce knowledge that is against the grain, to privilege the voices
of the underprivileged, to work against the hierarchies of caste and class and gender and location and region
and religion. But it is also challenging, for as the atmosphere becomes more coercive, the resistance also
becomes stronger, and the voices more resonant. But every day brings new negotiations, and I guess, in the
end the challenge for people like us is to see how well we deal with these.

Andal: Poetry, Passion, Devotion
(English Summary)
French Text
The Bhakti tradition in southern India, which has seen thousands of singers and poets offer their finest
chants of devotion, is divided into two great groups of holy poets-philosophers: the Alvârs (those who
are immersed in the divine) and the Nâyanmârs. The Alvârs are the twelve poets-saints-philosophers
who lived between the sixth and tenth centuries. Andal, the only woman among the twelve, occupies an
illustrious place in the imagination of the Hindus, especially those of southern India.
Andal wrote two poetic works: Nâchiyar Tirumozhi and Tiruppavaï. The first is a poem of love,
which reflects the ardor and passion of Andal for the god Krishna. The second, on the other hand,
sublimates pastoral beauty and youthfulness. It consists of 30 Tamil poems from the Sangam period,
each consisting of eight verses. The authority traditionally recognized in Andal makes it possible to
validate the relationship that it establishes between the devotional bhakti and the carnal experience,
erotic whether metaphorical or not. Here are presented in French translation Pâsouram 4, 7, 17, and 27.

Sometimes in India, It is a Woman who poses a Good Question
(English Summary)
French Text
Charles Malamoud
In this article, Charles Malamoud analyzes four instances of women philosophizing in classical Sanskrit
texts. The Upanishad not only state philosophical truths, but also narrate the conditions in which such
truths have been taught or revealed, creating a space for female figures to intervene: the Bṛhad Āraṇyaka
Upanishad describes two occurrences where women (Maitreyī and Gārgī) are caught in the process of
questioning the male sage Yājñavalkya and causing him to reveal a latent truth. The Mahābhārata
also depicts some of its female characters as thinkers. The captive Draupadī questions freedom, free-
will, destiny and dharma; and this is a feat of reasoning that allows Damayantī to distinguish her true
husband from his four divine impersonators.

Finding My Daughters
A. Revathi
translated by Nandini Murali
Excerpt from A Life in Trans Activism by A. Revathi, New Delhi: Zubaan Books, 2016.
I often find it strange that a string of seemingly random events and people will come into your life and that will
enable you to pursue some of your dreams. My strongest desire was to live as a woman. Another thing I wanted
badly was to give up sex work completely. Today, when I look back, I can say that making your desires come
true depends entirely on the strength of your convictions and the availability of opportunities. And it is also
equally true that if your desires are strong, you will seek out the opportunities until you find them.
I am reminded of an incident in Namakkal. Once I was riding my scooter through the crowded streets of
the town. I stopped near a group of auto rickshaw drivers and heard them speculating about whether I was a
man or woman. Most of them felt I was too tall and heavily built for a woman. A few said I had cut my hair
164. Pottai is a synonym for hijra
too short and it looked masculine! I was enraged when I overheard these nasty remarks. I felt that they had
no business talking in such a demeaning manner about me.
I walked up to them and shouted at them. “So you want to know whether i am male or female? Should I tell
you or should I show you that I am not a man but a woman? Looks like this is what you do for a living!”
They were clearly not used to being confronted like this. They immediately defused the situation and said
that they were not talking about me. I refused to believe them. I felt that they had to be taught a lesson or
this would keep happening repeatedly.
I stood in the middle of the road and yelled, “Dai! So do you want to lay bets on who’s fat, who’s thin, who’s
a man or woman? What do you fellows get out of talking like this? Listen, I am a pottai164! I was a man who
changed into a woman. If you had one like me in your family, would you place bets on a person like me?”
By now, the drivers had begun to slink away. A huge crowd of men and women gathered. Many of them were
supportive of me. They felt that men who teased women in public needed to be taught a lesson.

A. Revathi
I felt so happy that a few people understood my feelings. It was such a pleasant surprise to know that they did
not hate or fear me but were genuine in their sympathy for me. I realized that I was merely going through all
that a woman always goes through in public. Maybe a bit more. But I was happy that I had the guts to yell
back at my tormentors and confront them. How many women are able to that?
There is this powerful urge within me to take on the wrongs in society. I just can’t look the other way when i
see some injustice. I wonder if it is because I was born a male and then turned into female that gives me the
courage to be confrontational in public places. I wonder if I could have done what I did in this situation, if
I had been born female.
Some days after this incident I decided to return to Bengaluru. There were several reasons for my decision.
My brothers were ashamed to be seen with me. Several people seemed hesitant to talk with me in public
places. In such an atmosphere of avoidance and suspicion, is it any wonder that people like me seek out 165. Hamams or brothels are hijra prostitution houses.
others like myself?
166. Paampaduthi is a traditional salutation for hijras.
So I returned to Bengaluru and went back to the Ulsoor hamam165 where I had lived earlier. It was back again
to sex work. There was no other way for me to earn a living. One day when I was sitting on the steps at the
entrance to the hamam, three people came to meet me.
They came up to me and said, “Mummy! Paampaduthi166!”
As soon as I heard the word “Mummy”, I knew that they were English-speaking and educated.
“Come, ma! Where are you from?”
From what they told me, it seemed that they were from Bengaluru, although each lived in a different part of
the city. I noticed that they spoke to each other in fluent English.

A. Revathi
“Mummy! We are friends! We’ve seen you on this road many times and we’ve always wanted to talk with you.
But we were scared to approach you. But today we decided that somehow we must talk to you. You are very
beautiful. We feel like just admiring you all the time”.
“Tell me, you’ve applied kohl to your eyes. What if someone you know sees you? What if they go and tell
your families?”
“That’s what we are always afraid of! So we seek out parks, bathrooms, apply kohl and wear pottu (bindi or
geometric designs worn by Hindu women on their foreheads). And we go to places where no one knows
us. On our way home, we rub all this off. But we don’t want to lead this sort of double life; play this game of
constant hide and seek. Right now, we are neither here nor there. We want to live like you; have the operation
done and live like a woman. Mummy, will you accept us?”
Their words reminded me of my own extremely painful decision to live like a woman. And how it was nearly
impossible for me to do so with dignity and respect. I recalled having to run away from my home to Delhi
and then Mumbai, and now Bengaluru. But now I was living like a fugitive; hounded by the law and police
and harassed by goondas and pimps. I did not want these young people to go through the same pain and
anguish.
“Well, like you, I too wanted to become a woman. All I can tell you is that this is an extremely difficult life
and you will have to cope with a lot. I still do every day. My advice to you young people is that you must live
with your families, complete your studies and find a decent job”.
But I reassured them that I understood their feelings; I empathized with their desire to live as women.
“You can spend time with us, sing, dance and have fun! But I don’t know if you should get the operation
done, give up your studies and suffer like us. Do you know how difficult this life is? If you want to, why don’t
you stay with us, wear saris, and after you’ve experienced all of that, go back to your homes in men’s clothes?

A. Revathi
If you become like us, then life is not going to be easy”, I tried to reason with them.
The three young ones were not prepared to take my advice.
“Mummy! We are sure people said the same thing to you when you were like us. Our feelings and desires
are not different from what you experienced back then. Even if you advise us against it, we want to have the
operation. Please tell us where to get it done.”
I was certain that I did not want them to go through all the pain and humiliation I faced on a daily basis. I
did not want to lure them instantly with false promises. I did not say, ‘Vaa di! Come, I’ll get you operated, if
you want it so badly!’
So I refused to give them the information. Instead, I sent them off with some more well-meaning advice. I
fervently hoped they would listen to me. 167. Amma and mata mean mommy or mother in
Hindi.
But the youngsters were not prepared to listen. Instead, they sought the help of another hijra who accompanied
them to Dindugul (where I too had undergone the operation). All three of them underwent castration there.
When they came to see me two weeks later, I was shocked to see them.
“Amma, mata....”167
As soon I saw them, I knew that they had been operated. How was I so sure? There is a wise saying in Tamil,
oru paambin kaal paambinaal taan ariyum, only a snake can discern the legs of another snake. The peculiar
way they walked with their legs apart, their hesitant faces, downcast eyes, the tiredness and the yearning on
their faces, was enough for me. After all, I had been in the same place not so long ago.
I was angry with them when I saw that they had not heeded my well-meaning advice. Even then, I knew that

A. Revathi
they would not listen to me. But I was frank with them because I wanted them to know about the realities
of life after the operation. To live as a trans woman is not easy at all because our society still does not accept
trans women as “real” women.
However, today as an activist I know what drives young people to undergo surgical sex change to transform
into a woman. Society boxes people into two watertight compartments—male/female or girl/boy. If you are
male, you must have a penis. A female must have vagina and breasts. People like us, who are born male, have
feminine feelings. But we feel trapped in male bodies. Because people reflect societal values, we feel that the
only way we can satisfy our overwhelming desire to be considered women is by surgically removing our
male organ. We hate even looking at it and hence we want to chop it off. Maybe if the gender perspectives
and perceptions of the mainstream were more flexible and accommodating of difference, we would be able
to find other ways of “finding” ourselves.
Although I was angry, seeing them so forlorn and desperate, I empathized with them. After all, I too hadn’t
168. The guru is the familial leader of an hijra group.
listened to my guru168 who wanted me to wait for some more time before I underwent castration. I realized
that there was no point asking them why they had disobeyed me. There were far more serious aspects that
had to be immediately looked into. Based on my experience, the castration or surgical sex change is just
one part of our journey towards womanhood. Nobody prepares us for life after this all-important physical
change.
If there is an accident you witness on a road, you have two options. You can either not be bothered (which is
how most people behave) or you can decide to offer help. I realized that what the three young trans women
needed was not long lectures about obedience, but unconditional support and counselling. After all, don’t I
know the pain of having changed my sex and the difficulty of life after that? And so, unconditional support
was what I decided to offer them.
“I can see that you’ve had the operation. In whose house are you living now that you’ve had it done?”

A. Revathi
One of them, known as Famila, spoke first.
“I stole money from my parents, pawned some of the family jewellery and the land title deed of the house to
raise money for the three of us to undergo the operation. We gave all the money to the hijra who took us to
Dindugul. But now she wants more money from us and says that what we gave her barely covered the cost of
the operation. As we did not have the money, she refused to let us stay with her. We’ve come to you, please
do not send us away!”
There was something powerful and yet vulnerable about the way Famila spoke. I simply could not ignore her
request. But, at the same time, such a move was completely against the norms and social customs of the hijra
community. To complicate matters, Famila’s parents had filed a police case against the hijra community on
the charge that they had forcibly castrated their son.
My gurubais or hijra elders opposed the move vehemently. They were firm that a person wishing to undergo
sex change must first join the hijra community and then undergo castration only after a two-year period.
They warned me against taking these three obstinate young hijras as chelas.
“Look, they are from the city and also educated. If you accept them as your chelas, their families will blame
you for what has happened. Also, they are not like us. They did not want to live with us, learn about our
culture and way of life. They went off on their own and got themselves operated. If you are a pottai, you have
to know all that there is to know about a pottai’s life. You have to respect your gurus, nanis and earn for them
and look after them. And only when a guru allows it, a chela gets operated. These three have disrespected all
of us and have had themselves operated on their own.”
I was in a dilemma. I asked the trio again, “Why did you do this even after I persuaded you not to get
operated? And you do exactly that and now come and fall at my feet!”
They were in tears. ‘“Amma! Please accept us as your daughters and teach us right from wrong. If you don’t

A. Revathi
accept us, we have no choice but to die! If our families come and ask for us, we will tell them that we got
operated because it was a personal choice for each of us.”
It was the most difficult decision I had to make. On the one hand, I felt their pain and despair and wanted
to give them a place where they would be safe; a sanctuary that would be a refuge for them. On the other
hand, I knew that they had violated community norms and I too had to abide by the rules of my community.
Finally, however, my empathy for them prevailed. Although it was considered taboo in the hijra community,
I accepted them as my daughters. They were known as Famila, Ritu and Mayuri. Although all three of them
were male-bodied when they first came to me, Ritu and Mayuri looked feminine. Famila, on the other hand,
was tall, slim and beautiful.
I knew I couldn’t have biological children. But I could give my love and affection to these three girls. After
all, isn’t motherhood all about being nurturing and caring? Although this is the basic sense in which the hijra
culture was made, to provide mutual love and care, there are a few hijras who see chelas as just investments;
who will earn and bring money back for them. It’s like politicians spending money for elections, in the hope 169. Nayak means leader in Hindi.
that they can recover and more than make up for what they have spent themselves! But for me, the blessing
of saying that these girls are my daughters was far more meaningful than other mundane considerations.
Love simply cannot be equated with money. As in any other society, there are tales of exploitation as well as
incredible support amongst hijras also.
Since they were friends, all three wanted to become my chelas. Sensing that my gurubais would resent this,
I told them that I could accept one of them as my chela and the other two would be chelas of my gurubais.
But the trio was firm and insisted that all of them wished to be my chelas. Surprisingly, my gurubais gave in.
I gave them a place to stay in the hamam and decided to wait for the customary period of 40 days before
I took them to my nayak169’s house in Hyderabad in order to accept them as chelas in her presence. But all
three of them left the hamam before the stipulated period. Mayuri, the oldest, healed first, while she was
in the hamam with me. She then decided to go back to her family in male attire, as if she had not had the

A. Revathi
operation. Famila called up her parents and informed them about the operation and then went home in
male clothes. Ritu went away with her lover.
All three of them behaved contrary to hijra norms after nirvana which said that one should not look at a man
in the face until the 40-day period is over and the rites have been done. The trio left because they told me
that their families were searching for them and they did not want to land me in trouble. But they promised
to return in time for the ceremony. My gurubais spoke to me about the rituals to be done for my three chelas,
‘“All of us pottais have been obedient to our gurus. We did not mind the beatings and verbal abuse
we got from them. We served them, earned for them and looked after them. Only then did we go
for nirvaanam. And now, look at these three, they spent their own money and got nirvaanam170
done. And now you have to spend money and take them to Hyderabad! What if they run away after
the rituals? What is the guarantee that they will earn for you?”
170. Nirvaanam is the name of the castration ritual.
I thought very differently. “If they have truly accepted me as their mother, they won’t leave me. I don’t intend
to do the rituals with the expectation that they will pay me back in some way or the other. I’ll do them as a
mother would do for her daughters.”
My gurubais were furious with me. “You mad woman! Why did you think your guru paid for your nirvaanam?
Because she saw you as a cash cow that she can milk dry! Remember, you earned the right to have your
operation by your behaviour and respect for your guru! Isn’t that the custom among us?”
I decided to speak my mind and put an end to this argument. “Look! These pottais have gone and done
the operation. They want to be my daughters and are literally begging and crying that I accept them. I
can’t talk now about a chela’s obligations to a guru. I have to fulfil a guru’s responsibility and I wish to do it
wholeheartedly. It’s fine if they decide to stay with me. But it’s also fine with me if they live elsewhere. I am
happy I have these daughters.”

A. Revathi
I bought all that was required for the pothiraja mata pooja that was the main ritual. I bought all the things
they would need—saris, nose rings and anklets. They arrived a day before the ceremony. As I could not
afford to hire a hall, I performed the function in the hamam itself. My gurus and gurubais were present. I
later took the three girls to Hyderabad, adopted them and did whatever was expected to be done according
to tradition.
Ritu and Mayuri left the hamam, as they were unable to fit into the hamam culture of cooperative living.
Famila stayed with me for some time. However, she too found the restrictions in the hamam too stifling.
Famila was a free bird. She lived life on her own terms. She wore shorts, jeans, T-shirts, smoked and read an
English newspaper every day. She often crossed her legs when she sat.
My gurubais were not amused. Not in the least.
‘Look at your chela! Just because she speaks English, does she think she is special? As women, we are expected 171. Maharani is the feminine form for Maharaja, it
to get up early, cook, clean and take care of the home and the family. But look at this pudungi (sassy girl)! means sovereign.
The haughty girl gets up late and opens her eyes only if there is tea and the English newspaper! Who does
she think she is? Some maharani171? And on top of everything, she smokes like a man!’
Finally, Famila realized that she was a misfit amongst the hijras in the hamam. So she decided to rent an
independent house and live by herself. My three daughters invited their parents to discuss their new lives
with them. Famila’s parents asked her to return home, but insisted that she wear male clothes. When she
refused, her father cut off relations with her. Her mother and brother, however, continued to visit her. I
continued to live in the hamam. I wished them well and felt secure that wherever they were, they would
always be my daughters. I was certain that I did not want to impose myself on my chelas just because I was
their guru. I did not wish to curb their freedom in any way. It was enough for me that they lived happily
somewhere. If they needed me for support, I was always there for them.
All this was considered radical in the hijra community in the 1990s. Today as an activist, I am able to see

A. Revathi
things in perspective. Even today, the hijra community is hierarchical and traditional in its organization.
And even back then, I was opposing this with my insistence on treating my chelas as equals and refusing
to exercise my power and control over them. Just because I abided by the tenets of the hijra community in
Mumbai, Delhi and now in Bengaluru, how could I expect my chelas to follow that too? After all, they were
the next generation and had their own dreams and aspirations for a better life. If they wished to live like
modern girls, who was I to prevent them from doing so?
My chelas chose to live independently. They did sex work. They had lovers. By doing so, they showed the
world that they could live independently as women. Whenever I visited them, I felt afraid. What if the
neighbours came to know I was a hijra? Even my chelas had this fear. Because in the neighbourhood they
passed themselves off as women when they rented houses and described their partners as their “husbands”.
It was different in the hamam because the whole world knew that all of us were hijras. Personally, I was
comfortable with the hamam culture but I did not impose it on my chelas.
My chelas were city bred educated girls born and brought up in Bengaluru. They spoke English fluently,
dressed in Western clothes and went to bars and discos. All this was unheard of in the hijra culture where
we wore only saris and salwar kameez.
Whenever I saw them dressed this way, I also wanted to dress like them. They always addressed me as
“mummy” and when all of us went out together, I really felt I was indeed their mother. My three chelas gave
me an opportunity to nurture them and love them unconditionally—like a mother. The relationship with
my chelas enabled me to experience the joys of motherhood despite not being their biological parent. Our
relationship has always been a source of deep satisfaction for me.

Hijra
Private Collection, Barbara Cassin

As a Woman
Interview with Divya Dwivedi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcykWVeip_o

Between the waves
Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah

Tejal Shah
Video stills from Between the Waves - Channel II, Landfill Dance, 5:30 min
Location: Urli-Devachi Landfill, Pune, colour & b/w, surround sound, 2012.

Tejal Shah
The earliest known symbolic representations of a single-horned animal – unicorn – have been excavated
from the Indus Valley civilization’s archaeological site of Dholavira in Kutch, Western India (5000 - 2000
BC). Whether this designates a real or mythical animal remains unknown, just as the pictographic language
of the civilization remains undeciphered. Such seals and tablets appear as chapter markers in the circular
fable Between the Waves. In popular imagination, unicorns belong to Western mythology, but through this
performative video installation, the artist brings them back to their supposed original home, a region to
which Shah also traces her family lineage. As has been Shah’s methodology, she compacts multiple layers
of references here. For instance, while her Unicorns are eternally mutating humanimals, they build upon
Rebecca Horn’s Einhorn (presented at Documenta V, 1972). Horn herself references Frida Kahlo’s painting,
The Broken Column (1944) as her point of departure. Such a palimpsestic approach engages a specific art
historical discourse and wedges open a unique position that encompasses the queer, non-binary, eco-sexual,
interspecial, technological, spiritual and scientific; while it poetically surpasses all of them to present its own
unbounded, awkward, in/appropriated organism in the form of this installation.The title of the work arises
from an accidental misreading of a list of books written by Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts, The Waves...
“It stuck because of how waves function in science and mysticism and that defining them results in a fuzzy
borderline and is always contingent upon their physical origin for each specific instance of a wave process,
i.e. each wave needs its own context.” All images courtesy of the artist, Project 88, Mumbai & Barbara Gross
Galerie, Munich.

What is Nationalism
in India?

Genealogies of Nationalism

What is Hindutva?
J. Reghu
What Konrad Heiden writes of Mein Kampf is true of We or Our Nationhood Defined written in 1938 by M.
S. Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak (supreme leader) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu-
nationalist body and parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that is now in power: “that
such a man could go so far toward realizing his ambitions – that is a phenomenon the world will ponder for
centuries to come.”172
Taking the racist and imperialistic conception of a Hindu nation, originally formulated by the leader of the
172. Konrad Heiden, Introduction, Mein Kampf, trans.
Hindu Mahasabha, V.D. Savarkar, to its extreme, Golwalkar wrote in his magnum opus at a time when he
Ralph Manheim, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
could not have had any idea of coming to power in India: 1998 (first published in 1939).
173. M. S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined,
the foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu Culture and language, must learn to Nagpur: Bharat Publications, 1939, p. 104-105.
respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification
174. Ibid., p. 94 (emphasis added).
of the Hindu race and Culture, i.e., of the Hindu Nation and must lose their separate existence to
merge in the Hindu race or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, 175. Ibid., p. 83. He said that “All those not belonging
to the national i.e. Hindu Race, Religion, Culture and
claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment – nor even citizen’s Language, naturally fall out of the pale of real ‘National’
rights.173 life. (Ibid., p. 99).
176. Ibid., p. 103-104 (emphasis added).
According to him, the Hindu religion was “the only religion in the world worthy of being so denominated’’174.
However, it must be considered in the light of his view that there are five essential criteria for nation,
namely, “Geographical (Country), Racial (Race), Religious (Religion), Cultural (Culture), and Linguistic
(Language).”175 Golwalkar insisted that emigrants assimilate in “the principal mass of population, National
Race, by adopting its culture and language and sharing in its aspirations, by losing all consciousness of their
separate existence”.176
Race, Religion and Nation
In fact, Golwalkar’s five essential markers of “Hindu Rashtra” are not original, as Christophe Jaffrelot points

J. Reghu
out.177 This racist concept of nation was originally formulated by German race theorists in the last decades
of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century such as Johann Kaspar Bluntschli
and R. N. Gettell. The main source of inspiration for Golwalkar was the Nazi theoretician, Bluntschli,
who claimed that, “we are justified, then, in speaking of a national spirit (Volksgeist) and a national will
(Volkswille), which is something more than the sum of the spirit and will of the individuals composing the
nation.”178 Golwalkar quotes verbatim in We or Our Nationhood Defined, calling the nation
177. See The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian

a union of masses of men of different occupations and social states, in a hereditary society of Politics: 1925 to the 1990s, Delhi: Penguin, 1999 (first
common spirit, feeling and race bound together especially by a language and customs in a common published 1993); and Christophe Jaffrelot, Religion,
civilization, which gives them a sense of unity and distinction from all foreigners, quite apart from Caste and Politics in India, London: Hurst, 2011.
the bond of the state.”179 178. Johan Kasper Bluntschli, The Theory of the State,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885, p. 82.
Having thus derived his concept of nation, Golwalkar just replaced the word “foreigners“ with “Muslims”. 179. We or Our Nationhood Defined, p. 19.
Another source of inspiration which Golwalkar did not acknowledge in his book but which can be inferred,
180. Rosenberg, The Myth of the Twentieth Century: An
is Alfred Rosenberg, the theoretician par excellence, of Nazism and his book, The Myth of the Twentieth Evaluation of the Spiritual-Intellectual Confrontations of
Century: An Evaluation of the Spiritual-Intellectual Confrontations of our Age.180 Rosenberg says, “The life of our Age, trans. Vivian Bird, Torrance, CA: Noontide Press,
a race, of a people, is not a philosophically logical development, nor even a process which unfolds in terms 1982 (first published 1937).
of natural law. It is the formation of a mystic synthesis.”181 Compare this with Golwalkar who says: 181. Rosenberg, p. 63.
182. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts.
We are all born as Hindus. Some wisemen of today tell us that no man is born as Hindu or Muslim
183. See Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc
or Christian, but as a simple human being. This may be true of others. We are Hindus even before Nancy, ‘The Nazi Myth’, Critical Inquiry 16.2 (1990) trans.
we emerge from the womb of our mother. We are therefore born as Hindus. About others, they Brian Holmes, pp. 291-313.
are born to this world as simple unnamed (emphasis added) human beings. and later on, either
circumcised, baptized, they become Muslims or Christians.182
Both Golwalkar’s We or Our Nationhood Defined and Savarkar’s Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? are like Hitler’s
and Rosenberg’s books “a tireless repetition of certitudes” as Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy
observed.183

J. Reghu
The modern concept of “race” was fundamentally a tool for imperialist aggression and conquest. Alana
Lentin reminds us that Eric Voegelin had pointed to the way “a social scientific fixation on ‘race’ is able
to contribute to a functional theory of the state in the advent of nation. The replacement of theology with
politics, which also enables the later shift to polygenesis, turns the purpose of history to the business of
theoretically founding the ‘race nation’.”184 The Hindutva forces, especially the RSS, invoke the “racial”, and
“cultural” purity of Hindus in order to legitimize their attempt to purportedly re-claim a “Hindu Empire” 184. Lentin also refers here to the work of Ivan
thought to be spread all over the world. What undergirds the myth of “Hindu Rashtra” is its visceral hatred Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West,
Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996; Alana
for Muslims and Christians, but also its imperialistic dream. The imperial dream of Hitler was confined to Lentin, Racism and Anti-Racism in Europe, Pluto Press,
Europe, whereas the imperial dream of the Hindutva is a “Hindu Earth”. Hindutva’s planetary imperialist London. Ann Arbor, 2004 p. 43.
dream cannot be realized so long as the “Hindu Race” is “threatened” by “impure” or “inferior” races within
185. Eric Voegelin, ‘Hitler and the Germans’, The
its borders. Collected Works Vol.31, trans. ed. Detlev Clemens and
Brendan Purcell, Columbia and London: University of
The contemporary popularity of Hindutva owes to the “Luciferic” attractiveness that Voegelin had discerned Missouri Press,1999, pp. 23-24.
in Nazism, that is, the “attractiveness of an ideological order in which a pacified” Hindu people can 186. V.D. Savarkar, Hindutva; who is a Hindu? (originally
“experience themselves as an intramundane perfect society, successfully closed both nationally and racially published in 1923, Veer Savarkar Prakashan, Bombay,
against the anxiety-inducing reign of evil posed” in the case of the subcontinent by the Muslims.185 1969).
187. Amiya. P. Sen, Hindu Revivalism in
Bengal,1872-1905; Some Essays in Interpretation, Delhi:
Fascism, Nazism and Hindutva Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 20.
188. V.D. Savarkar, p. 3; cited in Chetan Bhatt, Hindu
Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies, and Modern Myths,
V.D. Savarkar claimed to have invented the word “Hindutva” with the intention of reducing the “Multiple
Berg Publishers, 2001, p. 26.
histories” of India into “One history”, that is, the “History of the Hindu”.186 In fact, the term “Hindutva” was
originally invented by the Bengali writer, Chandranath Basu (1844-1910). His Hindutva: an Authentic History 189. Marzia Casolari, “Hindutva’s Foreign Tie-up in the
1930s Archival Evidence”, Economic and Political Weekly
of the Hindus, published in Bengali in 1882, aimed to demonstrate the superiority of Hinduism and its gods 35.4 (January 22, 2000) pp. 218-228.
in comparison with that of Christianity.187 Savarkar invented neologisms like “Hinduness”, and “Hindudom”
claiming that “Hindutva is not a word, but a history, not just a religion, as with ‘Hinduism’, but history in
full.”188 In a speech on “India’s foreign policy” on August 1, 1938, at Pune, Savarkar stated, “Germany has
every right to resort to Nazism and Italy to Fascism... crores of Hindu Sanghatanists in India... Cherish no
ill-will towards Germany or Italy.”189 When Congress passed a resolution against Germany towards the end

J. Reghu
of 1938, Savarkar in a speech said, ‘... in Germany the movement of the Germans is the national movement
but that of the Jews is a communal one’.190 This can be seen as an indirect way of terrorizing the Muslims in
India and warning that their destiny will be the same as that of the Jews.
The formation of Arya Samaj in 1875, of the Hindu Sabha in 1909, the Hindu Mahasabha in 1915, the
Hindu Sangathan in 1921-22, the RSS in 1925, the Janasangh in 1951 and finally BJP in 1981 were a series
of attempts to consolidate the ‘Hindutva’ on a firm organizational basis191. In fact, the writings of both V.D. 190. MSA, Home special Department, 60D(g) Pt 111,
Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar are to be seen as the refinements of the Hindu Nationalist ideas of Dayananda 1930, A report on the meeting held on December 11,
Saraswati, Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh. Amiya P. Sen suggests that in Vivekananda “we may detect 1938, cited in Casolari, 2000.
strategies adopted by some present day, Hindu right – wing theorists’.192 There is, for example, his world – 191. Jaffrelot, 1999.
conquering zeal: ‘My ambition is to conquer the world by Hindu thought, to see Hindu everywhere from 192. Amiya P. Sen, Swami Vivekananda, New Delhi:
the North Pole to the South Pole.193 When asked about conversion to other religions, Vivekananda replied, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 88.
‘... we shall otherwise decrease in numbers... And then everyman going out of the Hindu pale is not only a
193. Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (CWSV),
man less, but an enemy (emphasis added) the more”194 Vol. V., Advaita Ashrama, Almora: Mayavati Memorial
Edition, 1971-78, p. 233.
Hindutva’s definition of Hindus as a ‘nation’ expresses the idea that, ‘the national character (which might 194. Ibid.
also be called its soul or its spirit) is immanent in the people.195
195. Etienne Balibar, ‘The Nation form: History and
Ideology’ in Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein
(eds), ‘Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities’. p. 96.
The Assassination of Gandhi and After
Five attempts were made on Mahatma Gandhi’s life before January 30, 1948 when he was actually killed,
and Nathuram Godse was involved in two attempts, the last successfully. Teesta Setalvad has described the
murder of Gandhiji as the “first act of terror” in Independent India. Her book Beyond Doubt: A dossier on
Gandhiji’s Assassination is a compilation of archival files, documents, which proves “beyond doubt” that
the “Hindutva” combine was responsible for the assassination. In addition to bringing out the archival
files in the National Archives of India related to Gandhi’s assassination, the dossier includes translations of
books and articles in the Marathi, Gujarati and Hindu Languages. According to Setalvad, the assassination
attempts beginning in 1934 were “a response to the dominant political articulation of nationhood, caste,

J. Reghu
197. Teesta Setalvad, Introduction, Beyond Doubt: A

Dossier on Gandhi’s Assassination, New Delhi: Tulika
Books, 2016, pp. 3-4.
and economic and other democratic rights which directly challenged the idea of a hegemonic authoritarian 198. Nehru to Punjab Chief Minister, 11 February 1948,
Hindu Rashtra. In 1933, a year before the first attempt on his life, Gandhi had declared firm support to two Jawaharlal Nehru Selected Works, 2nd series, Vol.5, p. 53-
54, cited in ibid.). A.G. Noorani quotes an interview
bills, one of which was against the abhorrent practice of untouchability.”197 She continues, ‘When the Bill given by Gopal Godse, the brother of Gandhi’s assassin,
banning untouchability was introduced in the central legislature, Gandhi supported, whereas the Hindutva to Arvind Rajagopal, in which he said: “Nathuram has
ideologies opposed it, and argued that it was an intrusion into Hindu religion.” In the words of India’s first become a baudhik karyavah (intellectual worker) in the
RSS. He said in his statement that he left the RSS. He
prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, “these people have the blood of Mahatma Gandhi on their hands and said it because Golwalkar and the RSS were in a lot of
pious disclaimers and dissociation now have no meaning”.198 trouble after the murder of Gandhi. But he did not leave
the RSS” (“RSS and Gandhi’s murder”, Frontline, October
14, 2016, p. 118). “Two of Savarkar’s close associates,
Communal violence in the last two decades has assumed proportions of what Paul Brass199 calls an A.P. Kasar and G.V. Damle, who had not testified at the
Institutionalized System of Communal Riots which, B. Rajeswari observes, “is a result of the manipulation trial, spoke before the Kapur Commission, set up in
1965, now that Savarkar was dead, and corroborated
of the religious sentiments of people by the Hindu right wing organizations for political gains…the State the approver’s statements. If they had testified at the
support to riots is a long established feature in India, yet the State has never been such an active participant trial, Savarkar would have been proven guilty. Given
in the violence before the Gujarat riots”.200 The New York Times has published an article elaborating the this, it is shocking that Savarkar’s portrait has been
installed in parliament …”(RSS, School Texts and the
chronology of events leading to the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. On the Morning of December 27, 2002, the S6 Murder of Gandhiji: The Hindu Communal Project, Aditya
coach of a train full of Karsevaks returning from Ayodhya to Gujarat was set on fire causing the death of 59 Mukerjee, Mridula Mukherjee and Sucheta Mahajan,
people. The charred bodies of the 59 victims were displayed for the public in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s capital New Delhi: Sage, 2008, pp. 49-50).
city. Muslims being blamed for the Godhra incident, organized rampage, looting and killing started. More 199. Brass writes, What are labelled Hindu-Muslim riots
have, more often than not, been turned into pogroms
than 1000 Muslims were massacred, 20,000 Muslim houses destroyed and 150,000 Muslims displaced. and massacres of Muslims, in which few Hindus are
killed. In fact, in sites of endemic rioting, there exist what
I have called. ‘institutionalized riot system’, in which the
Saffronization of culture and education is a companion strategy of Hindutva. In his speech at the Lucknow organizations of militant, Hindu nationalism are deeply
University on June 19, 2016, the then BJP Minister of State for Human Resources and Development, implicated, (Forms of Collective Violence: Riots, Pogroms
Government of India, Ram Shankar Katheria said, “There will be Saffronization of education in the country” and Genocide in Modern India, Paul R. Brass, New Delhi:
Three Essays collective, 2006, p. 4)
and termed the process as “beneficial to the country.”201 The New Education Policy (NEP 2016) draft begins
200. B. Rajeswari, Communal Riots in India: a
with the statement that, “the ultimate aim of education in ancient India was not knowledge, as preparation Chronology (1947-2003), Institute of Peace and Conflict
for life in this world or for life beyond, but for complete realization of the self.”202 In the early 2000, a social Studies (IPCS), New Delhi, March 2004, p. 2.
science text book for Class X in Gujarat described Adolf Hitler in the following terms: 201. He rhetorically asked, “If you do not study the
history of Maharana PratØap and Shivaji Maharaj then
will we study the history of Genghis Khan?’”(The Hindu,
“Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German Government within a short time by establishing a June 19, 2016, Lucknow).
202. emphasis added.

J. Reghu
strong administrative set up. He created the vast state of Greater Germany. He adopted the policy
of opposition to the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race….”
The text book was withdrawn in October 2005 due to criticism by the Israeli Government.203
203. Sylvie Guichard, Construction of History and the

Global Hindutva Nationalism in India: Textbooks, Controversies and
Politics, London: Routledge, 2010.
The Hindu right has spread outside South Asia with the expatriate communities.204 In countries like the 204. See Ingrid Therwath, ‘Cyber-hindutva: Hindu
USA, where the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh or HSS was established in 1973, and the UK where it was Nationalism, the Diaspora and the web’, Social Science
Information 51(2012).
started in 1966), it flourishes under different conditions since, as Biju Mathew and Vijay Prasad “it has
to come to terms with its new location. In the United States, it constitutes a Yankee Hindutva, where it 205. “The protean forms of Yankee Hindutva”, Ethnic and
Racial Studies 23.3 (2000). See also Christophe Jaffrelot
asserts itself in the space allowed by multi-culturalism…. Yankee Hindutva adopts many protean forms.”205
and Ingrid Therwath, “The Global Sangh Parivar: A
In fact, the first branch of the RSS Sakha outside South Asia was set up on board a ship on its way to Study of Contemporary International Hinduism”,
Kenya.206 Branches were also set up in other countries in Africa such as Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia.207 Religious Internationals in the Modern World, ed. A.
James Wiker contrasts Hindutva in India and abroad in terms of its organization, context and functioning: Green and V. Viaene, London: Palgrave Macmillan,
“American Hindutva does not have the clout that its Indian counterpart does, but its ideology is no less 2012, pp. 343-364.
dangerous. American Hindutva exacerbates Hindu-Muslim conflicts both in the United States and abroad, 206. See Chetan Bhatt, Hindu Nationalism: Origins,
marginalizing minorities, while disseminating its own homogenized version of Hinduism for both America Ideologies, and Modern Myths. Berg Publishers, 2001.
and Hindu American consumption.”208 207. See Jagadish Chandra Sharda, Memoirs of a Global
Hindu, New Delhi: Vishwa Niketan, 2008.
208. James McCallum Wiker, The HMEC: An American
Differences between Hindutva racism and Hitler’s racism Hindutva (Masters Dissertation), University of
Washington, 2012, p. 8.
The subtle differences between Hindutva racism and Hitler’s racism should not be overlooked. Hitler did not
divide the ‘Aryan-German race’ into a hierarchically ordered ‘higher German race’ and ‘lower German race’,
whereas the ‘Hindu Race’ according to Golwalkar and Savarkar, is composed of the four ‘varnas’, ordained
by God, according to their inherent qualities, and Brahmins are at the apex of the hierarchy. So, Hindutva’s
ideology of racism can be defined as “Brahminical racism”, that is, “racism within racism”. The stigmatization

J. Reghu
and ghettoization of all “inferior races”, such as Jews, communists, Gypsies, etc., in fact, presupposed a
kind of “equality” among the “superior German race”. Contrary to this, the “Hindu race”, constitutive of the
“Hindu nation”, is already differentiated into “pure” and “impure” varnas/jatis. This particular “racial” criteria
imposes “racial” discrimination against the lower castes and Dalits, by its uncompromising adherence to the
“Chaturvarnya system”. Therefore, Hindutva is both internal and external racism.
Hence, Golwalkar emphasized the culture and language of the ancient Aryans, that is, the Brahminical, as
exclusively constitutive of “Hindu Nation”. This conception of nationhood implies that the Hindus’ beliefs
and practices should define the nation and all other minorities and speakers of non-Sanskrit languages
should confine their religious beliefs and practices to their personal realm. In fact, such a nation would
not allow any separation of “private” and “public” as far as Hindus are concerned, whereas the “public” and
‘private’—which is the ‘public’ of the Hindus, and the ‘private’ of the Hindus—would fare as the ‘public’ of
the minorities too. This fusion of the Hindu “private” and “public” enables the Hindus to dominate all non-
Hindus, since the “public” of the non-Hindus’ cease to exist. We must understand Hindu Rashtra as a nation
in which the non-Hindus would be relegated to the peoples who do not have a “public existence”. They would
have only a “private existence”. That means, the Hindu Rashtra deprives the non-Hindus of their public-
political existence, and hence, it becomes easier for the Hindu Rashtra to cleanse itself of non-Hindus. The
“final solution” of Hindu Fascism is to first exclude the non-Hindus from the public domain of the nation
and then marginalize them from their “private domain”, which would be “invisible” to the public eye, hence
they could be exterminated without even getting noticed by the public.

‘Hitler’ clothing store
Sam Panthaky / AFP
One of the two Indian owners of the ‘Hitler’ clothing

store ‒ Rajesh Shah ‒ poses in a t-shirt adorned with
an image of Indian freedom icon Mahatma Gandhi, in
front of his shop in Ahmedabad on August 28, 2012.
Not in Open Access.

On Fascism and Nazism
Excerpts from the Gujarat state social studies text for Standard X
The textbooks of the Gujarat State Board, apart from the inherent contradictions mentioned above, commit
another grave folly. For the student of Std. X, in the section that deals with the period in world history
between the two world wars, we have a section on the “Ideology of Fascism”. There is a positive ambivalence
in the treatment of this political phenomenon, an ambivalence that stands heightened in later paragraphs
that deal with “Nazism”.
“Ideology of Fascism: The views regarding the State administration adopted by the topmost leader of the Fascist
Party, Mussolini, came to be known as the Ideology of Fascism (Principles of Fascism). According to this ideology,
the State is sovereign. An individual exists for the State. An individual does not have freedom over and above
the State. Here, everyone is absorbed within the State. Since the party firmly believed in Militant Nationalism,
it opposed Internationalism. National interest and progress were its basic aim. The Party believed that the
total power of the nation should be wielded by a leader endowed with Divine power. This party was a staunch
opposer of democracy and individual freedom and also of communism. Thus Fascism was totally opposed to
Democracy”.
(Gujarat State social studies text for Std. X)
This textbook while attempting an explanation of the political phenomenon of Fascism and Nazism gives
a frighteningly uncritical picture of both. The strong national pride that both these phenomena generated,
the efficiency in the bureaucracy and the administration and other “achievements” are detailed, but the
violent, uncivilised and uncritical result of the politics of exclusion – of Jews, of trade unionists, of migrant
labourers, of any section that did not fit into Mussolini or Hitler’s definition of rightful citizen – just do not
find any mention. The systematic extermination of six million Jews in concentration camps, the Holocaust
that is, simply does not figure in these texts.
“Ideology of Nazism: Like Fascism, the principles or ideologies for governing a nation, propounded by Hitler,
came to be known as the ideology of Nazism. On assuming power, the Nazi Party gave unlimited total and all
embracing and supreme power to the dictator. The dictator was known as the ‘Fuhrer’... Hitler had strongly

Excerpts from the Gujarat State Social Studies Text for Standard X
declared that ‘the Germans were the only pure Aryans in the entire world and they were born to rule the world’.
In order to ensure that the German people strictly followed the principles of Nazism, it was included in the
curriculum of the educational institutions. The textbooks said, ‘Hitler is our leader and we love him’.
Internal Achievements of Nazism: Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government within a short
time by establishing a strong administrative set up. He created the vast state of Greater Germany. He adopted the
policy of opposition towards the Jewish people and advocated the supremacy of the German race. He adopted a
new economic policy and brought prosperity to Germany. He began efforts for the eradication of unemployment.
He started constructing Public buildings, providing irrigation facilities, building Railways, roads and production
of war materials. He made untiring efforts to make Germany self-reliant within one decade. Hitler discarded
the Treaty of Versailles by calling it just ‘a piece of paper’ and stopped paying the war penalty. He instilled the
spirit of adventure in the common people.”
(Courtesy Communalism Combat, October 1999, https://sabrang.com/cc/comold/oct99/cover2.htm)

News of Gandhiji’s death
Krishen Khanna
News of Gandhiji’s Death (1948) by Krishen

Khanna, oil on canvas. Not in Open Access.

Reading Pasts, Thinking Presents:
Reflections on the Nation, Representation, and Mourning
Supriya Chaudhuri
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx refers to epochs of revolutionary crisis when “the
tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living”, and human beings,
struggling to create something that did not exist before, “anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to
their service and borrow from them names, battle cries, and costumes”. To Marx such summoning was a
potentially useful form of imaginative anachronism, yielding a set of masks through which the real work
of change might be accomplished: his sarcasm was reserved for the farcical repetition of history when the
disguise itself became the substance. As he put it, “in order to arrive at its own content, the revolution of the
nineteenth century must let the dead bury their dead”.209
Speaking with and through the dead, however, remains one of the marks of a time of crisis. Rarely, if ever, is
the future apprehended so directly as to afford its own language of expression and realization. Perhaps this 209. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte, New York: International Publishers, 1964,
is even truer for the non-revolutionary crises we are experiencing in India today than for earlier periods p. 15, 18.
of struggle and change that might have forged their own vocabulary. The crisis of the present, originating
in repression rather than resistance, has bred its own engagements with the past, not least on the side of
repression, which is heavily invested in a legendary, heroic time supposedly preserved in collective memory.
Meanwhile, resistance too seeks to draw upon re-readings of the past in order to engage with a present
that appears to have betrayed its promise. At the heart of this crisis is the disputed idea of the nation,
on the one part de-linked from history and presented in an almost unrecognizable, mythic form to the
popular imagination through metaphors and slogans, and on the other, subjected to a rigorous historical
examination that questions its very possibility. The dispute, moreover, is not simply a matter of ideological
difference, since it has real consequences in social and political action, the exercise of power at all levels,
state and sectarian violence, loss of livelihoods and freedoms, and shrinking space for debate. Given the
chaotic, painful and unsettled character of the realities we inhabit, what active function can be assigned
to philosophy or even to intellectual work in general? All over the world, as governments retreat from
their duty of fostering the common good to focus instead on narrowly managerial tasks of maintaining
capital growth and manipulating the public through media campaigns, intellectual labour has fallen into
disfavour, the ‘space’ of the university is regarded with suspicion and distrust, and there is an almost wilful
espousal of majoritarian sentiments in defiance of evidence or logic. This is certainly true of India, which

Supriya Chaudhuri
has witnessed, over the past few years, a spate of attacks on individuals and institutions – from the murders
of prominent rationalists like Narendra Dabholkar (2013) and M.M. Kalburgi (2015) to regimes of coercion
and fear on university campuses such as Jadavpur, Hyderabad, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, with tragic
consequences in the death of Rohith Vemula and the disappearance of Najeeb Ahmed. In this essay, I would
like first to consider the kinds of recursion to the past caused by the crisis in our understanding of the
nation, and then go on to ask what this crisis might mean for personal and intellectual freedoms.
In 2003, just after the carnage of the post-Godhra riots of 2002, the Mumbai artist Jitish Kallat offered
the first of his Public Notice series to the public, using rubber adhesive to render the words of Jawaharlal
Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech on five large acrylic mirrors before incinerating them in a progressive
sequence.210 Half-burnt but still visible, the words produced distorted, dark reflections on the buckled 210. Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘A Tryst with Destiny’ (Speech
surfaces of the mirrors, shadows that change in accordance with the viewer’s position in front of them. in the Constituent Assembly at midnight, 14-15
Explaining his intention some years later, Kallat said that “the words are cremated … much as the content of August 1947, on the eve of Indian independence) in
Selected Works, ed. S. Gopal, Second Series, Volume 3
the speech itself was distorted by the way the nation has conducted itself in the last six decades.”211 Four years
(New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1985),
later, in 2007, Kallat presented the second work in the series, Public Notice 2, filling the shelves in a huge pp. 135-6, with plates.
gallery with a thousand words formed out of 4,479 fibre-glass bones placed against a vivid turmeric-yellow
211. Cited in Madhuvanti Ghose, ‘From Vivekananda to
background, the words being Mahatma Gandhi’s speech delivered at the Sabarmati Ashram on 11 March, Kallat: Public Notice 3’ in Jitish Kallat: Public Notice 3,
1930, a day before he and his 78 companions began the salt satyagraha, that is the Dandi March, to protest ed. Madhuvanti Ghose, Art Institute of Chicago/ Yale
the British-imposed salt tax. The speech repeatedly urges the duty of non-violence, another lesson to which University Press, 2011, p. 7.
the nation, we might say, has paid little heed, so that the “bare bones” of the speech remain as historical
relics. Let us note that Kallat does not hesitate to use the word “nation” in this “calling to account”, as it were:
nor does he hesitate to deface or re-form in new, iconoclastic ways the foundational texts of the past. Indeed,
he is compelled to do this because the nation is precisely what cannot be represented: it is the absence, the
empty space lurking behind the textual records that we take as its symbolic equivalent.
Kallat’s public re-readings (for the moment I am not considering the third work in the series, Public
Notice 3, a site-specific installation at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010, utilizing material from his 2004
work Detergent and bringing together the Hindu monk Vivekananda’s speech at the World Parliament of
Religions in 1893 with the 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre) are perhaps the most large-scale artistic

Supriya Chaudhuri
engagements with actual texts – that is with letters, words, documents – in the Indian national context. They
have continued beyond the three Public Notices into his relatively recent installation Covering Letter (2012)
which I saw in Mumbai last year, and which projects the typed words of a letter from Mahatma Gandhi to
Adolf Hitler, written on July 23, 1939, the eve of the Second World War, upon a screen of traversable dry
fog produced by a machine mounted in the ceiling. The letter addresses Hitler as ‘Dear Friend’ – initially
one does not realize that it is Hitler who is being addressed – and urges him to heed the appeal for peace of
one who has “shunned the method of war”. It may strike observers that, given the scale of Nazi criminality,
Gandhi’s plea was naïve to the point of folly: indeed, the gas shower emitted by a head-mounted machine
carries disturbing associations from the concentration camp. The projected words, with their powerful but
historically ineffective message of non-violence, dissolve and are recomposed around the viewers’ bodies
as they pass through the screen, becoming more visible as the screen is re-formed, yet remaining always in
motion, threatened by the fluidity of the medium on which they appear. Kallat’s work is remarkable in its scale 212. Pierre Nora, ‘Between Memory and History: Les
as well as in its employment of context and occasion to circumvent the need for any direct artistic comment Lieux de Mémoire’, Representations, 26 (Special Issue:
on his part – though he has commented ‘outside the text’, as it were, in interviews and conversations. His Memory and Counter-Memory: Spring 1989): pp. 7-24,
p. 8.
placing of Vivekananda’s appeal for religious toleration on the steps of the Art Institute, illuminated by
the colour coding used by the US Department of Homeland Security to classify terrorist threats, links the
speech on the one hand to the 9/11 attacks, and on the other to disputes around Vivekananda’s legacy as an
icon for Hindu fundamentalists.
In its use of past texts, Kallat’s work is archival, constituting itself as a series of what Pierre Nora would term
lieux de mémoire or sites of memory, but memory in the form only of “sifted and sorted historical traces”. To
such memory, already a part of history (“the reconstruction, always problematic and incomplete, of what is
no longer”), Nora controversially contrasts the “living memory” of archaic societies, “integrated, dictatorial”,
as well as “unselfconscious, commanding, all-powerful, spontaneously actualizing, a memory without a past
that ceaselessly reinvents tradition, linking the memory of its ancestors to the undifferentiated time of heroes,
origins and myth”.212 With the exception of the adjectives “unselfconscious” and “spontaneously actualizing”,
this description would apply better to the version of “history as institutionalized memory” circulated by ultra-
nationalist and fundamentalist parties in India today, rather than to any ideal peasant society imagined
by Nora. In fact, what we witness in the Indian public domain is not a contestation between history and

Supriya Chaudhuri
memory, but between two versions of history: history as trace, as fragment, as what slips from our grasp in
the very act of being recorded, and history as the public rehearsal, usually enforced, of iconic past moments
and images that are projected as the nation’s memory. The latter exercise requires ceaseless repetition and
actualization that is very far from being spontaneous. To take two different but related examples, we have on
the one hand the recent Supreme Court injunction that the National Anthem be played in cinema theatres
before film-screenings: initially, with the rider that the doors be closed so that the audience, which must
stand for the duration, cannot escape or arrive late. Given that the anthem was composed by Rabindranath
Tagore, a poet opposed on principle to the “mechanical” idea of the nation, this compulsory iteration
becomes a tragic irony.213 On the other hand, we have outrageously wasteful plans for huge statues, such as
those of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat and the legendary Maratha hero Shivaji on a rocky islet off the 213. See Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Nationalism in the
West’ (lecture delivered in Japan, 1916) in The English
coast of Mumbai.214 Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, ed. Sisir Kumar Das,
Vol.2, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996, p. 421.
Dictatorial is a good term for such memory-work, assuming as it does the obedience and submission of 214. See Government of India, Ministry of Home
citizens to both form and choice of memorial. The form is not archival: it does not seek for origins or Affairs, Order No. 14/6/2016-Public: Orders Relating
remnants, but emphasizes oral repetition (such as the formulaic Bharat Mata ki Jai [Victory to Mother to the National Anthem of India, dated 6 December
India]) as well as the concreteness of physical monuments, preferably new, chosen in order to reinforce 2016. For the planned statues, which will each cost
more than 30 billion INR when completed, see https://
a militant nationalism. The Patel monument has been named the “Statue of Unity”, and commemorates a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Unity and http://
leader known by the sobriquet of “Iron Man of India” for his uncompromising pursuit of national integration. www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/five-things-
As first Home Minister of a newly independent India, Sardar Patel successfully oversaw the accession to you-need-to-know-about-shivaji-memorial/story-
the Union of the former “princely states” that had been under British suzerainty (though he was also an vS3VYf10M7XkWzC2OyxdKI.html Accessed 5 January
architect of Partition, a source of deep anguish for Gandhi). Many believed that Patel would have made 2017.
a better Prime Minister than Nehru. Nevertheless, although he was attacked in his lifetime for protecting
Muslims during the post-Partition riots and acted against Hindu militant organizations like the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Patel emerged belatedly as an iconic figure for the Hindu right, and Narendra
Modi, then BJP Chief Minister of Gujarat, proposed the memorial to mark the tenth year of his office on
October 7, 2010. Subsequently, in a campaign designed to actualize the metaphor of “iron man”, the Gujarat
government issued an appeal to farmers to donate iron from their discarded farming tools for the statue (182
metres high, matching the number of assembly seats in Gujarat), though it was later learnt that the 5000
metric tonnes of iron collected would be used elsewhere in the project. These plans, which have gathered

Supriya Chaudhuri
impetus since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India in 2014, are matched by the preparations, in
the neighbouring state of Maharashtra, to build a taller (210 metres) memorial, first proposed in the 1980s,
for the Maratha warrior-king Shivaji on an islet in the Arabian Sea. On December 24, 2016, Prime Minister
215. See V.D. Savarkar, Hindutva, 5th Edition, Bombay:
Modi formally consecrated the foundations of the memorial with water from rivers across Maharashtra and
Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1969, pp. 10-12. For Savarkar,
earth from locations significant in Shivaji’s life. Hindutva and Hinduism are not identical: the former
is a more inclusive term describing the inhabitants of
It is worth noting how these exercises seek to actualize public memory by giving a concrete (in all senses) the subcontinent, but nevertheless excludes ‘foreign
invaders’ – thus, all Muslims (pp. 42-45).
form to metaphor or legend, and using iconic figures to produce a kind of super-history of the nation
that looks beyond its modern inception to gesture towards V. D. Savarkar’s equation of Hindutva itself 216. Nora, p. 8-9.
with nationhood.215 Since the effort is planned and deliberate, it is unlike any “real memory – social and 217. Nora, p. 12.
unviolated” that Nora proposes as the secret of pre-modern societies, and that history seeks to “suppress 218. Colonial monuments were obvious targets after
and destroy”: rather, it tries to implant memory upon concrete “spaces, gestures, images, and objects”, Independence, but recent conflicts feature a variety
monuments that are by no means remnants or survivals, like Nora’s lieux de mémoire, but are constantly of sub-nationalisms, like that of the Marathas. One
created anew.216 Hindutva’s genealogy of the nation, with its appeal to tradition, its roll-call of heroes Maratha organization, the Sambhaji Brigade, has
and events, is, as most commentators have noted, an entirely modern invention, and in keeping with the responded violently to any criticism of Shivaji or
his descendants: for an instance, see http://www.
positive tone of its investment in the past, it is triumphant and celebratory. Instead of the melancholy and thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/Sambhaji-
nostalgic recourse to “the tricolor; to the libraries, dictionaries and museums as well as to commemorations, Brigade-vandalises-statue-of-litterateur-R.G.-Gadkari-
celebrations, the Panthéon, and the Arc de Triomphe” that Nora categorises as memory-sites in France in-Pune/article16982303.ece
and that appear “beleaguered and cold”, we are faced with huge new affirmations of nationalist fervour.217 219. Savarkar, Hindutva, p. 12. The dispute over the
Of course, there is also a high degree of coercion in these projects, which have been challenged by various exact birthplace is of long standing. On December 6,
public interest groups including environmental activists. It is notable that the Patel statue directly faces 1992, a mosque believed to have been built by the
the ecologically controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river, a site of protest for campaigners Mughal emperor Babur (hence Babri Masjid), standing
at the supposed site, was demolished by Hindu
from the 1980s onwards, and fishermen in Mumbai have strongly opposed the Shivaji memorial, which is
extremists. This set off a wave of communal riots all
likely to damage aquatic life around it. In modern India, the public life of monuments is contested territory, over India. For an account, see Ashis Nandy, Shikha
with the removal and defacement of statues figuring high on the list of symbolic actions open to agitating Trivedy, Shail Mayaram, and Achyut Yagnik, Creating a
groups.218 Perhaps the most complex site of contestation – somewhere between a lieu de mémoire and a new Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of
religious nationalism, if we recall Savarkar’s identification of the legendary reign of Ramachandra, hero the Self, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.
of the Hindu epic Ramayana, with the inception of the Hindu nation – is the supposed birthplace of the
divine king, Ram Janmabhumi, at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.219 While the present BJP government remains

Supriya Chaudhuri
committed to building a temple – Ram Mandir – on the disputed site, it is worth noting that the plan, with
its history of communal conflict, lingers in relative abeyance while other projects more expressive of militant
nationalism or sub-nationalism occupy the foreground. By what seems in retrospect a highly deliberate
political calculation, the nation – as idea, as vehicle, as frame – has been placed at the centre of public
discourse. Effectively, the nation has become the card that ‘trumps’ all the rest, including issues of religion,
caste, community, region, class, and gender.220 It does so not by obscuring these issues, which remain fully
capable of absorbing sectarian energies and may erupt violently in the public sphere, but through its use as
a final, overriding term to which all others must yield. As a senior journalist put it in an article published
almost exactly a year ago, “according to the nationalist taxonomy of the Sangh Parivar, Adivasis in central
India, Dalit students, Left intellectuals, human rights activists, a certain religious minority, anti-nuclear
activists, beef eaters, non-haters of Pakistan, inter-religious couples, homosexuals, and labour activists are
220. For a rich and detailed historical consideration of
anti-nationals”.221 To these, he might have added: almost the entire population of Kashmir. this phenomenon, see Benjamin Zachariah, Playing the
Nation Game: The Ambiguities of Nationalism in India,
But the nation is also a powerful, though less determined, presence in the representational practice of Delhi: Yoda Press, 2011.
artists like Kallat, whose work is in intimate conversation with history in the archive, with the memory- 221. G. Sampath, ‘Who is an Anti-National?’, The Hindu,
site as a site of mourning. Kallat’s obsession with documents and relics has given a special character to his February 17, 2016. Retrieved on 9 January 2017 at
“summoning” of the past, which appears in the form of textual testaments rather than figures or visions. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Who-is-an-
anti-national/article14082785.ece
In that respect, it is a reminder of how much the modern nation depends upon textual promises of this
kind: the nation is anchored in history by a process of documentation that carries both legal sanction and 222. Nora, p. 12.
extra-legal resonance. By setting these documents adrift in a material sense, by emphasising their fragility
and impermanence, Kallat draws attention to the fact that promises are only good if they are kept. Memory
cannot be counted upon: certainly there is no appeal either to the “living memory” Nora posits as a pre-
modern phenomenon, or to the public rehearsals that the state can enforce – for example, through the
playing of the National Anthem in theatres. Rather, there is a melancholy acknowledgment of the inevitable
loss of memory in the archive, and of the derelict status of lieux de mémoire – “no longer quite life, not yet
death, like shells on the shore after the sea of living memory has retreated”.222 Whether or not this living
memory ever existed, there can be no doubt about the abandoned, even haunted status of art and other
cultural expressions in India since the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, followed by the
Mumbai riots and bomb blasts. If Kallat has chosen to focus on textual reminders, others have entertained

Supriya Chaudhuri
ghostly visitants, like the spectre of Gandhi in Atul Dodiya’s 1997 Lamentation, followed by Bapu at Rene
Block Gallery in 1998, the 1999 watercolour series, An Artist of Non-Violence, and much later work including
shutter installations. Gandhi has been an insistent visual presence in post-1947 art.223 But this summoning
of ghosts, as an act of remembrance for the nation, can be performed with fictional, that is literary, actors
as well. Thus, Nalini Malani’s Remembering Toba Tek Singh (1998-99), a 20 minute video installation using
VCDs, television monitors, tin trunks, quilts and other material, is based on Saadat Hasan Manto’s classic
Partition tale about the exchange of madmen between nation-states, while her synchronised five-screen
video projection, Mother India (2005: sub-titled, after an essay by the sociologist Veena Das, ‘Transactions 223. See, for example, Gayatri Sinha, ‘The Afterlives of
in the Construction of Pain’) blends the imaginary with the archival. Very different in texture but also Images: the contested legacies of Gandhi in Art and
drawing upon a range of visual, literary, mythical and documentary sources is Nilima Sheikh’s exhibition of Popular Culture’, ed. Deborah Cherry, The Afterlives of
meticulously worked scroll paintings (2003-10), titled, after a line from the Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali, Monuments, London: Routledge, 2015, pp. 111-29.
Each Night put Kashmir in your Dreams. 224. Veena Das, ‘Language and Body: Transactions
in the Construction of Pain,’ Daedalus 125:1, Social
Suffering (1996), pp. 67-91; and Stanley Cavell,
Das’s essay, which Malani cites as a background to her work, was published in 1996 in an issue of Daedalus
‘Comments on Veena Das’s Essay “Language and
that also carries a commentary by Stanley Cavell.224 It offers a critical consideration of the violent birth Body: Transactions in the Construction of Pain”,’ in ibid.
of the Indian nation as inscribed upon the bodies of raped and abducted women at the time of Partition. pp. 93-98.
Examining three texts – a passage from Wittgenstein, Rabindranath Tagore’s novel Ghare Baire (The Home 225. Das, ‘Language and Body,’ p. 68.
and the World) and another story by Manto, ‘Khol do!’ (‘Open It!’) – Das suggests that the history of pain
226. Tagore, ‘Nationalism in the West’, pp. 432, 434.
produces the nation itself as a work of mourning. How can a concept like the nation, she appears to be
For comments, see Supriya Chaudhuri, ‘The Nation
asking, be understood in the face of these women’s experiences of brutalization and violence? She begins and Its Fictions: History and Allegory in Tagore’s Gora,’
by drawing upon a metaphor used by Cavell, “of philosophy as a river that flows between the two shores South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 35:1 (2012),
of the metaphysical and the everyday”: the metaphysical shore is distant, while the near shore is that of the pp. 97-117.
everyday.225 We may recall this metaphor in our own philosophical struggles to find an adequate language
of representation for everyday suffering: but with Tagore and Manto, we may also recognize how the entire
process of abstraction, resulting in a concept like the nation, blurs and overrides the particularities of
individual grief and loss. It should be remembered that Tagore himself, to an extent that Das does not
acknowledge, repudiated what he called the “fully developed apparatus of magnificent power and surprising
appetite which has been christened in the West as the Nation”, which had “thriven long upon mutilated
humanity”; to him it was “one of the most powerful anaesthetics that man has invented”.226 Tagore’s use of

Supriya Chaudhuri
the term anaesthetic, making the nation an abstraction that dulls or deadens our sensibilities, is relevant
in the context of Das’s attempt to engage with the pain of women in particular. Malani, drawing on Das,
also builds up an archive of suffering – both from the time of Partition and from the post-Godhra Gujarat
killings of 2002 – that she titles “Mother India”, ironically commenting on the identification of the nation
with a long-suffering, all-enduring maternal presence upon whom daily outrages are committed. The pain of
women is only one, of course, of many kinds of suffering that seep into the folds of the nation’s fabric, not as
just instances from the past, but as an endless series that takes in displacement and poverty, military action
in Kashmir and the North-East together with the struggle for self-determination and against the Armed
Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), crimes against Adivasis and caste violence, communal conflicts, armed
rebellions, and the daily, exhausting grind of social injustice, cruelty and exploitation. On rare, perhaps
cathartic occasions, public anger flares up against a special instance of brutality – such as the gang-rape and
murder of a young woman in Delhi in December 2012, the suicide of a young Dalit student evicted from
227. ‘This Strange Institution called Literature:
university accommodation in January 2016 – making it representative of a persisting national failure. At
Interview with Jacques Derrida’ in Jacques Derrida, Acts
such moments – which, however shocking, are matched by countless similar outrages all over the country – of Literature, ed. Derek Attridge, London: Routledge,
the nation looks at itself in the mirror of present calamity, seeing what cannot be suppressed, dark shadows 1992, p. 69.
of past atrocities that are also part of national history. 228. Moinak Biswas, ‘Speaking Through Troubled Times’,
Journal of the Moving Image 6 (2007): pp. 72-85, p. 72.
“There is no history without iterability”.227 The archival impulse is an effort to engage with the present
by refracting it through the lens of history: the operation of cultural memory, however fragmentary and
imperfect, works to destabilize our sense of linear time, so that the “afterlives” of texts and artefacts negotiate
multiple temporalities. On the one hand art, cinema, and literature are “admitted to the flow that joins with
the present”, as Moinak Biswas puts it in an essay on film and history: on the other hand, as we have been
arguing, the past assumes a ghostly, occasionally minatory aspect within the flow of the present, rendering
it uncanny through an effect of defamiliarization.228 For how can the nation be represented? In my view, it
is precisely what exceeds or eludes representation, which is why words and images fall significantly short
of symbolic equivalence. It is this gap that Kallat explores by rehearsing historical texts, placing them, word
for word, almost scientifically and in a curatorial spirit, within an alienating context, and systematically
dismantling their iconicity through images of violence (burning, bones), while at the same time he compels
us to reflect on their meanings and our own failure to translate them into practice. He offers a re-reading, a

Supriya Chaudhuri
re-deployment for the sake of the present. However mangled and distorted, the words are still visible, still
heavy with pain and unfulfilled promise. I will suggest that the nation for us, today, can never be viewed
except under such signs of mourning: textually, grammatically, it is not what we desire so much as what we
had desired, identified with documents, symbols, slogans, images resurrected from the historical archive,
but seeming always anachronic, out of place, out of time, like aphorisms. In an essay titled “L’aphorisme à
contretemps” which might be translated as ‘the aphorism at the wrong time’ (or, perhaps, at an inopportune
moment, out of time, untowardly) Jacques Derrida reflects on precisely this capacity of the past – as repetition,
as revival ‒ to insert itself into the present, “through a studied effect of contretemps: an unfortunate crossing,
by chance, of temporal and aphoristic series”.229 Derrida’s essay is a brief re-reading of Shakespeare’s Romeo
and Juliet, a tragedy of bad timing, or anachrony; oddly enough, Savarkar’s Hindutva also begins with a
disquisition on naming drawn from a rhetorical question in Romeo and Juliet. This is no more than an
archival footnote, but it may illustrate something about iterability.
The promise of the new nation also carried an enormous burden from the past: social injustice, caste and
gender oppression, conflicting regional and sectarian aspirations, as well as the terrible violence and human 229. Jacques Derrida, “Aphorism Countertime”, in Acts of
Literature, p. 416.
displacement that accompanied its birth. For us in eastern India, accustoming to referring to the events of
1947 as Partition, deshbhag, the beginning of the modern nation was in lamentation and suffering, only
reinforced, we might say, by an event precisely as real as it was symbolic, the assassination of Mahatma
Gandhi, recorded by the artist Krishen Khanna as an act of reading (News of Gandhiji’s Death, 1948). At
the same time, it would be wrong to forget or undervalue the investments of hope and labour placed in
an idea of the nation, even if they were not matched by faith in the state. This may be why the revisiting of
these past texts and images is a necessary, if painful task. What we mourn is not the nation as such, since we
cannot fully describe or imagine it: we mourn for ourselves, and for our distance from those past testaments
that appear to us, today, no more than historical relics. Because this mourning is in large part reflexive,
for ourselves rather than for any object out there, it is in many ways indistinguishable from melancholy,
as Freud describes that condition: it is a state in which we, not the elusive nation, are hollowed out from
within, not knowing what to do or say to affirm or deny our citizenship. Mandatory exercises in the kind
of militant nation-worship that operates on the basis of exclusion and coercion are equally hollow: in some
respects, one is the obverse of the other. Having lost confidence in the capacity of the nation to hold on to

Supriya Chaudhuri
the trust of its members, we are impelled either towards a melancholy revisiting of past promises, or towards
an aggressive, performative nationalism.
It is this performative nationalism, taking the present as its stage and drawing upon the past only in order to
proclaim an ahistorical, pre-existent and perennially renewable nationhood, that is particularly destructive
of civil liberties in India today. At first sight, it may appear that such manifestations, and the fascist ideology
with which they are associated, are the prerogative of the Hindu right. There can be no doubt that the tenure
of the present government has seen large-scale acts of military or political repression, attacks on freedom of
speech, and the hounding of minorities and disadvantaged groups in the name of the nation. The label “anti-
national” has become not only a familiar term of abuse but a formal accessory to charges of sedition or crimes
against the state, leveled against agitating students (such as Umar Khalid at Jawaharlal Nehru University)
as well as prominent writers (such as the novelist Arundhati Roy). Increasingly, the space for open debate,
leave alone dissent, is shrinking, and universities have been overtaken by a culture of state surveillance
and control. Still, I will suggest that these tendencies are not specific to religious nationalism alone, but
shared with other kinds of nationalist assertiveness and politics of identity. It should be remembered that
sedition charges were first lodged against Roy in November 2010, during the tenure of the previous (UPA)
government, when she shared a stage with the Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani demanding freedom
(Azadi) for Kashmir, and she was charged under sections 124A (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity
between classes), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 504 (insult intended to
provoke breach of peace) and 505 (false statement, rumour circulated with intent to cause mutiny or offence
against public peace) read with Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act of 1967. The use of the
colonial sedition law against critics of the state in modern India is only one of the many moments of fissure
when we feel the difference of state from nation, and recognize the impossibility of actually defining what
“anti-national” means. The nation contains its enemies or critics, but nationalism in its public, performative
manifestations is almost invariably coercive, exclusionist, and identitarian. In fact, it must be so, because its
“performativity” is bound up with the attribution to it of specific qualities, functions, and contents, which
would otherwise remain undefined. More than any specific religious programme, “performing the nation”
involves the re-use of iconic symbols or slogans by ‘filling’ what is empty or undecided in them with concrete
figures or persons – usually through an enactment in the present.

Supriya Chaudhuri
As I write this, a debate has erupted about the substitution – on the calendar of the Khadi Village Industries
Commission of India – of the figure of Gandhi, using a spinning wheel of rudimentary and obsolete design,
with that of Prime Minster Narendra Modi, in the same pose, but with a far more modern instrument. For
Modi, then, it is necessary not just to be identified with a religious agenda, but to appropriate the space of
the nation by posing with its most familiar representation. It does not matter whether Modi habitually sits at
the spinning wheel, whereas the power of the Gandhian image is derived from our sense of its “authenticity”,
from our memory (based upon photographs and representations) of a historical practice. All that is required
from us today is that we consent to this substitution, whose power lies in the “performed” present rather than
in any trace or relic of the past. For all the disagreements about the propriety of the image – re-fashioning
the Father of the Nation, as it were – it is abundantly clear that the image is not that of Narendra Modi
masquerading as Mahatma Gandhi, but of Modi replacing Gandhi, filling up, here and now, the empty space
that is the nation. A lack of clarity about what the nation is does not at all prevent assertions being made on
its behalf, acts being attributed to its power, and crimes being committed for its sake. The name that we give
to such actions is nationalism.
I will end therefore with an image that seem to me to capture something in – and about – the nation as a lieu
de mémoire: an image that does not refer to any iconic historical event, but is rooted in the everyday. This
may look back, too, to the metaphor of philosophy as a river flowing between the shores of the metaphysical
and the everyday that Veena Das borrows from Stanley Cavell. In 2005, the artist Subodh Gupta put up a
sculptural exhibit consisting of a huge Keralan fishing-boat, seventy feet long and ten feet wide, its wooden
planks weatherbeaten and corroded with salt, its bowels overloaded with a medley of household implements,
utensils and furniture, strapped down with wire and coconut rope, and named it, using a line from the Sufi
poet Jalaluddin Rumi, What does the vessel hold that the river does not? I saw this object several years later,
in an exhibition of post-Independence Indian art called After Midnight, at the Queens Museum in New York
in 2014. It seemed to me then that our nation, such as it is, is like this boat: overburdened, ragtag, not quite
assured of its seaworthiness, patched-up, lacking a voice, but uncompromisingly everyday, recognizable. I do
not suggest any formal or symbolic equivalence – so far as I am aware, Subodh Gupta has only commented
on the gradual disappearance of such vessels from the backwaters and coastal shallows of Kerala. So I cannot
presume on the intention of the artist, but I will nevertheless suggest that if the nation cannot be represented,

Supriya Chaudhuri
it can nonetheless be gestured at, most powerfully through images of the everyday, that stand against the
textual recursions – as well as the performative nationalisms – that I have instanced through this discussion.
In the Queens exhibition, the boat was flanked to its right by Kallat’s Public Notice 1.

Public Notice 2
Jitish Kallat
2007, 4,479 sculptural units, cast resin.
Public Notice 2 (2007) redeploys a historic text in a sculptural form, making out of them mirrors against
which to assess our present. It is based on the speech that Mahatma Gandhi delivered at the Sabarmati
Ashram in Ahmedabad on 11 March 1930, a day before he began the Dandi salt march against British laws
taxing salt production in India, inspiring a nationwide civil disobedience movement. Not in Open Access.

Witness: Kashmir 1986-2016 / Nine Photographers
Sanjay Kak
Photos from Witness: Kashmir 1986-2016 / Nine Photographers (Delhi: Yarbal, 2016) Edited by the
filmmaker Sanjay Kak.
“This is a book of photographs of Kashmir, taken by Kashmiri photojournalists over the past 30 years.
These have been decades of tumult, during which it has become impossible to ignore the long-suppressed
aspirations of its people. “Hum kya chahte? Azadi!” (What do we want? Freedom!). A slogan became a
drumbeat during these years, with Kashmiris beginning to express themselves as never before—in public
marches on the streets, at massive gatherings in prayer fields and burial grounds, at bruising stone-throwing
protests, and even in the bloody battleground of an armed struggle.
These were also the years when photography in Kashmir came into its own, making a noticeable break with
the past. For if there was a formal practice prior to this, it was dominated by the landscape, and photography
was seen as an adjunct to the extensive apparatus of tourism, and before that, of colonization. Invisible in
these pictures were Kashmiris themselves… it is precisely this tradition that has been upended by a new
generation of photographers.
If there had been 200,000 armed militants waging war in those early years, for instance, riding on a wave of
popular support, how was it that only a few short years later they had all disappeared, leaving little visible
trace? (Besides the several hundred mazar-e-shohada, martyrs’ graveyards, that dot the countryside.) After
the army and paramilitary forces began a brutal campaign of counterinsurgency in the mid-1990s, and
Kashmir bled copiously, people’s accounts became even more opaque. The work of photojournalists seemed
to suggest a way of recovering memories that were almost too dreadful to keep alive.
This book is about the life and work of nine individuals, the oldest already a working photographer in 1986,
and the youngest not yet 20 in 2016. The frame in which their photographs are placed—that of being a
“witness”—is not a fixed one, nor is it always transparent about its position. The evidence gathered can be
read in multiple, complex, ways. What is missing is often as telling as what exists.

Sanjay Kak
Amid the constant ebb and flow of events that have all but overwhelmed Kashmir and its people, this book
is intended as a marker, a flag planted in a contested ground.”
— Sanjay Kak, from the ‘Introduction’, Witness: Kashmir 1986-2016 / Nine Photographers, 2016

Sanjay Kak
Bridal Procession (2004) by Altaf Qadri. A bride leads the way through a rice field as a wedding procession heads
for the groom’s home at Batkoot village, October 3, 2004.

Sanjay Kak
Aftermath of an Encounter (2015) by Showkat Nanda. Syeda Begum looks into a room of her home, severely
damaged in a gunfight between soldiers and suspected ‘militants’ in Ladoora village of Baramulla district, August
13, 2015.

Sanjay Kak
APDP Protest (2014) by Javed Dar. Families of the Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP)
gather in Pratap Park, Srinagar, December 10, 2014. For the last 15 years, on the 10th day of every month they
make public their demand to know the whereabouts of their loved ones. Rights groups estimate that more than
8000 people have been ‘disappeared’ in Kashmir, most after being taken away by government forces.

Sanjay Kak
Family of the Disappeared (2016) ) by Showkat Nanda. Hussain Bibi and her children in their home in a village
near the ‘Line of Control’, August 10, 2016. Her husband, Ahmad Hussain Shah (45) and son Nazir Hussain (18),
both porters, were picked up by soldiers from their home on August 15, 1997.

Sanjay Kak
Protesting Women (2008) by Showkat Nanda. Women in north Kashmir’s Langate town protest the death of
two teenage sisters, August 4, 2008. Protests erupted as many believed the girls could have been victims of a
conspiracy, because the two were witnesses to an infamous case of rape and murder of a young girl the previous
year.

Sanjay Kak
Burial Procession (2008) by Javed Dar. Six members of a family were buried alive after an avalanche rolled over
their house following five days of incessant snowfall in the mountainous Peth Hallan village, near Qazigund,
February 8, 2008. Army and police rescue teams were able to save only one of the seven family members in the
house.

Sanjay Kak
After the Fire (2012) by Javed Dar. A woman pauses to absorb the damage to her home, burnt down at a fire
in Frislan village, after a day spent rummaging through the debris, on the outskirts of the mountain resort of
Pehlgam, November 25, 2012.

Sanjay Kak
Road to Shamaswari (2015) by Azaan Shah. A woman walks past old homes in downtown on May 25, 2015.

Sanjay Kak
Pellet Gun Injuries (2016) by Yasin Dar [© AP Images 2017 / Dar Yasin]. Mohammad
Imran Parray, wounded by shotgun pellets fired by police during a protest, at a hospital
at Srinagar, July 13, 2016. Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that the government
troops will begin replacing shotgun pellets with chilli-filled shells to control angry crowds
in Kashmir. According to local officials and doctors, the use of pellet guns has killed at
least four people and left more than 100 partially blinded.

Caste & Religion

The Drowned and the Saved: Caste and Humiliation in the Indian Classroom
Yashpal Jogdand
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Steve Biko
Who was Rohith Vemula? A brief look at the Wikipedia page will tell you that Rohith was a Dalit student
pursuing a PhD at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) in India who committed suicide last year
on 17 January 2016. A Google search will give you snippets of different articles, news stories, and reports
about the ensuing protests, the role played by the government and vice chancellor of HCU, debate about
whether Rohith’s suicide is an individual or collective act, whether he can be categorised as a Dalit and so
on. This exposure, I hope, would present an alternative case that Rohith’s death was a case of systematic
extermination – a cold-blooded institutional murder. Rohith’s “murder” questions all the naïve ideas about
the emancipatory potential of Indian education. Rohith reminds all others who shared and empathized 230. Arendt, The Life of the Mind. Orlando: Houghton
the “fatal accident of birth” with him that it is not only a person who was killed in the Hyderabad Central Mifflin Harcourt, 1981.
University but an invaluable shared part. That invaluable part that inspires one to seek what Hannah Arendt
calls “the life of the mind.”230 And that threatens one to the core.
Much effort has been devoted to understanding the caste atrocities which are instances of extreme violence
and public humiliation through which the historically oppressed groups like Dalits in India are taught to
keep their place in the society. But if there is one thing that Rohith’s institutional murder pointed out it is
this: not to ignore the killing of Dalit minds through everyday violence and humiliation. Physical violence
and humiliation are not always major, one-off instances like caste atrocities or genocide; they can also be
everyday stings, banal in their existence, moderate in the intensity but equally fatal. It is, therefore, important
to understand the micro-processes that contribute to the killing of Dalit minds. It would not be possible to
go into the rigorous details of these micro-processes in this short essay. I will focus mainly on the educational
context and limit myself to discussing how Indian classrooms and society as a whole thwart the intellectual
aspirations and pose serious risks to psychological wellbeing among Dalits.

Yashpal Jogdand
The Indian classroom as a site of humiliation
The classroom is an important space and time in one’s intellectual life. This is a space that facilitates the
dialogue, both outer and inner. This is a time when one is exposed to different meanings of the things
one usually takes for granted. It is plausible to imagine that the people who aspire to “the life of the mind”
should receive their inspiration in the classroom. Yet, for Dalits in India the aspiration to “the life of the
mind” comes from independent reading and contact with collective struggles rather than the classroom
learning. Caste permeates the Indian classroom and obliterates creation of a space where one participates in
a collaborative activity of knowledge as an equal and worthy person. The classrooms, in the experience of
Dalits, instead, work as sites where one confronts the brutal reality of caste. The higher a Dalit individual go
on the prestige ladder of the educational institutions, the clearer becomes the message in the classroom: you
don’t belong here. It can be said with certainty that the Dalit experience of Indian classrooms is not about
flourishing but about survival.
231. Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society:
Indian classrooms operate in a largely functionalist educational culture where education hardly transcends Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Cambridge: Polity
the reproduction of existing power relations. The teachers exercise unlimited power over the knowledge Press, 1984, p. 136.
process as well as social interactions in the classroom. The ideology, curriculum, and pedagogy become
tools through which power is used to secure social control. Giddens observes that a classroom is a “power
container” in which teachers necessarily exercise “discipline through surveillance [which] is a potent
medium of generating power.”231 Gidden’s observation is apt for Indian classrooms except for the addition
that in Indian classrooms the power is often generated through surveillance of social identities rather than
persons.
Arguably, caste is the most salient social identity in Indian classrooms. It is important to recognise that caste
is concealable in nature. One cannot make out other person’s caste simply by outward appearance. It is,
therefore, possible to get by without disclosing caste on some occasions. However, caste is difficult to conceal
in the classroom. There are inherent institutional mechanisms which disclose the caste for you. The teacher,
of course, has access to a roll list with all the information related to caste and socio-economic status. Having

Yashpal Jogdand
an identity that requires a strategic consideration regarding disclosure and enactment already puts a person
under serious stress. Furthermore, the concealment of caste identity is seldom possible without dealing with
resultant sense of shame.
The surveillance of caste in Indian classrooms imposes cognitive and emotional burden on Dalits. There are,
of course, the blatant instances of untouchability as have been recorded in numerous Dalit autobiographies,
poems and short-stories. We know about the blatant instances where one is excluded and made to maintain
a physical distance in the classroom, or derogatory names and forms of address have been used, or one is
made to suffer the verbal and physical abuse. But, in order to fully make sense of the exploitation that caste
leads to, one also needs to be aware of the subtle ways through which untouchability take psychological
forms. In fact, it might be useful to make a distinction between physical and psychological untouchability.
There are several ways in which psychological distance is enforced on Dalits, or in other words, psychological 232. S. Reicher, R. Spears, and S. A. Haslam, “The Social
untouchability is practiced. I will cite three situations particularly relevant for the classroom setting. But, before Identity Approach in Social Psychology”, Sage Identities
that, a basic understanding of a social psychological approach is needed. Social psychology has been successful Handbook of Identities, eds. M. S. Wetherell and C. T.
in capturing the ways through which situations influence an individual’s cognition, emotion and behavior. Mohanty, (p. 45–62). London: Sage, 2010.
The interactionist focus on individual-social relations has allowed social psychologists to unearth mechanisms
through which social context affects the way individuals construe themselves and relate to others.
The social identity perspective in social psychology especially has shown that self rather works as a system
in which individuals construe themselves on different levels of abstraction.232 One can define oneself in
terms of an individual identity, “I” vs “you”, but it is also possible to define oneself as a member of a relevant
category, “we” vs “they”, in terms of a social identity. Both are valid and meaningful ways of defining oneself
and relating to others. Individuals often have access to plethora of social identities and different social
identities become salient in different situations depending upon different factors related to interaction
between individual and social context. As I write this, I categorise myself as an academic but when watching
a soccer match I think of myself as a fan of a soccer club. The self-construal or as social identity theorists call
it the “self-categorisation” is fluid, variable and very much depends on the context. I can be part of a physical

Yashpal Jogdand
group such as crowd at a mall but this does not mean I am psychologically involved in the group in the way I
am involved participating in a protest. In this sense, I can be a member of a certain caste in Indian society but
it does not mean that that membership is psychologically meaningful to me or that I psychologically identify
with my caste group. What my caste means to you might not mean the same thing to me. Individuals, thus,
maintain (and should be allowed to maintain) an autonomy over self-categorisation. When one is a member
of a devalued group in society autonomy over self-categorisation is often under pressure.
233. E. P. Apfelbaum, S. R. Sommers, and M. I.
The first case I want to cite is a classroom situation where reference to caste is totally avoided to appear Norton, “Seeing race and seeming racist? Evaluating
modern, unprejudiced, and fair. Taking our cue from the strategic colorblindness research, we can call this strategic colorblindness in social interaction”, Journal
a strategic casteblindness.233 The second case I want to cite is the reverse to the earlier. Social psychologists of Personality and Social Psychology, 95.4 (2008):
p. 918; M. I. Norton, S. R. Sommers, E. P. Apfelbaum,
call this the minority spotlight effect.234 This is a situation where a direct or indirect remark is made about a
N. Pura and D. Ariely, “Color blindness and interracial
social group making the group membership salient, leading those who are members of the group to feel as interaction: Playing the political correctness game”,
though all eyes are upon them, and to feel the weight of responsibility to respond on behalf of their group. Psychological Science, 17.11(2006): p. 949-953.
The third case I want to cite can be called a strategic targeting of social identity.235 In a classroom setting,
234. Jennifer Randall Crosby, Madeline King, Kenneth
a teacher can refer to a student in terms of personal identity (e.g. you are lazy, you are odd, and so on) or Savitsky, “The Minority Spotlight Effect”, Social
in terms of social identity (you Dalits are lazy, you Dalits are odd, you people are never responsible and so Psychological and Personality Science, 5.7 (2014):
on). The reference to social identity is more serious as a negative remark rather than reference to personal p. 743-750.
identity. One need not do anything to suffer the consequence. When social identity is targeted negatively, 235. Y. A. Jogdand, Humiliation: Understanding
one suffers simply because one belongs to that group and nothing else. its Nature, Experience and Consequences, Doctoral
dissertation, University of St Andrews, 2015.
All these three cases represent perils of identity that Dalits experience in the classroom and in the society. The 236. See D. W. Sue, Microaggressions in Everyday Life:
strategic casteblindness negates the historical victimisation of Dalits and suggests a psychological distance Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation, Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons, 2010.
either as objects of guilt or agents of nuisance. Both the second and third cases suggest an encroachment
upon the autonomy a Dalit individual wants to maintain over self-categorisation. To paraphrase Cornel
West, these are the situations which prick into the ontological wound of a stigmatised social identity. Dalit
litterateurs have referred (quite rightly) to these experiences as experiences of humiliation. Humiliation, in
this sense, does not remain part of institutional violence but seeps into everyday interactions in the form of
subtle microaggressions236 against Dalits. Rohith Vemula, then, does not get killed in a one-off incident but
slowly through everyday microaggressions.

Yashpal Jogdand
German Sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky’s account of “the order of terror” in the Nazi concentration camp
resonates in the Dalit experience.237 Sofsky contrasts the conditions in newly set up Dachau concentration
camp in 1933 and the conditions twelve years later in 1945 when the Forty-Second Rainbow Division of
the United States Army liberated Dachau. One of the striking things Sofsky notes is that the social relations
between Jewish prisoners and SS guards were cordial in the beginning: the guards and prisoners converse,
slip cigarettes, eat the same meal, prisoners do not have wear any uniform and are not forced to do anything
they wouldn’t otherwise do. After twenty years, this was what seen -
“The mark of starvation was on all the emaciated corpses. Many of the living were so frail it seemed
impossible they could still be holding on to life. The crematorium and torture chambers lay outside the 237. W. Sofsky, The Order of Terror: The Concentration
prisoner inclosures. Situated in a wood close by was a new building that had been built by prisoners under Camp. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
Nazi guards. Inside, in the two rooms used as torture chambers, an estimated 1,200 bodies were piled. In the 238. Sofsky, p. 4-5.
crematorium itself were hooks on which the S.S. men hung their victims when they wished to flog them or
to use any of the other torture instruments”.238 239. For an interesting discussion see S. A. Haslam and
S. Reicher, “Beyond the banality of evil: Three dynamics
of an interactionist social psychology of tyranny”,
I may be accentuating the similarity between experiencing a genocide and experiencing everyday humiliation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33.5 (2007),
But the “order of terror” in the concentration camp and the practice of psychological untouchability are p. 615-622.
equally culpable from a moral and political point of view. Importantly, one encounters the same question 240. For example, G. B. Nambissan, “Equity in
while thinking of both the contexts – how could social relations change so dramatically that it becomes education? Schooling of Dalit children in India”,
easy to humiliate and psychologically damage others? Answering this question would require an elaborate Economic and Political Weekly, (1996): pp. 1011-1024.
understanding of the psychology of tyranny and evil.239 However, for a start, we can begin with one of the
major conceptual categories that might be basic to understanding the above question: prejudice.
Prejudice as self-fulfilling prophecy
In the Indian setting, much attention is paid to examining the causes of drop-out, and low performance among
Dalit students. The experience of prejudice that Dalit students undergo is often an important explanation
given for the achievement gap between the upper caste and Dalit students.240 While it is important to focus

Yashpal Jogdand
on Dalits as victims of prejudice, it is not without its limitations. The very deployment of the concept of
prejudice in understanding caste discrimination in general and the underperformance of Dalit students
in particular seems problematic. It appears we are still following the pre-World War II conceptualization
of prejudice. Gordon Allport’s classic The Nature of Prejudice marked a fundamental paradigm shift in
understanding of prejudice.241 Before Allport’s seminal contribution, prejudice was understood in terms
of “difference”. How certain individuals and groups in society are “different” and, as a consequence, face
discrimination. Allport took a perceptual and cognitive perspective and argued that prejudice is not about
the difference but about the perception of the difference. The import of perceptual and cognitive perspectives
brought back the focus on the prejudiced perceiver from the target of prejudice. The question no longer
was how some people are different and how it constitutes a problem but how certain people are perceived
different and how such perceptions constitute a problem. Prejudice, in this sense, is about the gratuitous
perception of difference about the members of disadvantaged groups in the society. This is an important
point we should remember while thinking about caste prejudice.
The justification of humiliating others and causing moral hurt and pain depends on creating a perception 241. G. W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA:
Addison Wesley, 1954.
of difference. This perception of difference is archived through various negative stereotypes regarding
disadvantaged groups, for example the widespread notion regarding intellectual inferiority of Dalits, African
Americans and women. In the Indian setting, especially in premier educational institutions, Dalit students
are perceived as representatives of the caste system that is kept alive because of wily political leaders and
an unnecessary affirmative action policy. Dalit students, therefore, are not seen as occupying their rightful
place in the classroom but as a liability of a history and policy nobody wants to own. They are the problems
that slow the teacher down. The very presence of Dalit students in the educational institution is conceived as
illegitimate because of the marks of material extravagance such as a car or a high-level government post their
first-generation learner parents own. When Dalit students get politicised by encountering revolutionary
thinking and the struggles of Ambedkar, Phule and Marx, they become trouble makers that should be kept
at a distance. Untouchability, thus, continues if not in physical then in psychological forms.
Although Gordon Allport was right to emphasize the perceptual view of prejudice, he might have missed
the fact that prejudice sometimes can be more than a problem of perception. It can also be a problem

Yashpal Jogdand
of intention. Prejudice can be intentionally mobilised to paralyse certain people. Harsch shows that in
19th century South Africa when white colonists first discovered gold and diamonds they needed to force
black farmers to work underground.242 While colonists, then, mobilised the prejudice of the “lazy black”
who cannot maintain stewardship over the land, this proved to be a potent tool in creating a self-fulfilling
prophecy among Black farmers and finally leading to their expropriation. As social psychologist Stephen
Reicher argues, “the problem of prejudice is less that it is false than that it all too often becomes true.”243 Dalit
students live in perpetual danger of prejudice turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Recognising casteism as a major stressor

242. E. Harsch, South Africa: White Rule, Black Revolt.
We looked at how some beliefs, attitudes, institutional arrangements and acts disparage Dalits in the New York: Monad, 1979.
classroom setting as well as in society. We tried to understand how the Indian classroom works as a site of
243. S. Reicher, “Rethinking the paradigm of prejudice”,
humiliation for Dalits. We also discussed the dynamics of prejudice and microaggressions that constitute a South African Journal of Psychology, 37.4 (2007): p. 820-
serious threat to intellectual aspirations as well as psychological wellbeing among Dalit students. I think this 834. p. 825.
whole discussion points towards the urgent need to attend to the problem of casteism in Indian society. It
244. R. Clark, N. B. Anderson, V. R. Clark and D. R.
has long been recognised that racism acts as a major stressor for African Americans in the United States and Williams, “Racism as a stressor for African Americans: A
poses serious threat to various educational and mental health outcomes.244 In the Indian context, however, biopsychosocial model”, American Psychologist, 54.10
there is no clear theoretical understanding of casteism. The leaders and intellectuals have been bypassing the (1999): p. 805.
problem of casteism on both theoretical and policy levels.
The incessant caste atrocities on the one hand and the killing of Dalit minds on the other point to a moral
crisis Indian society is facing. There is a need to recognise the problem of casteism in a classroom context
and in the society at large. Apart from the robust institutional policies and practices against casteism, we
must put more intellectual energy into defining casteism and examining how it acts as a major stressor for
Dalits, how Dalits cope with this stressor, what strategies might be particularly effective in mitigating the
deleterious effects of casteism. There is, indeed, a need to develop professional resources (e.g. counselling
support, support groups) for the victims of casteism.

Yashpal Jogdand
Last, but not least, while we must develop the theory and effect policies against casteism and develop
professional resources for palliative care to the victimised individual, it is equally important that we do not
lose the wood for the trees. One needs to understand that challenging casteism also entails challenging the
very structure that produces and reproduces the caste categories and power relations. Without the broader
anti-systemic focus of caste annihilation, the palliative support for the victimised individual is like treating
symptoms rather than the disease itself. This integrated focus combining the individual mind and the
collective is important to make sense of Rohith Vemula in the collective memory of Indian society. Rohith
not only made Indian society encounter the everyday corrosion of Dalit minds but also highlighted the
need for collective resistance and young leadership. How do we, then, challenge the corrosion? How do we
facilitate participation and leadership for a better and decent society? Steve Biko emphasized the importance
of caring about the mind of the oppressed as it can become an easy target and tool for the oppressors. We can
begin by taking Biko seriously.

Hindutva and the Dalits
Anand Teltumbde
What is Hindutva? If you go by the Supreme Court of India, Hindutva is not a religion but the way of life.245
It amounts to upholding what the rightwing Hindutva forces have always been claiming and upholding
the majority communalism as secularism. Right from 1960s, the Supreme Court has strangely held that
Hinduism was no religion but a way of life.246 When challenged recently after 21 years, the seven-judge
bench of the Supreme Court refused to revisit the verdict to reconsider its 1995 judgement. So much for our
so-called secular polity!
245. J. S. Verma, heading a three-judge Bench of
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the progenitor of the term, in his first pamphlet Essentials of Hindutva written the apex court delivered what came to be known as
‘Hindutva’ judgment on 11 December 1995.
in 1923,247 regarded Hinduism as an ethnic, cultural and political identity of the people living in the
subcontinent and not a religion. Hindus, according to Savarkar, are those who consider India to be the land 246. The Constitution Bench Judgments of the Supreme
in which their ancestors lived, as well as the land in which their religion originated. He advocated creation Court in the cases of Yagnapurushadji (1966 (3) SCR
242) and later in the case of Sridharan (1976 (4) SCC
of a Hindu state in that sense.248 Savarkar included all Indian religions within “Hinduism” and outlined his 489).
vision of a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu Nation) as “Akhand Bharat” (Undivided India), stretching across the
entire Indian subcontinent.249 247. Later reprinted as Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? in
1928.
248. Peter Lyon, Conflict between India and Pakistan: an
Savarkar’s criteria at the least exclude Muslims and Christians as the non-Hindus, the other because they encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2008, p. 75.
would not consider India as their holy land. The majority population in order to establish its rule always
coopts minorities or invokes nationalism. It is extremely unfortunate that the Supreme Court should 249. Fifth Edition 1969, p. 91 (Internet Archive PDF).
interpret Hindutva as a way of life and not an essence of the Hindu religion. Rather, there is nothing like
Hindu religion itself according to the Supreme Court; Hinduism being just the way of life! As a matter of
fact, it should have gone further with its logic and said that there is nothing like even a Hindu, which is the
name given by the outsiders to the people living across the river Sindhu. Internally, peoples’ identity has
been jatis and upjatis. The Hindu as such may just be the identity of the upper castes and Hinduism their
way of life; not of the lower strata, the Dalits. The entire imagery of Savarkar is controversial as it belongs
exclusively to Brahmins and may not even be owned up by the entire dwija (that is, ‘twice-born’ or upper)
castes.

Anand Teltumbde
The Hindutva Vision
The vision of Hindutva has been to restore India’s imagined past glory, despite a history of conquests that
belies this claim. The notion of rashtra (nation) could only germinate during colonial rule with the advent
of capitalism. By the nineteenth century, with the supremacy of British rule firmly established, the English-
educated upper-caste Hindus realized the superiority of western society and the weakness and decay of
their own. Christian missionaries had already spread among the masses by opening schools, hospitals, and
orphanages. Their professional zeal, method of argument and polemical literature induced an inferiority
complex and impelled a section of the upper castes to start reforms within the Hindu society. Two streams
emerged: the modernists who saw the roots of decay in certain traditions, belief and practices of the Hindu
society and wanted to discard them; and the revivalists who saw them in the loss of self-confidence of
the Hindus and wanted to revive their own heritage. Brahmo Samaj and Prarthana Samaj exemplify the
modernists, and the Ramkrishna-Vivekanand and Arya Samaj, the revivalists.
The Arya Samaj with its aggressive stance on shuddhikaran (purification) and Veda-based Hinduism proved
more influential. Shuddhikaran referred to bringing back people of other religions to Hinduism, as though
the other religions were impure. It projected itself as sans caste and hence attracted many low-caste people
towards them. When Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, died in 1893, some prominent
Arya Samajists in Punjab launched Hindu Sabhas, which soon spread to every one of its districts. This
network was the precursor of the Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha (BHM) founded in 1915. Realizing that not
much would be accomplished through open politics, they launched another organization called Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in central India to work as a cultural organization. However, in its form as well
as content, it was organized on militaristic lines.
Initially, perhaps the Sangh Parivar or the Hindutva family of organizations had a militarist dream of creating
a civil war to capture power and denigrate India’s Constitution and parliamentary institutions. But to their
dismay, constitutional democracy, whatever its infirmities, has settled in the country. Realizing that its goal
could not be achieved by any other means than following the constitutional path, the Sangh Parivar then floated

Anand Teltumbde
the political party, Bharatiya Jan Sangh, within the very framework of the Indian Constitution which they had
denounced. They reconciled themselves to the fact that they would need to change the Constitution and for that
secure the requisite votes. The Constitution could not obstruct their misdemeanor as evidenced by the post-
2014 happenings which have given the Indian people a fair idea of what the Hindu Rashtra will contain.
Hindu Rashtra
What will the Hindu Rashtra be like? It will mean restoring the classical Hindu social order (HSO). While it
is neither possible nor necessary to revive the old HSO characterized by the graded inequality of numerous
castes, most of them confined within a closed unit of a village, nevertheless the ethos of the system can be
brought back. This is feasible by creating an elitist paradigm, wherein a few can be all-powerful while the rest
are restricted to their assigned positions in a neo-caste system.
250. See Ministry of Human Resource Development,
Govt of India, Some Inputs for Draft National Education
Contrary to the habitual claims that India is a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, the reality Policy 2016, http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/
has been exactly opposite. What lies beneath the façade of democracy is rather functional plutocracy. From mhrd/files/nep/Inputs_Draft_NEP_2016.pdf
the 1990s onward, with the curtain on the state’s pretentions to welfare falling, the policy stance of the state
became social Darwinist. Social spending progressively reduced, unleashing increasingly severe crises while
the state’s repressive power correspondingly grew to thwart any resistance. On all basic parameters such as
education, health, jobs, livelihood and security, the exclusion created by means of secular policy is no less
dire than that which existed in classical castes. Already, in the New Education Policy that is being currently
talked about, vocational training for the masses combined with higher education only for the upper classes
is indicative of what is in store in the Hindu Rashtra.250
Hindu Social Order (HSO) and the Dalits
Dalits constitute the base of the pyramid of the HSO. They are its analogue; the HSO cannot be imagined
without the Dalits. Classically speaking, while their place within it is indeterminate, they still constitute its

Anand Teltumbde
pivot both in hegemonic as well as problematic terms. The Hindu hegemony over the Dalit universe is claimed
and seen in the extension of the caste system and its hierarchical culture among the Dalits, whereas the
problematic of the Dalits arises out of the impermeable divide within the Chaturvarna structure between
the varna society and the non-varna Dalits, which is only bridged by the relationship of exploitation. Of
course, the non-Hindu minorities, especially Muslims, serve as the concrete other, but what lies at the root
of their otherness is their dalithood: it is embedded into the Hindu psyche that the Muslims and Christians
were the converts from the lower strata and symbolized the revolt against the HSO. This classical view may
not be revived because it would amount to reversal of history of the previous two centuries. The “other” is
not an essential part of the pyramid which was self-contained as such, but, in the present context, it serves 251. On the one hand, Hindu is determined on the
the purpose of shaping the pyramid. Eventually for the RSS, these “others” may have to find their place in criteria of Pitrubhu (father land) and Punyabhu (holy
land), thereby excluding the Muslims, Christians etc. on
the pyramid of the HSO as Mohammadi Hindus or Christi Hindus. Likewise, the pyramid is not necessarily account of their holy lands being outside India, on the
rigid and ritualistically ordained. It could be constructed with the brick and mortar of secular policies as it other hand, the Hindutva protagonists claim that they
approximately exists today. The Hindutva forces envisage the elimination of the rhetoric that got associated are prepared to accept Muslims or Christians if they
with constitutional equality and social justice. consider India to be their only land as Muslims Hindus
or Christian Hindus.
Hindutva refers to the cultural substratum that supposedly unifies the Indian subcontinent, which sometimes 252. The Mulnivasi movement of BAMCEF (All India
Backward and Minority Communities Employees
is stretched by Hindutva enthusiasts to include large parts of central and the far eastern Asian countries Federation), an organization of employees from
such as Thailand and Cambodia. Notwithstanding the enormous problems with this construction, the least Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other
being its gross anachronism and a-historicism, it awkwardly attempts to transcend the structural divisions Backward Classes (OBC) and Minority Communities in
of the Hindu society which are sanctified by the Hindu faith as of divine origin, and assimilates as Hindus India) for instance; and the entire Aryan theory of races
all those Indians who are not Muslims,251 Christians, Jews, and such others whose religions are born outside propounded by many of the early Hindutva proponents
like Tilak.
Hindustan. Hindutva thus gets better defined by its ‘“others” than what it claims as its own. Dalits and
tribals, who historically have not been a part of this Hindu fold, certainly can be viewed as an obstacle.
Likewise, even the religions of Indian origin, like Buddhism, and many a sect which did not evolve into a
religion but has a sizeable following among Indians, have come into being through ideological dispute with
Brahmanism—the real name of Hinduism—and hence cannot be bracketed within it. Adopting a fraction of
anachronism that Hindutva embodied, Dalits and tribals can easily counterclaim, as sections of them have
already begun doing, that they are the original inhabitants of this land and all others are outsiders.252

Anand Teltumbde
Hindutva has created a political cultural crisis among people by polarizing society into “us” and “them” and
hegemonising the cultural multifariousness of the people. However, this is not to say that the entire venom
is contained within them. The shattering of faith of these minority communities in the innate goodness
of Indians by itself is bad enough, but the negative externality it creates for the Dalits is much worse as it
creates the false consciousness of inclusion of an other while in reality perpetuating its exclusion. Hindutva
intoxicates Dalits to raise weapons against their class allies by depicting them as the “enemy” so that Dalits
get effectively trapped between the warring communities: as a face of Hindutva to religious minorities, and as
the lowly aliens to the Hindus. In the laboratory of Gujarat, the first experiments have amply demonstrated
this poignant fate of the Dalits. While they were the only other community to have suffered seriously during
these experiments, they were also exposed in the media as culprits. Muslims saw them as the “enemy” but
nothing changed for them on the side of Hindus; they remained the same outcastes in the Hindu societal
structure as vividly shown by the Una incident and the Dalit agitation thereafter.
Foundation of the RSS and Hindutva Politics
The Hedgewar phase of the RSS focused on establishing shakhas, starting the shakha training in militarist
discipline and pedagogy-based political discourses called bouddhiks (intellectual sessions). The constitution
of the RSS claimed that the Sangh had no politics and it was devoted to purely cultural work. Unlike the
Hindu Mahasabha, its precursor, the RSS remained aloof from active politics and concentrated on cadre
building for years. The self-proclaimed apolitical character of the RSS was a deliberate subterfuge to stay
away from the anti-imperialist struggle that was stirring the country and thereby did not antagonize the
colonial powers. Its vision of a Hindu Rashtra was itself a political statement.
The origin of communal organizations, both of the Hindus and the Muslims, can be traced to colonial
intrigues. In the 1880s, the British encouraged the formation of the United India Patriotic Association
(UIPA). This was an organization of the declining classes of landlords, kings and other nobility belonging
to both communities. The UIPA resolved to cultivate Indian loyalty to the British crown and later served
the colonial policy of divide and rule by giving way to the Muslim League on the one side and the Hindu

Anand Teltumbde
Mahasabha and the RSS on the other. The RSS was, in fact, formed as a rightwing response to the nationalist
mass upsurge against the Rowlatt Act 1919. It was also a response to the non-cooperation movement, the
emergence of a working class movement with the founding of the All India Trade Union Congress in 1920,
the rise of several communist groups and workers and peasants’ parties and most importantly, the rise of the
anti-caste Dalit movement.253
This apolitical mask was soon discarded after the takeover of the RSS by M. S. Golwalkar. The RSS articulated
a discernible fascist form of politics and began practicing it. Hindutva’s fascist character comes as its birth
mark. After the fall of the Peshavas, the Brahmin rulers of Pune, the entire Brahmin establishment in
Maharashtra was eager to regain its lost kingdom. The spurt of rebellions by Pune Chitpawans (Brahman
sub-caste of the Peshavas) against the British can be easily traced to this motive. Although they were
glorified as anti-colonial revolutionary struggles by their caste-men, their content could only be classed as 253. Anand Teltumbde, “Hindu Fundamentalist Politics
in India: the alliance with the American Empire in
conservative. History shows that the Brahmins from Pune and later Maharashtra were in search of a model South Asia”, Empire and Neoliberalism, ed. Vedi R. Hadiz,
of conservative revolution. They found it in the form of fascism in Italy. The glee with which they received it London and New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 251.
is seen overflowing in the Marathi press of those days which was totally in their control.
254. Ram Puniyani, “From Culture to Politics: RSS bares
its fangs”, The Milli Gazette, September 19, 2003.
Golwalkar’s hatred for minorities and communists came out transparently through his books. His
appreciation for the eternal relevance of the laws of Manu is a clear pointer to the status of the Dalits and
women in the RSS vision of India. It was from the Golwalkar era that, rather than direct political activity,
the RSS emphasized the infiltration of its trained volunteers into bureaucracy, army and media.254 It is a
well-known fact that the RSS did not recognize the national flag, the Constitution of India, or any of the
State symbols or insignia or even an institution like the parliament of Independent India until it realized
their instrumental importance in accomplishing its goal. The RSS never hid its dislike for the Constitution
and wanted it to be replaced by Manusmriti, which was burnt by Babasaheb Ambedkar as the source text
for the enslavement of the Dalits. When the Constituent Assembly had finalized the Constitution of India,
the RSS organ, Organizer, in an editorial dated November 30, 1949 titled as “Constitution” complained
that there was no mention of Manu’s Laws, “the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat”. It
said, “To this day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit
spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing.” RSS has also

Anand Teltumbde
openly opposed the other principles enshrined in the Constitution: Democracy, secularism, federalism.255 Its
opposition to communism, socialism, and the Constitution of India basically reflects its hatred for equality,
which has been the mainstay of the Dalit movement.
Strategic Shift
After Golwalkar’s death in 1973, Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras alias Balasaheb Deoras took over as the
Sarsanghchalak or the head of RSS. While Golwalkar consolidated the RSS ideologically and organizationally,
it was Deoras which gave it clear strategic direction towards its goal. Until then, the attitude of the RSS towards
the Dalits and Ambedkar was largely indifferent. It remained content wooing the non-Ambedkarite Dalits.
Ambedkar’s lifelong vitriolic criticism of Hinduism and his eventual exit from the Hindu fold along with his
followers was the formidable barriers for the RSS to transcend. Of course, it may deny that the RSS had burnt
Ambedkar’s effigy in 1949 for his attempt to bring forth the Hindu code bills. By the time Deoras took over
the RSS, the Dalit movement had lost its ideological and organization cohesion and became available for the
Hindutva overtures. It is during this time that Ambedkar was included among the RSS’s pratahsmaraniya
(to be remembered at the daybreak) and after some time the launch of the Samajik Samrasata Manch (Social
Harmony Platform) in 1983. Under Deoras, the RSS began publication of simplified versions of its ideology 255. Shamsul Islam, Untouchables in Manu’s India, New
Delhi: Media House, 2002, p. 22.
and literature for the masses in the form of comic books, posters, postcards, inland letter cards, etc. The
propaganda to project Ambedkar as the savior of Hindus, Buddhism as a sect of Hinduism, Ambedkar as
being friends with Hedgewar and Golwalkar, and praising the RSS, was constructed and unleashed during
this period. Deoras clearly saw the path of reaching the goal of Hindu Rashtra going through electoral
politics and hence the importance of appealing to all sections of people. He took a deeper interest in politics
than any of his predecessors. He supported the anti-Indira Gandhi movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan
and paved the way for BJP to grab political power.
The RSS has come a long way in its approach to the Dalits and quite successfully insofar as its electoral
success indicates. Without compromising its ideology, it has adjusted its communication strategy to score
huge gains. Initially, it targeted the upwardly mobile Dalits with the samrasata (harmony) strategy, which

Anand Teltumbde
worked to transcend the ideological barrier between the Ambedkarite Dalits and the RSS. The resultant
ideological confusion facilitated opportunist Dalit leaders to justify their moving towards the Hindutva camp
with concocted slogans like Shivshakti+Bhimshakti=Deshbhakti256 in the Ambedkarite den of Maharashtra.
Through such turncoats, they began wooing larger Dalit masses. Aggressive appropriation of Ambedkar as a
saffron icon and its samrasata idiom, in the face of confused responses from the Congress, the struggle-worn
and crisis-ridden Dalits find themselves sans option and increasingly fall prey to Hindutva overtures. Either
way, they would not discern the difference between equality and harmony; abolition of untouchability and
annihilation of castes or between an iconoclast Ambedkar and an iconised Ambedkar. For the opportunist
middle classes of the Dalits, the BJP appears to offer better deals (posts, recognitions and awards) than the
Congress ever did.257
What Hindutva abolishes is what is already abolished. The abominable practice of untouchability that
Hindutva shouts against is already done away with in the law. Every committed Hindu from Vivekananda 256. Shiva power plus Ambedkarite power equals
patriotism.
to Gandhi wanted untouchability to be abolished but at the same time struggled to justify the caste system.
Hindutva does not transcend this orthodox Hindu stand. When it talks about caste, it is never unequivocal; 257. For instance, it has awarded padmashrees
it never reflects the gravity of the vexatious problem of the persistence of castes. Castes are a virtual reality for (national honours) to all prominent members of the
Hindutva. They just need to be assumed away and do not need to be struggled against. Hindutva therefore Dalit India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI)
in 2015.
does not need to understand them, or to see material contradictions underneath them, nor does it require
any programme on the ground to fight them and it does not believe in annihilating them. By implication,
all the anti-caste movements in history down to those of Phule, Periyar and Ambedkar are considered
misconceived and are reduced to the state of redundancy. If castes could be cast away simply by wishing so,
then why would one need to wage battles against them! Paradoxically, the trap is embellished with a high-
pitched rhetoric of adulation to the icons of Dalits such as Mahatma Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar and
also with allurement of Sanskritization and even material benefit to the Dalits.

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Hindutva in the Neoliberal Order
The Hindutva-neoliberal order represents a resonance of the native and global rightist ideologies. On the
ideological plane, there is striking congruence between the two: both are creeds premised on inequality as
natural, both swear by liberty but grant it in a calibrated manner to their elites and none to the lowly, both
dismiss fraternity as an unnatural and useless value, both are based on individualism, competition and
the rule of the free market, and both share convictions of social Darwinism. The causal linkage between
neoliberalism and resurgence of religious fundamentalism, observed all over the world, may be explained
in terms of the vulnerability of individuals to comprehend and face the impending crisis of livelihood, both
consequences of neoliberalism, impelling her/him to seek the support of occult power. This manifests itself
as intense religiosity which easily slips into fundamentalism.
While the correlation between the advent of neoliberal policies in the country and resurgence of the Hindutva
forces may be difficult to establish, empirically it can be easily seen that neoliberal globalization considerably
helped the Hindutva forces to rise. One of the factors was the rise of the Indian diaspora in the esteem of
the Americans. Globalization created huge opportunities for Indian companies and managerial talent. There
was a significant rise in Indian professionals taking up jobs in US multinationals. Another opportunity came
in the form of making the IT systems compatible for the transition to the year 2000, popularly known as
the Y2K problem. Piggy-backing on success in these projects, Indian IT professionals gained recognition
in the US. At the same time, many Indians suddenly and visibly moved up the corporate ladder of global
conglomerate and academic departments in the hallowed universities of the US. This spurred the upper
-caste society to take pride in their identity as Indians and Hindus. They tended to attribute backwardness
of the country to the “socialist” policies of the Nehruvian Congress party and the reservation policies that,
according to them, devalued “merit”. Until then they had been socialized to find fault with their religion,
customs and traditions but now, as though with vengeance, they began openly brandishing them. Until
1980s, to speak in justification of castes, religious traditions or occult practices would be taken as a sign of
backwardness but not anymore. The people began openly upholding everything in their past and publicly
exhibiting their Hindu identity with ash marks on their forehead or vermilion threads on their wrist. The
Hindutva forces came in handy for them to identify with. They formed a massive support base of the BJP

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abroad and fed it with finances and networking. As the elite class of immigrants, they exerted significant
influence in their countries of residence as well. This revivalist trend was certainly detrimental to the Dalits,
which is reflected in the sudden spurt in the statistics of anti-Dalit atrocities from 1990 onwards.
BJP’s “Dalit Strategy”
BJP’s dazzling performance in the 2014 elections was the result of the combination of multiple factors: the
listless performance of the UPA II government, the explosion of a series of corruption scandals during its
rule, the unprecedented void of leadership in the Congress, the aggressive projection of Modi as the architect
of a Gujarat model of development, the rousing oratory of Modi, deft management of alliance partners by
the BJP, cooptation and induction of many Dalit leaders, dampening the communal rhetoric, projection of
development as the election issue, and a well-oiled communication strategy.258
258. Many of these were heavily rooted in the specific
context of the unusual situation, which may not recur
again in the singular combination. And still, the BJP
The Indian elections are tricky for parties because of the first-past-the-post type of election system. The target could barely reach the 31.3% vote share.
of the Hindu Rashtra appears closer than ever before so as to enthuse the Sangh Parivar to try its best to scale
beyond this vote share. Any incremental vote share would get it closer to its dream state. The prerequisite for the
accomplishment of the goal is a minimum on two-thirds of the seats in both houses of the Parliament so as to
amend the Constitution. The Sangh Parivar has prepared the political climate in aggressive manner through its
hydra-headed organization. Ghar Wapsi (reconversion to Hinduism), Love Jihad (the claim that Muslim boys
are conducting jihad by seducing and converting Hindu girls), Bahu Lao, Beti Bachao (a counter campaign to
bring more non-Hindus into Hinduism through marriage and to save Hindu daughters from Love Jihad); Gau
Raksha (cow protection), were taken up by Bajrang Dal (their monkey brigade) to seed the atmosphere. The
strategy incorporates silent retreat in case of misfired execution: if it succeeds, it is to the credit of the Hindutva
forces but if it fails, it can always be disowned. Each of these stratagems, although not always directed at the
Dalits, has proved damaging to them. The atmosphere it creates reinforces the Hindu consciousness which is
directly contradictory to the Dalit consciousness. Gau Raksha has led to actual killings of the Dalits.

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On 15 October 2002, a Dussera day, five Dalits were lynched, their eyes gouged, bodies mutilated, and set
on fire by a Hindutva mob before the police personnel of the Dulina Police station in Haryana merely on
suspicion of killing a cow. They were carrying dead cattle in a tempo as their business to Karnal. The next day,
the VHP and the Bajrang Dal conducted out a victory procession in Jhajjar, in which the people responsible
for the killing of the Dalits were lauded. Instead of expressing remorse, the senior vice-president of the
VHP, Acharya Giriraj Kishore defended the action, quoting Hindu scriptures to say that the life of a cow
was more precious than that of a human being. In all, 32 persons were arrested but all were released on bail
within three months. Fourteen years later, in 2016 a similar incident occurred in Mota Samdhiyala village in
Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Some people claiming to be members of Gau Rakshak Samiti flogged a Dalit
family and dragged four of its youth tying them to the rear of a car to Una town where they flogged them for
hours in full public view. Confident that they would never be punished, they filmed it and spread it online.
The viral video led to spontaneous Dalit mobilization in protest and formed Una Dalit Atyachar Ladat
Samiti to spearhead the movement. The Gau Raksha campaign of the Hindutva forces directly hits 2.5 lakh
Dalits engaged with the leather industry and the ban on beef eating hits their food security. Beef has been
the affordable protein source for Dalits, other meats and lentils being out of their reach. The already severely
protein deprived Dalits would be grievously hit by this Hindutva obsession.
Deification of Ambedkar
The Sangh Parivar has been deifying Ambedkar with Goebbels-like zeal. The exercise is aimed at impressing
the gullible Dalits that the Parivar is the biggest Ambedkar Bhakt around, not knowing that Ambedkar
disliked Bhaktas. One of the first acts of the Modi government was to announce a series of Ambedkar
memorials perhaps to provide cover of justification for the Dalit leaders who did a great somersault from
their Ambedkarite positions in joining the Hindutva forces before the last elections. It bought the house in
London where Ambedkar stayed as a student of London School of Economics and make it an International
Memorial. It laid the foundation stone for the Ambedkar Convention Center in Lutyen’s Delhi and a grand
Ambedkar Memorial at 26 Alipur Road, where he stayed and breathed his last. It also cleared the Indu Mills
site in Mumbai for a huge memorial with the grandest Ambedkar statue, the world’s tallest, to overwhelm

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the Arabian Sea. Besides, it has made a blanket declaration that wherever Ambedkar set his foot would
be memorialized in a grand manner. Modi declared 2016 as the celebration of the 125th anniversary of
Ambedkar. RSS has taken out special issues of its organs, Organiser and Panchjanya, overtly saffronizing
Ambedkar by distorting the facts or even resorting to outright lies.
The Panchjanya issue, for instance, commences with hyperbolic and effusive praise for Ambedkar as “a
great leader who sought to organize and strengthen society on the basis of social harmony”, subtly invoking 259. Ambedkar, B. R., Philosophy of Hinduism in
Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 3, ed.
their samrasata idiom. Forgotten is the fact that not many years ago, Arun Shourie’s Worshipping False
Vasant Moon, Mumbai: Government of Maharashtra
God had vilified him as a traitor, and as a supporter of Pakistan. Another article said, “He pointed out that Press, 1998, p. 66.
till Hindu society is organized, justice and humanity will not be worshipped and till then independence
260. Ibid., p. 87.
is incomplete.” It did not matter that Ambedkar never said it. What he said was, “Hinduism is inimical to
equality, antagonistic to liberty and opposed to fraternity.”259 He also said, “Inequality is the soul of Hinduism. 261. Ibid., p. 77.
The morality of Hinduism is only social. It is unmoral and inhuman to say the least.”260 According to another 262. Bhimrao Bhosale, “Enlightened Thinker, Revisiting
article, Ambedkar wrote that the Hindu religion believes every man is a microcosm of the divine and every Ambedkar”, Organiser (Collector’s Edition) April 2015,
man is entitled to dignity. In fact, Ambedkar was very conscious of the insidious character of the Hindu p. 78.
religion, as he wrote, 263. Ahir, D. C., ‘Dr Ambedkar‘s Pilgrimage to Buddhism’
Dr Ambedkar, Buddhism and Social Change, ed. A.K.
Narain and D.C. Ahir, New Delhi: B.R. Publishing
Hinduism is not interested in the common man. Hinduism is not interested in society as a whole. Corporation, 1994, p. 8.
The centre of its interest lies in a class and its philosophy is concerned in sustaining and supporting
the rights of that class. That is why in the philosophy of Hinduism, the interests of the common man 264. Organizer., op. cit., p. 19.
as well as of society are denied, suppressed and sacrificed to the interest of this class of Superman.261 265. David Smith, Hinduism and Modernity, Oxford:
John Wiley & Sons, 2008, p. 197.
Likewise, the English language organ of the RSS, Organiser, assimilated the value systems of Hinduism, Buddhism
and democracy into an indissoluble whole,262 which directly contradicted Ambedkar who citing four tests for a
religion, observed that only Buddhism could satisfy all these tests, and it is the only religion the world can have.263
At the height of falsehood, the Organiser declared that Ambedkar was a follower of Ram,264 not knowing the fact
that in his Riddles in Hinduism Ambedkar terms Rama’s decapitation of a Shambuka for practising asceticism
as “the worst crime that history has ever recorded.”265 Another white lie is about Ambedkar having promised

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Gandhi that he would leave Hindu Dharma but would see to it that the least damage was done, and that when
he embraced Buddhist faith in Deekshabhumi, Nagpur on October 1956, he said, ‘I had kept my promise to
Gandhiji.”266 Neither in Gandhi’s nor Ambedkar’s writings, could one find a mention of this.
Demonising Radical Dalits
On the one hand, the Hindutva camp is desperate in appropriating Ambedkar to woo Dalits but, on the
other, it is out to brutally suppress the radical voices of the Dalit youth. The issue of scores of Dalit youth
being incarcerated in jails with false cases is rendered opaque by the state propaganda that they were
Maoists. Although the Maoist Party is outlawed by the government, the Supreme Court has clearly stated
that following Maoist ideology or belonging to the Maoist Party does not itself constitute crime until the
subject person commits it. Yet, the state uses the label of Maoist with impunity to curb any dissent. Being a
Maoist is a mental state, a matter of belief. When the Constitution proclaims fundamental freedom of belief
and respects it in the cases of regressive ideas and divisive creeds like Hindutva, how could mere beliefs in
Maoism that speaks of emancipation of the masses, even with violent revolution, be unlawful?
Universities are special targets of the Hindutva forces since they are the breeding grounds for critical
thinking which is inimical to the demagogic Hindutva. These forces has variously saffronized universities
by installing their own people in important posts so as to curb radical voices. Dalit students who tend to
think differently, especially of those who are critical of the government policies, are particularly marked
as they could potentially obliterate the Hindutva investment in Dalits. The Hindu right aims for campuses
to be progressively hegemonized by their student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The 266. Organiser, op. cit., p. 58.
Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has been overtly managing these efforts.

Anand Teltumbde
New Dalit Resistance
Hindutva is not to be exclusively associated with the Sangh Parivar although it has been its progenitor and
vocal promoter. The Congress which always rhetorically projected itself to be a secular party may rather be
found to be responsible for the rise of Hindutva in the country. In its early days, all the BHM members were
also active members of the Congress. Still others reflected similar orientation. The militant camp within the
Congress represented by Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal (Lal, Bal, Pal) could
be identified as the source of Hindu nationalism, later articulated by the Sangh Parivar. When India became
independent, it was the Congress which saw to it that caste and religion, which were the most potent weapons
to divide the masses, were not discarded but were rather given a new lease of life in the constitutional polity.
In the recent upsurge of Hindutva, as discussed above, it was Rajiv Gandhi who could be seen having paved
the way for the Ram Mandir movement by the Hindutva forces. In the subsequent demolition of the Babri
Mosque in Ayodhya, P. V. Narasimha Rao, a Congressman and the then Prime Minister had played a complicit
role. As a matter of fact, the supporters of Hindutva could be found across the political spectrum. 267. The atrocity statistics compiled and published by
the National Crime Research Bureau (NCRB) clearly
show certain correlation between the rise of Hindutva
The Dalit struggle for emancipation is verily pitched against Hindutva, which, howsoever it is camouflaged, and the caste crime against the Dalits.
cannot be separated from Hinduism and its necessary ingredient, casteism. Thus, every buildup of Hindutva
among the masses eventually manifests itself in atrocities on the Dalits.267 The predominant mode of the
Dalit struggle since the days of Ambedkar has been religio-cultural, mainly challenging scriptural Hinduism.
While it might have been pertinent in the beginning when the practice of castes was still sourced from
the customs and traditions largely rooted in religion, this is no more the case when the castes have been
replanted in the soil of a modern polity the roots of which are in economic relationships. As such, a new
mode of struggle needs to be articulated which would respond to the new reality. The protest against the Una
flogging of four Dalits has been successful in eschewing the identitarian stereotype of the Dalit movement
and in creatively articulating its demand so as to hit at the economic interests of the larger community
as well as that of the state: the protesters declared that the Dalits would stop all their caste callings that
brought them humiliation and atrocities. In translation, they threw the cattle carcasses in the compounds
of the collectorates and stopped lifting dead cattle, thereby waking up the state as well as the caste Hindu
communities to the impending consequences. They demanded five acres of land for each family as the

Anand Teltumbde
means of livelihood when they stop their caste calling. It was an effective answer to Modi’s formulation that
the Dalits did scavenging not for economic compulsion but for spiritual reasons; he wrote in a book titled
Karmayoga printed in 2007, which in a way reflects what the Sangh Parivar thinks about the plights of the
Dalits:
“I do not believe that they have been doing this job just to sustain their livelihood. Had this been so,
they would not have continued with this type of job generation after generation.” He adds, “At some
point of time, somebody must have got the enlightenment that it is their (Valmikis’) duty to work
for the happiness of the entire society and the Gods; that they have to do this job bestowed upon
them by Gods; and that this job of cleaning up should continue as an internal spiritual activity for
centuries. This should have continued generation after generation. It is impossible believe that their
ancestors did not have the choice of adopting any other work or business”.268
268. Five thousand copies of the book was printed by
the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, a state PSU
The Una struggle has caught the imagination of the Dalit youth all over the country. It portends real resistance
in November 2007 but was not publicly distributed
to Hindutva, because it is the Dalits alone who can stop it in its tracks. because of the negative commentary it evoked. Rajiv
Shah, “Modi’s Spiritual Potion to Woo Karmayogis”,
Times of India, Dec. 1, 2012.

Caste Analytics, ‘Hindu-Muslim’ Conflict and Intolerance
Khalid Anis Ansari
The endemic nature of quotidian caste atrocity and episodic inter-religious communal violence, and especially
its effect on women, has historically assumed an air of eerie obviousness in the popular imagination in
India. Yet the phrase “rising intolerance” employed in recent discussions indicates a dramatic escalation of
various manifestations of violence, especially since the right-wing BJP captured power in 2014. The murders
of rationalists, the lynching of Dalits and Muslims on the pretext of saving the cow, the crackdown on
dissenting student voices from marginalized sections or radical political traditions and the general culture 269. Broadly, the population of India is divided, in
of fear generated in the public sphere are unprecedented. How does one account for this contemporary rage terms of religion, into the majority Hindu community
and violence? (about 80%) and the religious minorities like Muslims,
Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, etc. which constitute
the remainder. Muslims, who constitute around 14% of
I would tentatively engage with this question by advancing two lines of argument. First, in India the “social”, present India’s population of about 1.21 billion, are the
configured primarily in terms of caste, is the key storehouse of power. One may locate the contemporary most significant minority numerically. Further, most
religious collectivities, including Muslims, are internal
rage and intolerance in the dislocations within the social due to the sedimentation of neo-liberal and
divided into various caste groups. In fact, The “People
democratic discourses. Second, there is rising intolerance across faith traditions. Since caste is not merely a of India Project” has identified about 4635 caste
Hindu phenomenon but constitutes the specific South Asian sociality that cuts across faiths269, the ruptures communities in India (Singh, 1995).
in the social affect all religious collectivities. While the competitive nature of inter-religious violence or 270. B. R. Ambedkar, “Dr Ambedkar at the Round Table
communalism, which often foregrounds “majority-minority” or “Hindutva-Islamism” duopolies, is often Conferences: In the Plenary Session — 5th sitting
the object of most enquiries, I would suggest that one also needs to retrieve the symbiotic and co-constitutive (20. 11. 1930)”, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings
nature of contending communalisms as restorative attempts to preserve the de facto law of caste by elites and Speeches Vol. 2, ed. Vasant Moon, New Delhi: Dr
across religions. Ambedkar Foundation, 1982, 2014th ed., pp. 503–509.
p. 506
-I-
Caste in South Asia has been a key mode of exclusion that has hitherto governed the distribution of power
and resources. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the foremost anti-caste theoretician and leader, termed the caste system
Brahmanism and articulated it as a system of graded inequality that entailed “a gradation of castes forming
an ascending scale of reverence and a descending scale of contempt.”270 It is a system of ranked differences
where the four major status groups or varnas—Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas
(merchants), Shudras (labourers/artisans)—are hierarchically arranged in terms of purity and pollution, with

Khalid Anis Ansari
Brahmins being considered ritually the purest. There is also a fifth group of avarnas/panchamas/atishudra,
now popularly recognized as Dalits, which comprise the formerly untouchables and are technically outside
the fourfold caste order. Adding to the complexity of social stratification, each of these broad normative
categories is further differentiated internally into endogamous and hereditary occupational groups termed
jatis. In practice, jatis are probably the more functional and easily identifiable units, even when their textual
hierarchy is often complicated, subverted and redefined daily in the political.
It is tempting to see the varna-jati complex, or the Brahminical caste system, as a division of labour but
Ambedkar insists on its specificity: “caste system is not merely division of labour”, or even that of labourers:
“it is a hierarchy in which the divisions of labourers are graded one above the other. In no other country is
the division of labour accompanied by this gradation of labourers.”271 In this system, the shudras/atishudras/
women constitute the mass bulk of working class and face immense restrictions on commensality and
social intercourse. The subordinated castes and women were historically debarred from seeking knowledge,
accumulating property or acquiring armaments and were disciplined through a religiously sanctioned 271. B. R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, The Essential
culture of shaming, humiliation and even brute violence when necessary. The three key determinants of Writings of B. R. Ambedkar, ed. V. Rodrigues, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 263-305, p. 263.
power—knowledge, wealth and violence—were monopolized by the three higher varnas and were critical
to their control of productive and sexual economy. Broadly, the caste system has worked to the advantage of
the higher castes, which constitute a minority, about twenty percent, of the population at the expense of the
vast majority of subordinated caste groups.
As an enduring effect of orientalist discourse, caste has been usually framed as a Hindu phenomenon but
empirically it has organized social life in all religious traditions—including Islam and Christianity—in India.
For instance, among Muslims three kinds of status groups can be identified: One, those who trace their
origin to foreign lands and the converts from Hindu higher castes (ashraf); two, the converts from clean
occupational castes (ajlaf); and three, the converts from the formerly untouchable (Dalit) castes (arzal).
Moreover,
the Ashraf constitute the highest stratum within this structure. Their position and rank within

Khalid Anis Ansari
the Muslim caste system is almost identical with that which the Brahman and Kshatriya grouped
together are granted in the Hindu caste hierarchy. Thus, both the Sayyad and Shaikh, as competent
religious pedagogues and priests, are almost identical with the Brahman; whereas both the Mughal
and Pathan, being famous for their chivalry, appear to be equal to the Kshatriya.272
The ashrafs, ajlafs and arzals are further internally differentiated into various ranked, occupational and
endogamous groups like julahas (weavers), mansooris (cotton carders), telis (oil pressers), saifis (carpenters),
bakhos (gypsies), and so on. Muslims usually use the term zaat or biradari for referring to caste and there
are about 705 such groups.273 While there are grounds for the hegemonic normative distinction between
Hinduism as hierarchy and Islam/Christianity as egalitarian traditions to be reopened from the vantage point
of historical sociology or even a revisionist theology, it is also the case that almost all the faith traditions have 272. G. Ansari, Muslim Caste in Uttar Pradesh: A Study
supplied the legitimating vocabulary for caste in South Asia for the simple reason that their interpretative/ of Culture Contact. Lucknow: Ethnographic and Folk
Culture Society, 1960, p. 40.
hermeneutical technologies were controlled by the higher castes. Overall, caste system has demonstrated
immense resilience and flexibility in the face of various challenges from different regimes in the past and 273. V. K. Jairath, “Introduction: Towards a Framework”,
the contemporary postcolonial experiment with democracy and continues to order and allocate knowledge, Frontiers of Embedded Muslim Communities in India, ed.
V. K. Jairath, New Delhi: Routledge, 2011, pp. 1–25,
work, wealth, intimacy/desire, violence across social strata in various ways. p. 20.
274. Sudipta Kaviraj, The Trajectories of the Indian State:
Politics and Ideas. Permanent Black. New Delhi, 2010,
- II - p. 19-20.
One persistent trajectory in the context of the caste system has been the valuation of the “social” over the
“political”.
Everyday caste practice disciplined social conduct without frequent direct recourse to the power of the state;
rather, the holders of political authority were themselves governed by the rules of caste order and barred by
its regulations from exercising legislative power over the productive arrangements of society.274
The political economy of the caste has largely entailed a “stagnant but relatively high level of living

Khalid Anis Ansari
standards by pre-capitalist norms, with a “predatory state” or “revenue state” living mainly off the surplus
from agriculture.”275 Despite various cultural disruptions that the colonial regime set up in its attempt
at governmentality, the basic nature of the caste revenue economy was never really radically altered and
continued in the postcolonial era through the Nehruvian model of Fabian socialism (which envisaged a
3.5% growth rate aptly termed the “Hindu rate of growth”). The postcolonial phase was thus marked by a
command “socialist” economy controlled by a bureaucracy dominated by higher castes. It was fundamentally
suspicious of the market economy and resulted in slow growth in both agriculture and industry.276 One may
surmise that the aforementioned institutional assemblage was designed to arrest any large-scale disruption of
275. Gail Omvedt, Dalit Visions: The Anti-Caste
the social and keep the traditional caste productive and sexual economy largely intact. Gandhi’s utopianism Movement and the Construction of an Indian Identity,
for the village and Ambedkarite distrust of the same may be located in the same logic. It is the lackadaisical New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1995, 2008 edition, p. 69.
approach towards social reform of early nationalist leaders that made Ambedkar mock them as “those social
276. See Omvedt, pp. 63-71 for a useful discussion.
Tories and political radicals with which India abounds.”277
277. B. R. Ambedkar, “What Congress and Gandhi have
done to the Untouchables”, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar:
Various anecdotes and events exemplify this conceptual hierarchy between the social and political. For Writings and Speeches Vol. 9, ed. Vasant Moon, Bombay:
instance, in 2015 a Muslim family had bought a flat in a predominant Brahmin locality in Moradabad, Uttar Education Department, Government of Maharashtra,
Pradesh. The local BJP councillor after hearing of this transaction led a mob and locked the Muslim family 1991, p. 13.
out of their own premises. He is reported to have “announced that he would not allow any Muslim family to 278. M. Ali, “BJP councillor locks out Muslim family in
stay in a Brahman neighbourhood of the city”. Eventually, the Muslim family had to vacate the house and sell Moradabad”, The Hindu, 2015, June 19, retrieved from
it to another Hindu buyer as they did not wish to live under constant threats. This episode clearly indicates http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-
that the Muslim family was not willing to trust the law and police machinery to deliver them justice and states/bjp-councillor-locks-out-muslim-family-in-
moradabad/article7330882.ece
it is the social power of the legislator that had the ultimate say. However, when a newspaper contacted the
legislator for his reaction “he denied however doing anything illegal.”278 One may interpret that though 279. Ambedkar, 2002, p. 299.
the legislator had clearly violated the political law of the state, he had prevented the social law that spatially
segregated meat-eating communities and vegetarian Brahmins from being broken. This is what Ambedkar
had in mind when he suggested that “what the Hindus call religion is really Law or at best legalized class-
ethics”. He went on to add, “it is your bounden duty to tear the mask, to remove the misrepresentation that
is caused by misnaming this law as religion.”279
Historically, it is the social that has been a storehouse of power in the subcontinent. In fact, this storehouse

Khalid Anis Ansari
of power primarily sustains through endogamy and rigorous monitoring of the sexual economy. Thus one
can understand Ambedkar’s deep insight in the following, seemingly simple, statement: “The real remedy for
breaking caste is inter-marriage. Nothing else will serve as the solvent of caste.”280 It is this “law” or “legalized
class-ethics”, whose privileged domain is the social and not political, that is the driving force of upper-
caste hegemony in India. Moreover, no amount of modernization, formal legalization, reform or shifts in
political organization has been able to decisively break these storehouses of power thus far. Brahmanism has
displayed tremendous recalcitrance and flexibility in the face of new challenges.
- III -
During most of Indian history, including Mughal or British rule, it is the social that escaped any major
ruptures.
280. Ibid., p. 289.
Appreciation of the ‘differences’ of Indian society often stopped the colonial authorities from getting
281. Kaviraj, p. 23.
too deeply involved in the ‘internal’ matters of the society they now controlled; the objectives of
colonialism were fulfilled by keeping control over the political sphere and allowing the traditional
structure of subsidiarity to continue.281
However, the democratic discourse of numbers or the creation of modern state institutions and knowledge
regimes in order to meet the ends of colonial governmentality did put pressures on the Indian social. The
nascent openings of education and employment for subordinated caste groups, hitherto denied to them,
during the colonial period led to new mobilizations that began to challenge the status quo. Among all religious
collectivities, lower-caste associations, reformist groups, radical critiques of the caste order and pressure
groups emerged subsequently. This counter-hegemonic challenge to the higher castes was met at one level
through the escalation of quotidian caste atrocities as an internal disciplining mechanism. On another level,
it was met through the articulation of Hindu and Muslim nationalisms and the reproduction of religion as
the master category through the instrument of the riot. “A caste has no feeling that it is affiliated to other
castes except when there is a Hindu-Muslim riot. On all other occasions, each caste endeavours to segregate

Khalid Anis Ansari
itself and to distinguish itself from other castes.”282 It is the periodic occurrence of the riot that produced the
homogenized “Hindu“ or “Muslim” which were otherwise fragmented into various castes, languages, sects
or regions. In this respect, the minority upper-caste elite across religions repositioned themselves as formal
majorities or minorities and assumed the natural leadership of vast religious collectivities in order to create
and sustain their own storehouses of power rather than offering a comprehensive critique of the social. It
is quite ironic that despite caste being the most obvious manifestation of power relations, it was religion
which was politicised, and upper castes across religions always insisted on keeping caste strictly in the social
domain.
In the postcolonial phase, caste atrocities and communal riots have continued incessantly. In this context,
Menon poses a relevant question:
282. Ambedkar, 2002, p. 267.
The inner violence within Hinduism explains to a considerable extent the violence directed outwards 283. D. M. Menon, The Blindness of Insight: Essays on
Caste in Modern India. Chennai: Navayana, 2006, p. 2.
against Muslims once we concede that the former is historically prior. The question needs to be: how
has the deployment of violence against an internal Other (defined primarily in terms of inherent 284. “Pasmanda”, a Persian term meaning ‘those who
inequality), the Dalit, comes to be transformed at certain conjunctures into one of aggression against have fallen behind,’ refers to Muslims belonging to
the subordinated caste groups which constitute about
an external Other (defined primarily in terms of inherent difference), the Muslim? Is communalism a
eighty percent of the Indian Muslim population in
deflection of the central issue of violence and inegalitarianism within Hindu society?283 demographic terms.
On an empirical level, communal violence has mostly followed periods of mobility and assertion on the
part of the subordinated castes. However, while most reflections have taken serious issues with the forces
of “Hindu nationalism” there seems to be little engagement with “Muslim nationalism” as such in the post-
independence period. The symbiotic and co-constitutive nature of these two contending communalisms
appears to be under-discussed.
In recent decades, the Pasmanda284 movement, organized by the lower-caste Muslims in order to challenge
upper-caste hegemony within Indian Islam, tries to address this gap. The Pasmanda discourse has foregrounded
the complicity of upper-caste Muslim elites in sustaining and reproducing communal discourse that is often
instrumental in legitimizing episodes of communal violence. In fact, there is a stress on the dialectical

Khalid Anis Ansari
relationship between majority and minority communalisms and the Pasmanda movement proposes to
contest minoritarian fundamentalism from within in order to wage a decisive battle against majoritarian
fundamentalism at the national level.285 Ali Anwar, the leader of the movement, opines thus:
We see that the politics of communalism, fuelled by both Hindu and Muslim elites, is aimed at dividing
us, making us fight among ourselves, so that the elites continue to rule over us as they have been doing
for centuries. This is why we... have been seeking to steer our people from emotional politics to politics
centred on issues of survival and daily existence and social justice, and for this we have been working 285. A. Alam, “Democratisation of Indian Muslims:
with non-Muslim Dalit and Backward Caste movements and groups to struggle jointly for our rights Some Reflections”, Economic and Political Weekly 38.46
and to oppose the politics of communalism fuelled by Hindu and Muslim ‘upper’ caste elites.286 (15th November 2003): pp. 4881-4885.
286. A. Anwar and Y. Sikand, Ali Anwar’s Struggle,
Waqar Hawari, a Pasmanda activist also says: ‘‘While Muslim politicians like Imam Bukhari and Syed October 5 2005, retrieved May 15, 2011, http://www.
Shahabuddin add the jodan (starter yoghurt), it is left to the Hindu fundamentalists to prepare the yoghurt countercurrents.org/dalit-anwar051005.htm
of communalism. Both of them are responsible. We oppose the politics of both Hindu and Muslim 287. Personal Interview, May 29th 2013, Azamgarh
fanaticism”.287 There is also a realization that in instances of communal violence or false framing of Muslim (Uttar Pradesh)
youth in cases related to terror it is the pasmanda sections who are the key victims.288 It is only recently that 288. H. Pasmanda, Pasmanda Kranti Abhiyan, 2013,
the caste breakup of victims of communal violence has received some academic/media attention. At least p. 11.
two recent papers on Muzaffarnagar riots (2013) have employed the caste category in their analysis due to
289. Ibid.
the influence of the Pasmanda discourse. For instance, Ahmad says:
290. J. Singh, “Communal Violence in Muzaffarnagar:
Agrarian Transformation and Politics”, Economic &
The questions of Muslim caste-diversity and public presence are equally important aspects to Political Weekly, 51.31(July 30, 2016): pp. 94–101,
understand the victimhood of Muslims in these riots (though this point has been almost entirely p. 94.
ignored in most of the discussions)...As per an unofficial estimate, most of those Muslims who died in
the present violence were backwards...the marginalised, poor and backward sections of Muslims are
the soft targets of communal violence.289
And, Singh: “The victims of the riot by and large belong to the poorer class of Pasmanda Muslims, generally
engaged in non-agricultural occupations.”290 Also, in some recent communal episodes in Dadri, Bijnor and
Jharkhand and elsewhere sections of the media have emphasized on the lower caste locations of Muslim

Khalid Anis Ansari
victims.291 Even if one concedes that during episodes of communal violence the perpetrators may have
only the religion and not the caste of the Muslim targets in mind, the ascriptive aspect of the violence must
be complicated by the spatial distribution of vulnerability. Is it not the case that in episodes of communal
violence it is mostly the poor neighbourhoods, slums, mohallas or villages that are attacked? If so then in the 291. S. Naqvi, “Why Bijnor Communal Villainy
light of the close correlation between caste and class one may ask which Muslim caste groups inhabit these Did Not Spread”, 2016, retrieved November 15,
spaces. Should not communal violence be evaluated as another instance or manifestation of caste violence 2016, from http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/
OldNewsPage/?Id=8802&Why/Bijnor/Communal/
per se? Villainy/Did/Not/Spread ; M. Sajjad, “The communal
mood in UP is turning ugly”, 2016, retrieved November
15, 2016, from http://www.rediff.com/news/
- IV - column/the-communal-mood-in-up-is-turning-
ugly/20161013.htm
However, while the employment of caste atrocity or communal violence as instruments to manage the 292. The central government accepted the
democratic disruptions in the social order may be established with some confidence, one must stress that recommendations of the Mandal Commission Report
in 1990. The report proposed inclusion of the lower
from 1990s onwards, especially with the onset of the neo-liberal economic reforms and politics of Mandal,292 caste shudra sections for the purposes of quotas/
we have moved to a qualitatively new stage. The consistent higher growth rates of 7-9%, the penetration reservations through a particular reading (in terms of
of capitalist relations in the villages, the democratic assertion of new caste groups across religions like caste) of the ambiguous constitutional term “Socially
the mahadalit, atipichda or Pasmanda with subsequent pressures on the majority-minority duopoly, and and Educationally Backward Classes’”(popularly termed
the circulation of a globalized consumerist culture have been deeply instrumental in destabilizing the as Other Backward Castes or OBCs). This event led
to a large scale mobilization on the axis of caste. By
hegemonic social, which continues to be based on caste order. These disturbances have engendered a ensuring positive discrimination for the OBCs in public
number of anxieties in terms of identity and one’s place in the caste order. The fluidity thus inaugurated has employment it seriously disrupted power equations
also set forth reactionary forces that are attempting to restore the old order. Almost no religious community and effected a transition in Indian democracy. This
is exempt from these trends and what we today capture as “rising intolerance” is the manifestation of this incremental transformation has been succinctly
captured by the phrase “India’s silent revolution” by
general phenomenon.
Christophe Jaffrelot.
293. Walter Benjamin, Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms,
I would suggest that this contemporary phase of hyper-violence and intolerance must be read as a sign Autobiographical Writings. (P. Demetz, Ed.). New York:
of immense challenge to the social law defined by caste in India. The social that has overdetermined the Schocken Books, 1986, p. 285.
intimate, the religious and the political in India thus far is under siege and it is responding through a violence
which can only be framed as “law preserving violence” to invoke Walter Benjamin’s insight .293

Os Predicados da Violência na Índia.
Perspectivas para um possível diálogo com o Brasil.
Mariana Alves
O discurso sobre violência na Índia muitas vezes vem acompanhado de um predicado. Os predicados da
violência são tratados na forma de marcadores sociais294 indicando um direcionamento social da violência.
A violência na Índia é discutida sob os predicados de “violência contra as mulheres”, “violência contra
muçulmanos”, “violência contra dalits”, “violência contra grupos tribais”, “violência contra transexuais”
e em diversos outros predicados. O discurso sobre violência no país relaciona os crimes às suas vítimas
específicas. Propomos, neste artigo, um duplo intento: na primeira parte, propomos uma análise de como a
violência, com seus predicados específicos, é tratada no discurso oficial do governo indiano. Neste momento,
o artigo irá discorrer sobre os ganhos de representatividade dos movimentos sociais, uma vez que fora por 294. A teoria feminista indiana, sobretudo a de
meio de suas lutas que os predicados da violência passaram a integrar a agenda nacional. Porém, há certos Gayatri Spivak e Nivedita Menon, classifica gênero,
predicados, amplos e altamente significativos na sociedade indiana, deixados de fora do discurso oficial de casta, classe, raça e religião como “social location”,
análise e combate à violência. Trabalhando com certos pressupostos pós-coloniais, lidando diretamente com mediadores de relações de dominação e violência. Este
conceito é relacionado ao feminismo negro que opera
as políticas do discurso, este artigo irá discutir a violência discursiva decorrente do ato de silenciar. com a proposta metodológica de interseccionalidade,
como desenvolvido pela jurista Kimberlé W. Crenshaw
Na segunda parte do artigo, seguimos na esteira da proposta de repensar o cânone das ciências sociais, (1989). Utilizaremos o conceito de “social location”
traduzido por “marcador social” sintetizado na forma de
repensando os usos e o vigor das grandes generalizações e dos conceitos universais da teoria social, seguindo
predicados da violência.
lições importantes levantadas provavelmente por todos os grandes pensadores indianos desde o século dezenove,
no que eles chamam de uma crítica ao pensamento ocidental. Questionar o uso generalizado e universal do
pensamento ocidental não significa, porém, um confinamento à sua própria sociedade. Ao contrário, esta
crítica abre outras possibilidades de lidar com a diferença. Este artigo irá entrar nesta discussão questionando a
violência como ponto de partida para análises comparativas. O argumento que será desenvolvido é o de como
as generalizações em estudos comparativos pode auferir legitimidade a certos aspectos da violência, silenciando
questões importantes. O artigo irá seguir propondo uma análise comparativa com potencial de abarcar as
diferenças, abrindo mão das generalizações e de certos conceitos universais. Os estudos comparativos, desta
forma, não teriam a intenção de hierarquizar a violência em diferentes sociedades; seria uma forma mais
próxima de um diálogo intercultural da violência. Dado o curto escopo deste artigo, propomos uma reflexão
inconclusiva, entrando na discussão sobre violência na Índia pelo ponto de vista de uma pesquisadora brasileira
extremamente interessada na possibilidade de engajar em novas formas de produção do conhecimento e,
sobretudo, na possibilidade de um diálogo com o pensamento social indiano.

Mariana Alves
-I-
As ciências sociais, e o pensamento social indiano como um todo, integram uma grande tradição intelectual
que visa tratar a estratificação da sociedade, seja no intuito de entender como se dá a unidade cultural meio
a imensa diversidade, seja em analisar como a diferença é normatizada. O que aprendemos com a sociologia
indiana, desde Ghurye, Srinivas, Dumont, aos mais recentes teóricos como Bipan Chandra, Partha Chatterjee,
Gyan Pander, Deepesh Chakrabarthy e tantos outros, é que as ações sociais se relacionam a predicados, na
forma de que todo ato é relacionado a um outrem específico. Esse outrem não é homogêneo, não é aleatório:
é mulher, homem ou trans, é membro de alguma casta, de alguma religião, fala certa língua, e vem de certa
região. Na complexidade da cultura indiana, dificilmente é possível traçar análises amplas que se desdobrem
em conclusões englobantes e gerais.
A grande contribuição da teoria pós-colonial é a de deslindar a estratificação da sociedade como uma

junção de atos estritamente políticos, construídos por mecanismos discursivos que tolhem a possibilidade
de agencia a grupos específicos da sociedade, fazendo com que estes grupos sobrevivam à sombra de um
discurso dominante. Se a sociedade indiana é marcada pela diferença entre as pessoas, a teoria pós-colonial
busca desconstruir os discursos que elegem quais grupos são alocados em quais patamares da hierarquia. Os
predicados da violência a que aludimos, se referem exatamente aos grupos que estão na base da hierarquia,
ou que são marginalizados de forma transversal na hierarquia, como é o caso das mulheres.
Se as ações sociais não são neutras, se os predicados são cruciais para compreender a sociedade indiana,
com a violência não poderia ser diferente; a violência é um ato político. Os atos de violência não são neutros,
assim como não são neutros as vítimas e os agressores. A violência é parte da sociedade, e é nutrida pela
cultura, pelo sistema de castas e pela religião; a violência não é um ato extraordinário, é parte integrante da
sociedade indiana. No campo de discursos múltiplos, é importante compreender as razões na escolha de
certos predicados e não outros, expondo, com isso, as políticas da violência.
Nesse sentido, a teoria pós-colonial indiana desenvolve o conceito de subalternidade, que abarca e generaliza

Mariana Alves
de forma particular as políticas da opressão e da subordinação nas linhas dos predicados a que aludimos.
Podemos dizer que, em linhas gerais, o conceito de subalternidade foi desenvolvido por Ranajit Guha, no
coletivo Subaltern Studies, ampliando e transformando o conceito elaborado por Antonio Gramsci. Porém,
o elabora de tal forma que é possível pensar em conceitos híbridos que pouco ressoam seu significado
primordial.
Ranajit Guha define subalternidade como “a name for the general attribute of subordination in South Asian
society whether this is expressed in terms of class, caste, age, gender and office or in any other way” (Guha 1983:
vii).295 Nesta perspectiva, os subalternos não necessitam ser, ainda que em muitos casos sejam, uma minoria,
seja de casta, seja étnica, religiosa, linguística ou regional, assim como não necessitam ser a parcela mais
desprovida economicamente. No artigo Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography (1988) e no seguinte
Can the Subaltern Speak (1989), Gayatri Spivak entra no debate sobre subalternidade ampliando o conceito,
com foco nas relações de gênero. Por esta perspectiva, o caso das mulheres se torna exemplar ao mostrar
como um grupo que compreende praticamente metade da população existe na condição de subalternidade,
subordinado a uma dupla via de opressão, seja pelas elites (assim como os homens subalternos), seja pelos 295. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in
Colonial India Oxford University Press 1983
membros masculinos de seu próprio grupo social. Violência contra as mulheres, na Índia e alhures, não
se restringe às mulheres de castas baixas e baixo poder econômico, abarcando também as mulheres das
castas mais altas, sujeitas a diversas modalidades de violência doméstica e a outras formas de violência de
gênero, muitas destas modalidades amplamente legitimadas no discurso hegemônico masculino (hindu
e muçulmano). Por outro lado, por ser um conceito amplo, que se define por sua oposição a um discurso
dominante, o conceito de subalternidade não busca englobar todos os subalternos em um grupo, em um
único processo de subordinação por um único discurso dominante. Se todas as mulheres são subalternas,
certamente umas são mais subalternas que outras; trava-se uma relação direta entre privações econômicas
e os predicados sociais.
Movimentos sociais, sobretudo das mulheres e dos dalits nas décadas de 1980 e 1990, criticaram
enfaticamente as políticas em torno dos predicados da sociedade indiana. Estes movimentos sociais são
herdeiros do pensamento brilhante e corajoso de Ambedkar. Na visão de Ambedkar, uma sociedade justa
seria uma sociedade sem castas, com igualdade de gênero, e onde os predicados fossem anulados em nome

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de um código civil unificado. Para tanto, Ambedkar afirmava que uma reforma social deveria ser prioridade
na agenda nacional, antes de qualquer outra reforma, seja política, econômica ou religiosa. Ele não viveu
a tempo de ver grandes mudanças na sociedade indiana, mas sua contribuição para os grupos subalternos
dentro e fora da Índia fora concreta e prática. As políticas de ação afirmativas, com o intuito de fechar uma
lacuna milenar de desigualdade, são heranças de sua intervenção política quando primeiro Ministro da
Justiça da Índia independente. A Índia foi o primeiro país no mundo a implementar o sistema de reserva de
cotas nas universidades públicas e postos de trabalho estatais.
As políticas dos predicados são uma constante nas agendas dos movimentos sociais indianos. O coletivo
Subaltern Studies, com sua devida relevância no chamado pensamento pós-colonial, com métodos de
análises que influenciaram um grande número de pesquisas sociais dentro e fora Índia, formou-se em um
momento de ebulição dos movimentos sociais na Índia nas décadas de 1980 e 1990. O coletivo teve o mérito
de amplificar internacionalmente uma discussão extremamente relevante levantada pelos grupos sociais na
Índia.
Uma vitória importante dos movimentos sociais foi a Mandal Commission; uma comissão organizada pelo
governo central com o objetivo geral de mapear a desigualdade do país. Em 1979 o primeiro-ministro
Morarji Desai encomendou o estudo, estabelecido com o objetivo geral de elaborar medidas de inclusão
desses grupos, institucionalizando as ações afirmativas com base no critério de castas e grupos étnicos.
Em um primeiro momento, a Comissão tinha por objetivo levantar dados acerca dos dalits, chamados
de “scheduled caste” (SC), para poder elaborar ações de inclusão. Mas logo em seguida, outros setores da
sociedade civil iniciaram um movimento para inclusão nos programas de reservas de cotas, reivindicando
que não eram somente os dalits que estavam em situação desfavorável por razões que remetem às castas.
A pressão destes grupos, principalmente de membros da casta Shudras, assim como de grupos tribais,
culminou em uma série de tumultos violentos entre os anos de 1980 e 1990. Como consequência, foram
incluídos nas listas governamentais os grupos tribais, intitulados “scheduled tribes” (ST), e outras castas
menos favorecidas englobadas na categoria ampla de “Other Backward Castes” (OBC).

Mariana Alves
Os resultados da Comissão Mandal oficializaram, em âmbito nacional, as desigualdades procedentes do

sistema de castas. A Comissão recomendou a reserva de postos de trabalho no governo, no setor público,
nos bancos nacionais, em todas as universidades e faculdades, e em todo o setor privado que contasse com
qualquer tipo de assistência financeira por parte do governo.
Os grupos favorecidos pela comissão Mandal, os dalits (SC) e os grupos tribais (ST), juntos representavam à
época 23,5 por cento da população total do país; ainda, a comissão calculou um adicional de 52 por cento da
população como parte de outras castas menos favorecidas (OBC). O número total de indivíduos classificados
em categorias que os fazem aptos a reivindicar as reservas de cotas acabou somando um total de três quartos
da população total da Índia. Seria inviável propor ações afirmativas para toda esta parcela da população do
país. A Suprema Corte Indiana determinou que as reservas de cotas não podem ultrapassar a marca dos 50
por cento da população. Com isso, a comissão recomendou a reserva de cotas para apenas 27 por cento da
população classificada por Other Backward Caste. Os grupos muçulmanos foram os mais desfavorecidos
neste corte. As minorias religiosas pertencentes às religiões não indianas (muçulmanos em sua maioria,
cristãos e parsis em menor proporção) não entraram no relatório como uma categoria específica, pois
justificava-se que a estas minorias religiosas específicas, a Constituição já proveria leis especiais voltadas
para salvaguardar seus direitos. As minorias religiosas contempladas nas políticas de reserva de cotas são os
membros das religiões indianas, sendo eles sikhs, budistas e jainistas.
As mulheres não entraram no relatório como uma categoria específica. Ainda que exista um movimento
de mulheres reivindicando inclusão nas categorias de SC e OBC específica às mulheres para que as
oportunidades das políticas de reserva de cotas sejam ampliadas, muito pouco se avançou desde então. A
justificativa do governo indiano é a de que os critérios utilizados para determinar se um grupo pertenceria
à categoria de SC ou OBC levavam em consideração os níveis de educação, acesso a saúde e ao mercado
de trabalho das mulheres destes grupos. Identifica-se, portanto, que a posição social das mulheres de um
grupo é diretamente determinante ao status social de um grupo particular. A discussão gira em torno da
subalternidade de um grupo específico; não a de que exista desigualdade de gênero dentro de um mesmo
grupo.

Mariana Alves
A Comissão Mandal, ao divulgar e oficializar as desigualdades da sociedade indiana, impactou de forma

decisiva as ciências sociais do país. É exatamente este o período que a intervenção da escola pós-colonial,
iniciada pelo coletivo Subaltern Studies desenvolve suas principais metodologias de análise social. O discurso
oficial sobre violência passa por mudanças significativas neste período, propondo uma mudança na análise
da violência no país.
- II -
O governo indiano disponibiliza anualmente, desde 1953, análises estatísticas sobre violência no país.
O National Crime Records Bureau, NCRB, é um órgão atrelado ao ministério do Home Affairs, e produz
estatísticas sobre violência com base em crimes reportados à polícia, por meio dos First Information Reports
(FIR), o equivalente ao nosso Boletim de Ocorrência. Até a década de 1990, o Bureau analisava as estatísticas
de crimes contabilizando o total da população.
Como resposta às agitações em torno da Comissão Mandal e ao movimento feminista da década de 1990,
o Bureau passou a reconhecer a existência de um direcionamento da violência. Um dos aspectos centrais
da comissão Mandal ao classificar os grupos subalternos era o de que a condição de subalternidade é
diretamente ligada à violência exercida contra estes grupos. Da mesma forma, o movimento feminista,
com respaldo intenso no Ocidente, reivindica uma atenção especial ao que se refere à violência contra as
mulheres. Dentro deste cenário, a partir da publicação do relatório referente a 1992, o Bureau passou a
elaborar uma seção específica voltada a crimes contra as mulheres que, além de ressaltar a existência de
uma modalidade específica de violência, muitas delas não reconhecidas como crime, o Bureau passou a
enfatizar a violência ao contabilizar as ocorrências no total da população de mulheres, e não no total geral
da população.
Da mesma forma, após 1994, o Bureau passou a elaborar uma seção voltada a crimes contra indivíduos das
castas menos favorecidas, as castas classificadas como tais, pela Comissão Mandal. Nesta perspectiva, ficou
ressaltado que, nos critérios que engendram um grupo subalterno, a violência é parte integrante. Da mesma

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forma, no caso das castas menos favorecidas, a violência passou a ser contabilizada pelo total da população
das castas em questão, e não pelo total geral da população indiana. Desta forma, as estatísticas se aproximam
um pouco mais da realidade.
Não é o foco deste artigo refletir sobre a questão importante de quantos crimes de fato vêm a se tornar um
FIR, e entendemos que, por inúmeras razões, muitos crimes não são reportados à polícia. Ainda assim, a
tentativa de lidar com as estatísticas da forma proposta pelo Bureau indiano prove um horizonte plausível
de análise.
Na sessão de Crimes Violentos do Relatório do Bureau de 2013, um dos crimes destacados com maior
incidência no país são os crimes de Riots, os tumultos coletivos296. Os tumultos estão no topo dos índices
de crimes violentos, com mais de 72 mil incidentes em 2013, e os homicídios vêm bem depois, com 33 mil
incidentes.
296. Os tumultos oscilam, juntamente com os
sequestros, como os crimes de maior incidência na
Os tumultos são modalidades criminais que necessitam de atenção especial pois sua definição precisa não é Índia desde que passaram a integrar a aba de crimes
claramente elaborada pelo Bureau. Antes de 2006, os tumultos se enquadravam na categoria de Crime Contra violentos em 2006.
a Segurança Pública, e somente após esta data os tumultos passaram a integrar a aba de Crimes Violentos.
No Relatório do Bureau de 2006, não havia menção alguma a nenhum predicado que caracterizasse os
tumultos, ou seja, não havia menção se os tumultos eram organizados por grupos específicos, seja de casta,
religião, ou quaisquer outros, tampouco era especificado quais eram as vítimas dos tumultos. Nos Relatórios
de 1992 e de 1994, o Bureau apresentou uma discussão elaborada justificando a entrada de novas categorias
de crimes contra as mulheres e crimes contra membros das castas baixas. Quando os tumultos passaram a
integrar a aba de Crimes Violentos, não houve justificativa, tampouco explicação, dos motivos que levaram a
mudança: um crime que antes era classificado por Crime Contra a Segurança Pública passou a ser classificado
por Crime Violento. O que mudou? O Bureau não fornece uma justificativa.
Nos Relatórios publicados entre 2006 e 2013, não há explicações claras e sucintas do que vem a ser um
tumulto, tampouco quem são seus agentes. E o mais relevante: o Bureau não deixa claro, como faz com

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as outras categorias de crimes violentos, quem são as vítimas dos tumultos. Da mesma forma, o Bureau
não deixa claro se, caso um tumulto leve a um homicídio, o FIR será elaborado como homicídio ou como
tumulto, pois os First Information Reports só consideram um crime por FIR, se o tumulto desencadeia um
homicídio, intuímos que o FIR será o de um homicídio, e o tumulto em questão não entrará nas estatísticas.
Mas isso é suposição, pois o Bureau não clarifica esta, e outras questões.
Os tumultos são definidos nos artigos 147, 148, 149, 150, 151 e 153 do Código Penal indiano (IPC). Estes
incidentes são definidos da seguinte maneira:
Whenever force or violence is used by an unlawful assembly, or by any member thereof, in prosecution of the
common object of such assembly, every member of such assembly is guilty of the offence of rioting.
Em tradução livre, os riots são definidos por uma reunião de pessoas (ou membros desta reunião),
aglomeradas de forma ilícita, usando da violência com o objetivo de acusar, ou julgar um objeto comum a
este grupo.
O artigo 141 explica o que se define por “reunião” (assembly):
An assembly of five or more persons is designated an “unlawful assembly”, if the common object of the persons
composing that assembly is:
First - To overawe by criminal force, or show of criminal force;
Second - To resist the execution of any law, or of any legal process; or
Third - To commit any mischief or criminal trespass, or other offence; or

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Fourth - By means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to any person, to take or obtain possession of any
property, or to deprive any person of the enjoyment of a right of way, or of the use of water or other incorporeal
right of which he is in possession or enjoyment, or to enforce any right or supposed right; or
Fifth - By means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to compel any person to do what he is not legally
bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do.
Explanation-An assembly which was not unlawful when it assembled, may subsequently become an unlawful
assembly.
Em tradução livre, uma reunião (assembly), é designada como reunião ilícita, criminosa, se o objetivo do
grupo for o de:
1. intimidar pelo uso de força criminosa, ou pela demonstração de força criminosa;
2. resistir à execução de uma lei ou processo legal;
3. cometer dano ou ofensa criminosa;
4. por meio de força ou pela demonstração de força, obter possessão de bens, ou de privar alguém
do usufruto de direitos de passagem, uso da água ou qualquer direito adquirido; e
5. por meios de uso de força ou pela demonstração da mesma constranger qualquer pessoa a fazer
o que não é legal, ou a omissão.
Portanto temos que uma reunião ilegal – com objetivos de cometer danos ou ofensas criminosas, que vão
desde a intimidação de outros, a resistência à execução de uma lei, obstruindo por vezes o usufruto de

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direitos adquiridos - se monta para acusar ou julgar outrem.
O artigo 153 do IPC complementa esta definição, com:
Whoever malignantly, or wantonly, by doing anything which is illegal, gives provocation to any person intending
or knowing it to be likely that such provocation will cause the offence of rioting to be committed.
Em tradução livre, a complementação prescreve que quem quer que seja que, de forma maliciosa ou
desenfreadamente – por meio de ações ilícitas, provocar alguma pessoa com o intuito de deixar claro que tal
provocação irá causar um tumulto.
297. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic
Life: Hindus and Muslims in India, New Haven: Yale
Um tumulto não significa necessariamente um linchamento ou um homicídio. Segundo as definições acima, University Press, 2002; Gyanendra Pandey, Hindus
os tumultos são eventos de violência coletiva, organizados por uma reunião de pessoas, e podem assumir um and Others: the Question of Identity in India Today,
caráter de embate político, disputa entre castas, entre religiões, ou vandalismo. Os tumultos ocorrem como New Delhi: Viking, 1993; Asghar Ali Engineer,
mecanismos de resistência à implementação de leis, em casos como o de reforma agrária ou construção “Communal Riots, 2010”, Secular Perspective,
de represas. A resistência pode vir a se tornar um tumulto violento em casos onde a implementação das Bombay: Centre for Study of Society and Secularism,
January 1-15, 2011, and others; Paul Brass, “Forms
recomendações da Comissão Mandal é ineficiente, onde certos grupos venham a acreditar que, pela reserva of Collective Violence: Riots”, Pogroms and Genocide
de cotas, estariam perdendo oportunidades. Um tumulto pode ocorrer quando um grupo possui acesso in Modern India, Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective,
negado à poços artesianos (lembrando que atualmente mais de 60 por cento da população vive nas áreas 2006.
rurais do país), o que no caso envolveriam disputas com os dalits. A definição de tumultos divulgada no
discurso oficial é extremamente ampla.
Há, contudo, episódios de tumultos que seguem um padrão distinto. Existe um grupo de pesquisas
especializadas sobre tumultos, especialmente (mas não somente) no trabalho de Ashgar Ali Engineer,
Ashutosh Varshney, Gyanendra Pandey e Paul Brass297. Nestas pesquisas, entendemos que, em um intervalo
de duas décadas, precisamente entre 1984 e 2008, ao menos um tumulto por ano ocorreu com um padrão
similar. Estes tumultos envolveram comunidades religiosas específicas, e foram tumultos com um alto
número de vítimas fatais em um curto período de tempo. Estes eventos ocorreram em períodos que

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variam entre um dia a um mês, e o número de vítimas fatais variam entre mais de duas mil a não menos de
cinquenta. Estes tumultos analisados por tal literatura específica são eventos de violência coletiva extrema,
com atrocidades brutais, com vítimas incluindo crianças. Estes tumultos causaram o deslocamento das
vítimas, sendo que muitas passaram décadas vivendo em campos de deslocados internos, sem condições,
sejam elas financeiras, psicológicas ou tantas outras questões envolvidas em vítimas de violência coletiva, de
retornar aos seus locais de origem. A característica analítica específica destes tumultos é a do predicado das
comunidades religiosas: são tumultos que envolvem duas ou mais comunidades religiosas e, por esta razão,
são conhecidos na literatura supracitada como Communal Riots, que chamaremos de tumultos sectários.
Tumultos sectários são uma categoria bastante mencionada na literatura que analisa a Índia pós-colonial.
Menos comum, porém, é a categoria de tumultos de casta (caste riots), uma vez que este geralmente é
discutido sob a aba de “tumulto” (sem predicado). Mas nem todo tumulto é um tumulto envolvendo as
castas. Os tumultos de castas são os eventos de violência coletiva onde há uma clara disputa entre grupos
de castas distintas, e há um padrão nestes eventos, sobretudo no acesso à poços artesianos e às reservas de
cotas.
Estas duas categorias de tumultos possuem seus predicados distintos pois suas ações são específicas: tumultos
sectários (communal riots) são episódios de violência coletiva entre duas ou mais comunidades religiosas, e
os tumultos de casta (caste riots) são episódios que envolvem disputas entre castas distintas. No entanto, o
padrão dos predicados na análise dos tumultos não é discutido nas análises do Bureau. O Bureau apresenta
um esforço ímpar em analisar a violência em seus predicados em inúmeros categorias criminais, mas ao
analisar a categoria de tumultos, estes permanecem episódios de violência coletiva sem menção aos grupos
das vítimas ou dos agressores.
A distinção entre tumulto, tumulto de casta e tumulto sectário, pode ser muito clara aos olhos dos indianos;
mas quando estrangeiros buscam estudar a violência no país, o Bureau como porta de entrada para uma
análise comparativa deixa aspectos importantes integrantes da sociedade sem a devida relevância. Ademais,
o Bureau não especifica o que um tumulto vem a ser de fato, e os leitores das análises oficiais de violência

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permanecem sem a menor ideia da brutalidade procedente destes crimes, que inclui episódios de estupro
coletivo, desmembramentos corporais, humilhações e outras tantas ações desconcertantes. Os tumultos são
episódios de violência coletiva onde uma comunidade religiosa, ou um grupo de casta, utiliza inúmeras
ferramentas, e muita imaginação, para atacar outra. Ao desconsiderar o papel da religião e das castas nos
crimes de violência coletiva, os crimes de maior incidência na Índia, o Bureau negligencia uma porta de
entrada a um dos debates mais latentes desde a independência: o debate sobre o papel de um Estado secular
na Índia.
- III -
Estudos comparativos na área das ciências sociais tendem partir de uma categoria específica. O objetivo
principal seria o de buscar as incidências, e os desdobramentos de tal categoria na busca por generalizações
pela recorrência de certos padrões sociais entre culturas distintas. No campo dos estudos da violência, os
estudos comparativos tendem a focar em uma categoria de crime específico na análise de dois ou mais
contextos.
A questão final deste artigo é a de como proceder em situações onde os crimes violentos de maior incidência
em duas ou mais sociedades são distintos. Faria sentido comparar crimes, cientes de que tal crime pode não
representar a violência em um país, mesmo que represente em outra? Desta maneira, um estudo comparativo
provocaria um hiato na análise, particularmente onde a diferença aparece. Ao passo que tais estudos
hierarquizariam certos aspectos da violência, corroborando para uma compreensão estática do próprio
conceito de violência. O hiato e a hierarquização são ambos aspectos do mesmo problema: assim que uma
definição estática de crime violento é estabelecida como a legitima e única representação da violência, com
o intuito máximo de definir o “nível de violência” em certa sociedade, outras formas de violência passam a
ser desconsideradas, ou consideradas irrelevantes na análise.
Com o intuito de utilizar os estudos comparativos como um diálogo entre culturas, e não como hierarquizações,
a violência, no caso, passaria a ser a categoria de análise, e não um crime específico. A análise se aproximaria

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da realidade estudada se comparássemos o crime de maior incidência em uma sociedade, contra o pano
de fundo do crime de maior incidência na outra sociedade, e não o mesmo crime (escolhido sob critérios
questionáveis). Duas sociedades e seus crimes violentos. A probabilidade de que os crimes sejam diferentes
são imensas. Desta forma, os crimes de homicídio deixam o limiar da definição do que é, e do que não é
violência. Crimes violentos distintos, e vítimas distintas, nos dirão muito sobre as sociedades em questão.
Este artigo não propõe uma análise comparativa da violência na Índia e no Brasil dado o escopo das
possibilidades possíveis neste curto espaço, mas se o fosse, seria uma comparação de diferentes crimes
violentos, e não sobre a incidência de homicídios aqui ou lá. Como pesquisadora brasileira, as análises da
violência giram em torno de homicídios. Mas a Índia tem os tumultos como centro da análise de violência.
Se a análise comparativa se voltasse aos crimes de homicídios como legítimos representantes da violência,
produziríamos certamente o hiato na análise indiana e a hierarquização das sociedades. E nos diria que a
Índia é certamente muito menos violenta que o Brasil. A realidade, porém, nos mostra que poucos países no
mundo ganhariam do Brasil nesta comparação. Buscando nos aproximar da realidade indiana, um estudo
sobre violência tem que trazer os tumultos para análise, crimes de violência coletiva em uma sociedade
altamente estratificada. A questão que buscamos levantar é exatamente o que significa violência em uma
sociedade específica, e o que ela nos diz sobre tal sociedade. Manter o foco nos homicídios em análises
comparativas de violência tem o potencial de silenciar inúmeros crimes e amplificar lacunas na análise social.
No Brasil, o homicídio é o crime principal da análise, mas quais os tipos de homicídios, e contra quem? Estas
questões estão sendo respondidas muito lentamente, e o Brasil carece de muita análise estatística sobre
violência.
A despeito de certas lacunas na análise da violência na Índia, mesmo o discurso oficial se esforça em responder
certas questões que não são tão claramente questionadas no discurso oficial de violência no Brasil. A violência
com seus predicados, como no caso indiano, nos mostra uma sociedade dinâmica, como desigualdades
amplamente reconhecidas. No Brasil, os marcadores sociais da violência não são explicitamente discutidos,
embora existam lutas históricas dos movimentos sociais para mudanças nesta discussão, e consequentemente,
na análise dos problemas. No Brasil, diferentemente da Índia, há a ideia de que a sociedade é amplamente
integrada. Mas a realidade é tanto no Brasil, como na Índia, há aqueles que são mais integrados do que outros.

The Attributes of Violence in India: Perspectives to the Other Side of the Margin.
Mariana Alves
The discourse on violence in India comes with a set of attributes. Those attributes refer to acts of violence
directed towards religious minorities, women, members of scheduled castes, tribes, and transgendered
groups such as the hijras. The discourse on violence relates specific crimes to specific victims. In this
paper, I propose a double intent. In the first part, I propose a discussion on how violence, with its specific
attributes, is treated by the official governmental discourse in India. I will go through the gains of the social
movements that made their needs visible and discussed, as it was through their struggle that the attributes of
violence entered the national agenda. However, there are other attributes, broad and highly significant ones,
which have not found space in the governmental agenda against violence. Working with the postcolonial
assumptions, dealing directly with the politics of discourses, I will argue that the choice of not discussing
some trends in violence is in itself a violent action, as there is a great deal of violence in the act of silencing.
In the second part of this paper, I follow the need to rethink the canon of social theory, to rethink the uses
and vigor of the generalizations and universals within humanities, following the important lessons raised
perhaps by most Indian thinkers from the nineteenth century onwards: a critique of Western thought. To
question the universal uses of Western thought does not mean a closure to its own society (nor to the
West). It opens up new possibilities to deal with the difference. Hence, I propose to enter this discussion
by questioning how violence is used in order to compare different cultures, questioning the universals in
this field of analysis. The argument I would like to raise is that generalizations in comparative studies might
work positively into silencing specific and important questions. In the field of violence, that would mean
neglecting giving proper importance to certain kinds of crimes and, especially, to their victims. I move on
to proposing other ways that may allow one to avoid leaving specific crimes unattended in the discussion.
Comparative study, in this manner, does not intend to rank societies; rather, the comparison comes close to
being a dialog of differences. As for the length and scope of this paper, I propose an inconclusive reflection,
entering this discussion as a Brazilian scholar extremely interested in the possibility of engaging in different
forms of knowledge production and in the possibility of engaging in a dialogue with Indian social thought.

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-I-
Social sciences and the humanities as a whole in India are part of a general intellectual tradition in which the
main goal is to understand the unity of India, regarding its incomparable diversity. The first thing we learn
with social theory in India is that social actions implicate a relation of attributes in such a way that every
action relates a specific person to a specific other. Social actions are not neutral, and neither are the actors
homogeneous: they are women, men, bisexual or trans, they belong to a certain caste, follow a certain religion,
and within that religion, a certain sect, they come from a specific region, speak a specific language. In the
complexity of Indian culture, it is barely possible to forge wide analyses colluding into general conclusions.
What we call “attributes” refers to a social location undermining specific actions towards specific people.
The postcolonial contribution to this debate is to unravel the diversity of the society as a junction of strictly
political actions, built upon specific discursive mechanisms. It brings into the analysis the social location
as an active political tool of Indian society: the particularity of Indian society is the mark of difference
amongst peoples and groups; hence, the postcolonial theory aims to deconstruct the discourses that are
the foundation of the social hierarchy. The politics postcolonial assumptions come to undermine is the
questioning of the discursive mechanisms bound in the foundations of social location, in the construction
and in the different uses of the attributes.
Let us take as a case study the violent crimes of Indian society. Violence is part of the society and is informed
by its culture and its religion; violence is not an extraordinary aspect of a culture, it is an intrinsic part of it.
If social action is not neutral, if social location is an attribute particularly important to understand Indian
society, then violence is a political action (not just in India, we must say). It follows that acts of violence are
not neutral, and neither are the victims homogeneous. The discourses that analyze violence in India bring
the attributes of violence to the forefront: violence against women, violence against scheduled caste, violence
against children, violence against Muslims, violence against Sikhs, violence against hijras, violence against
Tribals, and many others. In the field of multiple discourses, it is important to understand the reasons for
choosing some attributes over others, disclosing the politics of violence.

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Along these lines, postcolonial theory brings the concept of subalternity, which embraces and generalizes
in its own particular way the politics of oppression and subordination along the lines of the attributes. One
could argue that, in general terms, the historian Ranajit Guha developed the concept of subaltern in the
collective Subaltern Studies, enlarging and expanding the concept of Antonio Gramsci. However, the uses
and attributes of the concept were elaborated in such a way that it is possible to think about hybrid concepts
that resonate little of their overriding meaning.
Guha defines subalternity as “a name for the general attribute of subordination in South Asian society whether
this is expressed in terms of class, caste, age, gender and office or in any other way” (Guha 1983: vii).298 From this
perspective, the subalterns are neither exclusively members of a minority group, though some of them are, nor
do they exclusively belong to the most economically disadvantaged group of the society, though most of them
do. In the article “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography” (1988), followed by “Can the Subaltern
Speak?” (1989), Spivak enters the debate of subalternity, widening its meaning, focusing on gender attributes.
Through her perspective, women as a category come to be the main character of subalternity, enhancing the
subaltern as a category of analysis wider than the category of social class. Women are not a minority group, 298. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in
Colonial India, Oxford University Press, 1983.
and do not belong only to the lowest social strata. With that in mind, Spivak proposes that gender should not
be treated as a social class. She raises the fact that in India, and suggests that in the third world in general,
women are subordinated to multiple forces of oppression, internal and external to its society, just like other
depressed classes are; but the patriarchal oppressions define a gender politics that render them a subaltern
group. Women in general, even the ones belonging to the highest of the social stratification system of India and
to the highest strata of the international division of labour are subordinated to some kind of patriarchal rules
and norms and therefore, are in a subaltern position. Violence against women, in India, and elsewhere, is not
something restricted to disenfranchised women only; it is bound to occur to women of all castes, all classes,
all religions. Certainly, poverty can amplify the range of possibility, but the fact of belonging to higher social
strata does not offer a shield to violence. Therefore, the concept of subaltern, proposed by Indian scholars, is
truly intersectional: it deals with caste, religion, sexual orientation, class and gender, all of which will play an
important part in the analysis.
Social movements led by subaltern groups questioned emphatically the politics of social location. In recent

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times, we can recall those efforts at least from the brilliant and courageous work of Ambedkar. Ambedkar’s
views of a fair society meant a society with no caste, where the attributes were annihilated and where
everyone was equal by the law. In order to lead society to this level of equality, in order to equalize the
politics underlaid by social locations, Ambedkar proposed that social reform was a priority over any other
kind of reforms, whether political or religious. He was not able to see a great deal of social reforms, but
his practical contributions to independent India were great. In fact, his contributions to subaltern groups
worldwide were concrete and practical. The policy of affirmative action and reservations to cover those
millennial social lacunae in Indian society are inheritances of his political intervention and of his actions as
the first Minister of Justice of independent India. India was a pioneer in the field of affirmative action and
reservations in the public arena.
The politics of social location were always in the agenda of the subaltern groups. The collective Subaltern
Studies and their analysis, which influenced a great deal of social analysis in India and abroad, were
conceived in a moment of particular effervescence amongst subaltern groups. Their merit – I guess – was
the international amplification of a powerful discussion already in course in India by the subaltern groups
themselves.
One breaking point in the subaltern struggles was the Mandal Commission Report. Following the pressure
of social movements, in 1979, the Prime Minister M. Desai ordered a specific study on the inequality in
the country. The Mandal Commission was established with the goal of mapping the inequalities of Indian
society in order to formulate measures of social inclusion.
In the first attempt, the Commission collected data on the Dalit population, classified as “Scheduled Caste.”
Sooner, however, other branches of civil society mobilized themselves, especially the members of Sudra
caste, claiming that the evils of inequality haunt them just as much as the Dalits. Because of their claims,
which involved much more than just protesting on the streets, the Sudra groups were also included in
governmental lists as “Other Backward Castes”. The publication of the results of the Mandal Commission
was a period marked by great deal of collective violence.

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The results of the Mandal Commission legitimated the inequalities of the caste system. More than 60 percent
of the population was classified as disenfranchised. The Commission recommended quotas for those
classified as scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and other backward castes in all the public sector, national
banks, universities and Colleges, and in all private sector bodies funded, even partially, by public resources.
However, the Supreme Court ruled out that reservations could not exceed 50 percent of the population, and
for a great number of people, the reservations were no longer an option. Religious minorities were the ones
who saw the greatest loss in the newly created reservation policies.
At approximately the same time, women’s organizations, of a whole different range, started to make gender
issues a public concern. Pressure coming for movements inside India concerned a fight for changes in the
Personal Law, which deals directly with marriage, divorce, rights of allowance, child bearing and dowry.
The uplifting of the scheduled and backward castes and the struggle of women’s organizations had such social
and political impact that social theory could not remain the same. That is when and where the postcolonial
intervention reached its most important contributions. At the same time, the relation of those groups to
official politics have also changed. The discourse on violence saw an important shift in its treatment, which
led to a better understanding of the society.
- II -
The Government of India has produced statistics on violence since 1953 on an annual basis. The National
Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) is the governmental branch whose role is to collect data, and produce statistics
of violence in the country based on First Information Report, FIR, that is, based on crimes reported to the
police.
Following the women’s movements, the year 1992 was a benchmark for the Compendium produced by the
Bureau. From this year onwards, the Bureau included in its statistics a whole section on “Violence against

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Women”. The Bureau started to deal with gender violence as a specific category of crimes. At the same period,
the Bureau shifted the way it produced its statistics by relating the crimes against women considering the
total female population of India. In this matter, the statistics became much closer to the reality.
In the same manner, following the social agitation regarding scheduled caste rights, after 1994 the Bureau
started to produce its statistics considering the violence against scheduled caste individuals, in a section
called “Crime against Scheduled Castes”. In the same manner, the crimes were accounted through the total
population of scheduled castes, so the statistics came to get closer to be reality of those involved. The same
was done for Crimes against Children and Crimes against Tribals.
We are not dealing here with the important question of how many crimes turn into FIRs, and we are aware
that, for multiple reasons, many crimes are not reported to the police. Still, the attempt to deal differently
with statistics gives us a different view of reality.
In the section “Violent Crimes” in the NCRB Compendium in 2013, the crime with the highest incidence in
the country is the crime of Riots, classified under the category of “violent crime”, 72 000 incidents, involving
33 000 murders.
Riots are a type of crime that requires our attention because their definition is not well elaborated by the
Bureau. Before 2006, riots were crimes included in the “public safety” category, and just after that date,
entered the section of “violent crimes”. In the Compendium of 2006, there was no mention of any attributes
regarding the riots, meaning that the Bureau did not ask the question who the victims of riots were. In the
Compendium of both 1992 and 1994, the Bureau presented a well-elaborated discussion justifying the use
of new categories of crimes against women and crimes against scheduled castes. The same was not true for
riots; the Bureau showed no justification whatsoever for the reasons behind the shift of categories. They were
considered crimes against public safety and passed to be considered violent crimes. What had changed? The
Bureau mentions nothing.

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In the same manner, from 2006 to 2013, the Reports do not make clear what the crime of riot is, nor who can
be accused of committing such a crime. Most important: the Bureau does not make clear, as it does for other
“violent crimes”, who the victims are. Likewise, it remains unclear whether a riot that terminates in murder
will be counted as murder and not as riot any longer, which would be statistically anomalous.
Riots are episodes of collective violence with a diverse range of explanations, and can take many forms. The
Bureau defines “Riot” through the articles 147, 148, 149, 150, 151 and 153 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)
Whenever force or violence is used by an unlawful assembly, or by any member thereof, in prosecution
of the common object of such assembly, every member of such assembly is guilty of the offence of rioting.
The article 141 defines assembly:
An assembly of five or more persons is designated an “unlawful assembly”, if the common object of the
persons composing that assembly is:
First - To overawe by criminal force, or show of criminal force;
Second - To resist the execution of any law, or of any legal process; or
Third - To commit any mischief or criminal trespass, or other offence; or
Fourth - By means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to any person, to take or obtain possession
of any property, or to deprive any person of the enjoyment of a right of way, or of the use of water or other
incorporeal right of which he is in possession or enjoyment, or to enforce any right or supposed right;
Fifth - By means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to compel any person to do what he is not
legally bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do.

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Explanation-An assembly which was not unlawful when it assembled, may subsequently become an
unlawful assembly.
A riot does not necessarily imply a lynching or a murder. According to the above definition, riots are events
of collective violence, organized by an assembly of people, and could have a political or casteist character and
many different forms. Riots could occur as resistance to the execution of a particular law, for instance in cases
of land reform or in dam projects. This resistance could turn into a riot also in cases where the implementation
of the Mandal Commission Report is inefficient, or where a group feels its members are losing jobs through
the reservation policy. A riot could happen in cases where a group of people sees access to the use of water
and public wells denied by some other group, in which case it would be a dispute involving groups of Dalits.
Riots could also be events of collective violence in the form of retributive justice in places where the police is 299. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic
inefficient. Riots could be events of collective violence in the form of revenge and rage in the field of religious Life: Hindus and Muslims in India, New Haven: Yale
minorities. The definition is very broad, and its incidence very high. University Press 2002; Gyanendra Pandey, Hindus and
Others: the Question of Identity in India Today, New
Delhi: Viking 1993; Asghar Ali Engineer, “Communal
There are, however, cases of riots that follow a specific pattern. Considering the specialized literature, specially Riots, 2010”, Secular Perspective (January 1-15, 2011)
(but not only) through the work of Ashgar Ali Engineer, Ashutosh Varshney, Gyanendra Pandey and Paul Bombay: Centre for Study of Society and Secularism,
Brass,299 it appears that, between 1984 to 2008, there was at least one episode of riot per year with a similar and others; Paul Brass, “Forms of Collective Violence:
pattern. Those riots involved two or more different religious communities, with a high incidence of fatal Riots”, Pogroms and Genocide in Modern India, Gurgaon:
Three Essays Collective, 2006.
victims in a very short period. Those riots occurred in a period of time varying from one day to one month,
and the number of fatal victims varied from two thousand to fewer than fifty. Those riots were extremely
violent episodes of collective violence with brutal atrocities against men, women and children. Those riots
involved the displacement of the surviving victims as it turns out to be unbearable to remain in the scene of
the incidents. One particular specificity of those incidents is that they coincide with the periods of the main
religious festivities of the different religious communities. And the most important feature of those riots is that
the group attacking and the victims were members of different religious communities. Because of this specific
pattern, they are called Communal Riots.
Communal Riots are a very common category in the literature that analyses postcolonial India. Less frequent
but also used is the category of Caste Riots, which are usually called just Riots. But not all riots are caste

Mariana Alves
riots, which refer to events of collective violence specially after the uprising of the scheduled castes, and
their struggle for social justice. There is also a common pattern in those events, specially involving access to
public wells, and to governmental jobs and places into the public educational system.
Those two categories come with attributes, and their definition is much clearer: communal riots deal with
collective violence among different religious communities, and caste riots deal with collective violence
amongst different castes. Nevertheless, those categories of riots are not included in the definition of riots
in the statistics produced by the National Crime Records Bureau; there are no attributes for this category
of crimes. The Bureau makes particular efforts to discuss and stress the many attributes of violence, but for
the cases of collective violence, the definition and the analysis is quite blurred. There is no such a thing as a
“riot” tout court, without attributes. Riots, like the whole discussion of violence in India, also refer to a social
attribute. However, surprisingly, they are not discussed within official government discourse.
The distinction between riots, caste riots, and communal riots may be obvious for an Indian; but for a
foreigner like myself in Brazil intending to learn about violence in India, the Bureau as a source of
comparative data leaves many important features of the society undiscussed. Moreover, the Bureau does not
clarify what a riot actually is, and the reader remains with no idea of the immense brutality embedded in
those crimes, which include events of collective rape, dismembering of body parts, humiliation, and other
very disturbing actions. Those riots are a form of attack by religious community against another, by one
caste against another, making use of all tools and imagination to overcome the other’s community or caste.
Violence against Muslim women and against Dalit women takes a particular form in riots. By disregarding
the role of religion and caste in crimes of collective violence, the crime with the highest incidence in India,
the Bureau is neglecting what is most latent in India probably since its independence: the debate on what it
means to be secular in India.

Mariana Alves
- III -
Comparative studies in the field of social sciences usually take one specific feature, scrutinise its main
characteristics, and analyse it in one or more countries or societies. Their main goal is to sketch similarities
and differences within the practices of the same feature, in a search for generalization through the recurrence
of social patterns amongst different cultures. When it comes to analysis of violence, those comparative
studies tend to focus on one model of crime and analyse it in two or more settings.
The question I would like to address in the final lines of this short paper is what happens when the most
violent crime in one society is not the same as in the other? How are we to deal with the difference? Does it
make sense to compare single crimes, knowing that it may not represent violence in one particular society,
even if it does for another? In this fashion, comparative studies tend to motivate a particular set of gaps
in the analysis of violence, particularly where the differences arise. At the same time, those studies tend
to rank some particular aspects over others, sanctioning what is, and what is not, classified as “violent” or
understood as “violence”. The gaps and the ranking are both aspects of the same problem: as soon as one
definition of violent crime is sanctioned as the most relevant and as the most substantial in order to define
the “level of violence” in a society (ranking societies according to one understanding of violence), a great
deal of crimes tend to be underestimated.
In order to turn comparative studies into a flourishing dialogue between cultures, they could bring into
light violence as an all-embracing category, with a straight relation to the culture where it is inserted. When
comparing societies and comparing violence, the analysis would be closer to the realities under study if
taking for granted the crime with the highest incidence in one particular society and comparing it to the
other society’s most prevalent crime. Two societies and its most violent crimes. The probability that those
crimes might actually be different is immense. In this way, homicide is taken off the list as the common
feature that determines what violence is, and what is not. Therefore, different forms of violent crimes, along
with the different victims related to them, will tell us a great deal about the society and its particular culture.

Mariana Alves
I turned to a discussion on how violence is analysed in India with the intent to go beyond simply counting
crimes, and with the intent to close the gaps. This was not a comparative study for the scope of the paper, but
if it were, it would be a comparison of differences. As a Brazilian citizen, I am used to analyses on violence
that rely most exclusively on murder. If I were to engage on a comparative study of violence taking Brazil and
India as case studies, I would look for murder in India as a possible common feature. However, homicide
is not the crime with highest incidence in India, and analyzing murder as the great sole representative of
violence would create a gap, as I would then be reducing other crimes to a state of non-importance and non-
relevance. It would also tell me that India is not as violent as Brazil; and in terms of murder, India indeed
seems to be much less violent that Brazil. The sad reality is that few countries in the world can beat Brazil on
this index. Riots are the master crimes in India. The official discourse in the country leaves a great deal of
blanks in its definition and, specially, on its way of dealing with those crimes; but still, it makes great efforts
to discuss a kind of violence that deals directly with attributes and the politics embedded in those acts. If we
want to understand violence in Indian society, we have to understand a crime that is a collective act, against
a collective group of victims. The question undermined in this discussion is: what is violence in a particular
society? In Brazil, it seems to me that murder overshadows all other crimes, but does this give an adequate
picture of violence and culture? And what kind of murder, and towards whom? We don´t seem to have gone
deep into those questions; even though Brazil is crawling with statistics.
When turning to violence in India, many of those questions were answered. Violence in India is discussed
with a special attention to different types of crimes (attempting to close the gaps), and with a special
attention to the victims. When we start learning to understand the debates on violence in India, we look for
violence with attributes: violence against women, violence against Dalits, violence against tribals, violence
against Sikhs, violence against Muslins. Social location has always been an imperative in India, so crimes
might occur accordingly. In Brazil, the issue of social location is not always considered in a social analysis,
whatever its kind, as we are educated to believe that Brazilians are a well-integrated culture; but some are
more integrated than others. So, as an indecisive conclusion, we hope that this discussion could lead us to
enhance the perspectives on violence in other parts of the world margins, such as Brazil.

Democracy

‘The Jews’ - From Harijan, November 26, 1938
M. K. Gandhi
But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went
so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new
religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of
humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being
visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name
of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would
be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is
therefore outside my horizon or province.
But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews,
surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims
to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting
towards armed dictatorship and all it means?
Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any
hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and
terrifying it looks in its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect,
and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God
need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the
Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a
second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every
action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my
livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge
him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating
treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would
have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were

M. K. Gandhi
to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily
undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed
in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities
against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even
result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But
if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be
turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands
of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that
would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than the Indians of South Africa.
The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians
of South Africa. And they have organised world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with
courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can
in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-
hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the
strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the
godless fury of dehumanised man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles
in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have
rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are
today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.

And Is Justice for All Just a Constitutional Pipedream?:
Democracy and Institutional Memory
Teesta Setalvad
“Communalism”, a peculiarly south Asian phenomenon, is defined as the misuse and manipulation of
religion and religious symbols for political mobilization and political ends. Apart from and in addition to the
widespread bouts of communal violence between 1946-1947 in the lead up to independence and Partition,
independent India’s encounter with this insidious ill has been marked by a strange duality, bordering on
schizophrenia. Human or manmade disasters, like the fomentation or eruption of communal violence,
have deep and embedded connections to the society and polity in which they occur. They are also, in the
specific Indian, post-Independence context, closely intertwined with the play of electoral politics and the
consolidation of identities therein. Institutional mechanisms for prevention and containment of communal
violence, therefore are critically related to not merely mature and prompt conduct of democratic institutions
but on the reform of time worn practices within these bodies. Democracy, without the checks and balances
of a Constitutional framework of equity and non-discrimination, has a disturbing tendency to slide into
brute majoritarianism. There is urgent need of institutional reform—electoral reform, judicial reform, and
police and administrative reform as well as reflection on the responsibility of news media regarding the
deleterious practices of hate speech and writing.
Creating an institutional framework to deal with communal disturbances requires, foremost, an

acknowledgement and acceptance of the phenomenon of communalism, the role of history and its
manipulations and the propensity of all political structures in Indian democracy to be penetrated by a deeply
majoritarian bias. It is critical to build robust institutional memory from these past experiences. Racism of
different kinds continues to plague western societies, governed as they are by norms of equity, and their
admission of racist bias in no way diminishes, but rather strengthens the foundations of a diverse polity.
Institutionalized communal bias too must be so confronted.

Teesta Setalvad 300. For example, a member of parliament (MP) of the ruling
dispensation, warned Muslims of a “final battle”, and in his
mouth, Muslims were equated to “demons”and “descendants
of Ravana”.
a) MOS External Affairs VK Singh in response to the murder
Hate Speech by the Powerful of two Dalit children in Faridabad; November, 201: “If
somebody throws a stone at a dog, then the government
is responsible?”
Casual and brazen resort to insightful speech by men and women in powerful constitutional positions has http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/not-governments-
becomes a hallmark of the present central government. A group of concerned citizens, including former fault-if-one-stones-a-dog-vk-singh-on-dalit-childrens-
killings-1235137
judges and senior policemen, petitioned the Supreme Court of India to urge suo motu constitutional action
b) Yogi Adityanath, BJP MP, at a public meeting against
against the offenders whose statements clearly form a pattern.300 In brazen violation of Indian law and the alleged the ‘Love Jihad’ of Muslims; August 2014. “If they
Constitution, such speeches were made by or in the presence of the members and office bearers of groups take one Hindu girl, we will take at least 100 Muslim girls.
like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal (BD) and the RSS who are the non-state vigilante If they kill one Hindu, we will kill 100 Muslims”; https://
organs of the ruling BJP dispensation. Arguing in their representation that “the fundamental rights of www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WgcoTPCuTY
c) Amit Shah, BJP president, at an election rally in Bihar,
the people under Article 14, 19, 21 and 25 of the Indian Constitution need to be protected”, prominent October 2015: “If BJP loses Bihar elections, crackers will be
citizens –that included Justice P.B. Sawant, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court and Julio Ribeiro, a senior burst in Pakistan”.
retired policeman of renown—urged action from the court. To date there has been none. These incidents of http://www.ndtv.com/bihar/if-bjp-loses-bihar-elections-
insightful speech are not isolated. crackers-will-off-in-pakistan-amit-shah-1237845
d) Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Union Minister of State for
parliamentary affairs, during a TV programme; May 2015,
“All those who desperately want to eat beef should go
Discriminatory Laws, Vigilante Violence, Victimised Minorities to Pakistan”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U-
MOTB3uYw
As the festival of Eid ul Azha301 drew near in September 2016, a spate of attacks on many Indians, almost all e) Mohan Bhagwat, RSS chief, at the golden jubilee
celebration of VHP in Mumbai, August 2014: “Hindustan is
Muslim, dotted the political landscape already littered with incidents of lynching and bloodletting that have a Hindu nation…Hindutva is the identity of our nation and
become increasingly commonplace. On September 28, 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq, a Muslim was beaten to it (Hinduism) can incorporate others (religions) in itself”;
death after mob hysteria was stoked over the family storing beef.302 Mohammad Ayub, 29 years old, carrying http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/india-
a calf along with Salim Shaikh in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, was lynched by a vigilante mob set upon them even is-a-hindu-nation-and-hindutva-is-its-identity-says-rss-
as the police watched, and he succumbed to his injuries two days later, on September 16, 2016. In law, he chief-mohan-bhagwat/
was committing an illegal act as several states in India have legislated banning the slaughter of cows and 301. Bakri Eid, the Muslim festival that involves sacrifice of
their progeny (excluding in some cases, bulls and bullocks). And yet, in a country that claims for itself the an animal.
status of being a modern and civilized state, the world’s largest democracy, did Mohammad Ayub deserve 302. In Dadri, a daughter asks: “If it is not beef, will they
bring back my dead father?” http://indianexpress.com/
to be surrendered to mob justice? Since then, similar incidents all over India-- states like Karnataka and
article/cities/lucknow/in-dadri-a-daughter-asks-if-its-not-
Uttar Pradesh (not ruled by the supremacist, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that rules the centre), and also beef-will-they-bring-back-my-dead-father/
in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkand and Punjab, dominated by the ruling dispensation303—reveal that under
303. Muslim Cattle Traders Attacked and Hung in Jharkand;
https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/2-muslim-cattle-
traders-attacked-and-hung-jharkand
Teesta Setalvad
the present political dispensation, “Cow Vigilante Groups” have been empowered to take law into their own
hands, attack, molest, lynch and kill. Over 20 Indian states forbid either cow slaughter or beef eating or
both. As a result, access to beef, which is consumed by large sections of Indians, which include Dalits, many
Hindus, Muslims, as well as Christians, is difficult in many states.304 For instance, cow slaughter is illegal in
Haryana, which, in 2015, passed a law that punishes the slaughter of cows with up to 10 years in prison. A 24-
hour helpline now helps people to report incidents of cow slaughter. Days before Ayub’s killing iyan Gujarat
– a state ruled by the present prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, for 13 years before his elevation – 304. The Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and
twin gang-rapes were conducted by squads of men in Mewat, close to the national capital of Delhi, to avenge Gausamvardhan Act, 2015 was passed also
“the possession of beef.”305 The police authorities in Haryana, a state ruled by the BJP (whose chief minister criminalizing the possession, consumption, trading in
or transportation of beef.
recently made the disturbing statement that “rapes and murders were trivial issues”306), took directions from
the Haryana Cow Service Commission whose mission is to look after the welfare of cattle. 305. 1. Fear Stalks Mewat as Bakri Eid
Approaches; 2. Mewat Gang-Rape Victim Breaks
Down While Narrating Horrific Incident; 3. Beef Hysteria
Economically and culturally, this Cow Vigilantism has severely affected both Dalits and Muslims. Dalits, Fueled in Haryana, Serious Questions Raised.
the section of Indians once called India’s untouchables, are often responsible for disposing the carcasses
306. Mewat Gang-Rape Case, Beef In Biryani ‘Small
of cows, selling their hides to tanners, their meat to butchers—tasks falling to them since upper-caste Issues’: Manohar Lal Khattar http://www.ndtv.com/
Hindus consider them impure. On July 11, 2016, four Dalits in Una (Gujarat) were flogged mercilessly for india-news/mewat-gang-rape-case-beef-in-biryani-
performing their legitimate work of carrying cow carcases to skin the animal. Resistance to such vigilantism trivial-issues-manohar-lal-khattar-1460001
had remained scattered until this incident which has brought Gujarat’s Dalits to the streets, abandoning cow 307. Article 48 in The Constitution of India 1949: 48.
carcases all over the state in protest, even at the offices of the district administration: “If the Cow is Your Organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry:
Mother, You Bury Her”. Gujarat’s Dalits and Muslims have also forged solidarity and alliance. Muslims do “The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture
not enter (much in any case) into the BJP’s electoral calculations, whereas Dalits, who constitute a sizeable and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines
and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and
part of India’s population, do. Hence, the BJP and the RSS now seek to appropriate Dalits electorally and by improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter, of
sanitising the great intellectual and leader, Dr B.R. Ambedkar who demanded the annihilation of caste and cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle”.
opposed Hinduism. Since the days of the debates before the Constituent Assembly between 1947 and 1950,
the ghost of “cow protection” has been hovering over and above Indian law and jurisprudence. Unambiguous
in Ambedkar’s analysis that the issue of “cow protection” and “beef eating” was a cultural or religious more
that was being imposed on India’s majority population. He was unable to triumph over Gandhi—and many
other leaders—who laid supreme emphasis on cow protection, and a loose mention of it under the Directive
Principles of State Policy (Article 48) has been used to impose this value. 307

Teesta Setalvad
The economics behind the Cow Vigilante Hate and Lynch Campaign tell a cold and cynical tale. Several
Supreme Court judgements from 1958 onwards saw a consistent and rational jurisprudence evolve. These
court verdicts interpreted the laws in these states to say that while cow slaughter can be banned, the ban on
the slaughter of bulls and bullocks should only be until the animal crosses 14 (the definition of “useful”).
That changed in 2005 when a seven member bench of the Supreme Court (earlier judgements had been
decided by five judges of the same court) headed by then chief justice Lahoti ruled, in effect that bulls and
bullocks are “useful till they die”. The twenty odd Indian states enacted laws for cow protection, (with the sole
exception of Gujarat), were careful to refer specifically to the cow, and to the bull and bullock only till it was 308. The Maharashtra Act of 2015, that received
useful or productive. Since 2014, with the BJP in government, state after state ruled by them has amended Presidential assent on March 4, 2015.
earlier laws to criminalise the transport, possession and consumption of beef.308 The harsher “Ban Beef ”
309. The judgement can be read here https://www.
enacted after 2014 was challenged in Maharashtra (Bombay High Court) almost immediately. On May 6, sabrangindia.in/judgements/consumption-import-
2016, the Court struck down Sections 5D and 9 B of the amended law and in effect allowed consumption, and-possession-beef-allowed-maharashtra-bombay-
import and transport of beef, ruling that these new additions to the law impinged on the right to privacy high-court
which is part of personal liberty and the right to life (a meaningful life with free choice).309 The appeals now 310. With the High Court Judgement in the Sardarpura
lie in India’s highest court. case, in appeal, 14 of the perpetrators earlier convicted
this number stands now reduced to 123; See https://
www.sabrangindia.in/article/gujarat-hc-acquits-14-
The Quest for Justice in the case of the Gujarat Pogrom upholds-conviction-17-sardarpura-massacre-case
311. Over 300 incidents spread over 19 districts of
the state had left over 2,000 dead or missing, 19,000
Rare is it that the political battle against majoritarian violence, against the imposition of fascist or neo-
homes trashed, 10,000 plus business establishments
fascist dimensions to a democratic state, takes the form of a legal battle. Yet that is what the fight for destroyed not to forget 297 Durgahs and Masjids made
acknowledgement, accountability and justice in the case of the 2002 Gujarat genocidal carnage has come a special target.
to denote. Waged inside and outside the courts, in a rare alliance between survivors and civil and legal
rights activists, this battle has in its fifteenth year ensured 137 life imprisonments to powerful perpetrators,
including a sitting MLA and former Minister, a woman doctor, charged with distributing weapons to ensure
that a murderous mob killed over 100 persons.310 The verdict in the Naroda Patiya case delivered on the
morning of 29th August 2012 was historic. A woman judge, Judge Jyotsana Yagnik somberly meted out
exemplary punishment for arguably the worst incident of the post-Godhra reprisal: killings of 2002 that
have been labelled as state sanctioned if not state sponsored.311

Teesta Setalvad
A careful understanding of provisions of Indian criminal law on criminal conspiracy and its application to
the evidence available in the case makes Yagnik’s judgement both thorough and unique. Section 120-A of the
Indian Penal Code (IPC) defines an act of criminal conspiracy as an unlawful act (or series of acts) between
at least two persons, with unanimity of purpose, common intent and design that is then successfully carried
out. Criminal common intent, possession of arms, the presence of some of the conspirators at the scene
of crime and sufficient evidence related to the occurrences of these ingredients are essential to satisfy the
judicial mind that a criminal conspiracy is made out. In this case, as many as 81 victim witnesses and 52
312. https://www.sabrang.com/tribunal/vol2/
other occurrence witnesses (133 in all) have deposed on the extensive character of organized violence that
compgovt.html ; The CCT also held that “the post-
began in the morning (about 9.30-10 am) of 28.2.2002 with the assembly of crowds, shouting of incendiary Godhra carnage in Gujarat an organised crime
slogans and carried on virtually uninterrupted until late evening. This verdict will be tested, in appeal, in the perpetrated by the state’s chief minister and his
high court soon. government. The state’s complicity is evident from
the various acts of commission and omission of the
government and its officials.”
The fact that the man, held by the Concerned Citizens Tribunal (Crimes Against Humanity, Gujarat 2002)
to be “the chief architect of the chief Author and Architect of all that happened in Gujarat after the arson of 313. In the Muzaffarnagar bout of targeted violence
in 2013, for instance, a similar effort was made to
February 27, 2002”312 not only won three successive elections in the state but has risen to the most powerful approach the Supreme Court to exercise its writ of
elected post in the country that of prime minister speaks of the tension, or conflict between constitutional continuing mandamus—that ensures some rigour
principle and electoral politics. Indian democracy with its crude first-past-the-post system and its institutions in monitoring of the trials at the local levels so that
have still to account for this discrepancy. A democracy that sits easily with discriminatory norms symbolised anomalies and breaches may be corrected; but the
judgement delivered by the Supreme Court in these
in incendiary hate speech but worse, democratic institutions like law enforcement bodies (police and
batch of cases in early 2014 was a sorry shadow of
paramilitary) and even the courts filled with persons who espouse an anti-Constitutional dream of Hindu the judicial pronouncements vis a vis Gujarat in 2002.
India has perforated the polity and rendered equality a hollow promise. The failure of India’s courts, even That the lead judge in question rose to be appointed
the higher judiciary to retain institutional memory of experiences like Gujarat 2002 that cause not just major Governor by the new dispensation in Delhi is also a
and violent cleavages within society, but throw a challenge to their very own existence. 313 necessary concluding observation to this narrative.
On May 2, 2002, when some of us from the Citizens for Justice and Peace filed the first case in the Supreme
Court, relying on the historic interim report of the National Human Rights Commission (March 2002)
under former chief justice of India, Justice JS Verma, recommending that the major incidents, including
the train burning at Godhra, should be investigated independent of the Gujarat police (the NHRC and
subsequently our petition asked for transfer of the investigations into 9 criminal cases, including Godhra, to

Teesta Setalvad
the CBI), little did we did we know or realise that our maiden foray into legal redressal would transform into
a historic trial by fire. The decision to form CJP was taken during the dark days of March and April 2002,
as I scoured Gujarat’s cities and districts, baffled and increasingly angry at the sheer scale and meticulous
organisation behind the state sponsored violence. All of us who formed CJP had seen Bombay burn in 1992-
1993, had been active as citizens in the movement to get the Justice BN Srikrishna Report published (when
the Shiv Sena-BJP government disbanded the Commission on coming to power in 1995) and with this past
experience and concern, were clear that it was the cross-party (political) bonhomie and impunity against
mass crimes (be it 1984, Delhi and the anti-Sikh pogrom, or Bombay 1992-1993, Gujarat 2002, Kandhamals
2008, Muzaffarnagar 2013) that enabled, after periodic bouts of an increasingly unstable social peace, for
brute and targeted violence against sections of Indias to happen, and recur. Within this political consensus
is the crucial police and administrative compromise that takes place: across the board administrative (IAS)
and police (IPS) officers, rarely step out of the camaraderie of the service and allow serious indictments of
their brethren, even when stark evidence points at complicity. In that sense, men like former director general
of police, Gujarat, RB Sreekumar, or another IPS officer from Gujarat, Rahul Sharma, or as crucially, senior
314. https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/yet-again-
retired police officers like Chaman Lal (Special rapporteur to the National Human Rights Commission) are supreme-court-raps-indian-state-witness-protection-
rare as rare exceptions. anyone-listening
Between 2002 until July 2003, when the historic developments in the Best Bakery case forced a key witness
to seek help from a Mumbai-based group, CJP, record her statement before the NHRC making plain the
circumstances under which she was forced to turn hostile, the system slumbered. Shaken by the sensational
allegations made by Zahira Habibullah Shaikh on July 7, 2003, the NHRC moved and after a sensational
round of legal proceedings, the Supreme Court rose to deliver the historic judgement, Zahira Habibullah
Sheikh v State of Gujarat, 2004 AIR SCW 2325, which not only ordered re-trial in a case of mass targeted
violence but transferred the trial out of the state of Gujarat. The widely cited judicial decision in criminal
trials points out the statutory responsibilities of the Judge and the Prosecutor – not to remain mute spectators
during a criminal trial-- and ensure that public justice is done. It also flags, again, the crucial issue of witness
protection, critical to substantive justice but an issue that has not found echo within the Indian political
class, not even parties from the centre or left who vow by India’s Constitutional ethos and secularism.314

Teesta Setalvad
In the long term, the cumulative result of these individual legal battles, over 126 in all since 2002 has meant
restoring the faith of despairing and alienated sections of the Indian population, especially its religious
minorities in Indian democracy and the justice deliverance process. This faith has been severely tested by the
politics of hatred and division that has gained hold in the country especially since the late 1980s.
The ultimate test of a successful battle is staying the course. After close to 15 years of bitter experience one of
the lasting lessons is the sober realization that the system works to tire you out. One of the bitter realisations
was the discriminatory levels of justice dispensation. No bail was granted until judgement delivery (February
2011) to those accused of the train burning at Godhra. Those accused of rape, mass murder and criminal
conspiracy in the post Godhra reprisal killings were out on bail within three-six months of the incidents.
Survivors gave witness and the accused stood trial in 2002 (seven years later) while they roamed free in their
areas, on bail Over 500 accused of brute reprisal killings including brutal rape, murder and destruction of
worship were all given bail within months of the violence in 2002. Today 137 (minus 14) of these criminals
have been convicted to life terms. 315. Citizens for Justice and Peace engaged three
lawyers to assist Victim Witnesses through the Naroda
Patiya trial
Safeguarding Witnesses and Evidence
Eyewitness testimonies form the crucial bedrock of evidence and justice, which is why state governments,
police and the defence expend so much energy into turning witnesses hostile. In the historic Naroda Patiya
Case, eye witness testimonies had firm corroboratory evidence in the Sting Operation conducted by Ashish
Khetan of Tehelka that has been accepted as extra-judicial confessions and relied upon by the Judge (Chapter
II of the judgement). Seven years after an incident that remains an iconic reminder of the brutality of Gujarat
2002, the Naroda Patiya massacres, effective and valid testimonies of eye-witnesses were possible (between
2009 and 2011) due to the regular and thorough legal assistance315 provided to victim witnesses availing of
an amendment in Indian criminal law following the Best Bakery case and judgement on 12.4.2004. The role
of the sting operation by the journal Tehelka was vital in proving further aspects of the criminal conspiracy;
in his deposition before the Court, prosecution witness number 322, Khetan confirmed what Babu Bajrangi
had boasted of in his taped conversation, that 23 revolvers had been collected by him from persons owning

Teesta Setalvad
revolvers from the Naroda area to further the conspiracy; gas shortages for ordinary residences in Naroda
Patiya area for weeks before the incident point to a sinister premeditation that precedes even the mass
arson of the Sabarmati S-6 Coach at Godhra on 27.2.2012. The high probative value of the sting operation
stems from the nature of interviews that were recorded with no leading questions being asked, interviews
given moreover to an independent and disinterested witness. The sting operation was validated through the
scientific testing carried out by CBI pursuant to the NHRC order, the oral evidence of the forensic laboratory
scientist and the evidence of Khetan. If the Tehelka tapes had not been preserved through authentication by
the CBI they would have met the same fate as another bit of valuable evidence—the Mobile Phone records CD
provided by then DCP Crime Branch (2002) Rahul Sharma that were lost by the Supreme Court appointed
Special Investigation Team (SIT) by the time the case reached trial.316
It was brave eye-witness testimonies that successfully established that a mob, coming from the direction 316. Chapter III of the Naroda Patiya Judgement, pages
of Krishnanagar and Nartaj hotel, had gathered between the Noorani Mosque and the ST workshop at 792-799 has serious observations on the SIT’s failure to
which point then elected MLA Mayaben Kodnan had come there with her bodyguard Kirpalsing, and had effectively clinch ownership and use of certain mobile
incited and excited the crowd to attack and kill Muslims (“Cut off Miyans” (Muslims)) and also attack and phones.
brutalise women. It was the confidence and protection afforded by a powerful person in this case, Maya 317. Today the figures of the accused sought to be
Kodnani, an elected MLA, that emboldened the mob to criminal actions. This also establishes a chain of charge sheeted stands at 59 as two of those included
command responsibility, from those who conspired, those who physically instigated to those who actually have since, died; in the original, it was 61.
implemented the criminal conspiracy. For the first time in our history, the charges of criminal conspiracy and
mass murder have been framed, and the chief minister and 59 others were and are the accused, still sought
to be charge sheeted 15 years down.317 Will the wealth of evidence be matched by the rigour of prosecution?
Already the Supreme Court appointed Amicus Curiae Raju Ramachandran has in his report has opined that
there is enough evidence to prosecute Modi on charges of dereliction of duty and hate speech.(Sections 166,
153a and 505 of the Indian penal Code).
Significantly the organizational links within the conspiracy that was hatched have also been substantially dealt
with, the presence of an MLA of the ruling dispensation; four other accused were canvassers, propagators
and election workers of Kodnani; another accused ran the election office of the ruling MLA; other accused
are leading lights of fraternal organizations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu

Teesta Setalvad
Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal. It was the VHP that called the bandh following the Godhra incident that
was supported by the ruling BJP; and the accused Babu Bajrangi, a key conspirator, vowed after the Godhra
incident to ensure that the death toll of Muslims was four times the number of deceased in Godhra.
Gender-driven brutalities and violence rarely sustain judicial scrutiny and the narrative of gender violence
usually disappears with the onset of trial. In another first, the Naroda Patiya trial, monitored by the Supreme
Court, with quality legal aid provided to witnesses, a conducive (not hostile) Court atmosphere ensured that
the narrative of gender violence returned during prosecution. Women victim eyewitnesses, emboldened by
legal assistance and also physical protection given to them under the CISF by Orders of the Supreme Court,
testified bravely about the extent of gender driven violence and rape on Muslim girls and women.318, 319
318. In May 2004, on an application by CJP and
The writ of continuing mandamus is what the Supreme Court exercised when it monitored the major Gujarat argued by then Amicus curiae, Harish Salve, 570
witnesses were given cluster protection by the central
2002 trials. This writ from the higher judiciary remains an exception rather than the rule, difficult to secure. paramilitary including human rights defender Teesta
Abiding questions of necessary judicial monitoring especially when executive misdemeanours are under Setalvad. Once trials began, special witness protection
scrutiny remain in the balance. was given to all victim witnesses ensuring that they
deposed without fear or favour.
While, all over India, debates raged on the ethical rights and wrongs of the death penalty, Survivors of the 319. In June 2010, the CJP submitted a CJP Survivors
2002 massacre, aided by us, have arrived at a judicious and humane stand. Faced with a vicious prosecution Report to the CEDAW Committee of the United Nations.
in the Godhra train burning case – even the Supreme Court appointed SIT – in response to all the
post-Godhra reprisal killings we have asked for life imprisonment not the death penalty. These are echoed in
the words of Judge Jyotsna Yagnik (relevant Paras on Death Penalty at Page Nos 1935-1940). The now famed
Zakia Ahsan Jafri and Citizens for Justice and Peace case against Modi and 59 others lies before the Gujarat
High Court, in appeal. This Complaint that has gone from prayers to register a First Information Report to
Charges being framed, alleges criminal conspiracy to commit mass murder in 19 of Gujarat’s 25 districts,
to subvert justice, destroy evidence and intimidate public servants upholding the truth. For the first time
in our history, criminal conspiracy and mass murder are the charges, the chief minister and 59 others were
and are the accused, still sought to be charge sheeted, 15 years on. Will the wealth of evidence be matched
by the rigour of prosecution? Already the Supreme Court appointed Amicus Curiae Raju Ramachandran

Teesta Setalvad
has opined in his report that there is enough evidence to prosecute Narendra Modi on charges of dereliction
of duty and hate speech (Sections 166, 153a and 505 of the Indian penal Code). Senior policemen, says
Ramachandran, should also be prosecuted not just for criminal dereliction of duty but subverting of the
criminal justice system and destruction of evidence. For the Indian system and courts, this remains a test
case, the mother of all cases. None believed that such success as we collectively achieved in the Naroda
Patiya case could be our lived reality.
320. Teesta Setalvad, Communalism Combat, March

Lessons Forgotten 1998, Who Is To Blame, https://www.sabrang.com/cc/
comold/march98/document1.htm
Report of the Justice Jagmohan Reddy Commission of
A series of extremely detailed inquiries by serving judges of higher courts between 1961-2002 have
Inquiry investigating the Ahmedabad riots of 1969:
provided us with, what should have been an institutional understanding, in lay terms the causes behind the Report of the Justice D.P. Madon Commission of Inquiry
perpetration of such violence.320All these Commissions constituted under the Commissions of Inquiry Act into the Communal Disturbances at Bhiwandi, Jalgaon
(1952) while being robust independent inquiries initially were limited by the statute under which they were and Mahad of 1970:
constituted. The executive was in no way statutorily obliged to accept their recommendations after a public Report of the Commission of Inquiry, Tellicherry Distur-
bance, 1971, Justice Joseph Vithyathil:
inquiry constituted following a natural or manmade disaster or for any other critical reason, was instituted.
Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Communal
The detailed and well-studied recommendations did not bind any government into implementation. Worse, Disturbances at Jamshedpur, April 1979:
the analysis provided by them did not serve as necessary institutional cautions and reminders to prevent Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Communal
such outbreaks and perpetrated tragedies in future, as was the case in post-WWII Europe. One of the Disturbances at Jamshedpur, April 1979
reasons for this reluctance to institutionally absorb the findings and transform this experience into policy https://www.sabrang.com/cc/comold/march98/docu-
ment3.htm
formulation was the accompanying failure of the Indian criminal justice system to actually punish those Report of the J.Ranganath Misra Commission of Inquiry
guilty of violations of the law. While judicial commission reports have, since the early 1960s, presented into the 1984 riots in Delhi
cogent analyses and findings, an imbalance and institutional schizophrenia have been stoked by a failure
of the Indian criminal justice system to hold the perpetrators of communal violence, or the outfits deemed
to be the perpetrators to book and under Indian law, serve terms for their violation of Indian criminal law.
In 1970, the Justice DP Madon Commission of Inquiry in its nine-volume report studied the disturbances
in different parts of Maharashtra (Bhiwandi, Jalgaon, Mahad) and made a detailed set of recommendations
that remained un-implemented for over two decades. In 1992-1993, after Bombay burned with the embers

Teesta Setalvad
of such perpetuated targeted hatred, the Justice BN Srikrishna Commission report (February 1998) referred 321. Point 106.62 of the Justice Madon Commission
to this lack of rigour in implementation of the Madon Commission’s findings. Apart from the directly law Report re-printed by Sabrang Communications and
and order issues, Justice Madon had emphasized “the communal mindset derived from the perversions of Publishing Private Limited, Damning Verdict, DP Madon,
religion and the distortions of history”.321 This detailed observation from a Judge, repeated in other judicial Judge High Court, Bombay, Volume VI, Parts Vi and VII,
commission reports, could not be more relevant than today. A politically legitimized project to distort Chapters 100-106:- “ The responsibility for provoking
the Bhiwandi disturbances:- 103.155. Under the
and manipulate history is afoot that, apart from being a curb on free expression, is motivated by a desire second part of clause (c) of the Terms of Reference,
to disenfranchise and divide the polity. This project needs to be robustly resisted with creative counter- the Commission has to inquire into and report on
narratives legitimized and used. whether there is any organization or group within the
limits of the Bhiwandi–Nizampur Municipal Council
and in the revenue villages of Khoni and Nagaon or
In addition to the systematic perversions of the communal history generation project, these judicial outside the said places which has directly or indirectly
commission reports, after detailed examination and cross-examination of evidence have pinned responsibility provoked the Bhiwandi disturbances. The organization
on certain outfits for being responsible for the outbreak of violence. An apt response to these reports would which has both directly and indirectly provoked the
have been for the Indian police, the Indian judiciary as also State Assemblies and Indian Parliament to disturbances which took place in Bhiwandi, Khoni and
Nagaon on May 7, 1970 and thereafter is the Rashtriya
study these findings and internalize their understanding of the conclusions. This would have significantly Utsav Mandal, the majority of the members of which
sharpened our understanding of the word communalism, communal outfits etc. Instead, the communal belonged to the Jan Sangh or were pro–Jan Sangh and
outfits of the majority sections of the population have escaped adequate censure and de-construction even the rest, apart from a few exceptions, belonged to the
as, in the arena of electoral politics, a majoritarianism has legitimized its exclusive claims to citizenship and Shiv Sena.”
patriotism. The Justice Madon Commission report is unequivocal.322 Other reports are also worthy of close 322. Teesta Setalvad Communalism Combat, March
study.323 Justice BN Srikrishna submitting his critical report on the post Babri Masjid demolition violence 1998, Who Is To Blame, https://www.sabrang.com/cc/
in Bombay (1992-1993), in February 1998, reproduced large sections of the Madon Commission report in comold/march98/document3.htm
his recommendations. Twenty-eight long years in between had seen virtually no institution of governance 323. Ibid.
adopting the intrepid recommendations, allowing the insidious weakening of democratic structures by the 324. Point 103.141 of the Justice Madon Commission
virus of communalism. The rule of law was and is the greatest casualty, hollowing the functioning Indian Report re-printed by Sabrang Communications and
democracy from within. Publishing Private Limited, Damning Verdict, DP
Madon, Judge High Court, Bombay, Volume Ci, Parts Vi
and CII, Chapters 100-106: Though in several matters
The Judiciary, too, has not intervened sufficiently to contain hate speech and hate writing as laid under the authorities acted promptly, adequately and
Sections of the Indian penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). This, despite the efficaciously, the measures taken by them to prevent
fact that judicial commissions have identified this as one of the major causes behind the generation of the said disturbances must be held to have been
a communal atmosphere within which the outbreak of violence happens.324 This ambivalence on action inadequate”

Teesta Setalvad
against speeches that are motivated “with a desire to spread animosity and violence against a particular
community” is often linked to the widespread acceptance of majoritarian communalism in the first instance
by not just the police but even the public prosecutor and other sections of the law and order machinery.325, 326
325. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal, Gujarat 2002,
Communalism afflicts all sections of society and while the communalism of the majority sections Crimes Against Humanity headed by Justice CR
infiltrates state apparatus and institutions of governance, critically affecting Constitutional functioning Krishna Iyer and PB Sawant states in its section
of these institutions that are enjoined under Articles 14-30 of the Indian Constitution to be wedded to on Recommendations:- 1.11. The Judiciary is also
empowered to initiate suo motu action, which it has
principles of equality and non-discrimination, communalism is by no means restricted to the majority. been loath to do in these circumstances. In addition,
Minority communalism feeds majority communalism and together, they are a potent mix. Faced with these section 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows an
phenomena, judicial bodies that have painstakingly gone into the genesis and bouts of communal violence executive magistrate to initiate action against a person
have laid down guidelines for religio-political processions. These guidelines are observed more in their violating section 153A or 153B of the IPC.
breach.327 326. See Point 103.141 of the Justice Madon
Commission Report re-printed by Sabrang
Communications and Publishing Private Limited,
Modi’s well-heeled spin-doctors have been continually portraying him since 2007 as a model of good Damning Verdict, DP Madon, Judge High Court, Bombay,
governance. This was also echoed by sections of Indian business. The ground reality then, in Gujarat,328 was Volume Ci, Parts Vi and CII, Chapters 100-106; see also
the opposite of what was claimed. India today suffers the same fate. Apart from generally perpetuating a Point 106.2 – 106.24 of the report.
growth model that was a lived example of “jobless growth”, Gujarat under 13 years of Modi rule (until May 327. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/Poverty-
2014 and to date), whether it was access to housing, employment and education or the exercise of fundamental amid-prosperity/article15617654.ece
rights, Muslims, who constitute about 9 per cent of the population, are marginalised or treated as second- 328. http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/
class citizens. So are Dalits, who account for about 7 per cent of the populace. If the Patel agitation were to ahmedabad/we-will-expose-myth-behind-gujarat-
be taken seriously, so are Patels, feeling disenfranchised.329 As chief minister of Gujarat, Modi did his best model-hardik-patel/
to ensure that Muslims and other minorities do not benefit from the various Central government schemes 329. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/
geared towards affirmative action and making citizens more equal. He sought to prevent the implementation education/news/HC-asks-Modi-government-
of the Centre’s pre-matriculation scholarship scheme for students from the minority communities. His to-implement-minority-scholarship-scheme/
articleshow/18515866.cms
government was criticised by the Courts for this discriminatory conduct.330
330. http://www.iosworld.org/gujarat-growth.php
The survivors and rights groups who fought for justice have been specifically targeted and victimised. Worse,
they have not been rehabilitated with dignity. They have been given houses with no amenities. The majority

Teesta Setalvad
of Muslims in this area are poor. They work as farmhands or as manual labourers at construction sites. Some
of them take up odd jobs in small industrial units.
A report by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), authored by Abusaleh Shariff
in 2011,331, sums up the discrimination against Gujarat’s Muslims, best. The report explores “the relative
development of Gujarat, followed by the socio-religious differentials in the standard of living in the State.”
Shariff, who has drawn data from the National Sample Survey Organisation, the Sachar Committee report
and the Reserve Bank of India, provides some crucial and telling statistics that testify to the fact that Muslims
in Gujarat are marginalised largely because of state policies. Poverty amongst the urban Muslims is eight
times (800 per cent) higher than high-caste Hindus, about 50 per cent more than the Hindu-Other Backward
Classes and the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes [S.Cs/S.Ts]. Note that over 60 per cent of all Gujarati
Muslims live in urban areas and they are the most deprived social group in Gujarat. On the other hand, rural
poverty amongst the Muslims is two times (200 per cent) more than high-caste Hindus. He also observes
that educationally, Muslims are the most deprived community in Gujarat. A mere 26 per cent reach the level 331. https://www.sabrangindia.in/indepth/ideology-
of matriculation, whereas the proportion for others, except the S.Cs/S.Ts, is 41 per cent. A large number rashtriya-swayamsevak-sangh-rss-both-hate-ridden-
of Muslim pupils drop out around class V. A disturbing trend was noticed in respect of higher education. and-supremacist-part-1
Muslims who had the same level of education as other categories in the past are left behind compared
with even S.Cs/S.Ts. A startling fact revealed by the study is that upper-caste Hindus have benefited the
most from the public provisioning of higher education in recent years. Regarding employment, the report
found that a larger number of Muslims in Gujarat are self-employed or do petty trade. Self-employment and
petty trade have shown only a marginal income growth in the past two decades in comparison with other
sectors of the economy. In Gujarat, foreign direct investments and public investments are channelled into
the organised sector where Muslims do not find employment. Shariff notes that Muslims generally have
better employment opportunities in State public sector enterprises across India, whereas in Gujarat they do
not have access to organised and public sector employment.

Teesta Setalvad
Conclusion
This record of mis-governance is worth recalling as we assess, with trepidation, the impact of an inherently
discrimination-based regime. A government that does not believe in either equality of citizenship or the
principles of non-discrimination.332 A government that seeks to colour and taint the Indian administrative
services and police forces even further; a government that seeks to replace the discipline of history and the
social sciences with mythology and supremacist and exclusivist readings of history.
The absence of institutional memory plagues Indian institutions of governance, especially when it comes 332. http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar/article.
to addressing systemic failures caused by carefully constructed bouts and cycles of targeted violence. It is php?article=136&category=2&issue=19 ; http://
this utter void in institutional acknowledgement of what constitutes communalism and communal violence peoplesdemocracy.in/2015/0621_pd/destruction-
education ; http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/
that has resulted in institutional paralyses preventing a prompt and just response to such tragedies. This is article5134.html
not democracy in its true and full-bloodied sense. It is majoritarian authoritarianism, even proto-fascism.
333.http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar/article.
India333 is well and truly at the crossroads.
php?article=136&category=2&issue=19 ; http://
peoplesdemocracy.in/2015/0621_pd/destruction-
education ; http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/
article5134.html

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Arundhati Roy
In The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Miss Jebeen, a little Kashmiri girl, says to her father—“Akh daleela
waan”. “Tell me a story”. And then she begins the story herself. The story she wants to be told. “There wasn’t
a jungle. And a witch did not live in it.” She wanted a real story. The novel demonstrates that the real story of
the subcontinent today and its relation to the rest of the world can be told only through literature.
This short film, which was made to give audiences at public readings of the novel a sense of the worlds
through which the story ranges, takes us through some of the events, the streets, the terror, the lakes, the
animals and the jungles between which the poetic realization of the real seizes its readers.
http://www.theministryofutmosthappiness.com

Contributors

Contributors
Subhashini Ali
Member of the Politburo of the Communist Part of India (Marxist) and vice president of the All India
Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). She was a trade unionist and, previously, actor and costume
designer in Indian Cinema. She has served as Member of the Parliament as well as member of the National
Commission for Women.
Maria Alves
Scholar with BA in Social Anthropology from Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK; MA in
Sociology State University of Campinas, UNICAMP, Brazil; PhD in progress in Sociology State University
of Campinas, UNICAMP, Brazil. She has attended a period as visiting researcher at the Institute for Social
and Economic Change, ISEC, Bangalore, India, and at the Center for Postcolonial Studies at Goldsmiths
College, London, UK.
Shahid Amin
Modern South Asian History, with a special interest in the political, socio and intellectual history of the
unlettered women and men. His work combines close readings of colonial texts, political and judicial,
with historical fieldwork. His publications include Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992
(University of California Press, 1995); ed. A Concise Encyclopedia of North Indian Peasant Life (Manohar,
Delhi, 2005). His latest work is Conquest & Community: the Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan (University
of Chicago Press, 2016). He is completing a study on the role of learned Indian clerks, working under colonial
official-scholars, in the compilation and systematization of linguistic knowledge and dialectology during the
period 1890s-1920s.

Contributors
S. Anand
Author, publisher, and translator. He, along with D. Ravikumar, founded the publishing house Navayana
in 2003, which is “India’s first and only publishing house to focus on the issue of caste from an anticaste
perspective”. He co-authored, with Srividya Natarajan, and illustrators Durgabai Vyam and Suresh Vyam,
the hugely popular graphic novel Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability on the life of B.R. Ambedkar.
He has also annotated B.R. Ambedkar’s classic Annihilation of Caste which was published by Navayana with
an introductory essay by Arundhati Roy titled “The Doctor and the Saint.” Before starting Navayana, Anand
worked as a journalist with Outlook and Tehelka.
Research Associate, Théodile, University of Lille 3, France, and Member, PLIDAM Research Centre, INALCO,
Paris. She is head of the department of French, University of Mumbai. Her research interests include the
pedagogy of language learning, intercultural approach, technology in language learning, plurilingualism.
She enjoys working on ancient Indian poetry too by virtue of being a Carnatic singer. A Fulbright scholar
and an Erasmus Mundus fellow, her principle works include the co-edited book, L’Enseignant non natif :
Légitimité et identités dans l’enseignement-apprentissage des langues étrangères (Belgium : EME, 2011), Les
Alwars du Tamil Nadu- interpréter la poésie mystique, La Nouvelle Revue de l’Inde (Harmattan, 2017), Le
plurilinguisme en contextes asiatiques : dynamiques et articulations ([co-ed]),Glottopol, no 30, 2018).
Debjani Bhattacharyya
Assistant Professor of history at Drexel University. Her work lies in the intersection of legal history,
environmental studies and political theory. Her first book Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The
Making of Calcutta is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Her work has been supported by the

Contributors
Junior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, The History Project grant from Harvard
University, and International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden.
Urvashi Butalia
Publisher and writer. Co-founder of Kali for Women, India’s first feminist publisher, and now Director of
Zubaan, she is also author of the award-winning oral history of Partition, The Other Side of Silence: Voices
from the Partition of India. Her recent works include Women Changing India, published celebrate 150 years
of BNP Paribas in India and to mark the 25th anniversary of the feminist publishing house, Kali for Women/
Zubaan.
Supriya Chaudhuri
Professor Emeritus at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She has held visiting appointments at the University of
Cambridge and the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Her areas of interest are Renaissance studies, philosophy,
critical theory, sports, cinema, translation, Indian cultural history and modernist studies. Some of her
publications include Conversations with Jacqueline Rose (co-authored: Seagull/Chicago, 2010); Petrarch: the
Self and the World, edited with Sukanta Chaudhuri (JUP, 2012); Sport, Literature, Society: Cultural Historical
Studies, edited with Alexis Tadié and J.A. Mangan (Routledge, 2013), and Bankimchandra: Collected Prose,
edited with Jasodhara Bagchi (OUP, 2014). She has published many scholarly articles and translated
extensively for the series Oxford Tagore Translations.

Contributors
Divya Dwivedi
Philosopher based in the Subcontinent. She teaches Philosophy and Literature at the Department of
Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. She is the co-editor of Public Sphere
from outside the West (Bloomsbury Academic 2015). Her forthcoming publications include a monograph
on M. K. Gandhi with Shaj Mohan (Bloomsbury Academic), and Narratology and Ideology: Negotiating
Context, Form and Theory in Postcolonial Texts co-edited with Richard Walsh and Henrik Skov Nielsen
(Ohio State University Press).
M. K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
Also known as Mahatma, Gandhi was one of the leaders of the Indian Independence movement against
British imperial rule in the first half of the twentieth century. Before that, he worked for the causes of the
Indian community in South Africa. He introduced the idea and method of Non-violent passive resistance,
and he influenced a variety of protest and ecological movements all over the world. Above all, he is one of
the foremost thinkers of the theoretical paradigm called postcolonialism.
Ramchandra Gandhi
Born in 1937, and the grandson of M. K. Gandhi, Ramu Gandhi was a philosopher. He studied philosophy at
Oxford where he was taught by Peter Strawson. He is known for founding the philosophy department at the
University of Hyderabad. He also taught at Visva-Bharati University, Panjab University, California Institute
of Integral Studies in San Francisco, California, and Bangalore University. He died at the India International
Centre on 13 June 2007.

Contributors
Aude Engel
Indologist and author of Cuire le monde. Rite et pensée dans l’Inde ancienne (1989), Le jumeau solaire (2002),
La danse des pierres. Études sur la scène sacrificielle dans l’Inde ancienne (2005), Féminité de la parole. Études
sur l’Inde ancienne (2005). He taught at the Université de Lyon and at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes
(EPHE, Paris), where he is now Honorary Research Director. Malamoud became a specialist in Vedic
religion, studying the sacrificial rites with particular attention to the role of Vāc, a word that appears in the
sacrificial formulas and whose mission, according to this religious tradition, is to constantly recreate the
world as a timeless measure.
Journalist, political commentator, author and a documentary film maker. He has recently taken up the
editorship of the prestigious journal of social sciences, Economic and Political Weekly. Among his important
books are Media Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis
(2014), and Sue the Messenger: How legal arm-twisting by corporates is shackling reportage and undermining
democracy in India (2016, both co-authored with Subir Ghosh). He is also a regular contributor in print,
radio, television and documentary film, more recently Freedom Song (2012).
M. F. Husain
Maqbool Fida Husain was the modern painter known for executing bold, vibrantly coloured narrative
paintings in a modified cubist style. Born in 1915 in Maharashtra, India, and based in Bombay, he was
one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. Husain also received recognition as a printmaker,
photographer, and filmmaker. His short subject Through the Eyes of a Painter won a Golden Bear in 1967
at the Berlin International Film Festival. After fighting a series of lawsuits and receiving death threats from

Contributors
Hindu extremists, Husain lived from 2006 in self-imposed exile, mainly in London and in Dubai. In 2010,
he accepted Qatar’s offer of citizenship. He died in exile on June 9, 2011.
Javed Iqbal
Freelance journalist and photographer from India. Iqbal worked as an investigative reporter for The New
Indian Express from November 2009 to April 2011, and has contributed articles and photographs on the
state-Maoist civil war, on human rights and social struggles, to Daily News & Analysis, The Sunday Guardian,
Outlook Magazine, Al Jazeera, Fountain Ink Magazine, Tehelka, Financial Times, Le Courier International,
and Infochange.
Yashpal Jogdand
Assistant professor (Social Psychology) at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian
Institute of Technology Delhi. His research interest include self and identity, intergroup conflict, humiliation,
ostracism, social exclusion and rejection in intergroup and interpersonal relations, stereotypes and prejudice,
leadership and mobilisation, psychology of oppression. His publications have particularly focussed on how
disadvantaged groups in society experience and manage/challenge issues of identity, status, morality and
emotion.
Sanjay Kak
Independent documentary film-maker with interests in ecology, alternatives and resistance politics. His
films include Red Ant Dream (2013) about the persistence of the revolutionary ideal in India, Jashn-e-Azadi
(2007) about the idea of freedom in Kashmir, Words on Water (2002) about the struggle against the Narmada

Contributors
dams in central India, and In the Forest Hangs a Bridge (1999), about the making of a thousand foot bridge
of cane and bamboo in north east India. He is the editor of Until My Freedom Has Come – The New Intifada
in Kashmir (Penguin, 2011).
Jitish Kallat
Artist born in Mumbai in 1974. His vast oeuvre, spanning painting, photography, drawing, video and
sculptural installations, reveals his persistent probes into some of the fundamental themes of our existence.
Some works might be meditations on the transient present while others reach back into history and overlay
the past onto the present through citations of momentous historical utterances. Kallat’s works have been
exhibited widely at museums and institutions including Tate Modern (London), Martin Gorpius Bau
(Berlin), Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane), Kunst Museum (Bern), Serpentine Gallery (London), Mori Art
Museum (Tokyo), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Hangar Bicocca (Milan), ZKM Museum (Karlsruhe),
Arken Museum of Moderne Kunst (Copenhagen), Institut Valencia d’Art Modern (Spain), Art Museum
(Tokyo), Jean Tinguely Museum (Basel) and the Gemeente Museum (The Hague) amongst others. His
work was exhibited in the Havana Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, Asia Pacific Triennale, Fukuoka Asian Art
Triennale, Asian Art Biennale, Curitiba Biennale, Guangzhou Triennale and the Kiev Biennale. He was the
curator and artistic director of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014.
Geeta Kapur
Geeta Kapur is India’s foremost art critic, historian and curator; throughout the latter decades of the
twentieth century, she has both shaped and documented the emergence of a contemporary art scene in
the subcontinent. Her essays on art, film, cultural theory in the context of Third World perspectives and
avant-garde artistic practices have been widely influential. Kapur has curated shows both nationally and
internationally, as well as lecturing worldwide in university and museum contexts. In January 2010, the Asia
Art Archive began to digitise the entire and expansive personal archives of Kapur and her artist-husband

Contributors
Vivan Sundaram, which includes thousands of photographs, artworks, slides, articles, clippings, catalogues
and exhibition ephemera – arguably one of the most arcane and unique perspectives on South East Asian
art ever to be collected online.
Krishen Khanna
Artist Born in 1925 in what is now Faisalabad in Pakistan. Figurative and tending towards narrative, Khanna’s
work captures moments in history. Among his solo exhibitions are Krishen Khanna: Drawings & Paintings
at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2016; When the Band Begins to Play... at Grosvenor Gallery, London,
in 2015; A Celebration of Lines at Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, in 2013; Krishen Khanna: A Retrospective
presented by Saffronart, Mumbai at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, in 2010; The Savage Heart at Cymroza
Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2008; Krishen Khanna, Saffronart and Berkeley Square Gallery, London, in 2005;
and An Airing at Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2004.
Adam Knowles
Assistant Teaching Professor of philosophy at Drexel University and is a Visiting Fellow at the Jack, Joseph
and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum in 2017-8. His book The Paradox of Silence: Heidegger, Language and National Socialism is currently
under review. He is translating Heidegger’s Black Notebooks 1942-8 for Indiana University Press.
T. M. Krishna
Renowned vocalist in the Karnatik tradition. He has started and is involved in organisations whose work is
spread across the whole spectrum of art and culture including research, documentation, education, activism

Contributors
and supports artists from economically and socially marginalised communities. He has co-authored Voices
Within: Carnatic Music – Passing on an Inheritance, a book dedicated to the greats of Karnatik music.
His most recent book, A Southern Music (Harper Collins 2013), was awarded the Tata Literature award
for the best debut non-fiction book for the year 2014. He is the recipient of the Ramon Magsayay Award
(2016) for his forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions,
breaking barriers of caste and class.
Ravish Kumar
Journalist and the senior executive editor at NDTV and the leading news presenter at its Hindi news
channel, NDTV India. He is also a writer and has authored Ishq Mein Shahar Hona (Rajkamal) among other
books. He has received the prestigious Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Award for Hindi Journalism and Creative
Literature for 2010 from the President of India (awarded in 2014). He was honoured with the Ramnath
Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for the Journalist of the Year 2013 (Broadcast).
Charles Malamoud
Indologist and author of Cuire le monde. Rite et pensée dans l’Inde ancienne (1989), Le jumeau solaire (2002),
La danse des pierres. Études sur la scène sacrificielle dans l’Inde ancienne (2005), Féminité de la parole. Études
sur l’Inde ancienne (2005). He taught at the Université de Lyon and at the École Pratique des Hautes Études
(EPHE, Paris), where he is now Honorary Research Director. Malamoud became a specialist in Vedic
religion, studying the sacrificial rites with particular attention to the role of Vāc, a word that appears in the
sacrificial formulas and whose mission, according to this religious tradition, is to constantly recreate the
world as a timeless measure.

Contributors
Shaj Mohan
Philosopher based in the Subcontinent. His philosophical monograph on Gandhi with Divya Dwivedi titled
Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-Politics is forthcoming (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). He is the
co-editor, with Dwivedi and J. Reghu, of the forthcoming volume of essays Politics of Conversion.
Perumal Murugan
Indian author, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has authored six novels, four
collections of short stories and four anthologies of poetry. Three of his novels have been translated into
English. He has received awards from the Government of Tamil Nadu and Katha Books. He is a professor of
Tamil at the Government Arts College in Namakkal. In January 2015, he announced that he was giving up
writing after he came under attack from Hindutva supporters who claimed that his novel Madhurobhagan
(One Part Woman, 2010) is blasphemous. The novel explores the problems of caste divisions in the context
of a childless marriage and alludes to real-life places and communities such that actual communities were
considered to be slurred. Recently a judgment of the Madras High Court upheld his rights and those of
writers and artists in general to critically represent their communities.
Independent documentary photographer based out of Bangalore, India. His practice is often multi-
disciplinary and involves writing, video and multimedia. In his documentary work, Vivek seeks for ideas
that can serve humanitarian purposes. His photographs have appeared in print and in the digital realm of
some of these organisations: The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Guardian, Motherland Magazine, TimeOut
Explorer, Outlook, Tehelka, National Geographic Traveller India, Huffington Post India and The Indian Express.
He has also contributed to publications and printed reports for The WHO and Greenpeace.

Contributors
Meera Nanda
Independent scholar based in the United States. Her education has been in both science and philosophy,
and her research interests include the history of science, Hindu nationalism and the subversion of scientific
temper, postmodernism and right-wing environmentalism, apart from the philosophy of science. She has
been a John Templeton Foundation Fellow in Religion and Science (2005-2007), and is currently in India
as Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali. She is the author
of Prophets Facing backward: Postmodernism, Science and Hindu nationalism; Postmodernism and Religious
Fundamentalism: A Scientific Rebuttal to Hindu Science; The God Market.
Karuna Nundy
Constitutional law expert and advocate in the Supreme Court of India. She specialises in constitutional law-
including digital, free speech and gender rights- and commercial dispute resolution. She also advises United
Nations agencies and governments of various countries to help their legal systems conform to international
and constitutional legal standards.
Ram Rahman
Born in 1955, Rahman has shown his photographs in individual and group shows in India and around the
world. His most recent solo shows include, “Bioscope: Scenes from an Eventful Life” presented by Bodhi
Art at Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, in 2008; Apparao Infinity, Chennai, in 2007; “Photo Studio / Cutouts”
at India International Center, New Delhi, in 2003; and “Visions of India: Photographs by Ram Rahman” at
the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, in 2002. Amongst the exhibitions curated by him are “Heat – Moving
Pictures Visions, Phantasms and Nightmares” at Bose Pacia, New York, in 2003; “Noor – Devyani Krishna,
A Retrospective” at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, in 2000; and “Sunil Janah Photographs,

Contributors
A Retrospective” at Gallery 678, New York, in 1998. Rahman is one of the founding members of the Safdar
Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) in New Delhi, a leader in the resistance to communal and sectarian
forces in India through its public cultural action. The artist lives and works in New Delhi.
Alok Rai
Professor (retired), Department of English at Delhi University and before that, he was the Head of the
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Delhi. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford
and University College London. His areas of research include modern English Literature and cultural
processes in modern North India, with particular reference to issues of politics, language and literature. He
is the author of Orwell and the Politics of Despair (Cambridge University Press, 1990) and Hindi Nationalism
(Orient Longman, 2000) as well as numerous academic papers, and critical essays in popular journals. He is
an eminent public intellectual and translator from Hindi.
J. Reghu
Public intellectual and Assistant Editor, State Institute of Encyclopedia, Government of Kerala. His
research interests include History of Ideas, Intellectual History of Colonial India, and Social History of
low-caste Movements in Kerala. He is a prolific writer of monographs and articles on these fields in English
and Malayalam, which have been brought out by DC Books, Subject and Language Press, and the Dalit
Centre for Social and Cultural Initiatives, Kerala. He is also the author of “Community - as De-imagining
Nation: Relocating the Ezhava Movement in Kerala” in a contributory volume published by Rutledge, and
“Backwater Universalism: An Intercommunal Tale of Being and Becoming” in another published by Oxford
University Press. He contributes regularly to journals such as Mathrubhumi, Bhasaposhini, Kalakaumudi,
Dhesabhimani, and Pachakuthira.

Contributors
A. Revathi
Writer, actor and activist based in Bangalore. She works with Sangama, a sexuality minorities human
rights organization for individuals oppressed due to their sexual preference. She is the author of Unarvum
Uruvamum; and her autobiography, The Truth about Me (Penguin, 2010), is the first of its kind in English
from a member of the hijra community. Her recent book is A Life in Transgender Activism (Zubaan, 2016).
Arundhati Roy
Born in 1961, Shillong, India, Roy is a novelist and essayist. Her celebrated novel The God of Small
Things (India Ink, 1997) was awarded the Booker prize. Her political essays include The Algebra of Infinite
Justice (2002), War Talk (2003), Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (2009), Walking with
the Comrades (2011), “The Doctor and the Saint” (introduction to the annotated edition of B. R. Ambedkar’s
The Annihilation of Caste, Navayana, 2014) and Capitalism: A Ghost Story (2014). Her second novel The
Ministry of Utmost Happiness was published in 2017.
Teesta Setalvad
Civil rights activist and journalist. She is the co-founder and co-editor of the magazine Communalism
Combat; leads the project «Khoj: Education for A pluralistic India; and one of the founders of the Women in
the Media Committee. She is the secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), an organisation formed
for fighting for justice for the victims of communal violence in the state of Gujarat in 2002. She is also the
author of Beyond Doubt: A Dossier on Gandhi’s Assassination (Tulika Books, 2015).

Contributors
Hartosh Singh Bal
Political editor at The Caravan, and is the author of Waters Close Over Us: A Journey Along the Narmada.
He was formerly the political editor at Open magazine. Bal has co-authored A Certain Ambiguity, a novel
which won the 2007 Association of American Publishers award for the best professional/scholarly book in
Mathematics.
Parthiv Shah
Photographer, film maker and a graphic designer. An alumnus of the National Institute of Design, He is
founder-Director of Centre for Media and Alternative Communication (CMAC). His recent interests and
engagements are with the issue of image perception and representation. His visual journeys have lead him
into working with communities which are finding a mainstream voice and identity including the transgender
community and street children. With Jan Breman, he is the author of Working in the Mill No More (Oxford
University Press and Amsterdam University Press, 2004) and co-editor, with Sana Das, of Art as witness
(Tulika Books, 2010).
Tejal Shah
Artist Born in 1979, Bhilai, India. Her practice incorporates video, photography, performance and
installation and focuses on “the inappropriate/d other” – one whom you cannot appropriate and one who is
inappropriate. Que(e)rying everything, she creates alter-curious worlds riddled with fact, fiction, poetry and
mythology, compelling us to re-engage with propositions on the complex relationships between interspecies,
ecology, gender, sexuality and consciousness. Her works have been shown widely in museums, galleries, and
film festivals including the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2017), Zuckerman Museum of Art, Atlanta
(2017), the Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo (2016-17), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2014), documenta

Contributors
13 (2012), Centre Pompidou (2011), Tate Modern (2006) and at “Indian Highway” (2009) curated by Julia
Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Gunnar B. Kvaran at the Serpentine Gallery, London, Ullens Center
for Contemporary Art, Beijing, MAXXI, Roma, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, and the
Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, France, among others.
Vijay Tankha
Professor (retired) of philosophy and Head of the Department of Philosophy, St. Stephen’s College, University
of Delhi. His philosophical research specialises in Ancient Greek philosophy. His recent publications include
Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Plato (Pearson) and a forthcoming book on Plato and poetry. His
philosophical writings also appear regularly in newspapers and magazines.
Anand Teltumbde
Senior Professor at the Goa Institute of Management, and writer, civil rights activist, and political analyst.
He has authored many books on various issues relating to Peoples’ movement with particular emphasis on
the Left and Dalits. His books include The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders and India’s Hidden
Apartheid (Zed) and
Romila Thapar
Historian of Ancient India and Professor Emeritus at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Thapar
has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the College de France
in Paris. She was elected General President of the Indian History Congress in 1983 and a Corresponding
Fellow of the British Academy in 1999. She received honorary doctorates from several prestigious institutions

Contributors
including the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Chicago, London (SAOS), Calcutta, and Cornell and Brown
Universities. Among her many books are A History of India, Vol. 1 (Penguin) and The Public Intellectual
India (Aleph).
Siddharth Varadarajan
Founding Editor of The Wire. He was earlier the Editor of The Hindu and is a recipient of the Ramnath
Goenka Award for Journalist of the Year. He has taught Economics at New York University and Journalism
at the University of California, Berkeley, besides working at the Times of India and the Centre for Public
Affairs and Critical Theory, Shiv Nadar University.
Rohith Vemula
PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad and activist of the Ambedkar Students’ Association there. From
a poor and Dalit background, he aspired to be a science writer. In January 2016, he committed suicide in
the university campus during protest against the discontinuation of his and his comrades’ fellowships by the
university and its attempts to quell their protests. His writings have appeared as Caste is not a Rumour: The
Online Diary of Rohith Vemula (Ed. Nikhila Henry, Juggernaut Books, 2016).
Roshni Vyam
A third generation Gond artist who strives to break the stereotypes that surround Gond art. With her
experimental bent, she takes the art form to a new level, exploring themes of caste oppression, urban life,
uprooted people, creativity, and what it means to be human. Her work has been exhibited at Lalit Kala
Kendra (Delhi), Dhoomimal gallery (Delhi), India International Centre (Delhi), Dakshinchitra (Chennai),

Contributors
State Tribal Museum (Bhopal), Colorado, Boulder (USA), Staffordshire University (UK) and Le Hublot
d’Ivry (France). She has also worked on designs for graphic books with publishers such as Navayana, Tara
Books (Chennai), Eklavya (Bhopal). Since 2017, she has been involved in “Metro lands”, a collaborative
project of two poets and two illustrators from India and France. She also continues to collect and write the
traditional stories of Gond and other tribal communities, which are unscripted and vanishing day by day.

Summary of the illustrations of this magazine whose rights are reserved
Illustration page 10
M.F. Husain
Saraswati (1976) by one of the greatest Indian artists who was Muslim. This portrayal of a late Hindu goddess
of learning, Saraswati, also a mythical river considered to have vanished underground, was identified after
20 years as offensive and obscene by the Hindu Right, who vandalised Husain’s house and his art gallery,
and burnt many of his paintings. They also destroyed several, including the three above which were part of
a later exhibition celebrating Husain and the freedom of art. Husain closed down all his galleries and left
India as a result of the physical threats and hundreds of court cases filed against him in different corners of
the country. He could not return in his lifetime and died in London, in exile.
Text page 40
Shahid Amin
Making the Nation Habitable (2016)
Photograph page 275

Sam Panthaky/AFP
Hitler Clothing Store (2012). One of the two Indian owners of the ‘Hitler’ clothing store - Rajesh Shah -
poses in a t-shirt adorned with an image of Indian freedom icon Mahatma Gandhi, in front of his shop in
Ahmedabad on August 28, 2012.
Painting page 278

Krishen Khanna
News of Gandhiji’s Death (1948) by Krishen Khanna, oil on canvas, 83,8 × 83,8 cm, Collection of Rathika
Chopra, Rajan Anandan, New Delhi, India. Info: Queens Museum.

Photographs page 291

Jitish Kallat
Public Notice 2 (2007) redeploys a historic text in a sculptural form, making out of them mirrors against
which to assess our present. It is based on the speech that Mahatma Gandhi delivered at the Sabarmati
Ashram in Ahmedabad on 11 March 1930, a day before he began the Dandi salt march against British laws
taxing salt production in India, inspiring a nationwide civil disobedience movement. 4,479 sculptural units,
cast resin.
Photographs pages 294 to 302

Sanjay Kak
Bridal Procession (2004) by Altaf Qadri. A bride leads the way through a rice field as a wedding procession
heads for the groom’s home at Batkoot village, October 3, 2004.
Aftermath of an Encounter (2015) by Showkat Nanda. Syeda Begum looks into a room of her home, severely
damaged in a gunfight between soldiers and suspected ‘militants’ in Ladoora village of Baramulla district,
August 13, 2015.
APDP Protest (2014) by Javed Dar. Families of the Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP)
gather in Pratap Park, Srinagar, December 10, 2014. For the last 15 years, on the 10th day of every month they
make public their demand to know the whereabouts of their loved ones. Rights groups estimate that more than
8000 people have been ‘disappeared’ in Kashmir, most after being taken away by government forces.
Family of the Disappeared (2016) ) by Showkat Nanda. Hussain Bibi and her children in their home in a
village near the ‘Line of Control’, August 10, 2016. Her husband, Ahmad Hussain Shah (45) and son Nazir
Hussain (18), both porters, were picked up by soldiers from their home on August 15, 1997.
Protesting Women (2008) by Showkat Nanda. Women in north Kashmir’s Langate town protest the death of two
teenage sisters, August 4, 2008. Protests erupted, as many believed the girls could have been victims of a conspiracy,
because the two were witnesses to an infamous case of rape and murder of a young girl the previous year.

Burial Procession (2008) by Javed Dar. Six members of a family were buried alive after an avalanche rolled
over their house following five days of incessant snowfall in the mountainous Peth Hallan village, near
Qazigund, February 8, 2008. Army and police rescue teams were able to save only one of the seven family
members in the house.
After the Fire (2012) by Javed Dar. A woman pauses to absorb the damage to her home, burnt down at a fire
in Frislan village, after a day spent rummaging through the debris, on the outskirts of the mountain resort
of Pehlgam, November 25, 2012.
Road to Shamaswari (2015) by Azaan Shah. A woman walks past old homes in downtown on May 25, 2015.
Pellet Gun Injuries (2016) by Yasin Dar [© AP Images 2017 / Dar Yasin]. Mohammad Imran Parray, wounded
by shotgun pellets fired by police during a protest, at a hospital at Srinagar, July 13, 2016. Indian Home
Minister Rajnath Singh said that the government troops will begin replacing shotgun pellets with chilli-
filled shells to control angry crowds in Kashmir. According to local officials and doctors, the use of pellet
guns has killed at least four people and left more than 100 partially blinded.

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WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS’

United Nations International

N° 4-5 / December 2017

FOR NUMBER 4-5

Editorial Assistance: Priyanka Deshmukh, Chloé Pretesacque, Aarushi Punia

7, place Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France

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Intellectuals, Philosophers, Women in India:

N° 4-5 / December 2017

Parthiv Shah Aude Engel

Public Intellectual Karuna Nundy

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रवीश कु मार Women

Philosophy Vivek Muthuramalingam

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What is Nationalism in India? Anand Teltumbde

Krishen Khanna Democracy

Caste & Religion Contributors

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Intellectuals, Philosophers and Women in India: Endangered Species

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Saraswati (1976) by one of the

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3. Quoted in Ram Rahman, “A personal Take on M.F.

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a form of institutionalised murder, just as Rohith Vemula’s was. […]

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Romila Thapar and Siddharth Vardarajan

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SV: In fact, he lost the popular vote.

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SV: This is what happens now.

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SV: They in fact negate that concept.

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