1 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:19,330 I think you might have to just wait for a couple of minutes because it takes a little bit of time to just join in. 2 00:00:19,330 --> 00:00:25,370 Also, our panel two speakers on Kill yet, but perhaps they're going later, you think? 3 00:00:25,370 --> 00:01:35,280 Yeah, I think they'll probably join it. So we give it another minute before we begin. 4 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:44,690 You have a question from an anonymous attendee, will these panels be recorded and shared? 5 00:01:44,690 --> 00:02:06,800 Yes, there will be. Yes, we should be sort of begin in that case because I think people can keep joining in as we continue. 6 00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:10,970 OK, so hi, welcome everyone to the performance and Bar and daily webinar. 7 00:02:10,970 --> 00:02:19,220 My name is Nadia Maxwell and I'm one of the convenors of this event, along with my colleagues, Dr. Bonnie Gil and Dr. Timo Joju, Kyoto, Oxford. 8 00:02:19,220 --> 00:02:26,570 I'm going to see just a few words to introduce this event. So our overarching interest today is to think about how we can understand the changes 9 00:02:26,570 --> 00:02:31,850 wrought by the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019 to India. 10 00:02:31,850 --> 00:02:37,460 We're interested in understanding politics, powerful forms of political expression and the obstacles to that, 11 00:02:37,460 --> 00:02:41,300 as well as the ways in which the Indian state is currently acting. 12 00:02:41,300 --> 00:02:47,540 We're keen to hear directly from individuals who in very significant ways and with key facets of contemporary India, 13 00:02:47,540 --> 00:02:55,110 from constitutionalism to journalism to civil society, activism to artistic expression and the voicing of dissent. 14 00:02:55,110 --> 00:03:02,550 We chose to send a performance in this early attempt to understand India after the sea by performance, we mean several things all at once. 15 00:03:02,550 --> 00:03:07,320 We take performance quite literally to mean forms of expression such as art, Peter Song, 16 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:13,230 dance sloganeering and poetry that have been marshalled to express a range of emotions and political thinking. 17 00:03:13,230 --> 00:03:18,270 Furthermore, we study politics itself as a title performance with actors, drama, speeches, 18 00:03:18,270 --> 00:03:24,540 dialogues, costumes, access to different stages and on stage management and publicity. 19 00:03:24,540 --> 00:03:30,780 Finally, we get to consider these various abuses and abuses and abuses of state power as a type of performance. 20 00:03:30,780 --> 00:03:36,270 Now we would, of course, be cognisant of the fact that the sorts of performances we're referring to euro wide spread across India, 21 00:03:36,270 --> 00:03:40,140 but we've chosen to centre Delhi for the submission of the event just in order to 22 00:03:40,140 --> 00:03:45,210 circumscribed the discussion and also to give it some form of an empirical specificity. 23 00:03:45,210 --> 00:03:52,920 I should note that we hope to keep this discussion going over the course of the year, so this is just sort of an early initial conversation on it. 24 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:57,150 Finally, before hand over to my colleague out to chair the first panel, 25 00:03:57,150 --> 00:04:04,590 I would like to thank the contemporary South Asian Studies Programme at Oxford School of Global In-a-row Studies for generously supporting this event. 26 00:04:04,590 --> 00:04:10,320 So Aubrey Gama for the first panel. Hello. 27 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:17,160 In the first panel will tackle how the state performs forward and what this reveals about the nature of the state with focus on daily, 28 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:20,670 and we have a really stellar panel to help us tackle this question. 29 00:04:20,670 --> 00:04:29,340 We'll start with Akash, who has recently completed his Ph.D. at JNU and is a lecturer at the Department of Education at a university. 30 00:04:29,340 --> 00:04:34,350 We will then have Hirschman, then who is an alternative columnist and director of the Centre for Equity Studies. 31 00:04:34,350 --> 00:04:43,410 We're all familiar with his work on hunger and mass violence. We will then go to a chimney who is a lawyer litigating in Delhi courts. 32 00:04:43,410 --> 00:04:46,890 He writes on issues of contemporary politics, and we're all familiar with his writings. 33 00:04:46,890 --> 00:04:56,190 And finally, we have made the truth was an award winning journalist with words in Al Jazeera, the Catalan, the Wired, New York Times, amongst others. 34 00:04:56,190 --> 00:05:02,250 Just a few housekeeping announcements before we get started. The speaking order is the same as I just listed. 35 00:05:02,250 --> 00:05:08,910 Each speaker will speak for about 15 minutes, leaving us with about 30 minutes for question and answers in the end. 36 00:05:08,910 --> 00:05:18,570 I request the to please write down their questions and either the to enable the checkbox in the selection of questions and take it to our panellists. 37 00:05:18,570 --> 00:05:26,610 And so over two hours from our first speaker. Thank you. 38 00:05:26,610 --> 00:05:31,410 Good. I'm Deborah. Yeah. 39 00:05:31,410 --> 00:05:41,620 OK. So as far as the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens is concerned, 40 00:05:41,620 --> 00:05:46,990 there's a lot to talk about with regard to what exactly they are. Broadly, we know what they are about. 41 00:05:46,990 --> 00:05:55,090 But more specifically legally, how it they can shape the Citizenship Amendment Act, the NRC. 42 00:05:55,090 --> 00:06:00,770 What is the story in a sound that it began? How it became an all-India issue, so on and so forth. 43 00:06:00,770 --> 00:06:04,240 Now I'm not going to so much details, but I want to tell you that, you know, 44 00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:09,790 there is a lot of material that is available which describes all these things in great detail. 45 00:06:09,790 --> 00:06:20,560 And if you want, I'm happy to share with you those PowerPoints and the slides which were made in the course of the campaigns over here. 46 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:26,830 As far as. Yes, as far as my daughter is concerned, I go straight to the topic, 47 00:06:26,830 --> 00:06:38,500 which organises a think to focus on which is the politics of fathers and bureaucracy with regard to S.A.C., 48 00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:44,830 which immediately takes us beyond Delhi, in fact to Azam and then to the rest of India, 49 00:06:44,830 --> 00:06:53,410 and shows us how this question of bureaucratic violence and others has actually animated the protest very strongly. 50 00:06:53,410 --> 00:07:00,550 So at one level, ideologically, that has been the question of secularism. 51 00:07:00,550 --> 00:07:10,810 The question of democracy has fanned out in multiple forms, and one of them is precisely this question of democratic of violence. 52 00:07:10,810 --> 00:07:19,270 And what is the purpose of this particular act of bureaucratic violence who are at the receiving end of it? 53 00:07:19,270 --> 00:07:28,300 And that is this going to lead us to I want to take you through some of the documents and campaign materials that have been produced. 54 00:07:28,300 --> 00:07:35,920 Some glimpses are that relate to, you know, the C and NRC. 55 00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:38,880 How do they really come together? You know? 56 00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:50,040 The Constitutional Amendment Act is geared towards denying slash giving depends on how you look at it citizenship to people based on religion, 57 00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:59,310 which is not historically been the case in India rather than actually registered of citizens citizens, is get worse. 58 00:07:59,310 --> 00:08:06,480 To quote our great, great politicians, I will not name who the readout infiltrators. 59 00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:16,080 So to see when the question is, who are these infiltrators and how are they to be identified outside these major questions? 60 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:22,200 What has really been quite glaring is the lack of clarity that the Home Ministry has 61 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:27,810 consistently maintained with regard to the all-India NRC with regard to the documents, 62 00:08:27,810 --> 00:08:32,250 with regard to the actual statistics of immigration in different parts of the country. 63 00:08:32,250 --> 00:08:36,390 I mean, is the NRC necessary at all, so on and so forth? 64 00:08:36,390 --> 00:08:41,670 There has been an acute lack of clarity, but despite such a huge lack of clarity. 65 00:08:41,670 --> 00:08:51,810 And while we had an overall sense that the CAA and NRC are connected to the overall project of producing a Hindu rushed, 66 00:08:51,810 --> 00:09:01,080 the protest against the NRC really took shape in the rest of the country once stories of ascendancy began to filter out and 67 00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:11,130 would then refine the penguins strap people the most was this issue of bureaucratic violence and the politics of August. 68 00:09:11,130 --> 00:09:17,070 What are the stories of some NRC covered by journalists such as Rohini Mohan, 69 00:09:17,070 --> 00:09:22,140 whose work became very important to make us aware of the NRC in South India? 70 00:09:22,140 --> 00:09:29,400 What the story really told us, first of all, was that the NRC is not something which has the home minister said. 71 00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:37,980 I put him on this. This is April 2019, Amit Shah said first, the Citizenship Amendment Bill will come. 72 00:09:37,980 --> 00:09:41,910 All refugees will get citizenship, then the NRC will come. 73 00:09:41,910 --> 00:09:46,430 This is why refugees should not worry, but infiltrators should. 74 00:09:46,430 --> 00:09:53,090 Understand the chronology that will come and gone in our in our seas, not just for our summer Bengal, it's for the entire country. 75 00:09:53,090 --> 00:09:58,580 So this is his very famous statement on a chronology. 76 00:09:58,580 --> 00:10:03,110 So know this false binary between the infiltrator and the refugee. 77 00:10:03,110 --> 00:10:07,850 How are they to be identified? That takes us directly to the question of the two. 78 00:10:07,850 --> 00:10:16,850 The bureaucratic process of identification and to the actual process of Assad may not know how some of the, of course, 79 00:10:16,850 --> 00:10:23,930 has a longer history connected to questions of migration to that region and how my mission was impacted 80 00:10:23,930 --> 00:10:31,760 by first the partition of India and then the Bangladesh independence vote and the birth of Bangladesh. 81 00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:37,270 And that history, I won't go into great details of the point with them over here is that even then, 82 00:10:37,270 --> 00:10:46,820 important sections of Assamese civil society who feel that their migration problem needs to be resolved and who feel that NRC might have been known, 83 00:10:46,820 --> 00:10:52,880 you know, with the way things are handled, the situation is a bit different. But a lot of people initially thought the NRC was a good idea. 84 00:10:52,880 --> 00:11:01,290 At least also acknowledged that the right wingers could a big role in communal housing the immigration issue in Assam. 85 00:11:01,290 --> 00:11:10,560 By making it less a question of immigrants versus people of Assam and making it more of a Hindu-Muslim question. 86 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:17,850 So what really struck people in the rest of the country was that really this infiltrator vs. refugee family is a false meaning. 87 00:11:17,850 --> 00:11:24,150 It all comes down to the enumeration process and the question of producing documents. 88 00:11:24,150 --> 00:11:29,070 Now what are these documents that we're talking about before we go to the documents? 89 00:11:29,070 --> 00:11:35,940 Just a glimpse of how some of those historians have been used to create awareness and the rest of the country. 90 00:11:35,940 --> 00:11:42,060 So prediction one, could we have that many? Yeah. 91 00:11:42,060 --> 00:11:48,430 So this one, for instance, the story of application denied the scroll down, please. 92 00:11:48,430 --> 00:11:54,550 Yeah. These are all real stories the live shows don't have to have some 40 years Hindu longer. 93 00:11:54,550 --> 00:12:00,760 Remember, the reason to mention this specifically was that [INAUDIBLE] give the impression that, look, everybody is at risk. 94 00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:04,660 It is not about them infiltrators versus refugees, Hindus versus Muslims. 95 00:12:04,660 --> 00:12:11,890 Everybody is at risk, and white people are said to be a weak document on his united citizenship. 96 00:12:11,890 --> 00:12:23,920 The next one. The exclusion of children from the NRC, or you will have names of four children, Rula Amin Durga. 97 00:12:23,920 --> 00:12:33,060 Yeah, I do not belong to different religions, different languages and all denied place in the NRC because it's called this. 98 00:12:33,060 --> 00:12:37,620 Young delayed birth certificate before more than three months after birth. 99 00:12:37,620 --> 00:12:41,520 Not accepted as a legitimate document for the NRC. 100 00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:50,480 So the letters opposing policy impaired NRC, which puts children at risk of losing their citizenship. 101 00:12:50,480 --> 00:13:02,890 So. Yeah. What exactly is the you know, what exactly has been the document issue as far as the NRC is concerned? 102 00:13:02,890 --> 00:13:07,120 No. On the face of it, the rules are pretty lax. 103 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:17,050 The rules are pretty lax, as in. I just say briefly what the rules were initially following the Mossadeq on two different lists of documents 104 00:13:17,050 --> 00:13:22,810 have been specified as lineage data for proving one's eligibility for inclusion in our seminars. 105 00:13:22,810 --> 00:13:29,470 There is a list in which includes 14 documents which are issued before the cut-off date of 1971. 106 00:13:29,470 --> 00:13:34,150 And then there is List B list. It seems pretty exhaustive. 107 00:13:34,150 --> 00:13:46,360 1951 NRC electoral rolls up to 24 March Duncan 71 Land and Tenancy Records Citizenship Certificate Refugee Registration Certificate Passport LLC, 108 00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,150 any government issued licence, so on and so forth. 109 00:13:49,150 --> 00:13:56,530 And if somebody will produce a document from list in here to prove lineage by a set of linkage documents, 110 00:13:56,530 --> 00:13:59,380 which is then I don't have any of these documents, 111 00:13:59,380 --> 00:14:07,060 but I can show that where parents are from this place by showing them they possess a set of documents given in list, 112 00:14:07,060 --> 00:14:08,920 not least B, those are pretty exhaustive. 113 00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:15,250 On the face of this board certificate, there is one document that is universal the certificates on and so forth. 114 00:14:15,250 --> 00:14:22,870 A range of things, but no read the story gets complicated is I mean the f. 115 00:14:22,870 --> 00:14:28,510 Yeah, this prediction is all things. This prediction is one we'll go to, Linda. 116 00:14:28,510 --> 00:14:31,480 Yeah. Now the story gets complicated at multiple levels. 117 00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:36,940 First of all, there are several articles which come out at that time, which is very nicely articulated. 118 00:14:36,940 --> 00:14:41,960 This point that in this war are basically document war. 119 00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:49,220 With regard to asylum, with its history of floods and immigration, of the many stories of loss of documents and of both of them had this thing. 120 00:14:49,220 --> 00:14:52,850 A range of documents given in those lists have also not been accepted. 121 00:14:52,850 --> 00:14:59,000 So, for instance, something like a delayed birth certificate about certificate issued more than three months after birth. 122 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:07,730 There has not been accepted. So the range of documents, which I know are in that list have been classified as weak documents. 123 00:15:07,730 --> 00:15:13,380 So all of these on all of these issues have meant that when the NRC came out and 124 00:15:13,380 --> 00:15:18,830 found that a large number of people had been excluded from all across communities, 125 00:15:18,830 --> 00:15:25,490 Prediction two We don't have a very clear indication of who are the ones excluded. 126 00:15:25,490 --> 00:15:30,800 But some work missed, some work done by local activists. 127 00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:35,160 I have provided provided us with a set of tentative yes. 128 00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:41,320 Scroll down, please. Yeah. 129 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:54,590 So, you know, this is a really interesting and important debate. Assemblies handle 60000 work, cut 85000, gradual 58000 Gloria Maria, 130 00:15:54,590 --> 00:16:04,390 Chicago Tribune and the Shia Muslims and the Assamese Muslims 35000 borrowed to anti-carbon nine rubber and cauldron ignition seven, 131 00:16:04,390 --> 00:16:11,260 so on and so forth. Now these are indigenous tribes, the tribal people of the region. 132 00:16:11,260 --> 00:16:18,460 So diggers such as this and the stories that are filtered in really brought forth the centrality of the question, of course. 133 00:16:18,460 --> 00:16:22,840 You know, you look at the violence. No one saw this. 134 00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:31,900 Thank you. This prediction is for them. No. A couple of things, you know, once this began to filter in about, fears also surfaced. 135 00:16:31,900 --> 00:16:40,060 So, for instance, leading Adivasi intellectuals, particularly from Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, busted open here. 136 00:16:40,060 --> 00:16:45,790 That look, not only randomness is a risk because of the lack of many such documents. 137 00:16:45,790 --> 00:16:48,850 But there could be a surreptitious will of converting articles. 138 00:16:48,850 --> 00:16:55,240 Think to Hinduism over, you know, why is that so for them to look at the Citizenship Amendment Act, 139 00:16:55,240 --> 00:17:04,150 not ask what the Citizenship Amendment Act if you are a refugee fleeing religious persecution from a neighbouring Muslim majority countries, 140 00:17:04,150 --> 00:17:09,710 I'm not even saying Islamic countries, Muslim majority countries eligible for citizenship, 141 00:17:09,710 --> 00:17:14,950 so Muslim but specific religion that also mentioned Hindu Saint Christian. 142 00:17:14,950 --> 00:17:19,180 But this audience of knowing Jharkhand tribal intellectuals, 143 00:17:19,180 --> 00:17:23,890 writers such as a caricature and others have pointed out that look, what it means is that look, 144 00:17:23,890 --> 00:17:28,360 agriculture is going to have some determination because they don't have a document that told that, look, 145 00:17:28,360 --> 00:17:34,450 you can come back into citizenship procedure, but you might have to tell you something like Hindu. 146 00:17:34,450 --> 00:17:43,000 So there's this very clever process of and this is no coincidence it's been a long term project of, you know, who's there, who's involved. 147 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:52,720 So this fierce battle to stop immediately on what also came out was that the question of bureaucracy was central not only to the NRC, 148 00:17:52,720 --> 00:18:02,050 but also for the city. So the to put community in Bengaluru and most of the refugees from East Bengal and ask about East Pakistan, 149 00:18:02,050 --> 00:18:07,420 then they claim that look, the disenfranchisement had started to see in 2003, 150 00:18:07,420 --> 00:18:14,170 which was the first time specifying that citizenship was to be a lot of the was to be based not only on McCallum, 151 00:18:14,170 --> 00:18:21,650 but also at least one of your parents should not be and should not be an illegal infiltrator. 152 00:18:21,650 --> 00:18:28,280 That at one stroke disenfranchised a range of MOTU refugees from East Bengal that is one of the disenfranchisement started. 153 00:18:28,280 --> 00:18:33,950 So it is not simply in our city that the politics of bureaucracy so central to the taking away of citizenship, 154 00:18:33,950 --> 00:18:38,830 but also the granting of citizenship under came right. 155 00:18:38,830 --> 00:18:45,400 So these are some of the facets of, you know, the politics of covers and bureaucracy, I'm an immigrant. 156 00:18:45,400 --> 00:18:53,920 A couple of points. First, the work of somebody legitimate scholarly has really shown that while the question of problems is very important now, 157 00:18:53,920 --> 00:19:02,770 given the proximity between the National Population Register and the UAP, the unique I can project the card. 158 00:19:02,770 --> 00:19:09,070 It is possible for the state to update the NRC, even if you do not show Congress after the point, 159 00:19:09,070 --> 00:19:14,610 there is enough data to update the NRC to some extent and to actually categorise people as doubtful 160 00:19:14,610 --> 00:19:20,380 voters so that even without really taking a stand against those who can become a doubtful voter. 161 00:19:20,380 --> 00:19:24,130 And then what option do we have got to your brothers and prove that in order? 162 00:19:24,130 --> 00:19:30,240 Doubtful, so that I'm going to come in very strongly through the work of streaming us globally, amongst others. 163 00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:35,650 We have the politics of bureaucracy and the politics of cargo's don't exactly coincide. 164 00:19:35,650 --> 00:19:42,550 Bureaucratic Sutherlands can take forms other than Congress. A couple of other things. 165 00:19:42,550 --> 00:19:47,260 Yeah, I think as far as the bureaucratic balance is concerned, it's important to keep in mind, 166 00:19:47,260 --> 00:19:51,190 first of all, that there is a longer history that stretches beyond any one issue. 167 00:19:51,190 --> 00:19:55,540 And I think that's one of the reasons why some in our 70 minute residents of the 168 00:19:55,540 --> 00:19:59,530 rest of the country for people who have been suffering from bureaucratic violence, 169 00:19:59,530 --> 00:20:07,240 even without questions of any immigration coming up. So that sort of place is this within a long term trajectory of Indian democracy and its failures, 170 00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:13,390 but also specifically, what is the current government planned to do to the CAA, NRC and beyond? 171 00:20:13,390 --> 00:20:23,440 These two questions come up very powerfully. And lastly, I think these these issues are very important to talk about at great length, 172 00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:28,960 especially in the light of this massive media campaign being launched to discredit the protest and 173 00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:34,750 frame the protesters and what all this protest is about the range of issues that have come up, 174 00:20:34,750 --> 00:20:36,580 the range of voices that have come up. 175 00:20:36,580 --> 00:20:43,600 It's really important to highlight that this jihadi Naxalites operate separately, and this is nonsense and how we challenge them. 176 00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:50,230 We have to build up a counter-narrative. You have to build up a counter-narrative running all these stories thing that's really important. 177 00:20:50,230 --> 00:21:01,960 And I learnt it over the. Thank you. 178 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:11,280 I should be this. And you, you know, 179 00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:22,530 the Union Republic over the past year has uttered from a very long passage of darkness into light suffused with sudden 180 00:21:22,530 --> 00:21:32,120 unexpected hope and then return to an even deeper darkness filled with foreboding and fear and all of this in the past one year. 181 00:21:32,120 --> 00:21:40,450 Preceding this past one year, the last five years saw a very intense. 182 00:21:40,450 --> 00:21:44,380 Project an interesting project. 183 00:21:44,380 --> 00:21:58,000 A project to reduce Indian Muslims into second class citizens in contravention of the core values of our freedom struggle and end of the Constitution, 184 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:05,860 because at the core of the idea of India itself is the idea that this is a country that belongs equally in every way. 185 00:22:05,860 --> 00:22:13,300 The people of every faith or the absence of faith. Because to every community, every language, 186 00:22:13,300 --> 00:22:25,360 there is no there is no one way of being Indian and and and at the antithesis of this idea for the past 100 years. 187 00:22:25,360 --> 00:22:27,070 And in fact, what we're seeing today, I think, 188 00:22:27,070 --> 00:22:36,220 is the culmination of a battle that actually began 100 years ago when Mahatma Gandhi came to lead the freedom struggle 189 00:22:36,220 --> 00:22:47,830 from South Africa and and in opposition to the idea of an inclusive and green India was the idea of the human. 190 00:22:47,830 --> 00:22:57,790 And the Odyssey's formed India a hundred years ago, which was that India would be a country of Hindus, 191 00:22:57,790 --> 00:23:09,100 a Hindu supremacist country in which religious minorities, particularly Muslims and also Christians, would have to live only as second class citizens. 192 00:23:09,100 --> 00:23:23,680 So the last five years preceding the year that I speak about now was one of continuing the same metaphor, one of of of mounting darkness, 193 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:31,900 and I saw, you know, the anti-Muslim project actually working out in, you know, there were three stages to this project. 194 00:23:31,900 --> 00:23:35,110 One part of the project was the political project. 195 00:23:35,110 --> 00:23:41,710 A political scientist for long had maintained that because the many constituencies in India are big, 196 00:23:41,710 --> 00:23:48,010 Muslims form a significant part of the population. 197 00:23:48,010 --> 00:23:54,610 The conventional wisdom of political scientists was that on an openly anti-Muslim project, 198 00:23:54,610 --> 00:24:03,790 no party can come to power and and therefore this agenda would always be somewhat diluted and negotiated, 199 00:24:03,790 --> 00:24:09,320 as we saw in the prime ministership of this got to be. 200 00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:17,270 But but what what what the first part of this project, which I call the political project, 201 00:24:17,270 --> 00:24:22,850 was really a project to render the Indian Muslim politically irrelevant, 202 00:24:22,850 --> 00:24:30,800 and the only way that they could accomplish this was really a project in which everybody across caste, 203 00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:41,510 all Hindus across cost and significant sections of the Dalits and the iDevices and even Christians in many parts of the country. 204 00:24:41,510 --> 00:24:47,840 We will put the fuse together against the Indian Muslim and that. 205 00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:53,480 And when that happened, the Indian Muslim increasingly became politically irrelevant. 206 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,940 In fact, was seen almost as a liability, 207 00:24:55,940 --> 00:25:05,120 and even non BJP parties were unwilling to articulate their their concerns in the discrimination that they were facing. 208 00:25:05,120 --> 00:25:10,550 The second was the social project, and I won't talk too much about it. 209 00:25:10,550 --> 00:25:17,780 But this was a social project in which a hatred and bigotry against the Muslims became part of our 210 00:25:17,780 --> 00:25:25,760 social life and our public and personal lives and our intimate spaces in ways that were unprecedented. 211 00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:34,900 The normalisation, the in even the vandalisation of hatred and bigotry through hate speeches and many others. 212 00:25:34,900 --> 00:25:42,380 But but it's mostly the magic in the rise of lynchings and cults would gather in the 213 00:25:42,380 --> 00:25:50,550 name of protecting a goal in the name of love jihad and and beat people to death. 214 00:25:50,550 --> 00:25:59,960 1996 97 per cent of cases of lynching of two going to happen after Mr Modi came to power, 215 00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:09,350 and eighty six per cent of people killed in these incidents were Muslim and eight per cent were done with. 216 00:26:09,350 --> 00:26:18,120 The project was very clear and I, with some colleagues, we mounted finally a response which we call carbon. 217 00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:24,980 But a caravan of love may be dissolved because every home in the country or families that people have 218 00:26:24,980 --> 00:26:31,130 been lynched to see that there are people who can stand with you in solidarity and also an improvement. 219 00:26:31,130 --> 00:26:35,600 And we made about 30 journeys since I've seen and been across the country. 220 00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:42,830 The cruelty of the violence and comes families, which I wish they'd just shot him. 221 00:26:42,830 --> 00:26:49,970 It just knifed him to death. But I didn't torture him and go on to say he's smashed his genitals. 222 00:26:49,970 --> 00:26:55,610 And it was performed utopian performance. It was performative with a video camera. 223 00:26:55,610 --> 00:27:01,650 Every single case was big. You were duped by the perpetrators and and celebrated. 224 00:27:01,650 --> 00:27:12,510 And so this was the second project and and after that, when Mr. Modi came into power made his bid for power last year, 225 00:27:12,510 --> 00:27:21,750 it was a time when when when the when the economy tanked, unemployment was at 45 at a 45 year high. 226 00:27:21,750 --> 00:27:25,520 There was nothing else on offer except this muscular it. 227 00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:39,150 It and and Mr. Modi came back with an even larger mandate of his thirty seven point six votes percentage share in the voters. 228 00:27:39,150 --> 00:27:49,080 Thirty six percent of them were Hindus, and 44 percent of all Hindus voted for him for the role for his openly divisive political agenda, 229 00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:53,870 and even one in three Dalits voted for Mr. Modi. 230 00:27:53,870 --> 00:28:04,910 And therefore, Mr Modi and and his home minister, Amit Shah, interpreted this third term for the third part of the project, 231 00:28:04,910 --> 00:28:15,800 which which I see as one way, not just in the practise of or of social and political relations, but in law itself. 232 00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:29,540 India gets transformed into a Hindu majority, even supremacist nation and and and they saw this this expanded mandate as really a mandate to 233 00:28:29,540 --> 00:28:37,880 accomplish now in law what they've already accomplished substantially in society and in politics. 234 00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:45,410 The moves were swift, with the support of both the Legislature and the judiciary reflecting the long court agenda of 235 00:28:45,410 --> 00:28:54,290 the Otis's criminalising triple talaq reduction of the status of changing the status of Kashmir, 236 00:28:54,290 --> 00:29:00,500 which is the only Muslim majority state and a judgement from the Supreme Court, 237 00:29:00,500 --> 00:29:09,410 allowing the construction of a template for at the site of the demolition of the bucket list. 238 00:29:09,410 --> 00:29:21,740 And it was a judgement only makes sense in a Hindu majority and context, not any be in the context of constitutional values of equal citizenship. 239 00:29:21,740 --> 00:29:24,620 And then came the sea. 240 00:29:24,620 --> 00:29:35,970 And you know, as I describe the building up, the repeated references to chronology of the NRC and period have to be seen together. 241 00:29:35,970 --> 00:29:43,980 And like all of all of what preceded was accepted it was, you know, I think the government expected that here too. 242 00:29:43,980 --> 00:29:53,040 There would be a nationwide consensus, at least of silence, if not of active support. 243 00:29:53,040 --> 00:30:03,700 I had never expected in my, you know, my father's genes the kind of movement of civil disobedience that we saw. 244 00:30:03,700 --> 00:30:16,460 So I recall the day the day this year was being discussed in parliament to be passed. 245 00:30:16,460 --> 00:30:26,270 I had made a call. I wrote that I, you know, this is a time for civil disobedience to learn from Gandhi and my own civil disobedience. 246 00:30:26,270 --> 00:30:33,650 And I struggled with it because civil disobedience to say that I will not present any documents if there 247 00:30:33,650 --> 00:30:41,750 is an inner seat and an impact was not enough because the CAA was designed to actually protect me, 248 00:30:41,750 --> 00:30:48,260 even if I didn't have documents as a as a non-Muslim and therefore in my goal of civil disobedience, 249 00:30:48,260 --> 00:30:56,840 I actually wrote and said that if there is an Nazi and an empire based on it, 250 00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:06,740 I would first declare myself in official records as Muslim and then refuse to provide my documents. 251 00:31:06,740 --> 00:31:14,180 And if that whatever consequences like Muslim sisters and brothers face as a result of not having documents, 252 00:31:14,180 --> 00:31:18,890 I would demand that the same should happen to me. 253 00:31:18,890 --> 00:31:20,930 We've seen what has happened in the. 254 00:31:20,930 --> 00:31:32,300 We saw the bureaucratic nightmare that occurred, the enormous injustice the suffering of people fought for, for for for many years. 255 00:31:32,300 --> 00:31:39,230 Their lives came into a full stop around just collecting documents. 256 00:31:39,230 --> 00:31:46,640 And I know and the people in detention centres in the field of detention centres. 257 00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:56,090 And and and I thought that this again would be, you know, this deepening darkness and suddenly something very different happened. 258 00:31:56,090 --> 00:32:07,130 And we saw India coming together in a way with protests, which are the largest, the most inspiring movement. 259 00:32:07,130 --> 00:32:13,460 And they grew from individual protest into a movement, the largest after independence. 260 00:32:13,460 --> 00:32:20,870 And I was a student during the years of the anti emergency protests, which are the only contribute. 261 00:32:20,870 --> 00:32:29,510 But they were also didn't do nothing like what I saw the nationwide across the country, 262 00:32:29,510 --> 00:32:37,370 the declaiming and the icon ization of of national symbols, the national flag, the national anthem and the Constitution. 263 00:32:37,370 --> 00:32:44,810 And I was going to address and speak in in rallies from the furthest corners of the country. 264 00:32:44,810 --> 00:32:53,060 And in each of them, you know, I would get goosebumps because they would always end with the reading of the preamble of the Constitution. 265 00:32:53,060 --> 00:33:00,070 Often, the young young girl would read out and everybody would solemnly repeat after them. 266 00:33:00,070 --> 00:33:07,070 The ideas of justice, liberty, equality fraternity, the sense of awe, of awe of, 267 00:33:07,070 --> 00:33:15,080 as I said, humane and equal citizenship was was convened and celebrated by people. 268 00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:19,970 The movement, you know, to be. Some of us are being accused of organising the mood. 269 00:33:19,970 --> 00:33:24,830 I wish we had the capacity to open. It was not organised by anyone centrally. 270 00:33:24,830 --> 00:33:29,660 Elizabeth spontaneous movements that arose across the country led in many places by 271 00:33:29,660 --> 00:33:36,530 working class Muslim women and by students across university campuses across the country. 272 00:33:36,530 --> 00:33:40,190 They were the good leaders and we were only followers, 273 00:33:40,190 --> 00:33:50,840 although we were called to speak in these few times and it was it was a time of so much work where we spoke about love. 274 00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:58,460 We spoke about solidarity. We spoke about this country belonging equally to people, regardless of their faith. 275 00:33:58,460 --> 00:34:05,720 And then then came the deadly violence. It started off the first day was in the nature of a drug. 276 00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:15,410 And it quickly transformed into into a programme. This was preceded by a whole month of the deadly elections. 277 00:34:15,410 --> 00:34:22,490 The people, the prime minister, particularly the home minister and a number of other leaders, you know, 278 00:34:22,490 --> 00:34:34,130 articulated hate speech openly and the building an atmosphere of hate which finally leaked into this programme. 279 00:34:34,130 --> 00:34:39,560 A month later, we had to lock down symbolically the first day of the lockdown. 280 00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:45,410 The first act that we saw was, I mean, this is a lockdown in the name of a pandemic. 281 00:34:45,410 --> 00:34:54,930 And you saw the whitewashing of this beautiful graffiti at Jumia University, which protesters had built up as if that was the first. 282 00:34:54,930 --> 00:35:01,910 I mean, somehow the virus would somehow be saved from the virus by whitewashing the graffiti. 283 00:35:01,910 --> 00:35:05,270 And then we saw the criminalisation of the pandemic using that. 284 00:35:05,270 --> 00:35:12,890 The picture mark as Muslims were super spreaders and and and how that idea spread across the country. 285 00:35:12,890 --> 00:35:14,540 But that was only the beginning. 286 00:35:14,540 --> 00:35:25,610 We then saw detentions, arrests and incarceration of student leaders, as well as victims, survivors, Muslim victims, survivors of the violence. 287 00:35:25,610 --> 00:35:30,470 And it was it was horrible because this was a, you know, 288 00:35:30,470 --> 00:35:38,390 we had the most draconian lockdown in the world when lawyers could not come out of you finding people. 289 00:35:38,390 --> 00:35:42,710 And we had a whole group of young lawyers who would have gone. 290 00:35:42,710 --> 00:35:46,970 And in their defence, there was no one in their defence. You could start getting picked up. 291 00:35:46,970 --> 00:35:57,440 They were charged and and then we found the building up of an alternative narrative about the anticipated protests. 292 00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:04,520 And I am also mentioned in a number of charge sheets where it is clean. 293 00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:09,200 In fact, I had made the speech after the students were beaten up in Germany, 294 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:16,820 and the speech was substantially and almost entirely about how violence would never be responded to with violence. 295 00:36:16,820 --> 00:36:26,900 And we must learn to fight with love rather than hate and and about Muslims equal citizenship in this country. 296 00:36:26,900 --> 00:36:31,760 And that speech is being quoted as in the facade of peace. 297 00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:42,860 Husband instigated it, and that is now invidious chargesheets and you it can eat up to to arrest. 298 00:36:42,860 --> 00:36:48,560 And indeed, I think the message is very clear, and I know that I am opening times. 299 00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:57,650 I'll just say, what was the message? The message is the criminalising of all dissent that in the remaining four years of this government, 300 00:36:57,650 --> 00:37:04,580 no one should dare dissent while we proceed with an agenda in a couple of days, 301 00:37:04,580 --> 00:37:10,970 the prime minister is going to preside over the name of the foundation stone of the emperor. 302 00:37:10,970 --> 00:37:21,140 And as they proceed in converting India into the antithesis of what was promised in the Constitution, no one should dare dissent. 303 00:37:21,140 --> 00:37:28,160 And if you are young, you particularly at risk. If you're young and Muslim, then you're even more at risk. 304 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:34,250 And if you're young, Muslim and a woman, then you've absolutely added that is the message. 305 00:37:34,250 --> 00:37:42,080 And all countervailing institutions of democracy, whether it is the judiciary, whether it is the media have caved in. 306 00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:48,200 And in this there is an enveloping darkness of foreboding and fear. 307 00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:55,970 I believe we will still overcome, but it'll be a long fight. And I end with what I just said. 308 00:37:55,970 --> 00:38:00,560 We have to keep fighting because we don't fight fascism, because we will win. 309 00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:12,810 We fight fascism because it is fascism. Thank you. 310 00:38:12,810 --> 00:38:24,340 Over to ABC. Yeah, no, audible, no. 311 00:38:24,340 --> 00:38:28,600 So as Mr Munda, who I must say, 312 00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:40,960 is one of the most important figures in contemporary India in terms of his contribution to opposing the kind of authoritarianism we are seeing. 313 00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:51,940 I'd like to take off from where Mr Mander left, where he said that the social adjustment or the social change that the Sangh Parivar 314 00:38:51,940 --> 00:39:00,770 wanted to make is now seeming to gain some kind of legal legitimacy of some kind. 315 00:39:00,770 --> 00:39:13,960 And and it's converting India as a democratic project from a secular idea of India to an idea which largely is premised on on. 316 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:23,920 A certain majority community, which is the Hindu community being the only symbol of our democratic project now. 317 00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:30,430 I want to share with you a framework through which we'll be able to understand why our legal structures 318 00:39:30,430 --> 00:39:37,180 and legal institutions have failed to protect us from this kind of political authoritarianism. 319 00:39:37,180 --> 00:39:45,010 The framework, which I largely want to bring to your notice, is the view of the Indian Constitution. 320 00:39:45,010 --> 00:39:50,140 I propose we look at the Indian Constitution as a story of two halves. 321 00:39:50,140 --> 00:39:58,360 One half is what I call the individual liberty half, which is characterised by your fundamental rights, which are your rights to life, 322 00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:05,440 speech equality, non-discrimination on religion and birth, which are in the part three of the Constitution. 323 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:12,130 And your fundamental rights and the legal sanctity of these rights are very, very high, 324 00:40:12,130 --> 00:40:18,700 which is to say that are the makers of our constitution were very clear that you cannot at any time 325 00:40:18,700 --> 00:40:25,760 impede or circumvent these rights unless the situation is created are completely drastic and requires. 326 00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:29,770 So these are rights which cannot at any point be diluted. 327 00:40:29,770 --> 00:40:37,220 Of course, now one doesn't seem to agree with that position because empirically what we are witnessing is completely different. 328 00:40:37,220 --> 00:40:41,670 However, that is the theoretical idea of individual rights in the Constitution. 329 00:40:41,670 --> 00:40:47,830 Now, the second half of the Constitution is largely independent institutions, 330 00:40:47,830 --> 00:40:52,600 which are supposed to run parallel to the parliament and the executive bureaucracy. 331 00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,600 So, for instance, you would have the comptroller, auditor general's office, 332 00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:01,870 the governor's office, you would have the Election Commission and most importantly, the courts. 333 00:41:01,870 --> 00:41:03,910 The courts, as we know, 334 00:41:03,910 --> 00:41:14,050 I've been given a lot of power under the Constitution are the final arbiters of any kind of legislation or any kind of dispute between the executive, 335 00:41:14,050 --> 00:41:21,490 the citizen and an institution. So where did the see really fit in within this constitutional framework, 336 00:41:21,490 --> 00:41:26,140 divided between the right chapters and the institutional chapters that are 337 00:41:26,140 --> 00:41:32,770 the first step in our constitution was to provide universal adult franchise, 338 00:41:32,770 --> 00:41:40,690 and universal adult franchise would eventually lead to us electing representatives who would go to parliament and form legislation. 339 00:41:40,690 --> 00:41:49,570 So you, the universal adult franchise, is the primary route, and I argued the first step through a democratic project, 340 00:41:49,570 --> 00:41:55,330 which eventually is represented in Parliament will be made law, which the CAA is now. 341 00:41:55,330 --> 00:42:00,070 Why do I say that the parliament made law is only the first step? 342 00:42:00,070 --> 00:42:07,330 That is, the expansion of Universal adult franchise is only the first step in the Indian Democratic Project. 343 00:42:07,330 --> 00:42:17,830 We must realise that the state today has taken the argument and this is a legal moral argument saying that we have gone through the processes 344 00:42:17,830 --> 00:42:27,760 that the consensus democratic consensus amongst our representatives and they've all come to the conclusion that this act is Mississippi, 345 00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:34,030 and therefore they have somehow ratified Democratic consensus through an act of parliament. 346 00:42:34,030 --> 00:42:40,960 That is, this legislation that would create some kind of democratic consensus and therefore any opposition to this 347 00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:47,530 kind of democratic consensus on law might not necessarily be seen within the constitutional framework. 348 00:42:47,530 --> 00:42:57,700 Now this is where I want to propose that it is a complete opposite and contradictory view to what the Constitution is supposed to be, 349 00:42:57,700 --> 00:43:04,120 because the Constitution and detail creates the rights chapter and the chapter of institutional autonomy 350 00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:12,940 to oppose a situation like this where the parliament fails to achieve some kind of democratic consensus, 351 00:43:12,940 --> 00:43:23,890 as is required through a law. So when the legislative or your representatives or the language of law to legislation itself undermines the rights, 352 00:43:23,890 --> 00:43:29,380 the only way of opposing it is through your fundamental rights approach to the institutional chapter. 353 00:43:29,380 --> 00:43:32,770 Not before I come to the institutional chapter, where I will describe how, 354 00:43:32,770 --> 00:43:40,210 in my view, the courts have completely failed to uphold the idea of a constitution. 355 00:43:40,210 --> 00:43:46,300 It is important to point out the manner in which our fundamental rights are central. 356 00:43:46,300 --> 00:43:51,820 To oppose this year are the two ways in which our fundamental rights have been affected. 357 00:43:51,820 --> 00:43:58,540 The first, the right to equality that is citizens in India today are not being treated equally. 358 00:43:58,540 --> 00:44:07,720 So equals are being treated unequally on the price of religion, as we know, which is the central theme of the citizenship on the basis of religion. 359 00:44:07,720 --> 00:44:13,240 Now, to oppose this, we have seen people have exercised the right to protest, the right to speech, 360 00:44:13,240 --> 00:44:18,730 the right to come together, and this today is been seen as a form of illegality. 361 00:44:18,730 --> 00:44:23,990 Therefore, your right to dissent is gaining aspect of criminal. 362 00:44:23,990 --> 00:44:33,320 And how is this happening? This is happening by bringing in directly the criminal legal regime, which is the Unlawful Protection Act, 363 00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:40,970 the IPC to try and convert this form of dissent into into criminality. 364 00:44:40,970 --> 00:44:53,870 Now, as far as our institutions are concerned, I think the Supreme Court is the most important institution which has suffered in the last few years. 365 00:44:53,870 --> 00:44:58,430 There is no doubt that when the CAA was passed, 366 00:44:58,430 --> 00:45:03,950 there was an incredible amount of opposition against amongst those already pointed out across the country. 367 00:45:03,950 --> 00:45:09,380 The illegalities were glaring. Now, when you petition the Supreme Court, 368 00:45:09,380 --> 00:45:16,400 the Supreme Court always has the power not to take an immediate substantive decision upon the challenge to the act, 369 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:27,260 but it can, at an interim stage, at least put a step or halt the implementation of a certain act which could be considered unconstitutional. 370 00:45:27,260 --> 00:45:33,650 The court, if had done so if, had said, Well, we have taken cognisance of the matter. 371 00:45:33,650 --> 00:45:38,990 We do not give any prima facie view. But however, for now, we will stay the proceedings. 372 00:45:38,990 --> 00:45:45,470 I think that would have given a lot of hope and the institutional chapter of our constitution would have been seen as a way, 373 00:45:45,470 --> 00:45:48,290 a mechanism of resolving this dispute. 374 00:45:48,290 --> 00:45:57,800 I think once the people of our country saw the institutional chapters not responding to this form of inequality, 375 00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:02,390 the individual liberty chapters had to be dealt with in a more aggressive fashion. 376 00:46:02,390 --> 00:46:10,460 And that is your right to collect your right to communicate the right to protest and does other things with the government is still dealing with. 377 00:46:10,460 --> 00:46:16,400 So the institutional chapter is, in some ways have been circumvented and no longer a problem for the executive bureaucracy. 378 00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:25,190 So what really remains what really remains, is the ability of the likes of students, the Muslim community, 379 00:46:25,190 --> 00:46:32,240 members of civil society who able to voice their opinion through the writings to the speech, et cetera. 380 00:46:32,240 --> 00:46:38,750 Another important point that I'd like to make on why this idea that because the parliament has 381 00:46:38,750 --> 00:46:43,280 passed this bill and the media have repeatedly says that it echoes the will of the people, 382 00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:50,650 is that we must understand the will of the people is not the final say in a constitutional democracy. 383 00:46:50,650 --> 00:46:54,640 As we know, there's a very famous judgement called Kitchen and Barbarity, 384 00:46:54,640 --> 00:47:01,840 which is the judge bench of 13 judges and where they had taken out an ASP proposition called the Basic Structure Doctrine, 385 00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:06,190 where they made clear because these are the times when there was a there was an attempt to amend the 386 00:47:06,190 --> 00:47:13,090 Constitution and the court was approached and petitioned that you cannot amend the Constitution as a whole. 387 00:47:13,090 --> 00:47:17,080 There are certain ideas of the Constitution which must remain, and the court agreed. 388 00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:23,230 The court said that there are certain aspects that even if a government with full majority comes in cannot change 389 00:47:23,230 --> 00:47:30,790 because the idea of the Indian democracy doesn't depend on what the parliament says at a specific time in history. 390 00:47:30,790 --> 00:47:37,750 The idea of India in terms of a constitutional democracy is imbibed within the Constitution itself. 391 00:47:37,750 --> 00:47:46,450 Kitchen and behold, the case upheld a secularism independent judiciary, your fundamental rights, and these are things that can never be diluted, 392 00:47:46,450 --> 00:47:54,760 nor an attempt is being made to the CIA to not only be able to change the way in which we look citizenship, 393 00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:59,500 but it's an attempt to change the entire basic structure of how we view our constitution. 394 00:47:59,500 --> 00:48:05,470 Because see, it not only reflects a kind of inequality in it in all its nakedness, 395 00:48:05,470 --> 00:48:15,460 but it also in effect changes the idea of India in terms of what we view India as as citizens and how we constitute this democracy. 396 00:48:15,460 --> 00:48:21,700 So we must look at this as the manner in which in which the Constitution is being supported. 397 00:48:21,700 --> 00:48:26,980 These are these are very interesting reasons. And so you get rid of the courts. 398 00:48:26,980 --> 00:48:32,440 You use populism as a manner of exercising ultimate democratic control. 399 00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:37,040 Criminal law is brought in where you go, collect and give a speech. 400 00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,150 Next thing you know you are in jail and branded as a terrorist. 401 00:48:40,150 --> 00:48:48,310 Let's not forget that the UPA was amended to now brand individuals as terrorists and no longer as groups. 402 00:48:48,310 --> 00:48:53,820 Let us not forget that they have managed to create the situation will be no longer in the right by by, 403 00:48:53,820 --> 00:48:59,170 by increasing the legal threshold under which you could get bin under the UPA. 404 00:48:59,170 --> 00:49:06,170 So this is also attacked on social logically on the liberal middle class of India. 405 00:49:06,170 --> 00:49:14,200 It's no longer a statement to say, well, a middle class Hindu kids will come out and the police will not use for surveillance. 406 00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:21,100 They will go back home. They will put under the UAP. They will put you in jail and they will make you suffer. 407 00:49:21,100 --> 00:49:30,250 So to go back where I started today, more than ever, we have to see the fundamental rights as dissenting rights. 408 00:49:30,250 --> 00:49:33,190 The fundamental rights are synonymous to dissenting rights, 409 00:49:33,190 --> 00:49:41,440 and these are the only rights I feel unless our institutions redeem themselves would help us overcome. 410 00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:44,950 Like Mr. Monday said, these dark times. 411 00:49:44,950 --> 00:49:57,970 So I hope that we are able to redeem the Constitution and redeem ourselves and give back to Indian democracy all that the founders fought for. 412 00:49:57,970 --> 00:50:03,640 And I think this is one of the most difficult journeys that we are facing in post-independence India. 413 00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:21,560 Thank you. And finally, they have. 414 00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:26,550 You need to unmute. Thank you so much. 415 00:50:26,550 --> 00:50:32,250 I think all the participants have already given the the larger picture within which we're operating, 416 00:50:32,250 --> 00:50:37,270 I would like to focus on the impact of all of this on on media and probably touch 417 00:50:37,270 --> 00:50:43,440 upon the kind of sort of situation we are in and in the last five or six years, 418 00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:49,110 the state of media and how finally this year was the last nail in the coffin. 419 00:50:49,110 --> 00:50:53,670 I know it's absolutely becoming impossible to put anything out. 420 00:50:53,670 --> 00:51:03,900 So I want to say that the last since 2013, just just a year before the Modi government came into the law school, 421 00:51:03,900 --> 00:51:10,200 there has been a significant rise in the kind of I mean, we all knew we had a consequence the mixes in the mainstream media. 422 00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:19,740 But this has over time increased and that has helped them boost very well or propaganda model that puts out information of 423 00:51:19,740 --> 00:51:29,130 certain kinds and attacks people and makes the availability of any fact or evidence in the public domain very difficult. 424 00:51:29,130 --> 00:51:33,090 And all that is available is available to opinion and binaries. 425 00:51:33,090 --> 00:51:43,690 So I would like to say that in the last few years, if you look at the mainstream media reliance on reliance on 47 television news channels, 426 00:51:43,690 --> 00:51:51,750 which almost captures 95 percent of the television viewership in India, so that's 900 million. 427 00:51:51,750 --> 00:51:59,970 So apart from that, there are think tanks that are particularly being because the government is not very open to giving out. 428 00:51:59,970 --> 00:52:07,320 For example, we've not had the National Crime Record Bureau data out since 2017, so we don't know the the system. 429 00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,380 There was information by the National Sample Survey Organisation, 430 00:52:10,380 --> 00:52:17,940 which is one of the trusted surveys in India that told us that the unemployment rate was 431 00:52:17,940 --> 00:52:22,590 the highest in the last 45 years and then it came out of the government dismissed it. 432 00:52:22,590 --> 00:52:28,440 So when are the government bodies that are supposed to put out data and give it to the media 433 00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:35,850 and the government starts rubbishing it or starts all of holding that this kind of data? 434 00:52:35,850 --> 00:52:41,370 Some think tanks coming into that place and nudging certain kind of information that 435 00:52:41,370 --> 00:52:48,600 gets in this propaganda machine by the mainstream channels or by this political nexus, 436 00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,710 and that has been a big problem for a lot of people. 437 00:52:52,710 --> 00:52:59,700 What a journalist and author journalist wanting to put out any kind of investigative report. 438 00:52:59,700 --> 00:53:03,150 So this is this is the scheme within which we're operating. 439 00:53:03,150 --> 00:53:07,500 The other thing that has happened under the Modi government is that all you know, so I mean, 440 00:53:07,500 --> 00:53:13,710 in all democracies, everywhere, journalists are used to getting legal notices for anything that they do. 441 00:53:13,710 --> 00:53:20,550 But apart from that, we still have that colonial of 200 defamation law that is often used against doing this. 442 00:53:20,550 --> 00:53:20,700 Look, 443 00:53:20,700 --> 00:53:29,970 what the new about doing is that this government has also started filing criminal cases against journalists for which which will include which usually 444 00:53:29,970 --> 00:53:41,490 loin orders and making excuses brought against it kind of charges with example you if you or sedition and inciting communicated sometimes to move on. 445 00:53:41,490 --> 00:53:48,600 So there are all these cases that are filed. So what does happen is the bare minimum reporting is similarly. 446 00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:52,500 So I'll give you an example. Two years back, a jaundiced call, Bob. 447 00:53:52,500 --> 00:53:57,210 And yes, while for most of the people in the Northern District, 448 00:53:57,210 --> 00:54:03,840 more than State of the British had done the story in-house in the government's done these foods, 449 00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:10,440 which are supposed to provide free food to the children, but I think this is quite limited in programme. 450 00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:14,970 He reported that all these children were only given to parties in sight. 451 00:54:14,970 --> 00:54:21,340 So that is like the most basic thing and the case against him that the cycles of criminal conspiracy. 452 00:54:21,340 --> 00:54:22,710 Now I want this thing for, though, 453 00:54:22,710 --> 00:54:30,570 that the mainstream media in the last few years in India has is increasingly moving towards gig economy and independent journalism. 454 00:54:30,570 --> 00:54:31,740 So which is why, you know, 455 00:54:31,740 --> 00:54:44,550 because the mainstream media has this opportunity convicts this often a lot of independent journalism is only possible by people outside the system. 456 00:54:44,550 --> 00:54:53,700 Moreover, the mainstream media's model is such that they hire local journalists in various forms instead of opening state states bureaus. 457 00:54:53,700 --> 00:55:00,490 So which is why these journalists are not given salaries, but they are totally dependent of each story that they produce. 458 00:55:00,490 --> 00:55:08,790 Now, in the case of Bob and Jaspal, because he was writing these 40 other publications and he also ran a grocery store. 459 00:55:08,790 --> 00:55:14,550 So each time a criminal case is filed against a journalist, it becomes much about press freedom, 460 00:55:14,550 --> 00:55:20,010 but it becomes about this grocery store or trying to wage conspiracy against the state. 461 00:55:20,010 --> 00:55:24,200 Why I'm giving you this example is because if you look at the last. 462 00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:32,440 Six, at least in 170 cases filed against joining this criminal cases, this has been the fact, you know, 463 00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:39,850 all this kind of of apart from the fact that all 17 ministers have often on the 464 00:55:39,850 --> 00:55:46,690 record used language as destitute and other increasingly dismissive people. 465 00:55:46,690 --> 00:55:52,240 For the first time in history, we've had a prime minister who attends a single press conference the last six years. 466 00:55:52,240 --> 00:55:57,730 So there is this kind of dismissiveness and or after the CIA produced this kind of self-censorship 467 00:55:57,730 --> 00:56:05,980 has increased because of the fact that India has fallen several times down in the ranking. 468 00:56:05,980 --> 00:56:14,470 The best freedom ranking in the last six and a half years of what has also happened is that increasingly, 469 00:56:14,470 --> 00:56:18,400 if you are, if you are critical of the government and in have criminal cases, 470 00:56:18,400 --> 00:56:23,770 most likely you will not be backed by any journalistic organisation or even the organisation 471 00:56:23,770 --> 00:56:28,540 that you are reporting for that is in breach of self-censorship within the media. 472 00:56:28,540 --> 00:56:34,990 What is going to also happened is that within newsrooms that have been standing instructions that nobody is going to write 473 00:56:34,990 --> 00:56:42,370 about the number one and number two in the government structure and be critical of them so that they don't already. 474 00:56:42,370 --> 00:56:45,670 There is already a system where stories are getting killed every day. 475 00:56:45,670 --> 00:56:53,410 There is a lot of self-censorship and there are lots of criminal cases that journalists are battling at their own and at their own expense. 476 00:56:53,410 --> 00:56:58,150 So it's not even that they have any institutional support in this framework. 477 00:56:58,150 --> 00:57:08,200 What is what happened in the beginning to see if this was just within a week of the year being passed in the parliament? 478 00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:14,110 The Information and broadcasting industries issued an advisory to all news television stations 479 00:57:14,110 --> 00:57:19,870 that they should abstain from showing anything that is against the law and order of the state. 480 00:57:19,870 --> 00:57:24,610 So which was clearly clearly indicated it was clearly indicated by this commission 481 00:57:24,610 --> 00:57:29,110 but doesn't stand by becomes very crucial in cases of television channels, 482 00:57:29,110 --> 00:57:34,240 and all because a lot of licencing and regulation regulation authority still lies with the government, 483 00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:47,590 which is why these channels often tend to listen to the kind of sort of antipathy or attention to these kinds of advisories and often do Epstein of. 484 00:57:47,590 --> 00:57:52,460 So. Anyway, the television channels are not showing this. 485 00:57:52,460 --> 00:57:59,870 We've also had a binary with a lot of mainstream news organisations have been actively part of this propaganda model. 486 00:57:59,870 --> 00:58:08,720 And I, like some of the participants mentioned that labels like open nuptial anti-national jihad, 487 00:58:08,720 --> 00:58:15,890 the all of this has been has been, well, actually plugged in to the public accessible public domain. 488 00:58:15,890 --> 00:58:21,170 And these words are used actively for anybody who's critical of the government, including journalists. 489 00:58:21,170 --> 00:58:29,750 So a lot of mainstream news organisations actively fought in this stuff about them or to discredit the CAA protests to actively, 490 00:58:29,750 --> 00:58:38,180 to actively do not not show certain aspects of what's happening in the ground and the journalists who were going out there. 491 00:58:38,180 --> 00:58:43,490 There were several incidents of how they were attacked, and I'll give you quickly give you some examples. 492 00:58:43,490 --> 00:58:52,340 Of this was the first time in many, many years while reporting the CIA focus on the police attacked. 493 00:58:52,340 --> 00:59:04,990 Joining us for simple, it is that for each person in the room, several cell phones were seised by the Delhi Police options, 494 00:59:04,990 --> 00:59:10,820 in spite of the fact that the editors issued a notice to Delhi Police to say that 495 00:59:10,820 --> 00:59:14,840 there are reporters out there covering these protests and please let them do that. 496 00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:26,990 More attention was paid to that. Moreover, just after the like, a hush also mentioned that after the CAA protest and the Delhi elections, 497 00:59:26,990 --> 00:59:32,860 Delhi broke into these riots just towards the last week of February, and we enjoyed this work. 498 00:59:32,860 --> 00:59:36,950 This was the first time in many, many years that journalists were stopped and asked for their religion, 499 00:59:36,950 --> 00:59:41,990 and while the mobs were doing that, the police personnel stood there and watched. 500 00:59:41,990 --> 00:59:46,100 There have been several incidents recounted by journalists who would ask you 501 00:59:46,100 --> 00:59:50,870 to cite and one child yourself who were asked to see what about the future? 502 00:59:50,870 --> 00:59:56,260 They would ask to drop their thanks to show whether they were set up and stay safe zone watch in order to show their religion. 503 00:59:56,260 --> 01:00:05,390 So this has been in many, many years. We haven't seen that one of those, and that increases the kind of self-censorship that exist. 504 01:00:05,390 --> 01:00:11,270 I would just take it one step further because what happened was immediately some 30 second March onwards. 505 01:00:11,270 --> 01:00:15,590 We had this lockdown for almost three and a half months in India. 506 01:00:15,590 --> 01:00:21,470 That time was used by the government against like a big push. 507 01:00:21,470 --> 01:00:26,390 And I've got to mention that, of course, it was used against anybody who was a part of this focus, 508 01:00:26,390 --> 01:00:34,340 but was also used against journalists who were reporting this protest and later the riots. 509 01:00:34,340 --> 01:00:42,230 How they did that was that under the lockdown, legal services was not identified as essential services. 510 01:00:42,230 --> 01:00:47,120 So in the remotest corners, journalists were charged under you with it. 511 01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:51,010 This happened in several places in the opposition. 512 01:00:51,010 --> 01:00:56,750 They were stopped with cases, collecting fees, the force and they got arrested and all these different charges. 513 01:00:56,750 --> 01:01:00,560 And because we so this is the most essential services, they would relate to them, 514 01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:10,100 which meant that they just wouldn't appeal to the higher court or access legal representation in that market. 515 01:01:10,100 --> 01:01:18,320 And because, like I said, that the larger media modern India now is that there are no journalists who to have institutional support, 516 01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:24,050 which meant that reporters in the remotest corners of the country were present for one month in some 517 01:01:24,050 --> 01:01:30,230 communities locked down and had no move in Norway without any information that this is happening to them. 518 01:01:30,230 --> 01:01:33,200 And that is something that is really scary. 519 01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:42,830 I would also add that during the lockdown, just 10 days into the lockdown, Delhi Police Crime Branch received a notice from the Home Ministry, 520 01:01:42,830 --> 01:01:49,910 headed by Amit Shah to say that not stop the arrest in the deadly riots cases no matter what, 521 01:01:49,910 --> 01:01:55,910 for which meant that people in the next one month almost 100 people got arrested. 522 01:01:55,910 --> 01:02:00,980 And because of a lot of mopeds on this again, what have institutional support? 523 01:02:00,980 --> 01:02:02,330 They do not have this. 524 01:02:02,330 --> 01:02:10,790 So there was more there was more reportage around these fourteen hundred arrests and lots of people would actually complainants. 525 01:02:10,790 --> 01:02:19,130 But what other accused would permit accused by the police in the same cases so they will go report out at all? 526 01:02:19,130 --> 01:02:26,300 So what I'm trying to say is that you've seen a kind of self-censorship setting in for for the longest time. 527 01:02:26,300 --> 01:02:31,190 But the CAA protest and the Delhi violence that happened after that was the final nail in the coffin 528 01:02:31,190 --> 01:02:37,370 because it seems such a thousand journalists have been injured in the last four months during the lockdown. 529 01:02:37,370 --> 01:02:43,860 And you say that the other reporters were thinking this information on dealing with some kind of criminal case. 530 01:02:43,860 --> 01:02:48,550 So no, it's very clear that if you do not. 531 01:02:48,550 --> 01:02:56,590 If you want to start following the basic tenets of propaganda model set up by the people in power right now, 532 01:02:56,590 --> 01:03:01,160 then you don't exist and do all you do is keep dealing with these criminal cases. 533 01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:05,500 So there is absolutely no scope, no doubt any information. 534 01:03:05,500 --> 01:03:08,440 All you see in the mainstream media is obedience. 535 01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:15,890 There is no space for any known reportage, any facts, any evidence and the conversations that reading binaries. 536 01:03:15,890 --> 01:03:23,170 And that is what is part of this entire model that of the ownership of the mainstream news organisation. 537 01:03:23,170 --> 01:03:29,480 This kind of sub anti-national ism is almost like a religion for everybody to find some people who are, 538 01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:35,560 but it's critical and in this space know that the media is well to let off so many journalists. 539 01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:41,920 There is absolutely no scope to come up with any kind of authentic, no report. 540 01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:45,160 You have complexities. It's only wants us to talk about. 541 01:03:45,160 --> 01:03:56,830 I'm sure what's happening on the ground to see our protests have actually, you know where they in the last six years. 542 01:03:56,830 --> 01:04:03,910 In a way they have been symbolic and they've given the kind of feeling that the government was hoping to in terms of media representation, 543 01:04:03,910 --> 01:04:13,930 in terms of dissent, in terms of discourse. And now after the lockdown, it just impossible to bring important issues to the public domain. 544 01:04:13,930 --> 01:04:18,850 And I am really hoping that there is some space that can be created. 545 01:04:18,850 --> 01:04:23,590 I would also like to say that while there is conversation about freedom of expression and dissent, 546 01:04:23,590 --> 01:04:28,270 everybody brings in examples of Turkey and Brazil and even us for that matter. 547 01:04:28,270 --> 01:04:35,650 But there is. Unfortunately, I don't see this conversation in the global Oh, I don't see the in the global discourse. 548 01:04:35,650 --> 01:04:40,930 I don't see this conversation. How freedom of press freedom of expression is increasingly being attacked. 549 01:04:40,930 --> 01:04:49,150 And in the last seven years when we to. So I would stop that and maybe take more questions. 550 01:04:49,150 --> 01:04:52,570 Thank you very much for a really powerful panel. 551 01:04:52,570 --> 01:05:01,120 What we have is a very chilling account of the darkness engulfing us, as I've said, but also a deeper sense of how to understand it and combated. 552 01:05:01,120 --> 01:05:06,730 This could be through the fictions of getting a sense of the fictions of criminality, perversions of law and constitutional. 553 01:05:06,730 --> 01:05:08,230 A deep understanding, 554 01:05:08,230 --> 01:05:16,330 complex geology of exclusion through bureaucratic mapping and a sort of hyphenated state corporation led hollowing out of the media. 555 01:05:16,330 --> 01:05:21,100 So thank you very much for the really powerful kind, and we'll open to questions now. 556 01:05:21,100 --> 01:05:30,760 I requested in writing the questions in the Q&A books. We have a question to start with from Pepsi Moshood, who asks me. 557 01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:36,250 Can you give us a better sense of the longer history of the erosion of the basic structure of the Constitution? 558 01:05:36,250 --> 01:05:41,540 Even prior to December 2019? I'm. 559 01:05:41,540 --> 01:05:49,550 So like the basic structure, like a state that came in when under Article 368 of the Constitution, 560 01:05:49,550 --> 01:05:54,260 which is the article which allows you to amend the Constitution, 561 01:05:54,260 --> 01:06:04,400 limits what would be discussed during that period, the judges and the 13 judges who were several opinions. 562 01:06:04,400 --> 01:06:14,330 So they did not come out with an exact list, and it's very difficult to do even lawyers who practised for decades to explain what that list is. 563 01:06:14,330 --> 01:06:21,170 But they highlighted certain essential expressly to secularism fundamental rights and said for now, how have they been diluted? 564 01:06:21,170 --> 01:06:23,030 How have they been diluted? 565 01:06:23,030 --> 01:06:36,440 Well, in some ways we have seen recently judgements have been passed on about the Constitution bench on their land dispute. 566 01:06:36,440 --> 01:06:43,100 Now, several people would have argued do it with the property and property suits are decided mostly 567 01:06:43,100 --> 01:06:50,150 based on facts and evidence and not necessarily any theoretical constitutional concepts. 568 01:06:50,150 --> 01:06:55,790 But an important way in which this land dispute suit could have been seen as a tool. 569 01:06:55,790 --> 01:07:01,790 The theme of secularism. Now that's an interpretation which is very far fetched to making a soup, 570 01:07:01,790 --> 01:07:09,050 but inviting you would have been essential in deciding a property dispute with whose repercussions 571 01:07:09,050 --> 01:07:14,480 are far beyond our idea of private property in the sense that it occupies public imagination. 572 01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:19,500 It occupies public space. And it's a matter which should have been seen within the Constitution. 573 01:07:19,500 --> 01:07:23,960 It seems there is an area where maybe there is some kind of dilution. 574 01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:30,470 Other ways in which it's happened is to say you uphold the idea of an independent court. 575 01:07:30,470 --> 01:07:38,210 But the kind of dilution that we have seen today in exercise of judicial review is again a dilution, 576 01:07:38,210 --> 01:07:44,270 which is not true any kind of legislative measures or any kind of legal executive measures, 577 01:07:44,270 --> 01:07:49,460 but it's a dilution through mere informal coercive processes. 578 01:07:49,460 --> 01:07:55,160 Otherwise, it makes no sense why? Why we would not see judicial review be exercised. 579 01:07:55,160 --> 01:08:03,920 I think our institutional offices have slowly been diluted, and they're largely with the Office of the Speaker, the Office of the Governor. 580 01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:08,180 And if you notice recently how state governments are bought and sold, 581 01:08:08,180 --> 01:08:14,540 a large responsibility of upholding this basic structure is of the judiciary, the guys who gave it. 582 01:08:14,540 --> 01:08:18,590 Now, none of them are being able to uphold the same form of independence. 583 01:08:18,590 --> 01:08:21,380 Today, the governor's office seems to have a sanctity. 584 01:08:21,380 --> 01:08:32,980 The speaker's office seems to have the sanctity so that the periodic running down all state institutions vis-a-vis these forms of dilution. 585 01:08:32,980 --> 01:08:49,590 I think what other families, folks would like to respond. Yeah. 586 01:08:49,590 --> 01:09:06,630 No, I just wanted to add that that there has been a continuous erosion and it's not as if the 19 or even 2014 was the sudden, you know, a sudden. 587 01:09:06,630 --> 01:09:16,710 Abandonment of constitutional principles, I think there has been a weakening of these institutions over a long period of time. 588 01:09:16,710 --> 01:09:28,410 But but what we have witnessed is, I think in the last six years has been a very rapid hastening of this process and also a brazenness with it. 589 01:09:28,410 --> 01:09:35,010 And I'll just give you one example actually not of the judiciary, but of the Election Commission. 590 01:09:35,010 --> 01:09:44,070 So we have won only one of the election commissioners with some sort of objections 591 01:09:44,070 --> 01:09:49,950 about the the conduct of the prime minister and others during the last election, 592 01:09:49,950 --> 01:09:55,650 and he would be the chief election commissioner in a year or so. 593 01:09:55,650 --> 01:10:05,730 Presiding over many important elections, the government tries to harass him in many ways, his family and so on when all of that doesn't work out. 594 01:10:05,730 --> 01:10:14,640 He is. Now we find that he has been given the position of vice president of the Asian Development Bank, which is at almost unprecedented. 595 01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:20,760 No bureaucrat has been offered this position except one, and it can happen only, 596 01:10:20,760 --> 01:10:25,620 you know, as a as a fever at the highest level of government at both levels. 597 01:10:25,620 --> 01:10:33,720 But but I and and that he has accepted it. But I just was struck by how brazen, you know, you're not ashamed at all. 598 01:10:33,720 --> 01:10:38,280 You have one chief election commissioner who showed some degree of independence. 599 01:10:38,280 --> 01:10:45,150 You found a way of getting rid of him and you're doing it openly and and you're not ashamed of it. 600 01:10:45,150 --> 01:10:57,630 I mean, I'm struck by the absence of and so one by one, you're seeing the institution being either coerced or or or or bought by, 601 01:10:57,630 --> 01:11:04,200 you know, you finally make an offer which the person finds it hard to hide to. 602 01:11:04,200 --> 01:11:07,560 The person occupying the office finds it hard to refuse. 603 01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:16,660 But the brazenness with which is being done every institution is of democracy is failing us in a way. 604 01:11:16,660 --> 01:11:22,710 And and I think last six years have seen this. You know what was a long slide? 605 01:11:22,710 --> 01:11:30,290 Don't believe this is going to. Especially if you would also like to maybe speak a little about the charges 606 01:11:30,290 --> 01:11:34,690 against you and how your speech was edited and what legal options you have known, 607 01:11:34,690 --> 01:11:46,370 that's good. We'd like to know if you. Who could so so very briefly, what happened was that on the night of 15 December, 608 01:11:46,370 --> 01:11:57,290 the police and the young men began university and into the library students were very badly beaten up and it was horrifying. 609 01:11:57,290 --> 01:12:04,580 And story started coming in and independently. I think many of us decided to I my daughters, also lawyers. 610 01:12:04,580 --> 01:12:16,250 We decided that we would drop everything and not Muslim students in this regime at night in police stations injured, what would be happening to them. 611 01:12:16,250 --> 01:12:18,890 So we said we must all gather, gather that. 612 01:12:18,890 --> 01:12:25,610 And when I was very pleasantly surprised to find the 40 other people had gathered outside the police station with the same thought, 613 01:12:25,610 --> 01:12:31,850 and it was, I think, you know, to me almost that marks the beginning of the A.K protests. 614 01:12:31,850 --> 01:12:37,130 It really marked an outside the Delhi Police commissioner's office. 615 01:12:37,130 --> 01:12:41,030 More than a thousand people gathered and we forced, are we in? 616 01:12:41,030 --> 01:12:49,130 We made sure that the students were taken care of and and the people who gathered outside protesting said, 617 01:12:49,130 --> 01:12:54,200 we will just not go home until you release all the students unconditionally. 618 01:12:54,200 --> 01:13:03,170 And that was the day when I saw for the first time, just spontaneously the pictures of Mahatma Gandhi in one hand and Dr. Ambedkar in the other. 619 01:13:03,170 --> 01:13:07,520 And they've never come together. And I think the protests brought them together. 620 01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:12,410 And the next day there was huge anguish of the students. 621 01:13:12,410 --> 01:13:16,220 And you know, we went I went home once at four o'clock after the students gathered, 622 01:13:16,220 --> 01:13:23,630 we got a few hours of sleep and then I felt I must be there at the university. 623 01:13:23,630 --> 01:13:28,160 And I went there. About 15 20000 people, I think, were gathered. 624 01:13:28,160 --> 01:13:35,720 The students were very anguished and somebody dragged me and said, You have to say something to the students and completely unprepared. 625 01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:40,760 I was pulled up on and I said, I said a few things. 626 01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:45,530 I said firstly, that this is not a battle about a particular no, 627 01:13:45,530 --> 01:13:50,610 it's about the kind of country that we were given and what country we want to give to our children. 628 01:13:50,610 --> 01:13:56,000 Should be a country that is kind and intrusive and so unequal. 629 01:13:56,000 --> 01:14:04,670 And the second was that Muslims, Indian Muslims, nobody should have the right to question their loyalty to this country, 630 01:14:04,670 --> 01:14:15,170 least of all people who never took part in the freedom struggle and that the rest of us who were non-Muslim had no other country except India. 631 01:14:15,170 --> 01:14:21,770 Your ancestors actually had a choice between Pakistan based on religious identity and and India, 632 01:14:21,770 --> 01:14:29,270 which was based on the idea of equal respect to all religions. And your parents or grandparents chose India, so you are Indian by choice. 633 01:14:29,270 --> 01:14:33,620 We are Indian by chance, and so your love for your country is, if anything, more established. 634 01:14:33,620 --> 01:14:42,390 That was the second, but the last point was that that I said and you know, and this is now come back to me over and over again. 635 01:14:42,390 --> 01:14:47,180 I said that this question is it going to be resolved? 636 01:14:47,180 --> 01:14:54,770 Is it going to be resolved in parliament? And I said Parliament. The opposition shows no moral courage to fight for what it needs to fight. 637 01:14:54,770 --> 01:15:05,870 Is it going to be resolved in the Supreme Court? I said I'm disappointed because the Supreme Court, its judgements on matters like like a Yuja and, 638 01:15:05,870 --> 01:15:10,970 you know, Ishmael and many others, we will go to the Supreme Court. 639 01:15:10,970 --> 01:15:17,120 I said because it is our Supreme Court, but I have I am disappointed that it would be resolved. 640 01:15:17,120 --> 01:15:21,830 I sit by we, the people of India, who gave us the Constitution, 641 01:15:21,830 --> 01:15:27,650 and so we will fight for it and will fight for it with peace and non-violence is done with the tortoise. 642 01:15:27,650 --> 01:15:35,510 But I said there's a fourth place where it will most of all be fought and that place is in your heart, in my heart. 643 01:15:35,510 --> 01:15:42,440 And I said that we allowed him to colonise our heart or have we allow, you know, 644 01:15:42,440 --> 01:15:49,280 how we fought against it and is the love in my heart and yours will ultimately decide this battle. 645 01:15:49,280 --> 01:15:52,040 Now, that is deeply what I said over eight minutes. 646 01:15:52,040 --> 01:16:01,850 Now what they did was so when I win first due to the High Court saying, why haven't you arrested people under hate speech? 647 01:16:01,850 --> 01:16:06,980 And and when the High Court didn't act against it, I went to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court. 648 01:16:06,980 --> 01:16:15,710 Even before I opened my, my lawyers opened their mouth, the said husband, why should we speak to you when you have no respect for the Supreme Court? 649 01:16:15,710 --> 01:16:22,700 And it turned out that it edited the speech and left out love and non-violence and everything else, and they just had. 650 01:16:22,700 --> 01:16:28,540 I have no respect for the Supreme Court. I have no respect for Parliament and we have to fight on the streets. 651 01:16:28,540 --> 01:16:32,540 So it was about one minute out of the eight minutes. 652 01:16:32,540 --> 01:16:38,210 Now that was obviously DR. And and so by. And then there was a who would? 653 01:16:38,210 --> 01:16:47,030 Responds in over two days there, and the speech was widely circulated, and then I went back to the Supreme Court. 654 01:16:47,030 --> 01:16:52,370 The Supreme Court didn't pass any adverse order, but they left it hanging. 655 01:16:52,370 --> 01:17:00,140 But that then became what they are using over and over again, saying that that the violence in Delhi, 656 01:17:00,140 --> 01:17:08,810 which happened to two months one week after this happened because it started off with the speech that I had made, 657 01:17:08,810 --> 01:17:15,470 which incited people to come onto the streets and in the facade of love facade of peace. 658 01:17:15,470 --> 01:17:19,190 This speech was made. It was such an absurd idea. 659 01:17:19,190 --> 01:17:23,180 They also said that he planned the Leningrad siege. Kind of. 660 01:17:23,180 --> 01:17:29,370 The city had all of this buzz and you know, and all sorts of things have been have been talked about. 661 01:17:29,370 --> 01:17:33,590 Yes, it would have seemed fantastical and absurd, 662 01:17:33,590 --> 01:17:41,750 except that now be finding it tough to judge the story of why people have somebody who's been murdered. 663 01:17:41,750 --> 01:17:45,800 Somebody who's been killed is that husband amid the speech. Yeah. 664 01:17:45,800 --> 01:17:53,000 And so so that's really what the government and so it's obviously part of and younger colleagues are being told over 665 01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:58,970 and over again to give statements and collecting statements before magistrates in the building up of the case. 666 01:17:58,970 --> 01:18:03,860 So the only thing that I find is that my own resolve has been not. 667 01:18:03,860 --> 01:18:12,430 I mean, I have to fight this case. I mean, I I'm not even going to apply for anticipatory bail, which we have the right to separate. 668 01:18:12,430 --> 01:18:15,920 I just don't want to dignify what they're doing. 669 01:18:15,920 --> 01:18:24,740 I will basically say I will continue to work with the most disadvantaged and consumers decode what I feel is unjust and wrong. 670 01:18:24,740 --> 01:18:31,580 And you do what you have to do to me. I think that's I found that, you know, I can't depend on any institution. 671 01:18:31,580 --> 01:18:35,840 That's the only way I think I would like to say, Yeah, yeah. 672 01:18:35,840 --> 01:18:40,990 Thank you very much, sir, for shining light on this issue. 673 01:18:40,990 --> 01:18:49,310 And we have two very interesting questions. One is asking is because the NRC and CAA were brought on legally. 674 01:18:49,310 --> 01:18:54,050 Can we think of reforming India without reforming the structure of bureaucracy? 675 01:18:54,050 --> 01:19:13,380 And why does bureaucracy not get it to do mention in public debates? And we have one more question coming in, 676 01:19:13,380 --> 01:19:19,650 which says that the narrative from the progressive side about saving the Constitution and preserving the basic structure, 677 01:19:19,650 --> 01:19:27,600 which was at the forefront during the process also mentioned by some of the speakers here now how much of the disillusionment with institutions, 678 01:19:27,600 --> 01:19:34,770 particularly the courts, is related to the earlier move in the 70s to invest the hopes of the progressives in the court, 679 01:19:34,770 --> 01:19:41,980 which is an which is essentially an anti-democratic institution. 680 01:19:41,980 --> 01:19:46,800 It's. Do you? 681 01:19:46,800 --> 01:19:58,060 Yes, please go ahead. So I think. I think it is true, I think there was a great amount of debate on the role of our constitutional courts, 682 01:19:58,060 --> 01:20:05,770 and historically, if you look at the last seven decades, the role of our courts have been a mixed bag. 683 01:20:05,770 --> 01:20:13,960 We had basic structure. Then we had a powerful bail regime in the 80s, which sought to give voice to a lot of voiceless people. 684 01:20:13,960 --> 01:20:22,180 We also saw a very strong court with a weaker government in the UPA regime, which took cognisance of corruption issues. 685 01:20:22,180 --> 01:20:28,510 Let's not forget the court struck down, subdividing as as being unconstitutional. 686 01:20:28,510 --> 01:20:33,550 There have been there have been various judgements which have protected that environment and so on. 687 01:20:33,550 --> 01:20:36,700 So I think, personally speaking, 688 01:20:36,700 --> 01:20:47,230 I do think the courts are an essential part of a democratic scheme to say that the courts are not the only way of finding change is true. 689 01:20:47,230 --> 01:20:57,580 In fact, Nehru himself was a lawyer has spoken about the limitations of the court to bring about a real time democratic change of consensus. 690 01:20:57,580 --> 01:20:59,680 I don't think the court's role is to do that. 691 01:20:59,680 --> 01:21:08,470 I think the court's role is to be anti majoritarian institution, which tries to halt any kind of violation of rights. 692 01:21:08,470 --> 01:21:14,680 I think the court's role is limited to be a protector against any kind of aberrations, 693 01:21:14,680 --> 01:21:19,180 the kind of populism is producing today, but it's got an important structure. 694 01:21:19,180 --> 01:21:27,280 Yes. Is it the only structure or is it something we must rely on to bring change in law or society as a whole? 695 01:21:27,280 --> 01:21:32,890 Not really. That's not the role of the court. I think the court's role has to be viewed in a more pragmatic fashion. 696 01:21:32,890 --> 01:21:38,710 But in disturbing times, in times where we are seeing revolutionary change in our country, 697 01:21:38,710 --> 01:21:50,790 I think the court would need to do much more than was thought of or maybe in an earlier period in history. 698 01:21:50,790 --> 01:21:59,070 We have another question from London, Philip, who asks how does the pandemic affect the debates around the NRC? 699 01:21:59,070 --> 01:22:08,070 What kind of rupture has it created and these chilling developments across the Indian political media and legal landscape? 700 01:22:08,070 --> 01:22:16,860 Come in here. Yes, of course. Yes. A few responses to what's been said on hushes blunt about this. 701 01:22:16,860 --> 01:22:23,010 Nobody should have the right to question the loyalty of Muslims to India or their role in the freedom struggle. 702 01:22:23,010 --> 01:22:31,930 You see, a lot of it goes back to the question of partition and this very false binary response to a thing that is the Congress of the league. 703 01:22:31,930 --> 01:22:38,880 Who is to blame for partition? Nero's hunger, quote unquote, Nehru's hunger for power, the Muslim League separatist politics? 704 01:22:38,880 --> 01:22:40,380 No, very important reference. 705 01:22:40,380 --> 01:22:49,770 Here is the work of Aisha Tyler, which I keep referring my students to, who decisively establishes that in course of the 1920s and 30s Hindu, 706 01:22:49,770 --> 01:22:54,210 most of and a range of other English modernist forces are working both within the 707 01:22:54,210 --> 01:23:00,120 Congress and outside to ensure that Muslims are alienated from the national movement. 708 01:23:00,120 --> 01:23:04,650 This is a very important observation, which I think is completely missing from our public discourse, 709 01:23:04,650 --> 01:23:11,430 which allows the internet should be framed as a Congress versus leadership that can warn or shown on this book I want, 710 01:23:11,430 --> 01:23:20,430 but just to point out how important this is. Secondly, on this point about the long term logic to the ending of the structure of the Constitution. 711 01:23:20,430 --> 01:23:24,540 So I think it's very useful to go back to the constituent assembly debates and 712 01:23:24,540 --> 01:23:30,060 what sort of hold the makers of the constitutions had with their constitution. 713 01:23:30,060 --> 01:23:36,930 And because soon after he resigned as law minister, this is a very short interview to give to the BBC. 714 01:23:36,930 --> 01:23:43,380 Was very disillusioned at that point of Kennedy makes an important point. The Constitution will not save the country. 715 01:23:43,380 --> 01:23:48,480 It is about who works the constitution and how it comes down to the people. 716 01:23:48,480 --> 01:23:55,380 And these are the political of Nehru saying that, you know that those policies are pretty much the top heavy approach, 717 01:23:55,380 --> 01:23:59,760 which will which is unlikely to create the sort of mass base required, you know, 718 01:23:59,760 --> 01:24:03,660 through social and economic reforms which can actually make democracy work. 719 01:24:03,660 --> 01:24:07,170 And this has been a lot of emphasis that democracy will not work in India. 720 01:24:07,170 --> 01:24:11,280 It is the father of the Indian Constitution now said the idea is, I think, 721 01:24:11,280 --> 01:24:16,140 important to keep in mind here that while the Constitution is very important, 722 01:24:16,140 --> 01:24:21,150 it's equally important for us to look at histories because of how we react to what the Constitution, 723 01:24:21,150 --> 01:24:27,660 not just to the judiciary, but even, you know, forces outside and that that story, I think, needs to come in. 724 01:24:27,660 --> 01:24:33,750 On that note, questions of bureaucratic violence now they are coming in very strongly as being at a more mass level, 725 01:24:33,750 --> 01:24:42,150 police brutality, you know, but there are there is a long term story to this which this government has again drawn upon. 726 01:24:42,150 --> 01:24:50,540 So my point is it's a question of constitution should cannot be resolved only through the Constitution as it exists the document, but for the courts. 727 01:24:50,540 --> 01:24:56,520 But the question of politics and its relationship to constitutional values, which I think what I was alluding to, 728 01:24:56,520 --> 01:25:01,980 the question of policies and politics is something that we need to keep in mind. 729 01:25:01,980 --> 01:25:06,930 And very briefly, partly so because we're talking about institutions and how they're being hollowed out. 730 01:25:06,930 --> 01:25:12,660 We also need to talk about universities and institutions and what is being done. 731 01:25:12,660 --> 01:25:18,930 I think Nicole mentioned that what is it that we can we can do to tackle the situation? 732 01:25:18,930 --> 01:25:26,100 So things like actually creating public opinion, which is what the universities can do that is being totally, 733 01:25:26,100 --> 01:25:31,530 you know, what's the right word to use because I really like what the market move is. 734 01:25:31,530 --> 01:25:37,080 That role is being really thoughtful, and I'm very glad the now brought on this wonderful think. 735 01:25:37,080 --> 01:25:43,620 So there is a story as to why complaints are being made so far from one of these is to chip away at the power of universities, 736 01:25:43,620 --> 01:25:53,850 know that the policies that the government relationship policy suddenly universities you can easily find the most is to criticise, 737 01:25:53,850 --> 01:25:58,320 you know, so that that that's happening. So we need to also figure it out. 738 01:25:58,320 --> 01:26:04,680 I don't know what you can figure out, but keep this in mind that you talk about the notion of the other institutions. 739 01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:11,540 There is the potential. There's so many other spaces and also there are also the university. 740 01:26:11,540 --> 01:26:14,030 Yeah. 741 01:26:14,030 --> 01:26:24,240 Could you also hear from behind a break about the field of law and media and what possible measures we can take to combat to combat the situation? 742 01:26:24,240 --> 01:26:32,400 Oh, actually, I just wanted to make the point, because what's important and this question about prophecy? 743 01:26:32,400 --> 01:26:41,010 I'll start with a very small example. Recently, due to the lockdown, 87 percent of the relief material was provided by civil society. 744 01:26:41,010 --> 01:26:46,080 So the fact that so many people were starving and they go hungry, that's in spite of that. 745 01:26:46,080 --> 01:26:55,080 The bureaucracy that would have actually the local bureaucracy within disputes within townships, they could have actually stepped up and done things. 746 01:26:55,080 --> 01:27:02,100 They haven't done that simple, bare, minimal, you know, providing relief material and ensuring that people don't die without food. 747 01:27:02,100 --> 01:27:03,750 Even that wasn't taken care of. 748 01:27:03,750 --> 01:27:11,230 And in fact, there have been reports that various parts of North India where civil society had collected relief materials, 749 01:27:11,230 --> 01:27:18,000 the the the on the orders of the district collectors and various other people in the machinery. 750 01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:27,000 They took away the relief material and only gave it to people who were supposed to be supportive of a particular party. 751 01:27:27,000 --> 01:27:34,860 So that also happened on the day. I also wanted to say that the question for you to be with is that we need to look at 752 01:27:34,860 --> 01:27:41,790 how these people see this piece of we thought they or somebody was killed in India. 753 01:27:41,790 --> 01:27:47,220 But from season to season, a lot of extrajudicial killings, for example, in Uttar Pradesh, 754 01:27:47,220 --> 01:27:56,910 for all you had mentioned about lynchings and people being killed on the acquisition of smuggling beef or consuming beef. 755 01:27:56,910 --> 01:28:05,890 But there have been at least 20 cases in the area. I know where people were killed by the police on the suspicion that it was the smuggling. 756 01:28:05,890 --> 01:28:19,380 So similarly, in U.P. in the US since 2017, since obviously not the single militant became the chief minister of the most populated state in India, 757 01:28:19,380 --> 01:28:22,560 there have been over 5000 police encounters. 758 01:28:22,560 --> 01:28:31,290 Police encounters opened up on this issue, but some counties in India and out of these five by over 5000 encounters, 759 01:28:31,290 --> 01:28:39,960 at least one seven people have been killed and 500 people have been shot and injured have produced injuries. 760 01:28:39,960 --> 01:28:47,190 And the fact is that in all, all of these cases, if you see the police is completely criminalised, 761 01:28:47,190 --> 01:28:57,840 people who are working class Muslims overseas street vendors have been picked up on accusations of stealing the gold ring or stealing 8000. 762 01:28:57,840 --> 01:29:02,200 Even with these on just that suspicion, they've been shot dead. 763 01:29:02,200 --> 01:29:10,890 I know from the police locally to the situation where there has to be a bare minimum of magisterial enquiry into these cases. 764 01:29:10,890 --> 01:29:17,260 Even that hasn't happened, and the charge is issued almost 16 17 an to the U.S. government. 765 01:29:17,260 --> 01:29:20,880 In fact, now still that you will not be doing what will the Indian government, 766 01:29:20,880 --> 01:29:27,280 the government saying that there is clear evidence that people see the pre-planned killings and what really chance encounters. 767 01:29:27,280 --> 01:29:34,470 So everybody in the system, the bureaucracy, every single person is deeply scrutinised, 768 01:29:34,470 --> 01:29:38,910 deeply opportunist, and which is why it's time and be bringing these issues. 769 01:29:38,910 --> 01:29:46,530 Of course it is because of the bureaucracy. Of course, every cog in the wheel is completely compromised, which is why. 770 01:29:46,530 --> 01:29:51,390 But wherever we are and in terms of what the media can do, 771 01:29:51,390 --> 01:29:57,870 I just have one point very small point to make, which is that you wouldn't be well-intentioned. 772 01:29:57,870 --> 01:30:04,860 Progressive media in India has actually unfortunately fallen into the trap of white. 773 01:30:04,860 --> 01:30:11,220 It is to even the progressive media is only talking in binaries and responding to that. 774 01:30:11,220 --> 01:30:15,330 You just don't want to be set by the Hindu nationalist government. 775 01:30:15,330 --> 01:30:20,970 And which is why what is happening is all that we increasingly see opinion pieces and opinion journalism 776 01:30:20,970 --> 01:30:25,980 not from the experts are part of this this walk in the ground for so many years and have some experience. 777 01:30:25,980 --> 01:30:32,550 But all we see is everybody political opinion pieces. Instead of jabbing five kilometres and actually bringing the facts and evidence and 778 01:30:32,550 --> 01:30:36,900 few studies from the ground to show the complexities and the nuances that gridlock. 779 01:30:36,900 --> 01:30:42,040 And things cannot be this right wing or left wing or anti-national or national. 780 01:30:42,040 --> 01:30:49,430 So I think we have to stop. Just to conclude, then there's a question from Ila Mehrotra, who is a UK based filmmaker, 781 01:30:49,430 --> 01:30:59,870 was asking if you have any ideas for how the realities, the detailed realities from the ground can be circulated internationally. 782 01:30:59,870 --> 01:31:03,870 I mean, there are enough, you know, reports that have been put out. 783 01:31:03,870 --> 01:31:10,770 I mean, do you think it's just the fact that unfortunately the international, like I said earlier on to the global discourse, 784 01:31:10,770 --> 01:31:16,950 also has to stop falling into a binary conversations and look for what is actually put out. 785 01:31:16,950 --> 01:31:22,530 There are still some proposals lots of journalists from local born Indian languages. 786 01:31:22,530 --> 01:31:28,050 And that is very important, and I think that should be picked up by international documentary filmmakers. 787 01:31:28,050 --> 01:31:32,820 Anybody who has access and speak for. OK, thank you very much. 788 01:31:32,820 --> 01:31:41,300 We're nearly out of time now. Thanks again to all the panellists and our attendees for the wonderful set of comments and questions and answers. 789 01:31:41,300 --> 01:31:45,560 We'll take a 15 minute break now before we move to a second panel chaired by Bonnie, 790 01:31:45,560 --> 01:31:51,710 where we will discuss how performance is also a form of pseudo radical politics. 791 01:31:51,710 --> 01:31:56,390 So we'll go for a break now and thank you once again very much for being here. 792 01:31:56,390 --> 01:32:27,820 Thank you for. We start now, and I don't agree with think of it. 793 01:32:27,820 --> 01:32:32,000 But let's start, I think. Hi everyone and welcome back. 794 01:32:32,000 --> 01:32:39,920 You've had a very powerful session earlier in the day. And now after this short break, it's time for Panopto on performance as politics. 795 01:32:39,920 --> 01:32:47,150 As you all probably know, the anti-Syrian movement saw a huge surge in cultural and artistic expressions of resistance across the country, 796 01:32:47,150 --> 01:32:51,050 from poetry and songs to murals, posters, public libraries. 797 01:32:51,050 --> 01:32:56,470 A wide array of interventions captured the public imagination and infused the visual aural sense, 798 01:32:56,470 --> 01:33:01,640 forged an epic and you cityscape, which on supporting solidarity. 799 01:33:01,640 --> 01:33:09,380 In this final, we want to explore the commissary potential of protest and performances as a form of politics and the links between the two. 800 01:33:09,380 --> 01:33:12,350 So this session will follow a similar format of independent one. 801 01:33:12,350 --> 01:33:20,420 But I will begin with introducing each of the panellists, who then have about 10 to 15 minutes to present, followed by a Q&A session for the audience. 802 01:33:20,420 --> 01:33:26,540 I'd like to say please feel free to use the Q&A function to post questions and comments as speakers present, 803 01:33:26,540 --> 01:33:32,420 even though we don't have a Q&A after the entire session or after the speakers finished presenting. 804 01:33:32,420 --> 01:33:36,890 If there is time after the Q&A to Mangla has also very kindly agreed to sing some of the songs, 805 01:33:36,890 --> 01:33:41,930 and perhaps that's additional incentive to keep questions and comments short and to the point. 806 01:33:41,930 --> 01:33:46,880 I will now introduce speakers in the order in which they would present both types within that. 807 01:33:46,880 --> 01:33:54,530 Two Dan Laddish funding was an actor, director and organiser of the John Too Much, one of India's pre-eminent political theatre groups. 808 01:33:54,530 --> 01:34:02,510 The group was set up in 1973 and soon joined in 1987. He has over 4000 performances, to his credit as an actor. 809 01:34:02,510 --> 01:34:09,440 He works as managing editor at Left What Books and is the author of The Death and Life of Southard Hashmi. 810 01:34:09,440 --> 01:34:16,340 We then have to Mangla Damodaran, Professor of Economics, Development Studies and Popular Music, Ambedkar University, Delhi. 811 01:34:16,340 --> 01:34:21,020 Apart from an academic involvement, she is also a singer and a composer. 812 01:34:21,020 --> 01:34:28,340 An archiving and documentation of the musical tradition of the Indian People's Theatre Association from the 1940s and 1950s 813 01:34:28,340 --> 01:34:36,140 has resulted in a book titled The Radical Impulse Music in the tradition of the Chapter and an album titled Songs of Protest. 814 01:34:36,140 --> 01:34:41,750 She has also collaborated with Boyds and musicians from South Africa around a project titled Insurrections. 815 01:34:41,750 --> 01:34:45,980 She is currently engaged in researching the relationship between music and migration, 816 01:34:45,980 --> 01:34:51,550 particularly of women in servitude and slavery across centuries and vast tracts of the globe. 817 01:34:51,550 --> 01:34:58,720 We then have that God bless Naqvi, who's a performative Boyd and founder of Saudi Ragusa Poetry on the Streets. 818 01:34:58,720 --> 01:35:05,290 She's a translator and storyteller, theatre artist and an alternative educator who studied to become a historian. 819 01:35:05,290 --> 01:35:10,900 She's a gender and minority rights activist, and most of her poetry travels around the same issues. 820 01:35:10,900 --> 01:35:15,310 She has been a regular guest and performer on prominent political and cultural platforms. 821 01:35:15,310 --> 01:35:20,260 She's an expert in social and emotional learning and currently works as a campaign strategist. 822 01:35:20,260 --> 01:35:30,870 So, Dunbar, I will now hand over the floor to you. And they pleased to be her. 823 01:35:30,870 --> 01:35:35,850 I think the first point that we must bear in mind when thinking about not just the present moment, 824 01:35:35,850 --> 01:35:46,200 but really to light the long term project of the Odyssey's, which is something that has been a matter of discussion. 825 01:35:46,200 --> 01:35:52,800 In the previous panel as well is that the Odyssey's SELF-IDENTIFIES itself as a cultural organisation, 826 01:35:52,800 --> 01:35:56,160 and this is something that in the political discourse, 827 01:35:56,160 --> 01:36:02,640 we have been in the habit of running down saying, Oh, they're not a cultural organisation, they're actually a political organisation. 828 01:36:02,640 --> 01:36:09,450 In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that they had actually the do not take part in the political process. 829 01:36:09,450 --> 01:36:20,670 In the non-moving, they have created a political fund called the BJP, which has been deputed to take part in the normal political process. 830 01:36:20,670 --> 01:36:29,460 But this is not the artist. The organisation is something that we have underplayed and discounted for too long. 831 01:36:29,460 --> 01:36:38,220 I feel that this is something that we must pay attention to, that the long term project of the Odyssey's is as much political as it is culture. 832 01:36:38,220 --> 01:36:44,430 It is approved in fashion. The whole idea of what India stands for, what India is. 833 01:36:44,430 --> 01:36:50,640 That's point number one. Point number two is that, you know, every protest is performance. 834 01:36:50,640 --> 01:37:00,600 It has to be otherwise. What's the point of protest? If I sit in my room and I do something and nobody knows about it, then what's the point? 835 01:37:00,600 --> 01:37:05,640 The whole point of protesting is to be seen to be protesting. 836 01:37:05,640 --> 01:37:10,080 That's why numbers matter. That's my location matter that there. 837 01:37:10,080 --> 01:37:18,040 Are you protesting in what numbers are you protesting? What forms of protest are you adopting and so on and so forth? 838 01:37:18,040 --> 01:37:26,220 So every protest across the world from from time immemorial has always had a performative aspect of it. 839 01:37:26,220 --> 01:37:32,670 But just as protest is performance. So part part the performance. 840 01:37:32,670 --> 01:37:41,220 And I mean, we saw this, for instance, in the films of Leni Riefenstahl in the 1930s, the way she filmed, 841 01:37:41,220 --> 01:37:50,010 let's say, the 1933 Nuremberg rally of the Nazi Party, the Vichy film, the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. 842 01:37:50,010 --> 01:37:55,470 All of these are really a demonstration and not just a demonstration. 843 01:37:55,470 --> 01:37:59,880 It's a performance of power. These these films, 844 01:37:59,880 --> 01:38:13,230 especially the 1933 a Nuremberg rally when it's called a to power this film has been has been described by somebody as a as a film that stars, 845 01:38:13,230 --> 01:38:17,850 that has one superstar and 50000 extras, right? 846 01:38:17,850 --> 01:38:22,830 So there's, you know, it is performance. It is. 847 01:38:22,830 --> 01:38:31,800 The whole thing is orchestrated for the camera. So therefore, just as as protesters performance, so is fovea. 848 01:38:31,800 --> 01:38:37,660 Also, performance and fascism understands this than almost anyone. 849 01:38:37,660 --> 01:38:42,180 Witness all political parties perform their power. 850 01:38:42,180 --> 01:38:50,660 All political tendencies put on their power. But fascism performs its power in a way in which. 851 01:38:50,660 --> 01:38:54,170 Almost nobody else is able to do exactly. 852 01:38:54,170 --> 01:39:01,310 It's very interesting if you look at, for instance, Mr Modi's the pictures, which are all over the place every day. 853 01:39:01,310 --> 01:39:12,050 It's so interesting that, for instance, at these high visibility public events that he goes to to inaugurate the statue or, 854 01:39:12,050 --> 01:39:21,260 you know, some bridge or whatever it is, he's the only one in the frame. And that is so unlike the normal political imagery that we've been used to. 855 01:39:21,260 --> 01:39:29,630 We've been used to imagery of all of the main political leader surrounded by one million people, you know? 856 01:39:29,630 --> 01:39:39,140 And that's what seemed to give power to the political leader here in the iconography that created around himself. 857 01:39:39,140 --> 01:39:42,110 It's all we see in in splendid isolation. 858 01:39:42,110 --> 01:39:49,310 You know, everybody is asking literally Mugabe so that the photographers can photograph this man all by himself. 859 01:39:49,310 --> 01:39:49,870 Right? 860 01:39:49,870 --> 01:40:03,140 And and it does it with very dramatic backdrops like the statue and so on, you know, looking into the far distance at the same angle as the statue. 861 01:40:03,140 --> 01:40:07,820 But it's also interesting, for instance, just as a minor digression, 862 01:40:07,820 --> 01:40:17,540 if you've seen pictures of Mr. Modi conducting at the meetings of the chief ministers, right? 863 01:40:17,540 --> 01:40:25,200 And the picture that you see is Mr. Modi sitting at his desk and he's being photographed from the site from one side, right? 864 01:40:25,200 --> 01:40:34,520 So he's in kind of profile. And on this side, you see the screen, which has the images of all the other chief ministers. 865 01:40:34,520 --> 01:40:39,590 He's not even looking at them. You know, you see the two of them together. 866 01:40:39,590 --> 01:40:47,110 It's as if he's talking to, nobody's talking to himself. That's what the picture tells you, that he doesn't care. 867 01:40:47,110 --> 01:40:53,830 What they're saying this and suggesting is the performance of fascism. 868 01:40:53,830 --> 01:41:01,020 They understand the visual media better than almost anyone else does. 869 01:41:01,020 --> 01:41:12,120 Now coming specifically to the IPCA protests, I think it just before that one more point that I'd like to make is that and so therefore it's 870 01:41:12,120 --> 01:41:18,930 not a it's not a coincidence that almost all of these public lynchings that have taken place, 871 01:41:18,930 --> 01:41:24,510 these attacks on Dalits, on Muslims, etc., etc., many of them, 872 01:41:24,510 --> 01:41:30,450 large numbers of them have been filmed and they have been filmed by the perpetrators themselves. 873 01:41:30,450 --> 01:41:39,450 And they've been filmed not to stand witness to an act that is wrong and criminal, but to boast about what they think. 874 01:41:39,450 --> 01:41:44,070 And then they start circulating on WhatsApp groups and so on and so forth. 875 01:41:44,070 --> 01:41:53,130 Now this is something that you also saw in the 2002 ending a Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. 876 01:41:53,130 --> 01:41:56,550 But then it circulated in a more underground fashion. 877 01:41:56,550 --> 01:42:05,610 One heard about these videotapes that were on a series that was circulating where violence was being filmed, but it was almost underground. 878 01:42:05,610 --> 01:42:11,730 It was like with a degree of embarrassment on it. 879 01:42:11,730 --> 01:42:16,450 Now they're being circulated completely openly now. 880 01:42:16,450 --> 01:42:22,090 What this also points to is that all performance then in today's time, 881 01:42:22,090 --> 01:42:27,220 whether it's the performance of power or whether it's the performance of protest or 882 01:42:27,220 --> 01:42:35,410 performance today has to be has to be carried out with the fact of social media in mind. 883 01:42:35,410 --> 01:42:39,040 You cannot do it if you don't keep that in mind. 884 01:42:39,040 --> 01:42:45,250 You have to think about how is this going to circulate? Because the moment of the protest is one moment. 885 01:42:45,250 --> 01:42:49,150 It's transient, it's going to be seen or experienced by X number of people. 886 01:42:49,150 --> 01:42:56,950 But the positive that is going to be amplified way beyond that or can be potentially amplified beyond that with the power of the social media. 887 01:42:56,950 --> 01:43:04,210 Now, of course, the social media is also very lopsided and they are much more powerful than we are, et cetera, et cetera. 888 01:43:04,210 --> 01:43:11,140 But even the protest that happens from other sites is also you can see how the fact of social media, 889 01:43:11,140 --> 01:43:17,260 the fact of everybody now carrying a camera with it, right? 890 01:43:17,260 --> 01:43:24,940 And in many, many cases, these are very sophisticated, highly efficient definition cameras that we have in our phones. 891 01:43:24,940 --> 01:43:33,640 Now, the fact that these cameras are being carried by all of us to protests is also shaping the nature of the protest in the forms of the protest. 892 01:43:33,640 --> 01:43:37,390 And I don't think this is a bad thing. I think it's a it's it's a fact. 893 01:43:37,390 --> 01:43:41,680 It's neither good nor bad. It's just something that that has to be accounted for. 894 01:43:41,680 --> 01:43:49,090 It's something that has to be taken, you know, in your stride and you've got to learn how to do it. 895 01:43:49,090 --> 01:43:58,630 Which then brings me to my next point, which is that if you can see the protests and the kind of art that came out of these protests, 896 01:43:58,630 --> 01:44:02,230 one, of course, is to look at it in terms of the art that got produced. 897 01:44:02,230 --> 01:44:10,530 And of course, that's important to poetry. You know, and and so on and so forth, but also to think about. 898 01:44:10,530 --> 01:44:21,060 Really, in which these protests were staged and using the word Islam that deliberately the way these protests have been staged across several 899 01:44:21,060 --> 01:44:30,570 locations and the visual iconography that got produced through these protests through the staging of these protests is also a performance, 900 01:44:30,570 --> 01:44:36,920 and it was a it is a performance that's and that's being staged primarily. 901 01:44:36,920 --> 01:44:38,750 With social media in mind, 902 01:44:38,750 --> 01:44:47,870 because the people who protest are aware of the fact that they're not going to get that kind of space in the mainstream media, 903 01:44:47,870 --> 01:44:53,720 and so therefore they do keep in mind, how is this going to look on a phone screen? 904 01:44:53,720 --> 01:44:57,950 You know, it is something that you consciously or unconsciously, 905 01:44:57,950 --> 01:45:07,540 subconsciously you have to keep in mind, and it's important for activists to learn how to use these. 906 01:45:07,540 --> 01:45:13,450 These technologies, it's telling to me, for instance, that settles that, 907 01:45:13,450 --> 01:45:22,990 that almost all the poetry that was produced at this time and some incredible poetry came out that almost all of this poetry came from. 908 01:45:22,990 --> 01:45:29,530 Relatively new and young for many of these points, 909 01:45:29,530 --> 01:45:39,160 for people who are not very well known outside of small circles and and the fact that this poetry and 910 01:45:39,160 --> 01:45:48,910 music that was was produced at this time was produced in in them in a sense in the heat of battle. 911 01:45:48,910 --> 01:45:59,730 But it's also interesting, for instance, if you look at a poem like Tom Gonnabe, you know, now that's the poem that actually predates the CAA. 912 01:45:59,730 --> 01:46:04,300 It's something that, you know, he had taped it. There's a video of it. 913 01:46:04,300 --> 01:46:11,500 That's quite a dramatically staged lake in a dark studio and so on. 914 01:46:11,500 --> 01:46:17,560 But it's only when he performs it at the gateway of India in Bombay with an audience in front of him, 915 01:46:17,560 --> 01:46:22,600 and the audience responds to it in the video that some member of the audience. 916 01:46:22,600 --> 01:46:33,400 That's the one that goes by it. Hey, it's interesting that it's the it's the poetry of protest that's been almost composed during the protest, 917 01:46:33,400 --> 01:46:36,640 even if it is not composed in the protest. 918 01:46:36,640 --> 01:46:48,400 In this particular case, for instance, it's interesting if you see the text of his poem, as it was done previously in the staged video that he saw. 919 01:46:48,400 --> 01:46:55,000 It begins at a different point. When is it when he performs at the gateway of India? 920 01:46:55,000 --> 01:47:01,180 In the protest, he starts with his most dramatic line. Duncan Habib Who the [INAUDIBLE] are you? 921 01:47:01,180 --> 01:47:05,800 Who the [INAUDIBLE] are you to ask me? You know about who I am? 922 01:47:05,800 --> 01:47:08,620 How much of a Hindu am I, etc., etc. Now, 923 01:47:08,620 --> 01:47:17,170 the fact that it begins with this very dramatic statement this is dramatic line is something that that it did for the protest. 924 01:47:17,170 --> 01:47:24,220 That's not how the plan was written. So in that sense, I'm saying that it's a point that has been made by the protest. 925 01:47:24,220 --> 01:47:31,900 It's being created in a sense, you know, it's been created in a sense as part of the protest in the heat of battle, 926 01:47:31,900 --> 01:47:43,390 in the sense, the site itself is performance and has often been said, for instance, as soon as the lockdown began. 927 01:47:43,390 --> 01:47:49,400 One of the first things that the Delhi Police did was to go and and whitewash all those vaults. 928 01:47:49,400 --> 01:47:58,990 That's how anybody now. Now, the fact that the Shaheen Bagh protest site also became an art installation site. 929 01:47:58,990 --> 01:48:08,470 So many artists came to it and and put out their their artworks, and there were many people who were not who are not recognised as artists. 930 01:48:08,470 --> 01:48:16,510 They are not. Then they don't circulate in the public, in public recognition, as I did. 931 01:48:16,510 --> 01:48:21,880 You know, people like you and me, ordinary citizens. They go and do stuff there, etc. alongside artists. 932 01:48:21,880 --> 01:48:28,380 So there's a very wonderful kind of democratisation of the idea of art that takes place in world. 933 01:48:28,380 --> 01:48:36,580 Is this not something unique design, but this is something that has happened historically and all protest sites across the world. 934 01:48:36,580 --> 01:48:45,850 And so once once again, one sees at by a couple of other points I want to make. 935 01:48:45,850 --> 01:48:55,360 One is that I come from basically a theatre tradition of protest street cred. 936 01:48:55,360 --> 01:49:02,590 And it was striking to me how, for instance, at this moment in the anti-Syrian protest, 937 01:49:02,590 --> 01:49:08,350 there was very little theatre of that plane that happened like a plea, you know? 938 01:49:08,350 --> 01:49:15,070 And we also perform like events went out and performed at all of these sites across the city of Delhi. 939 01:49:15,070 --> 01:49:19,780 But what we did was not quite what was not quite what can be called the play. 940 01:49:19,780 --> 01:49:30,010 It's a performance, but notably, you know. There's no story is not locked in any of the regular markers that you had to define. 941 01:49:30,010 --> 01:49:33,430 The play is not something that we did. Now, why does this happen? 942 01:49:33,430 --> 01:49:43,300 Partly, this happens because of of the contingencies of what the protest site itself that you don't know how much things are going to get. 943 01:49:43,300 --> 01:49:46,630 You don't know how it's because you want to get it, etc. So it's got to be flexible. 944 01:49:46,630 --> 01:49:50,740 It's got to be something that you would be able to change things around at any time. 945 01:49:50,740 --> 01:49:55,870 You can make it short, you can make it long, you can do it in so much space, you can move instalment space, etc., etc. 946 01:49:55,870 --> 01:50:01,780 This is not always possible. The play, which is characters, which is a story and so on and so forth. 947 01:50:01,780 --> 01:50:02,560 That's one part of it. 948 01:50:02,560 --> 01:50:13,510 But the other more important part of it is that what happens in in these moments is that the discourse keeps changing all the time, you know, 949 01:50:13,510 --> 01:50:22,510 and there's always a way in which you want to bring in the latest that's happening out there into your performance, and that's not always possible. 950 01:50:22,510 --> 01:50:28,330 It's strictly, you know, you've got to have a performance that's much more flexible, 951 01:50:28,330 --> 01:50:36,940 that's much more amenable to change, to improvisation and so on and so forth. 952 01:50:36,940 --> 01:50:44,200 And so what happens to these protests is whether you see the performances of as a monarch, 953 01:50:44,200 --> 01:50:51,970 as a xenon mark, as a minor or a whole lot of others, in fact, is that the form itself is very malleable. 954 01:50:51,970 --> 01:50:56,890 It's very it's very flexible. It's something that you can change. 955 01:50:56,890 --> 01:51:00,880 You can shape. You can do things with it at that moment. 956 01:51:00,880 --> 01:51:11,290 It's also not something that depends on the on the stage of being, you know, divided between audience and actors, whether it's elevated, 957 01:51:11,290 --> 01:51:19,030 not delegated or the audiences on one side, three sides for side to side, whatever it doesn't matter, you should be able to perform anyway. 958 01:51:19,030 --> 01:51:25,060 And and that I found really, really exciting. 959 01:51:25,060 --> 01:51:30,070 The last point I would make is that for the first time in my life. 960 01:51:30,070 --> 01:51:34,510 And you know, I am over 50 years old. I am 53 years old. 961 01:51:34,510 --> 01:51:41,770 And I remember that the only time that I thought of the preamble of the Constitution was then what? 962 01:51:41,770 --> 01:51:46,210 No open one civics book in school. 963 01:51:46,210 --> 01:51:50,680 And it used to be the first page of a civics book right in school. 964 01:51:50,680 --> 01:51:53,730 And one kind of looked at that and say and boring stuff. 965 01:51:53,730 --> 01:51:59,320 And then one learnt about the directive principles of state policy and based on that and all the rest of it. 966 01:51:59,320 --> 01:52:09,500 And when I found that stuff really boring and not once after that in my life and I lived through, let's say, the entire movement for the Babri Masjid, 967 01:52:09,500 --> 01:52:16,930 the entire movement or the demolition of the body must involve from the moment of the violence and goofed it up and this. 968 01:52:16,930 --> 01:52:24,910 So many of these absolutely terrible, horrible things. 1984 riots in Delhi and so on and so forth, but never before. 969 01:52:24,910 --> 01:52:33,990 Never before has the Constitution come to life on the streets of India in a way in which it did not. 970 01:52:33,990 --> 01:52:39,870 And that, for me, became the most exciting part of the fact that so many, 971 01:52:39,870 --> 01:52:49,470 so many young people took up this constitution, held it up and and fought for it and made it their own. 972 01:52:49,470 --> 01:52:59,430 It came alive. It became a place that once failed. You know, every time one looked at the preamble of constitution, once it's gone. 973 01:52:59,430 --> 01:53:03,180 And that's been something that I've never experienced in my life. 974 01:53:03,180 --> 01:53:11,400 And that really is the one thing that that for me symbolises this moment and gives me great hope. 975 01:53:11,400 --> 01:53:26,330 I hope I'm not always short my time. Thank you. So, Mangla, can I give the floor to you? 976 01:53:26,330 --> 01:53:33,700 Your muted sorry. OK. 977 01:53:33,700 --> 01:53:39,970 Yeah. Thank you, Barney Daddy Omega, four, for inviting us on this panel, 978 01:53:39,970 --> 01:53:48,580 and I'm I'm really, really happy to meet because you know who I've never met before, 979 01:53:48,580 --> 01:54:00,250 but I heard her perform its mandate one late night, one night when when everything was washed out. 980 01:54:00,250 --> 01:54:06,490 And I also happened to be performing that night and I was completely electrified. 981 01:54:06,490 --> 01:54:11,750 And I'm so happy to meet her and be part of this event. 982 01:54:11,750 --> 01:54:18,120 And you know, I took your your. 983 01:54:18,120 --> 01:54:29,220 Concept, not literally OK, in terms of you're not talking about daily and in the sense that you know that this is presumably 984 01:54:29,220 --> 01:54:34,470 for you all the beginning of a series of conversations around protest and performance and, 985 01:54:34,470 --> 01:54:41,790 you know, protest in the state and so on, which is also going to be looking at different parts of the country. 986 01:54:41,790 --> 01:54:57,930 So for me, having lived in Delhi for 38 years now and also having witnessed a large number of different kinds of events in Delhi, 987 01:54:57,930 --> 01:55:07,770 which are political and which also involved a significant degree of performing duty, I thought I'd just take it back a little bit historically. 988 01:55:07,770 --> 01:55:18,060 And maybe that will complement what I have to say and focus a little bit more on music than on on other forms of performance. 989 01:55:18,060 --> 01:55:28,860 So, you know, at the time of the a.c.e protests the day after the violence happened in JNU, 990 01:55:28,860 --> 01:55:34,230 you know when the BPP goons went on a rampage and injured seven people in JNU and so on. 991 01:55:34,230 --> 01:55:41,730 And the next day there was a massive, massive mobilisation that took place against that kind of violence. 992 01:55:41,730 --> 01:55:52,800 One photograph went viral, which was a photograph of a young woman handing a rose to a policeman. 993 01:55:52,800 --> 01:55:57,780 So some of you might have seen it. And that really went viral in terms of a metaphor. 994 01:55:57,780 --> 01:56:09,960 And, you know, an image of the protests. And soon after, she then started of the garbage column and wrote a song, a wonderful song, 995 01:56:09,960 --> 01:56:18,750 which which I heard her sing a few days later, which was called the Gulab Nahin collab here. 996 01:56:18,750 --> 01:56:29,720 Now, I mean, so, you know, to sort of follow up on what I was seeing the metaphor, the idiom, really, you know? 997 01:56:29,720 --> 01:56:33,020 And also, you know, the way in which it got performed, 998 01:56:33,020 --> 01:56:42,530 whether it was the handing over of the rose to the policeman by the young student or the way in which think a highly powerful political singer, 999 01:56:42,530 --> 01:56:52,910 Lexical Saatchi, grabbed the idiom in some sense and converted into a fabulous song really begins symbolic for me of that moment. 1000 01:56:52,910 --> 01:56:58,220 Know, and there are thousands of such metaphors and thousands of such moments during 1001 01:56:58,220 --> 01:57:03,590 the the whole period from December until March until until the lockdown, 1002 01:57:03,590 --> 01:57:13,010 really. But if we actually look at the history, you know, the sort of recent history of daily over the past few decades. 1003 01:57:13,010 --> 01:57:17,990 See, peculiarly, Delhi has never been known as a very political city. 1004 01:57:17,990 --> 01:57:25,790 It is always been known as a century city and not political in the way in which, 1005 01:57:25,790 --> 01:57:29,420 you know, many other parts of the country are considered to be political. 1006 01:57:29,420 --> 01:57:39,260 But at the same time, Delhi has always had quite serious mobilisations around specific issues, 1007 01:57:39,260 --> 01:57:45,290 and performance has almost invariably been part of protest actions. 1008 01:57:45,290 --> 01:57:53,270 And in that sense, you know, and performances of different kinds and very often spontaneous performance, I mean, Sudan. 1009 01:57:53,270 --> 01:58:02,000 But as part of general demands and you know, several groups like this war from the late 70s onwards, the early from the, you know, 1010 01:58:02,000 --> 01:58:10,730 in the post emergency period, the one can think of any number of instances where performances have been an integral part of protest. 1011 01:58:10,730 --> 01:58:18,680 Even though, you know a lot of the mobilisation that took place around several issues never 1012 01:58:18,680 --> 01:58:27,710 translated in some sense into a larger see validation of the left in elections, 1013 01:58:27,710 --> 01:58:33,660 you know, so that's always been a peculiar conundrum, I think of politics in Delhi. 1014 01:58:33,660 --> 01:58:40,550 So I don't want to say anything more about that because, you know, that's not really my belief. 1015 01:58:40,550 --> 01:58:49,340 So if you actually look at it in terms of see a cultural movement in the way in which it happened, see in Bengal or in Kerala, you know, 1016 01:58:49,340 --> 01:58:56,510 predictably because of the presence of the left, but also see something like, you know, the summer diet theatre movement in Karnataka, 1017 01:58:56,510 --> 01:59:07,040 which was in, you know, several hundreds and hundreds of groups across the state or in Maharashtra, you've not had really, 1018 01:59:07,040 --> 01:59:13,130 in that sense, an autonomous culture, the movement of the kind that has been seen in many parts of the country. 1019 01:59:13,130 --> 01:59:19,670 But they have been very, very powerful groups and people who have articulated. 1020 01:59:19,670 --> 01:59:25,190 Politics through art, two different two different forms of art. 1021 01:59:25,190 --> 01:59:35,480 So if we, you know, I'm going to be speaking mostly about music, but actually think of it and stand back and correct me if I'm wrong. 1022 01:59:35,480 --> 01:59:42,470 But you know, from the 60s onwards, literally large numbers of artists, you know, 1023 01:59:42,470 --> 01:59:49,160 many of them who grew up out of the 18 different parts of the country or similar kinds of organisations started gravitating towards them. 1024 01:59:49,160 --> 01:59:55,800 And for natural reasons, Delhi was the capital. All India radio headquarters is here to do that and then so on and so forth. 1025 01:59:55,800 --> 02:00:05,120 So, so you had people, you know, stalwarts of it, for example, like Ingram Moitra and Benoit Roy, both Bengalis, 1026 02:00:05,120 --> 02:00:21,680 but who were also composing a lot of music in other languages and in India in Hindustani, who made Delhi their home for significant numbers of years. 1027 02:00:21,680 --> 02:00:26,990 Someone like Jitendra Moitra, for example, was, you know, 1028 02:00:26,990 --> 02:00:32,990 from composing large numbers of songs during the Bengal famine or during the Second World War, 1029 02:00:32,990 --> 02:00:42,050 was also one of the people who composed the music for the for the bahati collecting dress. 1030 02:00:42,050 --> 02:00:47,450 Remind us that I'm Lila performances, which then became iconic. 1031 02:00:47,450 --> 02:00:54,110 Similarly, Benoit Roy was a professor in JNU before he went to the Soviet Union. 1032 02:00:54,110 --> 02:00:54,800 But then again, 1033 02:00:54,800 --> 02:01:04,790 he composed a huge copies of songs without any number of stalwarts of the year who came and said he who spend a significant number of years in Delhi. 1034 02:01:04,790 --> 02:01:11,000 We know he spent several years of his extremely productive life in Delhi. 1035 02:01:11,000 --> 02:01:21,500 So. So that's that's one aspect, and, you know, really this this I would see the beginnings of this kind of, 1036 02:01:21,500 --> 02:01:30,410 you know, that protest goes with performance, perhaps is has has a long history in a place like that. 1037 02:01:30,410 --> 02:01:33,170 The other thing that did happen along with this, 1038 02:01:33,170 --> 02:01:42,920 that a lot of the music that came out of see that it opposed it on missions actually also got disseminated to schools. 1039 02:01:42,920 --> 02:01:50,930 So Delhi had a reasonable number of what we refer to as progressive schools, 1040 02:01:50,930 --> 02:01:55,100 and these schools took it upon themselves to actually teach their children many of these songs. 1041 02:01:55,100 --> 02:01:59,900 And that is something that perhaps has not been really recognised for its 1042 02:01:59,900 --> 02:02:04,690 importance because these are the students who then went into the universities, 1043 02:02:04,690 --> 02:02:09,770 you know, a few years later and who also became a very, very important audience. 1044 02:02:09,770 --> 02:02:16,550 And over successive generations also became the students who led the protests actually in different parts of the country today. 1045 02:02:16,550 --> 02:02:26,950 So, you know, even if there were a small fragments, you know, this actually got disseminated to a large extent to the schools as being the bluebells. 1046 02:02:26,950 --> 02:02:34,070 You know, even Sardar Patel began to a limited extent, a large number of these schools used to teach a lot of these songs, 1047 02:02:34,070 --> 02:02:40,580 you know, a lot of the songs in their heads in the making good on camera quality. 1048 02:02:40,580 --> 02:02:44,330 And you know, Sandusky rapidly now has that and so on. 1049 02:02:44,330 --> 02:02:50,360 You know, so all of these songs used to be doctors want children who otherwise have no notion of politics. 1050 02:02:50,360 --> 02:02:58,550 So this is the first thing that I wanted to see. The second aspect is, of course, around events and themes. 1051 02:02:58,550 --> 02:03:08,780 So whether it was the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that took place the Babri Masjid demolition, Safdar Hashmi's assassination, 1052 02:03:08,780 --> 02:03:17,870 the Gujarat pogrom, Jyoti Singh's brutal gang rape, you know, any number of trade union mobilisations that took place. 1053 02:03:17,870 --> 02:03:23,840 These were all, you know, sort of periods over which Delhi saw very big mobilisations. 1054 02:03:23,840 --> 02:03:32,450 And as I said, I can hardly think of a mobilisation in Delhi that did not involve performance, and many of us have been part of those performances. 1055 02:03:32,450 --> 02:03:34,820 You know how we were small? They might have been. 1056 02:03:34,820 --> 02:03:45,410 The idea that performance is a part of the formal protest venue was something that was ingrained in some sense into the DNA of politics in Delhi. 1057 02:03:45,410 --> 02:03:49,580 However small it might have been, so. 1058 02:03:49,580 --> 02:04:01,570 And music was a very, very important as part of those mobilisations and a large part of that music was really appealing to the. 1059 02:04:01,570 --> 02:04:07,420 Apolitical nature of the city. OK, so so I remember, you know, 1060 02:04:07,420 --> 02:04:17,740 when I was a college student in the university or studying in JNU or later on when I when I became a teacher in the university, 1061 02:04:17,740 --> 02:04:27,460 you know, a whole lot of these kinds of artistic interventions would be really trying to appeal to the conscience of the city. 1062 02:04:27,460 --> 02:04:36,340 And so you're not appealing to people not to be violent, appealing to people that we do go back to an older history. 1063 02:04:36,340 --> 02:04:41,200 You know, there we have enough examples, you know, not just in our history, 1064 02:04:41,200 --> 02:04:49,210 but in our present where that that you know, where the city can show its conscience. 1065 02:04:49,210 --> 02:05:03,970 So, so for example, even as these things, you know, gang rape and the mobilisations that took place, which were not necessarily led by, you know, 1066 02:05:03,970 --> 02:05:10,090 what might be called left organisations, a lot of the, you know, 1067 02:05:10,090 --> 02:05:20,590 a lot of music or theatre that came to my arouse powerful piece called walk came out of that, that movement. 1068 02:05:20,590 --> 02:05:26,710 So if we actually, you know, put all these events together and make a list, the list will be actually very, 1069 02:05:26,710 --> 02:05:35,180 very long in terms of, you know, music and performance that was created on these events. 1070 02:05:35,180 --> 02:05:40,670 Now, what were the kinds of issues that we are engaged with and not do? 1071 02:05:40,670 --> 02:05:51,500 I don't want to even pretend that I can really talk elaborately about any of this, but but just some, some specific aspects. 1072 02:05:51,500 --> 02:05:56,120 One the whole question of encounters with tradition. 1073 02:05:56,120 --> 02:06:02,930 What does tradition mean? And this is where what's the nice thing about the artist is being a cultural 1074 02:06:02,930 --> 02:06:10,640 organisation and the right-wing agenda of capturing the minds of the people, 1075 02:06:10,640 --> 02:06:22,760 you know? But at the same time that I think has been quite effectively threatened by the cultural metaphor that comes from these two days, 1076 02:06:22,760 --> 02:06:30,170 and which is why they are so brutally put down as well, despite, you know, being small numbers of people. 1077 02:06:30,170 --> 02:06:38,030 So so we know, you know, there are there are enough recordings and. 1078 02:06:38,030 --> 02:06:47,060 You know, recordings available of work done by, you know, Madam Globalising show with somebody, you know, 1079 02:06:47,060 --> 02:06:57,860 any number of musicians who actually decided to excavate the past going back to the 10th and 11th and 12th century into the Sufi traditions. 1080 02:06:57,860 --> 02:07:05,240 And not just that, you know, several other traditions about what the past really means to us in the present. 1081 02:07:05,240 --> 02:07:13,700 A lot of that actually happened in Delhi. I mean, it was it was happening over large parts of North India, and in the last few years or so, 1082 02:07:13,700 --> 02:07:18,230 it's actually also been taking place in the south in southern India. 1083 02:07:18,230 --> 02:07:23,390 But a lot of it got incubated in Delhi, in the U.S. 1084 02:07:23,390 --> 02:07:30,410 This was one of these mighty dennings very enticing the usable past, you know? 1085 02:07:30,410 --> 02:07:42,260 So these were musicians who were actually asking what the is the usable past in terms of music and not only asking and researching, 1086 02:07:42,260 --> 02:07:52,400 but also interpreting it and then going out into into these various performance venues and performing that stuff. 1087 02:07:52,400 --> 02:07:58,610 And that I think the very fact that today when you say Sufi or boun or something like that, 1088 02:07:58,610 --> 02:08:06,890 it's very much part of popular culture, you know, including it even stands a very high chance of being commercially successful. 1089 02:08:06,890 --> 02:08:13,860 You know, that, I think, is testimony to the fact that some of these very critical questions were being asked by musicians and these repertoire 1090 02:08:13,860 --> 02:08:21,620 were being excavated and being performed with a certain kind of urgency in informing the present and not just, 1091 02:08:21,620 --> 02:08:28,280 as you know, reminiscences and not just as nostalgia, but as engaging with the present. 1092 02:08:28,280 --> 02:08:36,560 And we saw that in the in the NTC put this as well in different parts of the country and all the different venues in Delhi. 1093 02:08:36,560 --> 02:08:45,590 OK? Musicians who were actually singing those things right over there and it was going across to very, very mixed kind of audiences. 1094 02:08:45,590 --> 02:08:51,860 So that's one set of, you know, musical traditions that I wanted to talk about. 1095 02:08:51,860 --> 02:08:57,570 The other kind, of course, what? We would call the music of the streets. 1096 02:08:57,570 --> 02:09:03,400 You know, the music of the streets, which was which was what might be formerly concert, 1097 02:09:03,400 --> 02:09:10,330 not considered protest music and that kind of a tradition, as I said, has existed ever since. 1098 02:09:10,330 --> 02:09:19,710 You know, it does. Songs were sung in Delhi, you know, as far as I know, definitely from the 60s onwards that it does. 1099 02:09:19,710 --> 02:09:23,100 Tradition of protest music was pretty strong in Delhi. 1100 02:09:23,100 --> 02:09:38,100 There are any number of singers, you know, who establish themselves as powerful musicians off the streets as in Delhi. 1101 02:09:38,100 --> 02:09:45,110 So. Yeah, so coming back to where I began. 1102 02:09:45,110 --> 02:09:53,870 You know, despite the daily not being considered a very political city, music and theatre have been very, 1103 02:09:53,870 --> 02:10:04,820 very important comedians to this politics has been articulated and which is perhaps one of the reasons also and I don't think we should ignore 1104 02:10:04,820 --> 02:10:14,780 the fact that the city does have this interesting history in understanding how it was possible for all these extremely spontaneous and very, 1105 02:10:14,780 --> 02:10:21,050 very new kinds of idioms to suddenly place themselves centre stage, you know, 1106 02:10:21,050 --> 02:10:32,930 in a city that was even in a small way used to being confronted in terms of its conscience. 1107 02:10:32,930 --> 02:10:45,310 You know, so. So in that sense, you know, communicating the metaphor or communicating the idiom has happened. 1108 02:10:45,310 --> 02:10:56,890 For quite some time, but it happened in a really new, refreshing and quite unusual ways in the last few months before the lockdown. 1109 02:10:56,890 --> 02:11:08,950 And the fact that it actually communicates across social cost, across religion, across costs as well to a large extent, you know, 1110 02:11:08,950 --> 02:11:17,170 most of us who've had experience of performing in the streets or at performing at all kinds of venues, 1111 02:11:17,170 --> 02:11:23,290 not formal venues necessarily have actually played with these metaphors. 1112 02:11:23,290 --> 02:11:25,510 You know, when you have a mixed audience, 1113 02:11:25,510 --> 02:11:33,610 it is always a challenge to see look into the eyes of different parts of your audience to see what is going across. 1114 02:11:33,610 --> 02:11:45,640 You know, the very fact that I'm the king, you know, that's how they can begin such a sacrilege and once the power of the metaphor, really? 1115 02:11:45,640 --> 02:11:54,450 And it was the power of the metaphor that Fez was working that. And it is the power of that metaphor which had acquired. 1116 02:11:54,450 --> 02:12:04,130 You know, very multiple meanings in, you know, the first few months of this year and. 1117 02:12:04,130 --> 02:12:10,190 So and it is precisely, I think, this articulation that becomes technical, 1118 02:12:10,190 --> 02:12:15,410 so even if it is small, even if it is can be beaten down, even if walls can be whitewashed. 1119 02:12:15,410 --> 02:12:26,930 Otherwise, with the with the kind of machinery that that you know, the Odyssey's or the BJP has to be in the country, why should this even be taken? 1120 02:12:26,930 --> 02:12:29,720 You know, why should a song be taken, you know? 1121 02:12:29,720 --> 02:12:41,840 So in some sense, the power of articulation the power of the articulated deviants is something that needs to be recognised. 1122 02:12:41,840 --> 02:12:46,460 There is a fear of the word. There is a fear of the image. 1123 02:12:46,460 --> 02:12:54,890 There is a fear. And you know, one of the BJP's women leaders, I forget who it was, 1124 02:12:54,890 --> 02:13:02,930 was actually screaming on on a on a television channel at some point when someone asked them the question, I've been supporting you here. 1125 02:13:02,930 --> 02:13:09,260 So she said it, she said, But I have a gun. I've got the woo Ghanians or nothing. 1126 02:13:09,260 --> 02:13:15,740 Or is that okay? Does it get a lot bigger? So. So, you know, clearly there is a great threat. 1127 02:13:15,740 --> 02:13:25,400 I'll just end with one. You know, one thing, which is that I I think it was twenty sixteen. 1128 02:13:25,400 --> 02:13:35,270 Yeah, it was twenty sixteen when there was after the whole of twenty seventeen, perhaps when the whole after the big general events had happened. 1129 02:13:35,270 --> 02:13:40,340 You know, when you can hear all of that, where were arrested. 1130 02:13:40,340 --> 02:13:51,110 But the subsequent set of events that happened, but I'm just collated, organised three or four day, um, you know, 1131 02:13:51,110 --> 02:13:58,790 seminar of a conference in which all kinds of events were supposed to happen with everything you were supposed to go there as well. 1132 02:13:58,790 --> 02:14:02,810 So was I. And of course, it was all. 1133 02:14:02,810 --> 02:14:08,390 Everything was destroyed and people were beaten up. The buildings were destroyed and it had to be cancelled. 1134 02:14:08,390 --> 02:14:16,190 So Darwish Kumar actually did the, you know, his his nine o'clock bulletin on. 1135 02:14:16,190 --> 02:14:22,880 He invited a lot of people into the NDTV studios to say, What would you have said if you were there? 1136 02:14:22,880 --> 02:14:29,120 And he asks whoever had been, and I happen to be one of those people who went into the studio and he said, 1137 02:14:29,120 --> 02:14:35,030 Well, what would you have sung or what would you have said? And this question was, is this anti-national? 1138 02:14:35,030 --> 02:14:42,410 What she has to say? Is this threatening so and that we invited, you know? 1139 02:14:42,410 --> 02:14:55,170 So clearly, there is a great threat from even these tiny pockets, tiny islands of activity that happen in an otherwise. 1140 02:14:55,170 --> 02:15:02,790 Less political city like Delhi, and I guess that's what gives all of us a lot of hope. 1141 02:15:02,790 --> 02:15:13,720 I I'll end with that. Thank you for Marla Sabeco, could I not invite you on stage? 1142 02:15:13,720 --> 02:15:17,140 Hi, about thanks so much for having me. 1143 02:15:17,140 --> 02:15:27,700 Grandma Bunny was so nice listening to some of the veggie, and so then I really don't think I have much to add. 1144 02:15:27,700 --> 02:15:40,930 But because it just was because you spoke about some jokes, I was actually there and got really brutally badly beaten up that day. 1145 02:15:40,930 --> 02:15:42,250 I actually wrote a poem. 1146 02:15:42,250 --> 02:15:52,300 So before I go start talking about the things that I have in mind, I'll probably recite that poem because it just it is about the end. 1147 02:15:52,300 --> 02:16:02,020 It's called Panopto objects that get you to say, Aha, nickel figure, I'm going to Sasabe, but the key was delivered. 1148 02:16:02,020 --> 02:16:06,090 The key here are the keys as the cargo, not the joke. 1149 02:16:06,090 --> 02:16:19,390 Put the great carpet of the stage. Some of the EB to paradise provide the topic today, but courtesy Mara both say Peter Grucci Shaggy Bottom, 1150 02:16:19,390 --> 02:16:28,480 but I'll talk better care bundles a home game changer Similar habitat module models are mostly model here. 1151 02:16:28,480 --> 02:16:36,580 Gulab Hamara Barata Homicide Seminar organised by Dakar Japan and yesterday's draw, 1152 02:16:36,580 --> 02:16:42,850 Hyogo invites Buddhist drahi Joseph Timothy Covey Jiang hijacked happybirthday George. 1153 02:16:42,850 --> 02:16:46,240 But no particular part of this don't go home. 1154 02:16:46,240 --> 02:16:53,710 Call to George Miyake and onto Nkoranza Kannada ageist self-proclaimed sons of Pirate 1155 02:16:53,710 --> 02:17:00,490 Mother Real Agony Légale and not will forever make this sidequest study horror 1156 02:17:00,490 --> 02:17:10,050 my [INAUDIBLE] E.J. Sediq subtitle Pirate My Baggage as the medal round bar Mottaki 1157 02:17:10,050 --> 02:17:16,990 J MI6's Godless and the Pirate Mottaki J was a leaked name would lock us out, 1158 02:17:16,990 --> 02:17:22,670 so we had part of my package. Metadata is about the shipyard. 1159 02:17:22,670 --> 02:17:31,750 No need. Doug, doltish or little heat a courtroom here to call her head a more legally holy need a courtroom here, 1160 02:17:31,750 --> 02:17:35,360 but let out there will say, but we're here to go to here. 1161 02:17:35,360 --> 02:17:40,220 The Columbian military need to Butch Lee Somogyi in a courtroom. 1162 02:17:40,220 --> 02:17:44,510 We need to go there and draw some dirt somewhere. 1163 02:17:44,510 --> 02:17:48,050 Here the call Tommy. The call gone. 1164 02:17:48,050 --> 02:17:58,850 La Outkast's the new law warned Bertha Hamari by the mortgage how they Cajal would stage at the Buta Hamadi internal. 1165 02:17:58,850 --> 02:18:04,430 He had barricades Joe the Tegina amongst canal lying or Tonko year. 1166 02:18:04,430 --> 02:18:11,060 But the lying gap I Diallo may up means the bond. 1167 02:18:11,060 --> 02:18:17,480 Good job, rugger being a yard, a Kunlun clerk carrying it God or politics. 1168 02:18:17,480 --> 02:18:25,370 Kunlun collar seminar. The same universities drug bazaar carrying the Zilmer Jabber Go bye bye kohanga. 1169 02:18:25,370 --> 02:18:32,300 As it is, you lack innovation. Hum there not a job studying human love written off, wrote the guy Joe Humpy. 1170 02:18:32,300 --> 02:18:39,770 I realise that he asked the Yeah, who should anarchy as the parish Carnegie as the more meaty, 1171 02:18:39,770 --> 02:18:46,340 meaty as the third lakini Vova divorce as a very masculine politically, 1172 02:18:46,340 --> 02:18:53,840 as the joke tuna dog as being held harmless, getting as I did to the ball, killing as being our guard, 1173 02:18:53,840 --> 02:19:00,140 killing gay as IDI or notch killing as we thought so much going on, getting him up near what? 1174 02:19:00,140 --> 02:19:06,260 Demonising this the university. So go and hired your chaplain kid. 1175 02:19:06,260 --> 02:19:10,460 No longer waste to energy and stop being so damn creepy. 1176 02:19:10,460 --> 02:19:25,940 Lousy, also masculine, nosy. And so you did just the time bad written this poem because I was really, really badly beaten up and by our classmates. 1177 02:19:25,940 --> 02:19:31,640 I was doing my masters at the time and our classmates were right there hitting us with 1178 02:19:31,640 --> 02:19:36,500 stones and those bundle bottles that you are that were actually throwing that at us. 1179 02:19:36,500 --> 02:19:40,730 And we had severe injuries on my head, on our hands and everywhere. 1180 02:19:40,730 --> 02:19:43,070 And then the bullies also beat us up anyway. 1181 02:19:43,070 --> 02:19:53,600 So I actually I actually started performing on the streets when the cases, all for a mob, lynchings and India kept on increasing. 1182 02:19:53,600 --> 02:19:58,040 It was hitting very close home and I used to perform on streets. 1183 02:19:58,040 --> 02:20:07,520 And then there were all these panel discussions about South Asian contemporary feminist poetry, what I was invited and I would talk over there, 1184 02:20:07,520 --> 02:20:17,120 etc. But I realised that the the people of my community, my cousins, my family members, everyone was so scared. 1185 02:20:17,120 --> 02:20:26,180 I mean, I remember returning with my father from Banaras in a train and we were very, very tired and it was a general compartment of the train. 1186 02:20:26,180 --> 02:20:32,780 And I just I just think I think I close my eyes for five seconds or five minutes. 1187 02:20:32,780 --> 02:20:38,390 But the moment I opened my eyes, my father was not there. And that was the time when the junior, 1188 02:20:38,390 --> 02:20:50,420 a lynching had happened in the railway compartment and my father wasn't dead and I got so worried I started frantically calling him. 1189 02:20:50,420 --> 02:20:57,380 That was and also there was no Muslim in the Bogie. Oh, the fear was so real. 1190 02:20:57,380 --> 02:21:06,530 Then my father picked up the phone and said, You know, I'm just standing at the gate of the train, and it was so scary. 1191 02:21:06,530 --> 02:21:10,940 Then I decided that one day can spread hatred in public spaces. 1192 02:21:10,940 --> 02:21:18,170 Why can I not talk about resistance? Why can I not question these public spaces through poetry? 1193 02:21:18,170 --> 02:21:21,080 And then I started collaborating with a lot of artists, 1194 02:21:21,080 --> 02:21:28,250 whether they were not film dancers or sitar players or tabla players or my masters and started performing in the streets. 1195 02:21:28,250 --> 02:21:37,140 And they were not just in the metro, I mean, not just in Delhi, which is a metro city, but also in Lucknow or also in Chandigarh. 1196 02:21:37,140 --> 02:21:51,500 I did it in Bombay, I did it in villages and little various public spaces and bazaars and markets and the doors everywhere where I could decide bombs. 1197 02:21:51,500 --> 02:21:56,150 And I was really scared because before this, whenever I put out my poems online, 1198 02:21:56,150 --> 02:22:04,220 the kind of trolling and hatred that I got, the kind of rape threats that I got online was immense. 1199 02:22:04,220 --> 02:22:10,520 I was really scared to go out there in the public and perform thinking that, you know, the larger audience. 1200 02:22:10,520 --> 02:22:19,650 And I still believe that the larger country still supports fascism, like the reason I am less scared of the Supreme Leader and more scared of. 1201 02:22:19,650 --> 02:22:27,090 My neighbour, because especially after what, especially after the deadly pogrom that happened towards February end, 1202 02:22:27,090 --> 02:22:32,940 you know that it is your neighbours who ensured that your houses were burned down. 1203 02:22:32,940 --> 02:22:42,120 Who pinpointed at your house. It is clear that it is the common people who are full of rage towards you and your community and your people. 1204 02:22:42,120 --> 02:22:51,840 So I thought that someone in the eye, someone from the crowd, will come and give you across my face and you know, I won't be able to perform further. 1205 02:22:51,840 --> 02:22:56,340 But till now, that hasn't happened. 1206 02:22:56,340 --> 02:23:06,450 People do come close to you. The question to ask your agenda is to say that your anti-national, etc. that you are brainwashing people. 1207 02:23:06,450 --> 02:23:12,750 But so then nothing has been physically violent. 1208 02:23:12,750 --> 02:23:17,310 When does the Nazi protest started? I am from Lucknow. 1209 02:23:17,310 --> 02:23:19,990 I wasn't. Delhi is like a walk in Delhi. 1210 02:23:19,990 --> 02:23:30,090 I went to see it and I see protests started and the Shaheen Bagh became the stage where, you know, there were murals being put up. 1211 02:23:30,090 --> 02:23:37,740 There were like it was aspirational. After a point, it became aspirational for poets and performers and musicians to actually go there and perform. 1212 02:23:37,740 --> 02:23:40,770 I mean, it became so aspirational. 1213 02:23:40,770 --> 02:23:51,300 People like what heard were out there performing when all kinds of people, I mean, people all were trying to find spaces. 1214 02:23:51,300 --> 02:23:59,460 We're trying to find time slots to be there and perform, to register their protest, to register their solidarity. 1215 02:23:59,460 --> 02:24:02,760 And there were all kinds of artists who were there. 1216 02:24:02,760 --> 02:24:06,360 Of course, in the beginning, it was just a few handful of artists were there. 1217 02:24:06,360 --> 02:24:12,390 But once it became like a nationwide phenomenon, giant ball was on everyone's lips. 1218 02:24:12,390 --> 02:24:16,080 There were people who were performing and there was not just performance like that. 1219 02:24:16,080 --> 02:24:19,680 Initially there was just a mic. People would come and speak on the mic. 1220 02:24:19,680 --> 02:24:25,980 But then after the point, it became a whole stage. 1221 02:24:25,980 --> 02:24:28,920 There were music systems that were put in place. 1222 02:24:28,920 --> 02:24:37,470 I mean, I remember one night before 26 January, we were setting up the stage for the 26th generally function well. 1223 02:24:37,470 --> 02:24:44,250 Proper music boxes were put up, you know, and technicians look old and the stage was rented. 1224 02:24:44,250 --> 02:24:48,870 Lots of things were put in place for the performance to happen. 1225 02:24:48,870 --> 02:24:57,000 So there were murals. There were an all small library is where storytelling was happening and there were poems that were happening. 1226 02:24:57,000 --> 02:25:04,710 There was oh, and not just your but like in the Roman gate and other sites as well, but not as much as Shaheen Bagh. 1227 02:25:04,710 --> 02:25:07,710 Well, when you move out of Delhi, I mean, 1228 02:25:07,710 --> 02:25:15,990 it is very essential and everyone has spoken about China in bulk and how colourful the protests were and so much of you know, 1229 02:25:15,990 --> 02:25:23,930 performances that were happening. Well, when you moved out of Shaheen Bagh, when you go to protest sites in Lucknow. 1230 02:25:23,930 --> 02:25:31,400 Dissent was difficult to even read out your poetry in contango is difficult because every 1231 02:25:31,400 --> 02:25:38,000 day hundreds of fires were done on every performer who was there every day in Lucknow. 1232 02:25:38,000 --> 02:25:43,400 And so for us, for a boy to go out there in shining ball, for me, 1233 02:25:43,400 --> 02:25:53,510 for any performer or any musician or a mainstream musician who decided to perform and chamber for them to go and try and vote and perform. 1234 02:25:53,510 --> 02:26:04,280 It was easier than to do the same in Lucknow. In fact, when we were organising protests, when we we were organising a poetry event in Lucknow, 1235 02:26:04,280 --> 02:26:12,140 when we read out the poets, there were only one percent poets who responded and said that they will come to Lucknow. 1236 02:26:12,140 --> 02:26:20,630 People were scared to come to Lucknow and reach that point. So also the whole point is for us, I am from Lucknow, so for me to go to God, 1237 02:26:20,630 --> 02:26:27,650 it's the people who are sitting out there and protest is just like 500 metres from my house, five metres, 500 metres away from my house. 1238 02:26:27,650 --> 02:26:31,850 So for me to go there and perform poetry, it's my people. 1239 02:26:31,850 --> 02:26:39,890 I mean, it was, you know, probably easier. But for most people, like even when you were discussing India My Valentine, 1240 02:26:39,890 --> 02:26:47,660 a whole performance event that happened on 14 February from 12 to 14 February across the country and all these big sites, 1241 02:26:47,660 --> 02:26:58,760 primarily Calcutta of Delhi, Chandigarh and Bombay in my Valentine was one performance event that happened and I was part of it, 1242 02:26:58,760 --> 02:27:03,650 but I was part of it because it broke my heart. You all my Valentine. 1243 02:27:03,650 --> 02:27:11,940 And it did not happen in other places like Lucknow, so. 1244 02:27:11,940 --> 02:27:22,210 What I would like to what I really like about this entire issue was that brought this. 1245 02:27:22,210 --> 02:27:27,670 Boy, it's that came into being with so many of them, so many of them are Muslims. 1246 02:27:27,670 --> 02:27:34,390 And for them, there was no other method of expressing themselves, but through poetry, 1247 02:27:34,390 --> 02:27:40,300 they also got a lot of press coverage, but they also got a lot of trolling. 1248 02:27:40,300 --> 02:27:44,860 And in response to the poems, multiple poems were written from the other side as well. 1249 02:27:44,860 --> 02:27:50,850 In response to Ahmed Aziz sub Yadira Kadaga, there was one more poem written from the other side. 1250 02:27:50,850 --> 02:27:57,160 And and soon as much as our content that you were creating, what about love and resistance? 1251 02:27:57,160 --> 02:28:04,510 There was a content that was being created from the other side, which was about hate and questioning on and questioning our content, 1252 02:28:04,510 --> 02:28:16,420 which was basically using our poetry, the clock, all of our poems and putting their head in it and making it viral and and for and for poets. 1253 02:28:16,420 --> 02:28:23,350 Every day it became difficult to go and also the poetry every day. 1254 02:28:23,350 --> 02:28:32,920 And to only talk about fares, I mean, for the longest time, everyone was only talking about Fez and leading fares as poems and saying, I'm the king. 1255 02:28:32,920 --> 02:28:39,370 But I think this time completely changed that because we had newer anthems by younger people as much as they can. 1256 02:28:39,370 --> 02:28:44,980 Gay was absolutely important, Humpday King, who was being sung and it was echoing with everyone. 1257 02:28:44,980 --> 02:28:55,480 But I think the new Muslim boy, it's the new generation of Muslim poets was able to bring forward newer chancel anthems of poetry. 1258 02:28:55,480 --> 02:29:08,260 And we have also been discussing the toll. It is time that we do not just write poetry but create our resistance to, you know, some larger resistance, 1259 02:29:08,260 --> 02:29:14,130 but also to create a new dream, which is as well as so many of us sports together. 1260 02:29:14,130 --> 02:29:16,540 We also have a group and we keep discussing these things. 1261 02:29:16,540 --> 02:29:23,200 We have been thinking that how do we create new poems because it is very important to understand that just reciting 1262 02:29:23,200 --> 02:29:31,330 poetry leaves a throat so thought just reciting poetry sometimes makes you feel that what is your poetry doing, 1263 02:29:31,330 --> 02:29:35,470 especially when the daily pogrom happened? Is my poetry Russian? 1264 02:29:35,470 --> 02:29:42,310 Is my poetry relief material. I was there working as hard working with Hirschman, do you? 1265 02:29:42,310 --> 02:29:47,870 We were there a week, four nights getting relief, work in place, 1266 02:29:47,870 --> 02:29:55,000 rescue work in place and then four days ensuring that relief relief happens and not easily. 1267 02:29:55,000 --> 02:30:02,920 And every time we were there on ground, we kept thinking that what is up Audrey actually doing it is nothing. 1268 02:30:02,920 --> 02:30:09,850 It is not helping at all. And it took us so much effort and time and discussion and introspection. 1269 02:30:09,850 --> 02:30:15,820 Do you even believe that the reason that we are writing poetry is to ensure that the fascists thorn 1270 02:30:15,820 --> 02:30:22,120 in the beds at night because our poetry is giving hope because poetry is helping lip fillers? 1271 02:30:22,120 --> 02:30:26,110 That is why we need to write every day and every day. 1272 02:30:26,110 --> 02:30:30,730 For poets, it has become an entire protest against hopelessness. 1273 02:30:30,730 --> 02:30:34,120 Every time you pick up a pen, you are tired, you don't want to write anymore. 1274 02:30:34,120 --> 02:30:41,770 You don't want to write about these things anymore as an artist since because as since the time this government is coming to power, 1275 02:30:41,770 --> 02:30:46,750 the only teams we are writing about is this or we love our country so much or 1276 02:30:46,750 --> 02:30:51,370 we do not want to show our papers anymore and even the poetry by the allies. 1277 02:30:51,370 --> 02:30:56,660 I mean, every time that warrant goes out there and your friend writes really well, 1278 02:30:56,660 --> 02:31:04,570 goes out there and see some of the kind guy who has a privilege to say, Can you be fired because he is a Hindu man? 1279 02:31:04,570 --> 02:31:12,850 We'll call his name the kind of Hindustani money Jahangir homegirls and the Hindu can get on the listening to him on. 1280 02:31:12,850 --> 02:31:19,420 In the same way, what the over, of course, the world economy, you can say, because you are no man, 1281 02:31:19,420 --> 02:31:23,290 we cannot, because the moment we build them for what they want to be, they are going to pick up. 1282 02:31:23,290 --> 02:31:28,000 Odd men are the younger boys and girls and put them behind bars. 1283 02:31:28,000 --> 02:31:40,300 So the fact that you write poetry, I think as much as we glorify the intention and the beauty of poetry during protest and the descent we forget, 1284 02:31:40,300 --> 02:31:44,530 we forget how exhausting and tiring it yesterday. 1285 02:31:44,530 --> 02:31:53,800 We forget how exhausting and titling it is to perform and to be dead out there on the stage every day. 1286 02:31:53,800 --> 02:32:01,230 And and when we have events like in My Valentine, an event that was actually. 1287 02:32:01,230 --> 02:32:05,850 Put into place so that we can express our last word love towards our country and say, well, 1288 02:32:05,850 --> 02:32:11,310 our country is our Valentine without realising the fact that we are tired of showing our loved ones, 1289 02:32:11,310 --> 02:32:20,200 and there's a poem that I wrote for and my Valentine, and it goes like this if time allows going at that point. 1290 02:32:20,200 --> 02:32:30,790 Sunny. Go for it. It's. No. 1291 02:32:30,790 --> 02:32:41,320 Hamadi Barrett added They say be a are bad because have got a Humvee on glad gullible is going to be more lax about how gold, 1292 02:32:41,320 --> 02:32:47,350 Rolls Royce, gold, etc. appear to be more lax about the need to put honey. 1293 02:32:47,350 --> 02:32:57,890 Thank goodness and good pay to be old shipyard Hamburger Pakistan Joe Buttercup be more looks at God for. 1294 02:32:57,890 --> 02:33:06,680 This. Peer to peer looks about election, the election, the Somali hooker, Pitbull, Sebastian Coe, 1295 02:33:06,680 --> 02:33:12,290 Michael Bay of what Dali Cocker Pilipino looks appear to him go lathi charge. 1296 02:33:12,290 --> 02:33:16,340 A political ashker appear to be MOOCs about to go Jordi. 1297 02:33:16,340 --> 02:33:20,000 That ideal member could pay to pay more looks at him. 1298 02:33:20,000 --> 02:33:25,490 Go the other gas or barricades. A good put a payment slip out of him on the go. 1299 02:33:25,490 --> 02:33:34,850 The third, Dr Carlos Gottschalk P2P, will experience CO nine software solution Good P2P more will accept dart and call 1300 02:33:34,850 --> 02:33:41,510 if i oracle derby centre P2P milks about amico goalie model Kennard is and good. 1301 02:33:41,510 --> 02:33:48,020 Pitta will sit beside him. Go Sharjeel Coffee builds on the could there'll be more sedate him? 1302 02:33:48,020 --> 02:33:52,550 Go biking, lynching second. P2P milks about him. 1303 02:33:52,550 --> 02:34:01,790 Go Jelly Hut. Don't be a rock or conquer P2P milks about how harmful can build a Largo P2P 1304 02:34:01,790 --> 02:34:10,580 multiplayer Hampel nylons they love to tobacco hit human looks have got him go I. 1305 02:34:10,580 --> 02:34:20,690 I own Hamadi Kernel Map widget that I'm going for the UK, but you'll get to the apology and say they can't hide me someone they care about. 1306 02:34:20,690 --> 02:34:24,440 It is the Big Island. They came home Hamadi or tear up. 1307 02:34:24,440 --> 02:34:36,130 They can go by the year. In mid-April, Tiger, he had a bad headache all year, but I hear Épidémie say We are not going to bottle your Watauga Hamadi, 1308 02:34:36,130 --> 02:34:44,390 but get by on board because the more you could say more, but finish on Port of Bad with the call us also coming. 1309 02:34:44,390 --> 02:34:53,250 But the Lao cashmere Matilda amongst the now UPC yogi book about three debacle policy her now and her name Bertozzi. 1310 02:34:53,250 --> 02:34:58,370 Our brands will go. All will go see and ask you to get our name. 1311 02:34:58,370 --> 02:35:05,960 Hello, McGrathNicol about a book in to help get the classic original main guy with ice. 1312 02:35:05,960 --> 02:35:18,560 I unlock the year again will go, but I can see we'll get the new robot rockstar her of the year and we'll go home soon. 1313 02:35:18,560 --> 02:35:27,590 We'll get the name, but get the name. 1314 02:35:27,590 --> 02:35:33,120 Oh, no. Thank you, sir. 1315 02:35:33,120 --> 02:35:40,980 Thank you for the very, very powerful performance. I think we're all kind of stirred up on that, and I really did get goose bumps, 1316 02:35:40,980 --> 02:35:44,890 and I think that's the power of poetry and performance and songs and so on. 1317 02:35:44,890 --> 02:35:52,470 And thank you to the entire panel for a very, very illuminating session on performances and protests and the links between 1318 02:35:52,470 --> 02:35:57,660 the two and how we can consider Oklahomans abroad in the form of politics, 1319 02:35:57,660 --> 02:36:02,400 particularly in this difficult time that we are going through. 1320 02:36:02,400 --> 02:36:07,430 I will now open the floor to questions and comments that the audience may have. 1321 02:36:07,430 --> 02:36:14,130 And while we wait for some questions to come in, I thought I would do a quick kind of round up. 1322 02:36:14,130 --> 02:36:19,350 I mean, there were so many great things and themes that were discussed, so it's probably a difficult task for me. 1323 02:36:19,350 --> 02:36:24,300 But I think that I started with making some really interesting points about how we should also 1324 02:36:24,300 --> 02:36:29,760 take the artists as a cultural organisation and ensure that keep that in mind moving forward. 1325 02:36:29,760 --> 02:36:36,180 And then how every protest of the performance, how forward is also an act of performance, something that had some very, 1326 02:36:36,180 --> 02:36:45,810 very interesting points to make about the geology of protest music and the peculiar kind of position of many within this larger domain. 1327 02:36:45,810 --> 02:36:49,350 What I also really found interesting in your presentation was, you know, 1328 02:36:49,350 --> 02:36:55,350 this intergenerational aspect of protest music and how it kind of goes from one generation of people to the 1329 02:36:55,350 --> 02:37:02,070 other students who who had access to the music of are growing up in certain schools and learning and so on. 1330 02:37:02,070 --> 02:37:10,650 And then, of course, I mean, you really, you know, give us some beautiful renditions of what your poems are extremely powerful. 1331 02:37:10,650 --> 02:37:18,300 You also kind of spoke about the politics of intimacy in a way whereby, you know, it's not the Supreme Leader who one is going to threaten by, 1332 02:37:18,300 --> 02:37:24,690 but it is your immediate neighbour who lives in the house right next to you that is threatening in many ways. 1333 02:37:24,690 --> 02:37:31,350 And I think what came out really strongly in your presentation was the question of identity and the question of conditionality. 1334 02:37:31,350 --> 02:37:36,900 Who has the right to protest in what form and where. 1335 02:37:36,900 --> 02:37:41,400 And I think these are questions that perhaps the rest of the panellists needed to engage in. 1336 02:37:41,400 --> 02:37:41,700 I mean, 1337 02:37:41,700 --> 02:37:50,610 one particular thing that I'd like to kind of ask all of you is the role of being out on the streets and how we can reclaim our open public spaces and 1338 02:37:50,610 --> 02:37:59,490 how we can do it at performances toward the reclamation of these spaces of open spaces that are kind of being appropriated by the right wing in many, 1339 02:37:59,490 --> 02:38:13,540 in many ways. So perhaps you could open up with that and then be able to have another additional or not sort of a big question. 1340 02:38:13,540 --> 02:38:18,700 Yes, we do. So we have a question from an anonymous attendee who says, 1341 02:38:18,700 --> 02:38:25,690 can you speak a little bit about the origins of the Azadi song and how did the protesters use it to connect with the Kashmiri cause, 1342 02:38:25,690 --> 02:38:43,540 particularly in the light of the fact that many Kashmiris tend to use the song in their demand for self-determination? 1343 02:38:43,540 --> 02:38:49,040 Either of the speakers can can choose to answer to this. Yes. 1344 02:38:49,040 --> 02:38:57,080 So then what would you like to go through this? 1345 02:38:57,080 --> 02:39:07,440 I mean, it's about a song so that I feel like either you or I would be better placed to to speak about it. 1346 02:39:07,440 --> 02:39:29,780 Yes. Would you like to? So because we can't hear you, your muted stone. 1347 02:39:29,780 --> 02:39:44,630 No, no, I maintain it is a bit sketchy. I mean, no, actually this. 1348 02:39:44,630 --> 02:39:56,080 Well, all that this is that the Azadi is something that was was actually inspired by the British media that. 1349 02:39:56,080 --> 02:40:01,680 Leaders of the separatist movement because of self-determination movement, 1350 02:40:01,680 --> 02:40:09,720 and though I actually hold it for the first time by when it was recited by collapsing. 1351 02:40:09,720 --> 02:40:20,190 She has been she used this slogan and song during whole focus a lot. 1352 02:40:20,190 --> 02:40:27,810 And um oh, this has also been used by a lot of Pakistani feminists as well. 1353 02:40:27,810 --> 02:40:40,440 In fact, in there's actually a very nice article on this in HuffPost, where the entire bar. 1354 02:40:40,440 --> 02:40:53,120 There's this where the entire details of this slogan has been mentioned that our name Dina. 1355 02:40:53,120 --> 02:40:59,660 It was this women's studies where at least this for the first time, which went to Madhubani amongst girls, 1356 02:40:59,660 --> 02:41:07,370 added Maybe, but Jumanji as naughty Canada as I, so that is there. 1357 02:41:07,370 --> 02:41:18,980 But having said that, one cannot deny the fact that a lot of songs of Lakshmi years or so the domination movement 1358 02:41:18,980 --> 02:41:28,900 have been used in Indian thoughts in protest in India many times without giving credit of. 1359 02:41:28,900 --> 02:41:37,580 Or even talking about the with the question. 1360 02:41:37,580 --> 02:41:48,050 And we have another comment from Jamie Dow, who says I worry about the internationalisation of support for the goals of liberal freedoms in India. 1361 02:41:48,050 --> 02:41:54,860 The right wing so quickly presents this as a malign Western influence on breaking up India. 1362 02:41:54,860 --> 02:42:04,700 And in. We also have another question by the actual number who says we have spoken about criminalisation of dissent. 1363 02:42:04,700 --> 02:42:09,560 But could someone talk about what law, what law does to art when it is deemed criminal? 1364 02:42:09,560 --> 02:42:26,830 Is it still art? How does law to an artist into a criminal and art into crime plus love to time work throws you some love sending some love. 1365 02:42:26,830 --> 02:42:35,080 So would any of the pundits like to once or take this question about international support and law and aren't going to be gone? 1366 02:42:35,080 --> 02:42:45,820 I think I'll take the question about law and order first family because I see art as a timeless, 1367 02:42:45,820 --> 02:42:55,840 contextual yet timeless in a way that the legality or the illegality of art does not take away from the nature of life itself. 1368 02:42:55,840 --> 02:42:59,650 You can limit legal, you can limit the legal. 1369 02:42:59,650 --> 02:43:06,370 Instagram can see that its community standards and policy doesn't think that your art is art or violates their policy, 1370 02:43:06,370 --> 02:43:10,540 but your art will still remain art. What kind of art? 1371 02:43:10,540 --> 02:43:19,780 That is a different ones altogether. What law will always come heavily down upon anything that is the dissent that shows dissent? 1372 02:43:19,780 --> 02:43:34,270 So if a cartoon, if a poem, if appropriate and their ideas, if their art is they remain art irrespective of what law has to say about it in history, 1373 02:43:34,270 --> 02:43:40,900 they have gone down as art and they are going to stay there as art. 1374 02:43:40,900 --> 02:43:49,480 And the maker of that art remains an artist, irrespective of them being thrown behind the bars and being tested COVID positive. 1375 02:43:49,480 --> 02:44:02,410 An 89 year old boy, like whatever are now still behind bars still in office law has made his art a legal law has made his law has made him a criminal, 1376 02:44:02,410 --> 02:44:06,760 but he remains an artist and his the work produced by him remains there. 1377 02:44:06,760 --> 02:44:13,180 So I don't think that law has Logan do anything it can or it can ban. 1378 02:44:13,180 --> 02:44:23,200 It can tell it can, you know, remove from the public realm, but it cannot take away from the art ness of art at all. 1379 02:44:23,200 --> 02:44:33,040 So that bowl, I don't think I lawyers and thank you so much for all the love, and I just want to touch upon the internationalisation of support. 1380 02:44:33,040 --> 02:44:43,000 What actually happens is that especially if you look at the political prisoners in India right now, I will give you an example of soft skills. 1381 02:44:43,000 --> 02:44:49,360 I don't think the food I would have been allowed to work 40 had there not been so much of international pressure. 1382 02:44:49,360 --> 02:44:52,990 The fact that it will always be used, 1383 02:44:52,990 --> 02:45:04,960 we will it will all kinds of international support will always be used to say that all it is all Western they want to take away from India, 1384 02:45:04,960 --> 02:45:11,800 etc., you know, and de-legitimize the Indian source of the protest by saying that, you know, 1385 02:45:11,800 --> 02:45:18,040 it is all these other organisations that are supporting the cause and this organisation is supporting the cause. 1386 02:45:18,040 --> 02:45:26,650 But honestly, without international support, the Indian government and those in power are not going to look at India at all. 1387 02:45:26,650 --> 02:45:35,560 I think Shaheen Bol became a sore point for the government, primarily because of the international outrage it got, 1388 02:45:35,560 --> 02:45:44,440 so it is absolutely essential to campaign internationally. They'll get international support for everything that we are doing and all of the protests 1389 02:45:44,440 --> 02:45:50,500 that we are having because and international legitimacy to our protest makes it very, 1390 02:45:50,500 --> 02:45:58,630 very difficult for the governments to take steps. So I think especially if you are a minority, if you are a minority community, 1391 02:45:58,630 --> 02:46:06,970 you need even more international support because within your own country, the solidarities might be less. 1392 02:46:06,970 --> 02:46:09,910 So it becomes absolutely essential. 1393 02:46:09,910 --> 02:46:17,470 Although I would like to point out certain things will be all that you know, when, like as Muslims, so many times recently online, 1394 02:46:17,470 --> 02:46:25,600 there were so many rightwing trolls who lived in the Middle East and were made to go 1395 02:46:25,600 --> 02:46:30,910 leave their jobs and their jobs were taken away because they had said Islamophobic stuff. 1396 02:46:30,910 --> 02:46:40,600 I are this idea that our international solidarity should not mean that we want to establish 1397 02:46:40,600 --> 02:46:48,190 something like so when minority stake international support some spaces like Saudi Arabia, 1398 02:46:48,190 --> 02:46:52,990 that is something that we don't want, like the majority of Muslims in India do not want that. 1399 02:46:52,990 --> 02:46:59,710 So even when we are looking for solidarity, that is essential for us to see where we are looking for these solidarity. 1400 02:46:59,710 --> 02:47:10,270 Are we looking for solidarity in spaces that are already violating human rights and especially I come from a minority Septimus in amongst the Muslims. 1401 02:47:10,270 --> 02:47:16,270 So for me to get solidarity from Saudi Arabia would be the worst because my community is treated the worst over there. 1402 02:47:16,270 --> 02:47:26,370 So like also, what kind of international solidarity that we are seeking is also an inward looking question that we need to. 1403 02:47:26,370 --> 02:47:33,900 Think about. But keeping the voices, yes, getting international solidarity, but have no voice, 1404 02:47:33,900 --> 02:47:41,570 but the main stage and the mic is in the hands of the people of India who are suffering the oppression, 1405 02:47:41,570 --> 02:47:51,730 then I think no one will be able to take away the validation of our solidarity. 1406 02:47:51,730 --> 02:48:00,580 And so people would close to then also like to comment, and there was another. 1407 02:48:00,580 --> 02:48:04,120 And just no. So just a follow up question on. 1408 02:48:04,120 --> 02:48:12,560 Do you have a view on how we can get international support without delegitimizing the Indian source of the protest to stem the flow of? 1409 02:48:12,560 --> 02:48:19,070 I just like to make one quick question about the Lion and Arkansas on, which is to say that historically, 1410 02:48:19,070 --> 02:48:25,400 if you look at it, the law has been used to silence artists and and so on. 1411 02:48:25,400 --> 02:48:29,630 In British towns and in independent India is well. 1412 02:48:29,630 --> 02:48:37,330 But that has gone down the legal route to silence artists or silence art, not artists. 1413 02:48:37,330 --> 02:48:47,150 Silence art is no longer the predominant way in which art artists are thought to be silenced today. 1414 02:48:47,150 --> 02:48:54,920 How many cases have you heard of something being officially banned, a book being banned or a film being banned and so on? 1415 02:48:54,920 --> 02:48:56,150 That doesn't happen anymore. 1416 02:48:56,150 --> 02:49:07,250 And to my mind, at least the turning point the whole thing was the 1989 killing of satirise me that really brought the issue of censorship prompt. 1417 02:49:07,250 --> 02:49:14,300 It moved it from the realm of the government and the state and the legal machinery out into the streets. 1418 02:49:14,300 --> 02:49:19,220 And so what you have today is really censorship of the street. 1419 02:49:19,220 --> 02:49:28,730 There's actually threats that are issued to artists. The exhibitions that attacked, you know, the law and order issues are created and so on. 1420 02:49:28,730 --> 02:49:35,630 But very rarely do you find in India today that works of art are now officially being banned. 1421 02:49:35,630 --> 02:49:41,030 That doesn't really happen anymore or does happen, of course, as Article pointed out, 1422 02:49:41,030 --> 02:49:50,640 is that artists are put behind bars, for instance, whatever out today, 81 years old, India's poor. 1423 02:49:50,640 --> 02:49:56,630 The conscience, you know, has been to prison so many times. 1424 02:49:56,630 --> 02:50:02,630 Not a single charge against that man has been proved ever since 1973 73. 1425 02:50:02,630 --> 02:50:08,540 Till now, not a single charge has been proved against that man, and that man continues to languish in jail. 1426 02:50:08,540 --> 02:50:14,510 It's a shame it's a slap on our faces today, and we have to internationalise this. 1427 02:50:14,510 --> 02:50:25,610 This is not the way it makes my point that that we should treat the dead. 1428 02:50:25,610 --> 02:50:30,590 I mean, really, for me, he is the conscience of this country. 1429 02:50:30,590 --> 02:50:39,350 You know, of an entire idea of generations of us have grown up and you know, we have come to political consciousness. 1430 02:50:39,350 --> 02:50:47,090 We have recognised us as space in society. We have come to do to understand what it means to be a human being. 1431 02:50:47,090 --> 02:50:58,220 Reading books. And they would it up. And that man is to be today in prison on on, on the flimsiest of charges. 1432 02:50:58,220 --> 02:51:06,020 It's atrocious. It's a travesty. And if we do not internationalise this and what are we going to interact with? 1433 02:51:06,020 --> 02:51:11,300 It's OK to protest, have to be internationalised. 1434 02:51:11,300 --> 02:51:16,040 Of course, support for the protests has to be internationalised and one should not have any sense. 1435 02:51:16,040 --> 02:51:23,810 I feel as an activist, as an artist and as an activist, I feel that one should have no sense of embarrassment about this. 1436 02:51:23,810 --> 02:51:28,400 If one is getting into Berkeley protest, great. Let's get more and more of it. 1437 02:51:28,400 --> 02:51:36,260 After all, it's one of the selling points of Moby is that he is internationally so famous and he's so popular. 1438 02:51:36,260 --> 02:51:41,060 He's made the Indian passports only some magic wand, apparently, and so on. 1439 02:51:41,060 --> 02:51:50,030 And so. Is people that it doesn't matter what they do and Julia doesn't matter. 1440 02:51:50,030 --> 02:51:56,870 The fact is that we are human beings and that all human beings across the world stand up for each other's rights. 1441 02:51:56,870 --> 02:52:09,260 We stand up in support of our sisters and brothers in places far-off in Palestine, etc., etc. And so therefore it's only an accident that all right, 1442 02:52:09,260 --> 02:52:15,290 thinking human beings will stand up against injustice and for justice, there's nothing wrong with this. 1443 02:52:15,290 --> 02:52:22,010 We should not be apologetic about this, but. 1444 02:52:22,010 --> 02:52:33,920 Yeah, I I mean, I'd like to say a little bit about this C one, I think, is that these are these peculiar jobs that I lead, you know, 1445 02:52:33,920 --> 02:52:41,390 which is to say that somehow the moment you have international attention, it is as if the local is being legitimised, right? 1446 02:52:41,390 --> 02:52:53,180 Why should that happen? So and and it's almost an argument like that to succumb to an argument like that. 1447 02:52:53,180 --> 02:52:58,310 It's it's it's something that is a defensive reaction. 1448 02:52:58,310 --> 02:53:07,850 So I don't I mean, there's no way in which any international solidarity is going to be coming in for something that's not happening in India, right? 1449 02:53:07,850 --> 02:53:09,740 It's only because something is happening in India. 1450 02:53:09,740 --> 02:53:16,580 It's because, you know, they're the source of the protest is Indian, and there's nothing that can take away from that. 1451 02:53:16,580 --> 02:53:23,510 Or if it's not Indian, they've been put in jail. You know, if nothing is happening in India, it's because people are not there to protest anymore. 1452 02:53:23,510 --> 02:53:33,950 And that that's the reason. So this greater legitimacy needing to be established of, you know, an international opinion. 1453 02:53:33,950 --> 02:53:44,450 Yes, I would worry if Erdogan today decides to show solidarity with the with the, you know, protesting Indians, that would be a source of worry. 1454 02:53:44,450 --> 02:53:50,030 So I said, because it would you take your support from IS is what is important. 1455 02:53:50,030 --> 02:53:52,120 And I, you know, one of these some of these things would be sad, 1456 02:53:52,120 --> 02:53:56,540 but then we can be fairly sure that either to garner Boris Johnson are not going to be, 1457 02:53:56,540 --> 02:54:01,640 you know, extending solidarity to to the to the protests in India. 1458 02:54:01,640 --> 02:54:07,730 So it's it's it's it's this is like saying, you know, JNU people, 1459 02:54:07,730 --> 02:54:14,060 the students at the public money and everyone starts feeling guilty about it, you know, and there's this great sigh of relief. 1460 02:54:14,060 --> 02:54:21,650 We're not going to submit his PhD because, you know, at least he's admitted his Ph.D. despite, you know, going out on the streets, right? 1461 02:54:21,650 --> 02:54:23,680 I mean, it's all you know. 1462 02:54:23,680 --> 02:54:33,470 So the more we succumb to this argument about the delegitimization we will, you know, we are sort of aiding that delegitimization. 1463 02:54:33,470 --> 02:54:42,530 I think so. Yeah, it's something that has to be taken up upfront rather than having to constantly say No, no, no, the is actually by Indians. 1464 02:54:42,530 --> 02:54:48,520 The protests actually happening in India, of course there. There's no doubt about that. 1465 02:54:48,520 --> 02:54:55,020 Thanks to our cash, would you like to also respond to this? Yeah. 1466 02:54:55,020 --> 02:55:02,700 Oh, yeah, thanks, Brazilica Festival for articulating the question of politics, of international solidarity, so clearly. 1467 02:55:02,700 --> 02:55:08,400 You know, I think one of the reasons why there is an element of delegitimization is because the 1468 02:55:08,400 --> 02:55:12,060 nature of international solidarity that these kind of movements have obtained in the past. 1469 02:55:12,060 --> 02:55:17,730 In the sense, there is a sense amongst large sections of the dissenting public that it's very selective. 1470 02:55:17,730 --> 02:55:25,950 So when something happens in general, you are going to loads of letters coming across from many other universities in the country all over the world. 1471 02:55:25,950 --> 02:55:33,660 Even now, like with John Muir, there has been a fair bit of international attention. The Boston University on it, from Delhi, I mean, 1472 02:55:33,660 --> 02:55:39,120 from that particular circuit has got little national attention, even got about international attention. 1473 02:55:39,120 --> 02:55:45,270 So I think part of the problem is the fact that protesters here, 1474 02:55:45,270 --> 02:55:51,160 as we have also mobilised international support a little too selectively and we are not really 1475 02:55:51,160 --> 02:55:56,520 a more concerted strategy of mobilising international support against this particular, 1476 02:55:56,520 --> 02:56:02,370 this particular. Plus, there's one key piece of these issues in mind what some consider ending, 1477 02:56:02,370 --> 02:56:07,170 but I also felt as a genuine student embarrassed at times that the amount of 1478 02:56:07,170 --> 02:56:12,130 affection we received on the affection and attention that many others don't so, 1479 02:56:12,130 --> 02:56:16,350 so long as one keeps these things in mind, I'm not sure if it's an issue. 1480 02:56:16,350 --> 02:56:22,320 Like someone pointed out, there is no reason to be apologetic and we know make sure that, you know, 1481 02:56:22,320 --> 02:56:25,710 in the way we mobilise to support the mic is in the hands of the Indian protesters, 1482 02:56:25,710 --> 02:56:30,360 and that's made clear to the finerman as photos as the things to do. 1483 02:56:30,360 --> 02:56:34,020 I think there are some good suggestions in the panel, something like you. 1484 02:56:34,020 --> 02:56:40,230 I think people actually talk about crisis of democracy. Talkies are an example that people think. 1485 02:56:40,230 --> 02:56:43,230 Other countries, people don't talk about India, you know? 1486 02:56:43,230 --> 02:56:50,340 So just make it the smaller folks to maybe restructure the international discourse on India and South Asia as it exists. 1487 02:56:50,340 --> 02:56:54,840 But in so doing things which are missing, first of all, that in itself, I think, is going to be a big thing. 1488 02:56:54,840 --> 02:57:03,940 If it can be done successfully and the rest could, the rest could follow. 1489 02:57:03,940 --> 02:57:08,830 Thanks, I'll go through that name, useful kind of suggestions going forward. 1490 02:57:08,830 --> 02:57:12,730 We now have sorry, we now have about five minutes left for the panel, 1491 02:57:12,730 --> 02:57:22,770 so maybe I could invite some young lad to come on and perhaps sing the song that would really appreciate that. 1492 02:57:22,770 --> 02:57:30,760 We. Yeah, I. I don't know what you're see. 1493 02:57:30,760 --> 02:57:40,420 This will make sense. I mean, if I had the sense of what the audience is like I would, it would make it easier. 1494 02:57:40,420 --> 02:57:44,810 That. OK. 1495 02:57:44,810 --> 02:57:54,700 I mean, I think something that I just put out very recently, which is. 1496 02:57:54,700 --> 02:57:59,170 Slightly less known for the volume of affairs and the presence, 1497 02:57:59,170 --> 02:58:11,290 and it is it's something that he probably wrote, I'm not very sure about the exact exact time equity law did, 1498 02:58:11,290 --> 02:58:21,970 but but it's from his last collection of poems and which a large part of which were written when he was in self-imposed exile in Beirut. 1499 02:58:21,970 --> 02:58:29,330 And it's also the period when he was when he wrote, Come the king. 1500 02:58:29,330 --> 02:58:36,820 And so in fact, it was a time where he was really appealing to internationalism. 1501 02:58:36,820 --> 02:58:42,850 So, and you know, he had sort of drawing from the last discussion. 1502 02:58:42,850 --> 02:58:52,750 There's a difference between in the national responses and internationalism and internationalism essentially does come out of what I said, 1503 02:58:52,750 --> 02:59:02,950 which is that, you know, that we don't believe that a country's borders really differentiate between who one can empathise with and, you know, 1504 02:59:02,950 --> 02:59:14,260 have common cause with and it with a very long history of internationalism which didn't necessarily have to conflict with nationalism. 1505 02:59:14,260 --> 02:59:19,930 You know, that is really what Faiz was doing when he was sitting in Beirut. 1506 02:59:19,930 --> 02:59:32,050 He was editing an absolute Asian magazine called Lotus, which came out of Beirut at that time, and so he probably wrote this poem when he was there. 1507 02:59:32,050 --> 02:59:39,300 And to me, what I love best about the poem is that he's not sure. 1508 02:59:39,300 --> 02:59:52,350 And and that, you know, it's really a note of caution. It's really a note of caution that don't be so sure about what your what your answers are and. 1509 02:59:52,350 --> 03:00:00,570 You know, along with internationalism, it's something that I really, really cherish in this forum, it's up to make out that night. 1510 03:00:00,570 --> 03:00:14,460 I guess if her as we fight with them. So this is a poem that I composed some years ago and I would sing it for you. 1511 03:00:14,460 --> 03:00:25,940 And he. Oh, yeah, Kerry, nothing. 1512 03:00:25,940 --> 03:00:43,240 He who got third in his advocacy party, who died and his mother, Kelsey Barden, who died in. 1513 03:00:43,240 --> 03:00:59,230 You jerk with the cookie, Maddy, oh me, Honey G, even queen of the Dolly Tea Queen Bee, Oh me, honey g. 1514 03:00:59,230 --> 03:01:04,060 Even Queen of the dolly tea. 1515 03:01:04,060 --> 03:01:12,090 Yucky Tanaka's Oh me, love me. 1516 03:01:12,090 --> 03:01:23,050 Get any liability. You will get that type of luggage. 1517 03:01:23,050 --> 03:01:29,020 Oh, no, oh no, I didn't. 1518 03:01:29,020 --> 03:01:52,750 He. Yes, I know who I heard, a tidy me hair salon where her body me could turn the key keep the body to go to my GP. 1519 03:01:52,750 --> 03:01:59,380 Well, John Beaufort grew to be a key part. 1520 03:01:59,380 --> 03:02:14,300 What did he? Oh. 1521 03:02:14,300 --> 03:02:17,720 All of the Julija who signed it, 1522 03:02:17,720 --> 03:02:38,420 but all of the Julija who to let go of their job all said that all the young people he had no ill, will he know the people? 1523 03:02:38,420 --> 03:02:48,770 He had no choice but to go get it or not? 1524 03:02:48,770 --> 03:02:56,700 I'll let me go. Yeah, good enough in. 1525 03:02:56,700 --> 03:03:02,310 We, Domenico, who got going in on. 1526 03:03:02,310 --> 03:03:20,540 We got see, not a lot, but could see, but we didn't know. 1527 03:03:20,540 --> 03:03:25,460 I can do something to those nothing that they weren't doing. Thank you so much. 1528 03:03:25,460 --> 03:03:31,490 Amongst that, that was really, really wonderful. Thank you and thank you to the entire panel, actually. 1529 03:03:31,490 --> 03:03:38,990 We've now almost one minute overtime, so I just take this opportunity to thank everyone. 1530 03:03:38,990 --> 03:03:44,300 So then last amongst last week. Thank you all for this panel. Our gosh, Nina, a bleak and harsh. 1531 03:03:44,300 --> 03:03:47,840 Thank you all for joining and thank you also to the audience. 1532 03:03:47,840 --> 03:03:54,290 The recording of this event will soon be uploaded so you can kind of forward it to other people who might be interested and so on. 1533 03:03:54,290 --> 03:03:59,910 And yes, thank you and have a great week ahead. Thank you so much. 1534 03:03:59,910 --> 03:04:05,120 So much, everyone. Thanks. All right. Bye bye.