Long silence from the Kranti Team eh? Apologies. We assure you it’s only because we’ve been busy with what we’d been gearing up for all these days..On the 7th of September, Bangalore saw three incredible musical influences joining forces in our event, “Songs of Protest”. The artists, who literally brought the crowds on their feet, were the Kabir Kala Manch from Pune, Lokshahir Sambhaji Bhagat from Bombay and Makkal Mandram from Kanchipuram. What’s a post on music doing on Bar& Bench you ask?.Plenty. Each of these artists has had to wrestle with the law to be able to continue to perform. The Kabir Kala Manch, you will recall, have been in the news lately for their alleged Naxal links. It was only early this year that the Bombay High Court ruled that the mere possession of Maoist literature, uncoupled with an act of violence, does not amount to an offence under the UAPA. This is based on the difference made out between “active” and “passive” membership of a banned organization, as held in a series of Supreme Court cases. While some of those in the KKM thus have bail, there are three more in jail and most others are charged under various sections of the UAPA. And of course, there are now additional charges on one of the members following the FTII incident. In their first performance outside Maharashtra since they have been in trouble with the law, the KKM were successful in teasing the audience Bangalore to think about caste and poverty..Sambhaji Bhagat, a revolutionary Dalit singer for years now, is a force of nature. He is loud and warm and full of energy. His philosophy comes from his experiences with the people he sings about – Dalits and the poor. Like the KKM, he has also had to spend time in hiding, also under allegations of Naxal links. He minces no words during his performances. His position on globalization, right-wing fascism from the RSS, BJP and VHP, Congress excesses then as now, amongst other modern day disasters, are sung with his tongue firmly in cheek. One cannot help but laugh when he’s on stage..The Makkal Mandram team lives in a commune in Kanchipuram. This is a haven where caste, tribe and gender issues are treated with intense sensitivity. The artists here have embarked on a mission to reclaim the parai. Parai is an instrument traditionally made out of the hide of bovines and is hence looked down upon by the upper castes. Artists from Makkal Mandram play this with the aim of questioning marginalization. Often times, they face retribution from the State as also from the communities around them for the work they do. In fact some of the young members on the team have taken to studying the law, given how often they have to deal with codes of the land. At the Songs of Protest, we saw a team of eighteen members from Makkal Mandram beat the drums and dance and sing with such intensity that half of us took to dancing with them. That’s apparently inevitable in every public performance of theirs..The platform that evening was not only for artists, or even political artists. It was for those political artists who have had to fight with the law to be allowed to make and spread their art. The support from the audience, those who came especially in solidarity and the many who stopped by to listen in, was what we intended to achieve at the end of the evening..Our event for the next day was a retrospective by a documentary film-maker whose own tryst with the law is an important part of our courses on free speech. Anand Patwardhan has used the legal system creatively to fight against censorship, enough to allow his controversial cinema to be broadcast on Doordarshan, no less. From the JP Movement, to India’s nuclear capability, to working class concerns, to religious intolerance to the present day atrocities in the name of caste – these are some of the myriad issues he has engaged with. Tracing his work in fact gave us some sense of the politics of the nation since the 70’s. The discussion hovered severely around the relationship between caste and class, of Ambedkar and Marx. This is in fact a combination that both KKM and Sambhaji had sung about the day before. A potent combination that has long been urged by many political and cultural thinkers, given India’s unique relationship with caste..And then finally, on the 15th of September was the Dissent Conference. What we had hoped to enable was a political conference, and we were more than rewarded with that thanks to a panel of incredible thinkers. We started with the powerful oration of Prafulla Samantara who has spent years in anti-displacement struggles in Odisha. Not only did he help us understand the illegalities in the procedures adopted by mining companies in mineral rich areas, he even told us of how courts are seldom sympathetic towards these issues. Niyamgiri offered a unique possibility because the court could not deny the findings of the commission of enquiry. In fact, the villages chosen to conduct the 12 gram sabhas were arbitrary he told us, despite which the tribals did not budge and kept to their position of saving the hills. He told us also that the victory in Niyamgiri is perhaps a temporary reprieve for the peoples’ movement there. In the years to come, companies will come back more viciously and with greater backing from the government and law. Being a man who has inspired and mobilized thousands of people in various struggles, his admission was not that the battle can’t be won, but that it will be hard and hence will need as much support from outside, as from inside the tribal communities..He was followed by Anand Teltumbde, known for his unique and unpopular position in dalit politics and academia. His is a voice against caste atrocities, even while he chastises those who deify Ambedkar. He told us that Gandhi made a shrewd move by appointing Ambedkar as the chairman of the Drafting Commission of the Constitution. This did not result in the emancipation of dalits, but only made it seem that it was possible. Ambedkar had to compromise much. In fact, he urged that for any peoples’ struggle to succeed, it is necessary to realise the unique grouping of people on the basis of caste in India. And this is not caste as is understood ritualistically, but caste as is a constitutionally recognized social reality of our times..Our next speaker was Volga. A feminist, a writer, a thinker and a teacher, she wore all these hats at once even at the conference. We had asked her to speak specifically about the anti-liqour struggle of women in rural Andhra Pradesh. The first wave of it is now over twenty years old. But this was a process that brought out what once was a private concern of alcoholism in the household, into the public. This jump from the private to the public, she told us, later helped these and other women articulate domestic violence during its codification and later the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act. There is much to be learnt from the organizational abilities of rural women, she told us. These are lessons which urban women can understand, but with the clear recognition that our assistance to rural women’s struggles will only be in solidarity, should not be a usurpation of their causes or their mode of functioning. The anti-liqour movement itself was quashed with the arrack mafia and political parties joining forces. However, the women in Andhra Pradesh who fought against them knew that they were not being lesser women by politicizing their issue; in fact they were being better citizens. And this realization continued even though the anti-arrack movement has been quashed..Volga was followed by Gautam Mody of the New Trade Union Initiative. A charismatic speaker, Gautam reminded us urban students in the audience that trade union leaders exist even in these times. The NTUI’s effort is to cut across not just class identity, but also gender, caste and religion in understanding the issues of workers. Another important position of the NTUI is to not affiliate themselves with any political party – autonomy which gives them the ability to represent workers’ interests, bereft of party politics. These are new efforts to unionise workers at a time when contract labour is on the rise, while labour welfare is taking a beating. India’s manufacturing industry is unimpressive, he argued. The surplus in the market then, is generally unearned. And understanding and articulating workers’ demands in this economic environment is essential..This first panel was followed by a conversation between Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Mihir Desai who spoke in their capacities as an independent journalist and a practicing human rights lawyer respectively. The former spoke of media ownership and how that reflects on how unreflective news is. The latter helped us understand the limitations of the law itself in peoples’ struggles. It is not the abuse of laws Mihir emphasized, it is the use of laws that were meant to be abusive in the first place. They both then combined their experiences to understand free speech and the debates surrounding that. While it is important to argue against the suppression of dissent by those asking tough questions to the government and the people, it is also important to realise that there are enough instances that also require restrictions on the right to speech; to prevent communal disharmony and the dissemination of fascist ideologies, for instance. And it is here that settling the question of dissent and its adventures becomes mired in complexity..The last conversation was with the economist Jaya Mehta. A founding member of the Alternative Economic Survey Group, she urged us to think beyond the accepted norms of poverty. And to understand that the poverty levels in the country are disturbingly high. Her argument in fact was that poverty precedes dissent. Her position was that unless there is serious discussion to ensure that there are enough opportunities to pull the poor out of their current situation, there is little use in discussing dissent. A question that we at Kranti have to grapple with, for we are of the firm belief that the fight to ensure economic inclusiveness is possible through dissent..In true Kranti style, we ended the conference with a performance. The Space Theatre Ensemble from Goa came down especially for the conference to perform three pieces. One was a poem by Neruda, on dissent. The second was their powerful performance on womanhood, Woman River. And the last, the one that got everyone cracking after a day of intense discussions, was their Clown performance. We had a bunch of clowns ask themselves and the audience some very uncomfortable questions. About sexuality, Islamic radicalism, Hindu fundamentalism, politics and dissent. Humour, after all, can be the most effective language of politics..What was originally planned as the culmination of Kranti, is now looking to be a milestone in what we wish Kranti to be. As of now, the hope is to make Kranti a sustained effort through which we continue to converse with the youth of India across cities and provide a platform for them to meet the many brave dissidents in India today. We ended the conference with a declaration which we hope to adhere to in the days to come. Bombay is our next pit stop, and there’s already a new big team that’s laying down a future of possibilities there. The agenda is to bring together youth to oppose right-wing fascist tendencies through the use of public space. And of course, the arts..As we continue to network with students across cities in the hope to turn a little more political, and a little less cynical, here’s us taking leave from Bar and Bench for now. We are very grateful for the space we have been given here to speak about the things we wished to. Although this piece should have come a million years ago, our wait for the videos of the events prevented it. The wait is unfortunately still on as our editors have hours of footage to wade through. But do keep following us on Facebook and our website for they will be out soon, and we have lots of content being generated even as you read this! One of the most exciting add-on is our Protest Radio, where we’ve been able to collect some original music. If you’d like to connect with us, do drop us a line at kranticonference@gmail.com..Sahana Manjesh has recently graduated from NLSIU and is now litigating in Delhi.
Long silence from the Kranti Team eh? Apologies. We assure you it’s only because we’ve been busy with what we’d been gearing up for all these days..On the 7th of September, Bangalore saw three incredible musical influences joining forces in our event, “Songs of Protest”. The artists, who literally brought the crowds on their feet, were the Kabir Kala Manch from Pune, Lokshahir Sambhaji Bhagat from Bombay and Makkal Mandram from Kanchipuram. What’s a post on music doing on Bar& Bench you ask?.Plenty. Each of these artists has had to wrestle with the law to be able to continue to perform. The Kabir Kala Manch, you will recall, have been in the news lately for their alleged Naxal links. It was only early this year that the Bombay High Court ruled that the mere possession of Maoist literature, uncoupled with an act of violence, does not amount to an offence under the UAPA. This is based on the difference made out between “active” and “passive” membership of a banned organization, as held in a series of Supreme Court cases. While some of those in the KKM thus have bail, there are three more in jail and most others are charged under various sections of the UAPA. And of course, there are now additional charges on one of the members following the FTII incident. In their first performance outside Maharashtra since they have been in trouble with the law, the KKM were successful in teasing the audience Bangalore to think about caste and poverty..Sambhaji Bhagat, a revolutionary Dalit singer for years now, is a force of nature. He is loud and warm and full of energy. His philosophy comes from his experiences with the people he sings about – Dalits and the poor. Like the KKM, he has also had to spend time in hiding, also under allegations of Naxal links. He minces no words during his performances. His position on globalization, right-wing fascism from the RSS, BJP and VHP, Congress excesses then as now, amongst other modern day disasters, are sung with his tongue firmly in cheek. One cannot help but laugh when he’s on stage..The Makkal Mandram team lives in a commune in Kanchipuram. This is a haven where caste, tribe and gender issues are treated with intense sensitivity. The artists here have embarked on a mission to reclaim the parai. Parai is an instrument traditionally made out of the hide of bovines and is hence looked down upon by the upper castes. Artists from Makkal Mandram play this with the aim of questioning marginalization. Often times, they face retribution from the State as also from the communities around them for the work they do. In fact some of the young members on the team have taken to studying the law, given how often they have to deal with codes of the land. At the Songs of Protest, we saw a team of eighteen members from Makkal Mandram beat the drums and dance and sing with such intensity that half of us took to dancing with them. That’s apparently inevitable in every public performance of theirs..The platform that evening was not only for artists, or even political artists. It was for those political artists who have had to fight with the law to be allowed to make and spread their art. The support from the audience, those who came especially in solidarity and the many who stopped by to listen in, was what we intended to achieve at the end of the evening..Our event for the next day was a retrospective by a documentary film-maker whose own tryst with the law is an important part of our courses on free speech. Anand Patwardhan has used the legal system creatively to fight against censorship, enough to allow his controversial cinema to be broadcast on Doordarshan, no less. From the JP Movement, to India’s nuclear capability, to working class concerns, to religious intolerance to the present day atrocities in the name of caste – these are some of the myriad issues he has engaged with. Tracing his work in fact gave us some sense of the politics of the nation since the 70’s. The discussion hovered severely around the relationship between caste and class, of Ambedkar and Marx. This is in fact a combination that both KKM and Sambhaji had sung about the day before. A potent combination that has long been urged by many political and cultural thinkers, given India’s unique relationship with caste..And then finally, on the 15th of September was the Dissent Conference. What we had hoped to enable was a political conference, and we were more than rewarded with that thanks to a panel of incredible thinkers. We started with the powerful oration of Prafulla Samantara who has spent years in anti-displacement struggles in Odisha. Not only did he help us understand the illegalities in the procedures adopted by mining companies in mineral rich areas, he even told us of how courts are seldom sympathetic towards these issues. Niyamgiri offered a unique possibility because the court could not deny the findings of the commission of enquiry. In fact, the villages chosen to conduct the 12 gram sabhas were arbitrary he told us, despite which the tribals did not budge and kept to their position of saving the hills. He told us also that the victory in Niyamgiri is perhaps a temporary reprieve for the peoples’ movement there. In the years to come, companies will come back more viciously and with greater backing from the government and law. Being a man who has inspired and mobilized thousands of people in various struggles, his admission was not that the battle can’t be won, but that it will be hard and hence will need as much support from outside, as from inside the tribal communities..He was followed by Anand Teltumbde, known for his unique and unpopular position in dalit politics and academia. His is a voice against caste atrocities, even while he chastises those who deify Ambedkar. He told us that Gandhi made a shrewd move by appointing Ambedkar as the chairman of the Drafting Commission of the Constitution. This did not result in the emancipation of dalits, but only made it seem that it was possible. Ambedkar had to compromise much. In fact, he urged that for any peoples’ struggle to succeed, it is necessary to realise the unique grouping of people on the basis of caste in India. And this is not caste as is understood ritualistically, but caste as is a constitutionally recognized social reality of our times..Our next speaker was Volga. A feminist, a writer, a thinker and a teacher, she wore all these hats at once even at the conference. We had asked her to speak specifically about the anti-liqour struggle of women in rural Andhra Pradesh. The first wave of it is now over twenty years old. But this was a process that brought out what once was a private concern of alcoholism in the household, into the public. This jump from the private to the public, she told us, later helped these and other women articulate domestic violence during its codification and later the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act. There is much to be learnt from the organizational abilities of rural women, she told us. These are lessons which urban women can understand, but with the clear recognition that our assistance to rural women’s struggles will only be in solidarity, should not be a usurpation of their causes or their mode of functioning. The anti-liqour movement itself was quashed with the arrack mafia and political parties joining forces. However, the women in Andhra Pradesh who fought against them knew that they were not being lesser women by politicizing their issue; in fact they were being better citizens. And this realization continued even though the anti-arrack movement has been quashed..Volga was followed by Gautam Mody of the New Trade Union Initiative. A charismatic speaker, Gautam reminded us urban students in the audience that trade union leaders exist even in these times. The NTUI’s effort is to cut across not just class identity, but also gender, caste and religion in understanding the issues of workers. Another important position of the NTUI is to not affiliate themselves with any political party – autonomy which gives them the ability to represent workers’ interests, bereft of party politics. These are new efforts to unionise workers at a time when contract labour is on the rise, while labour welfare is taking a beating. India’s manufacturing industry is unimpressive, he argued. The surplus in the market then, is generally unearned. And understanding and articulating workers’ demands in this economic environment is essential..This first panel was followed by a conversation between Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Mihir Desai who spoke in their capacities as an independent journalist and a practicing human rights lawyer respectively. The former spoke of media ownership and how that reflects on how unreflective news is. The latter helped us understand the limitations of the law itself in peoples’ struggles. It is not the abuse of laws Mihir emphasized, it is the use of laws that were meant to be abusive in the first place. They both then combined their experiences to understand free speech and the debates surrounding that. While it is important to argue against the suppression of dissent by those asking tough questions to the government and the people, it is also important to realise that there are enough instances that also require restrictions on the right to speech; to prevent communal disharmony and the dissemination of fascist ideologies, for instance. And it is here that settling the question of dissent and its adventures becomes mired in complexity..The last conversation was with the economist Jaya Mehta. A founding member of the Alternative Economic Survey Group, she urged us to think beyond the accepted norms of poverty. And to understand that the poverty levels in the country are disturbingly high. Her argument in fact was that poverty precedes dissent. Her position was that unless there is serious discussion to ensure that there are enough opportunities to pull the poor out of their current situation, there is little use in discussing dissent. A question that we at Kranti have to grapple with, for we are of the firm belief that the fight to ensure economic inclusiveness is possible through dissent..In true Kranti style, we ended the conference with a performance. The Space Theatre Ensemble from Goa came down especially for the conference to perform three pieces. One was a poem by Neruda, on dissent. The second was their powerful performance on womanhood, Woman River. And the last, the one that got everyone cracking after a day of intense discussions, was their Clown performance. We had a bunch of clowns ask themselves and the audience some very uncomfortable questions. About sexuality, Islamic radicalism, Hindu fundamentalism, politics and dissent. Humour, after all, can be the most effective language of politics..What was originally planned as the culmination of Kranti, is now looking to be a milestone in what we wish Kranti to be. As of now, the hope is to make Kranti a sustained effort through which we continue to converse with the youth of India across cities and provide a platform for them to meet the many brave dissidents in India today. We ended the conference with a declaration which we hope to adhere to in the days to come. Bombay is our next pit stop, and there’s already a new big team that’s laying down a future of possibilities there. The agenda is to bring together youth to oppose right-wing fascist tendencies through the use of public space. And of course, the arts..As we continue to network with students across cities in the hope to turn a little more political, and a little less cynical, here’s us taking leave from Bar and Bench for now. We are very grateful for the space we have been given here to speak about the things we wished to. Although this piece should have come a million years ago, our wait for the videos of the events prevented it. The wait is unfortunately still on as our editors have hours of footage to wade through. But do keep following us on Facebook and our website for they will be out soon, and we have lots of content being generated even as you read this! One of the most exciting add-on is our Protest Radio, where we’ve been able to collect some original music. If you’d like to connect with us, do drop us a line at kranticonference@gmail.com..Sahana Manjesh has recently graduated from NLSIU and is now litigating in Delhi.