Book Launch of Different Tales, 22nd December 2008
Book launch of Different Tales childrens’s stories was held on 22nd December 2008 at Room No.57, Arts College, Osmania University. At the launch, the Chief Guest was Prof. Shanta Sinha, Chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights drew attention to the use of regional dialects and marginal themes in the books saying that they boost the confidence of dialect speakers by lending authority to their speaking and reading practices. Mr.Vidyasagar, Commissioner for Social Welfare in the A.P. Government reflected on one of the stories and recollected his childhood spent freely amidst the nature in his village. Mr. Rafat, State Project Director, Rajiv Vidya Mission wished that the stories were available in Urdu, a language that he knows well. All the authors of the stories were felicitated. Subsequently, the storybooks were introduced to the Telugu public through a TV programme on Telugu Velugu in ETV.
Discussion on ‘Moulana Naseeruddin: a Political Prisoner?’, 21st November 2008.
In this discussion, Mr.Lateef Mohammad Khan, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee, Prof.Rehana Sultana, Head, Dept. of Women's Studies, MANUU, Ms.Rafat Seema, Principal, Jamiatul Bannat and Mr. Rafiuddin, Brother of Moulana Naseeruddin, Secretary, Jamiatul Bannat spoke different aspects of Moulana’s personality. Mr.Rafeeuddin spoke about Naseeruddin’s charismatic speeches in the narrow lanes of old city in which he emphasized the moral values of Islam and exhorted the youth to discard laziness. Prof.Rehana Sultana spoke about the context in which Saidabad became a hub of activity for active Muslims who wanted to strengthen themselves against the Hindu rightwing forces. Mr.Lateef Mohammad Khan spoke about the case against Naseeruddin where charge sheet has not been filed till now and bail has been refused even after four years by the Supreme Court.
Media Workshop on Politics of Reporting Terrorism, 17th September, 2008.
Hyderabad Forum for Justice, of which Anveshi is a constituent part, conducted a media campaign in the month of September about the biases in local media reporting about arrests of Muslim boys in Hyderabad. Many editors of leading Telugu newspapers such as Andhra Jyothi, Eenadu, Surya, Saakshi suggested to the campaigning team that a workshop be conducted to discuss the nature of reporting in Telugu. They informed the team that it is the stringers who usually report such arrests and they operate under several constraints.
Following up the suggestion, the Forum organized this discussion on 'Media Reporting on Terrorism: Political Implications' on 19th October 2008 at Centre for Economic and Social Studies auditorium. The two main speakers were Mr.Ram Puniyani of Ekta and Mr.Ajit Sahi of Tehelka. Mr.Ram Puniyani spoke about the several instances of Hindu right wing organizations getting caught while making bombs and how the media did not pay attention to this issue. Mr.Ajit Sahi spoke about his investigations into the cases filed against SIMI all over India which revealed the lack of any credible evidence, presentable in the courts, whatsoever. He pointed to the post 1990s globalisation period where journalists have become non-accountable to the readership and more accountable to the compulsions of the market. Ms.Uma Sudhir of NDTV responded to the presentations, pointing out that while the structure of media ownership has changed in the post 1990s period, it does not rule out professionalism in reporting. Basic journalistic ethics such as impartiality, giving a hearing to both sides in an issue, accurately reporting what has been said can be pursued even here. Reporters from Eenadu, Munsif, and Siasat pointed to the possibilities such as panel discussions, special programmes that can be used to highlight these issues, even in these times of ascendance of the marketing departments in the media. Some reporters from the Urdu newspapers rued the lack of space for Muslim perspectives in the mainstream Telugu media, print and electronic. The meeting was attended well with nearly thirty reporters and journalists from Urdu, Telugu and English newspapers and electronic media. Academics, human rights activists and students also attended the meeting.
Discussion on Caste Panchaayats, 11th September, 2008.
A half-day discussion was held on experiences and memories of caste panchaayats with a group of Dalit activists and intellectuals in September 2009. Ms.Mary Maadiga, Mr.Vijay, Ms.Gogu Shyamala and Mr.Srinivas spoke about the caste panchaayats that they either witnessed in their childhood in the villages, that they participated as left or Dalit activists, or they conducted in the city. Majority recollected that it is the issues of adultery, sexuality, marriage that came to these forums. While they were not totally sympathetic to women, they were also not overtly patriarchal. For instance, in many cases of adultery, when the woman involved did not want to live with the husband, the Panchaayat endorsed such a decision. But most important outcome of the meeting was to note that major caste associations that emerged in the state were of professional castes such as padmasalis, goudas, yaadavas, during the early decades of 19th century. They were responding to the crisis in economy in this period and played a major role in reorienting the caste members to the new realities and to carve out space for their caste members in the same.
Discussion with B.Chandrasekhar on Chunduru, 15th August 2008.
The judgement on Chunduru atrocity came out last year, wherein 21 men belonging to the Reddy community (upper caste) were sentenced to life imprisonment and 35 to one year imprisonment. Members of Anveshi have been followed the developments of this event when the massacre took place. Again when the case came up for trial in the special court established in Chunduru, the follow up was done to the extent feasible. Three teams of members went from Anveshi who wrote their observations on the proceedings that later were published, including one in Chadrabhan Prasad’s Dalit Diary. B Chandrashekhar was appointed as the Special Public Prosecutor, to prosecute the cases of atrocity on behalf of the Dalits of Chunduru. Anveshi invited Chandrashekhar to give a talk on the various legal and other issues that were involved in defending a case of such mammoth proportions. It was a day long meeting, organised on 15th August, well attended by members of Dalit, civil liberties and other groups in the city.
Mr Gabor Gambos on 9th August 2008
Mr Gambos spoke about his experiences with modern psychiatric practices and his efforts in developing standards for alternative, non-coercive, community-based services for persons with psychosocial disabilities. Gábor Gombos, a former theoretical physicist and survivor of psychiatry, has advocated rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities. For over a decade, and until 2006, he chaired Hungary's only network of user organisations (Hungarian Mental Health Interest Forum). During this time he liaised with self-advocacy groups and local user NGOs with the relevant authorities, including local municipalities, members of the Parliament and the national government. Gábor focused his efforts to train self-advocates and local advocacy groups. He and the Forum have extensively contributed to recent legislative reforms in Hungary, including the legal ban on the cage beds that had been widely used in psychiatric facilities to restrain people.
Prof.T.M.Yesudasan, 8th March 2008
Professor TM Yesudasan spoke on “Poetics of Integration and Politics of Bad Faith : Experience of Dalits in Kerala Churches”. Prof. TM Yesudasan, a leading figure in the Dalit literary movement and a key mentor of the Dalit students' movement has been an important figure in Kerala public life. He has been at the forefront of the Dalit Christian struggles within the Church of South India in the 1970's and 80's, known as the Janakeeya Viswasa Vimochana Prasthanam, that drew its sustenance from Black Theology.
Speaking from the context of Malabar Kerala, he emphasised that there were very few records available for the reconstruction of Dalit histories. He said that there should be serious efforts to excavate and build archives to understand the particular history of Dalit communities. He also said that in the mainstream history textbook there was a deliberate attempt to invisiblise charismatic Dalit leaders such as Toikayil Appachan, Ayyankali who had contributed enormously to Dalit communities. They have never been seen as social reformers on par with the other conventional list of social reformer such as VT Bhatta Piripad and Srinarayanguru. To the audience he also appealed that Dalits should start formulating their agenda for politics beyond constitutional reservations.
Discussion on Ramabai Ambedkar’s Biography, 8th March 2008.
As part of the 8th March celebrations, J.Subhadra organized a discussion on Ramabai Ambedkar's biography written in Marathi by Shanti Swaroop Boudh and translated into Telugu by G.V.Ratnakar. Three eminent public intellectuals Dr.Vijayabharathi, Mallepalli Lakshmaiah and Jajula Gowri were invited to initiate the discussion. Vijayabharathi discussed the relevance of such biographies in the contemporary context wherein dalit women are raising issues of male dominance within the dalit families. She pointed out that such biographies opened out issues and demystified the personality of Ambedkar. Lakshmaiah pointed out that unlike other national leaders of his time, Ambedkar had either financial or other resources to lead his political life without setting aside the interests of his immediate family. Ambedkar’s family shared with other dalit families of his time, the poverty, caste discrimination and lack of access to health facilities etc. Lakshmaiah argued that to attribute the misery articulated by Ramabai to ‘neglect by Ambedkar’ would be totally misplaced. Jajula Gowri, a noted dalit short story writer discussed the politics of this publication in Telugu at this time. She questioned the rationale behind attempts to portray Ramabai as a devoted wife. Was it a way of quelling the activism of dalit women protesting against dalit men’s patriarchal attitudes? The discussion that ensued asked if it was valid to use this book to judge Ambedkar as a ‘patriarch’ in the conventional feminist sense? What was the politics of incorporating Ramabai into a feminist narrative, albeit a dalit feminist one? To what extent can we see map the conjugal relations of the past through the lens of the current ideologies?
Discussion with Chakkaliyar Intellectuals, 22nd February 2008.
Three important Chakkaliyar intellectuals from Tamilnadu, Sri Adhiyamaan, Founder, Aathi Thamilar Peravai; Madhavan, a well known poet, writer and activist, and Ramarajyam, research scholar from JNU visited Anveshi. They spoke about the political complexities involved in the demand for sub caste reservation for Chakkaliyars among SCs in Tamilnadu. There was engaged discussion between Maadiga Dandora activists and the Chakkaliyar intellectuals about the politics of sub caste reservation as well as the dynamics of caste and gender in the Dalit movement.
Sub theme on Feminism and Knowledges of Violence: Theories and Methods, Indian Association of Women’s Studies Conference, February 2008
In February 2008 Anveshi organized a sub theme titled Feminism and Knowledges of Violence: Theories and Methods at the conference organised by the Indian Association of Women’s Studies. It was coordinated by Dr.A.Suneetha, Vasudha Nagaraj and Dr. K.C.Bindu. This sub-theme is an invitation to contribute to and reflect on our current understanding on violence against women. What have been the ways in which we have demonstrated violations of women’s rights? What is involved in naming specific social practices and actions as violence against women, such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, caste atrocity, and so on? How has violence been linked to other agendas such as development? How have the women’s movement and feminism contributed to our understanding of the issues involved? Papers were invited to reflect on questions of violence on women: a) regarding the disciplines in which they appear such as medicine, social work and law; b) regarding methods that are used such as experiential narratives, case-studies, discourse analysis; and c) approaches and categories such as victim, agency/resistance; d) accounts of different institutional efforts to combat violence.
The sub theme was organized into five sessions and two panels. The sessions were on a) witnessing violence, b) gender and public spaces, c) citizenship and violence, d) women as subjects of healthcare and e) institutional responses to domestic violence. Each of the session had two papers while panels had two to three. The presenters included Dr. Pushpesh Kumar (SRTU, Nanded), Diia Rajan et.al (Yugantar), Nandita Dhawan (Jadhavapur University), Madhumeeta Sinha (EFLU), Lakshmi Kutty (JNU), Veena Gowda (Lawyer, Mumbai), Madhu and Sunita (Jagori, Delhi), Usha and Indhu (Hengsara Hakkina Sangha,Banglore), Namrata Mogaral (Kuvempu University) and Dr.Srila Roy (Nottingham University (Nottingham).
The main issues that were flagged in the discussions are as follows: The first set of issues that came up for discussion are around that of the issue of representation of violence - in varied domains such as ethnographic research, documentary film, UN report as well as Indian media. What kinds of problems arise when an ethnographer uses universal categories to analyze a tribal women’s experience located in specific community rationality, and names it as violence. Examining the documentary films, a popular medium for the women’s movement for building campaigns around violence against women, it was discussed how this realist medium produces it own set of mediations which frames the discussion of violence against women. UN reports such as the UNICEF on Status of Women produced in the context of international public health research, collate data of various local regions to create universal indicators to measure the status of women, erasing the effects of constitutive contexts such as culture, the specificities of the region and the local medical practices. In this kind of research, the responsibility of reducing inequality/discrimination/violence gets laid at the door of the family and the community, leaving the state and its policies.
The second set of issues was around the need to complicate the understanding of violence with the questions being asked by dalit and other minority politics. For instance, workplace, it was argued, should be not only seen as a sexed one but also as charged with questions of class, caste, community, region and their associations. The often decried difficulties in the working of sexual harassment committee should be understood in this context of tensions. For feminist politics another crucial issue in this context is: the sexualization of women’s bodies in the workplace often arising solely in the register of sexual harassment complaint.
The third set of issues raised the pertinent question of how we read Muslim women’s engagements with the law, administration, bureaucracy and the community in post-riots Gujarat? How do we see the effects produced by the legal actions initiated by Muslim women where the state was the main perpetrator of violence? What are the tropes of female subjectivity produced in the discourse of the judgments and proceedings of these severely contested trials? Is agency the most viable conceptual tool to analyze Muslim women’s everyday negotiations in this new set of circumstances? Should Muslim women’s actions be read as in modern secular frameworks, or should they be read in the context of debates in Islamic feminisms?
The last set of issues focused on the questions of female subjectivity and agency that arise in the context of women’s engagement with institutions. Feminist practitioners in counseling and law are confronted with recurrent scenario of women compromising and withdrawing complaints, returning to violent families/relationships, having unreasonable demands from the law. In making these institutions work for women, are we also reaffirming linear notions of victim hood? Considering the layered mediations required in appealing to the Law, how do we understand the legal decisions that provide copious amounts of data on violence against women?
Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee, February 2008.
The Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee was a group of university teachers, students and independent researchers based in Hyderabad that was formed following the suicide of Senthilkumar, a research scholar at the School of Physics, University of Hyderabad in February 2008. A few members of Anveshi participated in the activites organized by this Committee. They visited the University of Hyderabad and had discussions with the Dalit teachers and students in the university. In the meantime a Committee constituted by the University to enquire into the suicide released its report wherein it clearly stated that “There has been …inconsistency and subjectivity in the standards applied for course work and for allocation of Supervisors…' and that it has led to '…an understandable perception among SC/ST students … that they are being discriminated against on the basis of their caste”. Based on these findings the VC of University of Hyderabad hurriedly sanctioned a compensation of Rs 5 lakhs for Senthil Kumar’s parents. However, in a press statement the VC commented that the compensation was given on humanitarian grounds and that there was no caste discrimination in the university.
A Press Conference was organsied by the Senthil Solidarity Committee on 7th May to not only condemn the statement of the VC but also to foreground the modern forms of casteism that the Dalit student community faces in all universities. Several intellectuals of the city spoke sharply about the rampant casteism that was thriving in all university systems and condemned the practices that alienated Dalit students from higher education. The event was given wide coverage in the newspapers.
