KINDLE www.kindlemag.in
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Critical Re ective Journalism
INDIA
1st June 2012 `30
Is Kashmir Happy? Why have the apples of Kashmir turned sour? Do the roots carry salt up to the apple flowers? Has the earth wept salty tears or is it the people? Is there anything sadder in the world than sour apples hanging on an apple tree?
Interviews: Sanjay Kak, Shashi Tharoor, Deepti Naval June 2012
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16 | KINDLE INDIA
He is not only one of the most erudite politicians in contemporary India but also one its wittiest, even though that often lands him in troubled waters. An interview with Shashi Tharoor. By Pritha Kejriwal.
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I N T E R V I E W
Illustration by Suvam Dey Sarkar
THE POLITICAL AND OTHER FRAGMENTS
COLUMN: THE WESTERN INDIES
In Latin America our local elites want to make us believe we live in modern civilized societies, but women are still treated as objects, as possessions. For years they were assaulted by men (poor and rich, no particular skin colour attached) a lot like what Indian men do to their wives, sisters and daughters everyday. But us, we already went further down that road, like in Ciudad Juárez, on the border of California, and we simply rape and kill them by the thousands like ox eating flowers in a field. We call that “Femicides” and every politician rejects that, but the death toll keeps growing. So destitution, occupation, discrimination and the impune state fuels violence... maybe we’re quite familiar to you. Anyway, I’m here to tell you about what else has been going on there, because we also have treasures to share and histories to rebuild. Of course we’ve had wars and revolutions over the last 200 years too, like the Mexican and the Cuban (yes, we are the homeland of the involuntary poster boy of the left over the last 45 years: Che Guevara.) For instance, I could do a “family portrait” of the dozen new left governments we have been electing since 1999. But that’s not exactly my field of work, even if I’ve covered a few presidential runnings and some major political events (revolts or social forums.) Someone told me that for the Pujas in Kolkata, special magazines and books appear, only at that time of the year, telling stories and biographies of regular guys, unknown people. And I’ve loved the idea. For over the last 15 years I’ve been taking news from the ground level, their realities and stories for themselves and for people around me. Like in October 2002, I was in Brazil when Lula da Silva won his first election. The newly elected president was an ex metallurgical worker refurbished into a new age socialist. He gave his first speech on October 27th, late at night in a very posh hotel, and then went to the most popular street in Sao Paulo,
Avenida Paulista, to celebrate with the people. There, thousands of Brazilians gathered to celebrate, to dance and sing... only one old man remained quiet that night. Extremely poor, black skinned, he didn’t wave the flag in his hands. The old man stared at the podium where Lula was, standing in the middle of the crowd, crying silently in relief and happiness. That day I knew something was changing. Venezuela was already ruled by a leftist military. And soon after came Ecuador. Bolivia engaged in a revolutionary process. People protested, staged blockades in the roads, and expelled transnationals from their territories, like in Cochabamba, a peaceful city where even the rain was privatized to benefit an American corporation. And all that had a price: hunger, jail, deprivation, the dead... like that of Marlene Rojas, an aymara girl in Bolivia. She was 8 when a sniper snuffed out her life on September 19th, 2003. She was at home nursing her mother Etelvina, who had given birth to another girl the night before. Marlene knew the soldiers were in the small town she lived in, Warisata. Her dad was outside with the other men, protesting unarmed and being shot as mortal enemies. Just because they didn’t want to sell the huge reserve of natural gas Bolivia has, at cheap prices to the Americans... this is the only image we have of her. A few weeks later, the insurrection against the Bolivian government succeeded. The president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was kicked out of the country. The aymara, 2 millions indigenous Andean people, were the protagonists, the catalysts of change. Sticks and stones against machine guns, tanks, snipers and grenades. At least 60 people were killed, hundreds were wounded and five survived mutilated. But they won.
Marlene Rojas
We are not that different. Over there, we have tropical weather and high glacier mountains. Most of us are brown skinned, have dark eyes and we speak several indigenous languages...
Then for the next 8 years the relatives of the dead fought for justice (in the Bolivian Congress, in court, in the media, in the streets.) They filed a
Che Guevara June 2012
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Courtesy: Reuters
EXAMINING ESSAYS WRITTEN IN BUBBLES By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal 28 | KINDLE INDIA
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COVER STORY
eager to be in the service of the nation, even if it means becoming blind to the reality before them. The last 2 summers have seen a lull in the valley. What do you make of the situation there? What we are seeing is a lull in the street protests, yes. What we cannot see, and the media will not help us see, is the incredible machinery that has been pressed into service to keep the young protesters off the streets. The arrests and intimidation began early in 2011, when young people were picked up in their thousands. Some got away with no more than a few slaps and a lecture from the police station, but many were locked up under the draconian Public Safety Act. Once released, the young men–and their families–are drawn into the intimidating net of monthly, sometimes weekly reporting at the local police station. The local media has been tied up in knots. The hounding of social media groups continues brazenly. The political leadership is mostly under detention. What we are seeing is a society and a people that have been choked tight with something called normalcy: so this is not a lull, but a gagging. Open’s cover story “Sorry, Kashmir is happy” has generated a lot of debate. What is your take on the piece? What do you make of statements like “Trauma is like a heritage building here”? For me the most interesting thing about the recent kerfuffle over the Open magazine cover story was the reaction to it, especially amongst young Kashmiris, who I suppose, it was mainly meant to vilify. Coming from a senior journalist, the writing itself was an astonishing example of shallow journalism, so let’s leave it aside for the moment. More than anger, or outrage, the tone of the Kashmiri reaction was one of cheeky impudence, reacting to the shallowness of the analysis with the tactics of the ad-busters, where you turn the very size and visibility of your opponents’ bill-board against them. In this case ‘Kashmir is happy’ became a catch-phrase that bounced around the web, and allowed for all sorts of irreverence, in a highly political way. At the end of the day, it also spawned a whole lot of well argued commentary, including by non-Kashmiris, about how Kashmiris may be happy, but they’ve not given up the fight! That comment about trauma? What can one say, except that it’s clearly written by someone who would never dare to say that of the Sikhs in Tilak Nagar, Delhi, or of the Muslims of Naroda Patiya, Ahmedabad. Kashmir is a place where people still wince at the mention of begar, the forced labour that was extracted from them centuries ago. Will they now easily forget what has happened in the 1990s, or in 2010? The ghairat, the honour, of Kashmiris is intricately tied in with their sense of overcoming their shame at being dishonoured. A Dalit in India would understand that. Perhaps a Manu Joseph may not. Manu Joseph heavily comes down on Kashmiri elites living outside India as stoking dissent even though
June 2012
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CINEMA · MUSIC · BOOKS · SCIENCE · TECHNOLOGY
Illustration by Suvam Dey Sarkar
Arts & Culture
RETURN OF
THE CAMP
By Thomas Crowley 52 | KINDLE INDIA
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THE KINDLE LIBRARY: MUSIC
A PADMA ON THE SAND DUNES Panini Anand travels to Jaisalmer to bring to us a tale of gloom, loss, neglect… yet also a tale of endurance and dedication
W
hen folk music maestro, Saakar Khan Manganiar, the most renowned Khamaicha player, alive today, puts his nails under the strings of his musical instrument, the music comes like the cold showers in the dry deserts of Rajasthan. It melts in the ears, touches the soul and challenges our proclaimed wisdoms, where we have left almost no room for folk or traditional music as compared to Indian classical music. It was a hot summer day. ‘The city of gold’ was the phrase originally used for Lanka (which might have been imagined by Tulsidas after observing the craze for gold among South Indians) in the Ramayana. But this was really a city of gold. City of Sonar Kella. We stepped out of the bus at Jaisalmer Bus Stand, with the sun shining right on our faces. Our backpacks were overloaded with cameras, audio and A/V devices, recorders… and there was gold everywhere. The sand was like gold dust on our bodies. Every brick, every stone piece, each house, office, rest houses… all made of the famous Jaisalmer stone, shining like gold. We were in Jailsalmer to welcome Saakar Khan Saheb. He was coming back after receiving the Padma Shri from the President of India.
But contrary to what I had imagined, the number of people participating in the procession was few- hardly 50 including ourselves and some other social, cultural representatives. His Jajmaans were apparently appreciating him for his achievement but there was more jealousy than pride in their body language. It was for the first time that a member of the Jaisalmer-Barmer based Langa-Manganiar communities had got a Padma award. Yet the procession comprised mostly his family members. He was welcomed at some shops and houses of the city. We reached a campus where a welcome ceremony had been organised. The sun was burning. Everyone was sweating and thirsty, eyes red thanks to the dusty winds. Then out came the first celebrity; the great Mohan Veena maestro, Pandit Vishva Mohan Bhatt. He greeted
I have seen scores of Langa-Manganiar artists playing the great music of the desert in various gatherings. The musicians from the Langa-Manganiar community and the Kalbeliya lady dancers are the first images that many of us think of when we talk about the tourism and culture of Rajasthan. As soon as we checked into a Dharmashala at Hanuman Chowk, we received word that Saakar Khan had come and now the welcoming procession would go around the city. We rushed to the first Torana outside the city, where he was to be received but we were some five minutes late and he was now inside the city, making his way around the Havelis of Patwas and the narrow lanes of the old market. The first glimpse was of an open-roofed red jeep, decorated for the occasion. Saakar Khan, his elder son Ghewar Khan and his grandsons were greeted by people from their own community; from the business-class and the upper castes as well. Garlands covered his chest and neck; dry pink and red colours of celebration on his cheeks. He was tired but excited and through the dull lenses of his glasses, he was trying hard to capture every face, every moment of his welcome. A dull welcome June 2012
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RNI NO. WBENG/2010/36111 Regd. No. KOL RMS/429/2011-2013 72 | KINDLE INDIA
• June 2012