‘Moolaakkam’, the Subaltern Festival, organised by Naithika Vedi, Kozhikode, will be held at the amphitheatre of Kozhikode Corporation Cultural Centre, Anakkulam, and the Kozhikode Town Hall on October 28 and 29.
The festival focuses on the need for the subaltern community to face the invasive cultures, the elitist views and their political power simultaneously, festival coordinator Civic Chandran said in a press release here. The festival aims to provide a platform for people of Kashmir, Assam, North East States, Tibet, the refugees, transgenders, Dalits, Adivasis and other minorities that define the world ‘subaltern’.
Kallar Lakshmikutty Amma, a practitioner of tribal traditional medicine, who received Padma Shri recently, along with Meera Sanghamitra, rights activist and convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, will inaugurate the festival on October 28.
The festival will have four seminar sessions on topics such as ‘Kashmir, Assam, North East: The problems of Federal India’, ‘Dialogues on Dialogue: Approach to political stands’, ‘Environmental problems faced by Kerala after two floods’ and ‘Journey from grassroots to main stream’.
The participants include former Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, social activist Sandeep Pandey, artist Partho Chatterjee, Bengali writer Manoranjan Byapari and Koodamkulam activist Sundari.
Cultural programmes
A variety of cultural programmes including Bamboo music by Unnikrishnan Pakkanar and team, Kashmiri rapper Mussam Butt, Tibetan art forms, Mappila arts and a play by Transgender theatre in Bengaluru are also part of the festival.
Besides, an exhibition of photographs by Partho Chatterjee and a film festival featuring films by women directors will be held at Guddham Art Gallery in Gujarathi Street from October 26 to 31.
‘The Criminal Tribes Act’, the latest play directed by Sankar Venkiteshwaran, will be staged for the first time in Kerala at the amphitheatre on October 20, as a curtain raiser for the Subaltern Festival.
