In recent months, news television, social media, the streets and even our universities have become battlegrounds. Important debates about the nature of the Indian nation, nationalism, sedition, dissent, have descended into loud rhetoric. And, looming darkly above it all is the increasing threat of violence to silence opposing views.
Arguably, two events have thrown this debate into our consciousness more than others. The first was the suicide of PhD student Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University, allegedly in response to casteist discrimination.
Students and progressive organisations around India have gone out in the streets in protest and solidarity. The second is the arrest of Jawaharlal National University students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar and six other students on charges of sedition, in response to allegedly ‘anti-national’ slogans raised at a rally marking the death anniversary of Afzal Guru, who was executed for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack.
In response to these events and the questions they’ve raised about freedom, nationalism and civil rights, the Mumbai Collective has organised a two-day event, Celebrating Freedom and Pluralism in Defence of Secularism, at YB Chavan Auditorium, Nariman Point, Mumbai, on March 5 and 6. The event will see panel discussions, talks, music, dance, painting and street plays, all focussed on harmony, solidarity and protest.
Professor R Ramakumar of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), one of the event’s organisers, told The Hindu, “We’re a set of artists, journalists and academics — from TISS, TIFR, IIT Bombay and Mumbai University — who have been deeply concerned by a large number of dangerous tendencies in society today, where the constitutionally-provided rights and privileges of citizens are constantly being violated. Last year, we were having the whole debate on intolerance and that is the time when we started thinking about the need for such a collective. ”
Choosing not to go out into the streets, the Mumbai Collective wants to employ a more non-confrontational approach. “We believe the idea of constitutional nationalism needs to be discussed and celebrated,” Prof Ramakumar says. “We want to celebrate the freedoms that the constitution has provided us, and that’s the method we’re adopting to loudly say what we believe in.”
The event will be inaugurated on Saturday with a special panel including Kasturi & Sons [the publisher of The Hindu] chairman N Ram, noted JNU professor Gopal Guru, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and historian Irfan Habib. Over the two days, speakers including Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Ambedkar, Nandita Das, P Sainath, Nikhil Wagle, Naresh Fernandes, and Teesta Setalvad will take part in panel discussions and debates on issues including casteism, communalism, attacks on history and secular education, the undermining of science and reason in the public sphere and the role of media in these troubled times.
One of the more topical sessions will be the one on ‘Sedition and the Spectre of the Anti-National’. Human rights lawyer Mihir Desai, who is on the panel for the session, said, sedition “shouldn’t have any place in the law, because I feel there are enough other laws on the books to deal with any incidents of violence or law and order problems. Sedition is causing disaffection in the state and, in the 21st century, where the state with its intelligence apparatus and police is much more powerful than it was earlier, I don’t think it needs to stop people from talking.”
“There’s a certain element of chaos and madness that’s been unleashed,” says composer and producer Vishal Dadlani, who will be speaking at a panel called ‘Artists Against Communalism’. “The best response the artist community can give is through positivity, a display of equal-mindedness and absolutely refusing to subscribe to this sort of mindset. Since artistic communities are extremely influential among the people that they do reach out to, I think it’s extremely important that we share our beliefs and inner truths.”
There will be a special lokshahiri performance by singer and former Kabir Kala Manch president Sheetal Sathe, who has herself faced the ire of the state and faces charges under UAPA because of her songs that focus on the devastation caused by casteism and exploitation. The venue will also be host to three art exhibitions that focus on artistic responses to intolerance, communalism and the assault on rationality.
The writer is a freelance journalist
Choosing not to go out into the streets, the Mumbai Collective wants to employ a more non-confrontational approach
