THE HINDU, 9 November 2014
They were outnumbered, subjected to vituperative attacks online and offline and their leaders put under preventive arrest, but the small group of youngsters who took upon themselves the daunting task of interrogating the deeply entrenched intolerance towards any public display of affection, pulled off an unlikely victory on November 2.
Amid heckling by ultraconservative sections of the Hindu and Muslim right and harassment by the police, nearly 100 youngsters hugged and kissed in public at the Marine Drive in Kochi to declare to the whole world that they are here to challenge moral fascism and moral policing.
At a factual level, theirs was a protest against Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) activists’ act of vandalism against a restaurant in Kozhikode on the argument that young boys and girls are frequenting it to hug and kiss. The resistance group organised themselves into a Facebook group called “Kiss of Love Community” and urged everyone who believed in the freedom for public display of affection to join them in the protest. The call evoked an overwhelming response on the Facebook page and, on the day of the demonstration, nearly 100 of them turned up at the Marine Drive.
Waiting for them were thousands of activists of Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and conservative Muslim political outfits such the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and the Sunni Yuvajana Sanghom (SYS), besides district-level workers of the Kerala Students’ Union (KSU), the student wing of the Congress. They shared a common slogan: to save Kerala from “western influence,” and were menacing in their slogans and demeanour, ready to pounce on anyone who dared to indulge in public display of affection. They did beat up some youth, but it turned out that this bunch, dressed in western clothing, were out there to protect “Indian culture”! Then came the arrests. As the events at the Marine Drive unfolded, a post on the “Kiss of Love” campaign Facebook page read: “Love is put behind bars while hatred roams freely.”
For a moment, it seemed the protest would end without so much as a public hug but, even as they were being carted away by the police, a few scores of the “Kiss of Love” campaigners surprised everyone with a brave display of affection, hugging and kissing each other, leaving behind some iconic images of a new daring. The event had its resonance in the University of Hyderabad the same day and in Kolkata and Mumbai a few days later, suggesting that moral fascism transcends regional boundaries in India today. For Kerala, however, the protest had a special relevance and meaning, given the State’s reputation of being a modern, educated and progressive society. What the youngsters did was to rip open the façade of modernity and progressivism that hide behind its deeply regressive attitude towards human relationships in public and private spaces.
Wrote J. Devika, leading feminist scholar: “While the Hindutva groups and the conservative constituencies of other religions in Kerala may advance different arguments to justify their loathing of public physical expressions of warmth, the unity they have achieved in their irrational fear of public touch needs to be considered further … I think this event also rubbishes a whole lot of hogwash that plagues one’s ears in contemporary Kerala about how the youth are incapable of doing anything significant, how they keep consuming and turning into crap … ”
The State has been witnessing a rising tide of moral policing in recent times with vigilante groups of both the Left and Right and the majority and minority communities taking upon themselves the job of policing neighbourhoods, harassing men and women and running campaigns of calumny against chosen targets. This is nothing short of an anomalous situation given the State’s long history of progressive social interventions, astounding material progress post-1970s and Malayalis’ exposure to life and culture in other shores.
Creature comforts and gadgetry available to Malayalis are the envy of many elsewhere and the tapestry of visual and aural experiences that have washed ashore with the changing times have added rich hues to the aspirations and life possibilities of every Malayali. But, some 150 years after women of the subaltern communities of former Travancore fought and won the right to cover their breasts after brutal repressions, the State is witnessing attempts at re-tethering to the patriarchal positions that Kerala society has been trying to shake free from. The attack on the restaurant in Kozhikode and the violent response to the “Kiss of Love” campaign were a testimony to this.
What the youngsters achieved, braving heavy odds, was to lay bare all that and trigger a debate in Kerala on the patriarchal attitudes and decadent orthodoxy that have been the hallmark of public — and also private — life in Kerala. One refreshing development was the support extended to their protest by Left parties, particularly the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the ambivalent stand taken by the rest of the political mainstream.
“More than moral policing, at issue here is the conflict between patriarchy and the desire to bring down all that goes with it. I think those who organised this struggle have a weighty responsibility to keep up the spirit and use the energies they have unleashed to take Kerala society forward on a healthy path,” says veteran journalist and rights activist B.R.P. Bhaskar. For a State that has lived under a coalitional gridlock that has largely benefited mostly patriarchal and commercial vested interests and which seems at the cusp of further political churning, the “Kiss of Love” campaign could just be the opening up of new possibilities of forward movement as well as resistance.
See more at: Love in the time of bigotry
INDIA TODAY, New Delhi, October 25, 2014
Prime Minister Narendra Modi poses for photographs with reporters during theDiwali Mangal Milan at BJP headquarters in New Delhi.At his first interaction with the media in Delhi after becoming the Prime Minister and in many years, he recalled his fond relations with the media when he was a BJP office-bearer before going to Gujarat as Chief Minister in 2001.
Using the Diwali milan (get-together) organised by BJP chief Amit Shah at the party headquarters, Modi freely mixed with a few hundred journalists, including top editors and beat reporters.
„I used to arrange chairs here (BJP office) waiting for you (media). Those were different days when we used to interact freely. I had a beautiful relationship with you and it helped me in Gujarat,“ he told the assembled editors, reporters and other journalists at Diwali milan (get-together) hosted by BJP President Amit Shah at the party headquarters.
Fondly recalling the deep relationship he had with the media, Modi said he was looking for ways to further deepen and expand the old relationship.
„Some way will be found. It is important to interact with media directly rather than the reportage and articles. By interacting directly, one gets to know things which media persons cannot report. Not only does one get information but also vision, which is very valuable,“ he said.
Referring to ‚Swachh Bharat‘ campaign launched by him, Modi said he was happy to see several articles, TV features and social media write-ups on the subject, giving the mission a wide publicity.
„Media has converted its pen into broom… This is a service to the nation,“ he said, saying he felt indebted by this.
He said although 80 percent of the media coverage is criticism of governments but this is an issue which affects the image of the country and impacts the poorest most.
„More important than health care is preventive health care and cleanliness plays a crucial role in this,“ he said, adding that it is a national duty to raise awareness about the issue.
Noting that all including influential people are getting involved in the ‚Swachh Bharat‘ campaign, he said the notion that government has to do everything has changed.
„For the last 60 years, the thinking was that government has to do everything. Now the thinking is that we all have to work together. This demonstrates how big a role media can play,“ Modi said.
Media has inspired people to take part in cleanliness exercise, he said.
Earlier, Shah said the central government is doing a good job after people have reposed faith in Modi’s leadership. He hoped that it will rise to the expectations of the people.
Modi later mingled with journalists many of whom jostled to get clicked with him. Several young journalists did selfies with the Prime Minister who happily obliged them.
Read more at: Modi thanks Media
THE CARAVAN, 1 November 2014
By Karanjeet Kaur
IN THE FIRST EPISODE of Aunn Zara, an egg—lobbed by a mollycoddling aunt in an attempt to ward off the evil eye—lands on Aunn’s head. As the vexed hero of the 2013 Pakistani comic drama squeals his way out of the frame, his mother admonishes the aunt for her superstition: “Ye sarhad paar ke drame mat dekha karo,” she says. “Don’t watch these serials from across the border.”
It’s an offhand comment, yet an appropriate one—not merely because the contemporary Indian soap opera has, at its core, the neat image of a woman taking preventive measures against fate, but also because the makers of Pakistani television serials are aware of their country’s superiority in the genre. This summer, when Zindagi, a new channel from Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, began broadcasting syndicated shows from across the border, this superiority became apparent to Indian audiences as well—Indian audiences, that is, who did not grow up watching Pakistani teleplays.
In 1989, my uncle and aunt returned to Delhi from a tour of Pakistan bearing dried Kandahari apricots and almonds, “American” synthetic crepe yardage, and grainy VHS tapes of Dhoop Kinare (The Edge of Sunshine, 1987) and Tanhaiyaan (Loneliness, 1985). The owner of our local video store, from whom we routinely rented recordings of slapstick stage plays such as Bakra Qiston Pe (The Goat, in Installments, 1989) and Budhha Ghar Pe Hai (The Old Man is Home, 1989), had alerted them to these teleplays—both scripted by the legendary dramatist Haseena Moin—before their departure.
Dhoop Kinare, set in a hospital where a young Dr Zoya Ali Khan romances an older colleague, had aired two years earlier on Pakistan’s state-owned channel, PTV. I was five years old when I watched it, and understood nothing about the play’s progressive subject, its first-rate storytelling, or Nayyara Noor’s fluid ghazals, which held the narrative together. This was also around the time I was making definitive career decisions—obviously I wanted to be a doctor like Zoya. But what I actually wanted was lead actress Marina Khan’s short hair; her baggy salwar kameez suits, then in vogue; the inherent elegance of the Urdu she spoke; and, above all, the natural goofiness with which she played the recalcitrant medical student. I remained captivated until the tapes unspooled from overuse, for which I was solely responsible.
After binge-watching several of the new shows being aired on Zindagi, I recently returned to Dhoop Kinare. It still outstrips any contemporary, and several past, Indian television shows by a mile. Aided by actors who are so easy on the eyes, it has all the characteristics long-term viewers have come to associate with Pakistani teleplays. Even 27 years after it was made, its characters’ concerns feel current: Zoya’s resistance to studying medicine, or her friend Anji’s insistence, against her father’s wishes, on studying fine arts.
– See more at: Opening A Channel
THE CARAVAN
By SUHIT KELKAR | 1 October 2014
LATE THIS AUGUST, the Film Forum of Manipur made a bold announcement. The state’s apex industry guild and regulatory office, which ensures that all films abide by censorship rules imposed by local separatist groups, slapped six of the regional industry’s actors with a six-month ban. The punishment was meted out for failure to support protests for an “Inner Line Permit” system in Manipur. The ILP system, which requires outsiders to get special permits to visit a state, is in force in Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, where tribal populations see it as a protective membrane over local ways of life.
The actors, each of whom has about ten to twenty films in the pipeline, argued that they had never received a notice to attend the protests. The Film Forum’s Executive Council refused to accept the excuse. In early September, Laimayum Surjakanta Sharma, the Forum’s chairman, told me over the phone that the ban would hold, although actors were free to act in music videos. “We will see how much they support our campaigns in the near term,” Sharma said, hinting at the possibility of a commuted sentence. “We are giving them a lesson.”
– See more at: Manipur Masala
KOSMOS Workshop: Media, Social Movements and the New Indian Middle Class in India
Am 20. September 2014 findet am Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften ein internationaler Workshop zum Themenkomplex Medien, Gesellschaft und Politik im zeitgenössichen Indien statt. Neben Paper-Präsentationen soll es darin auch um den Austausch mit Kolleginnen über Fragen der Lehre gehen, insbesondere über die Frage, wie medienbezogene Themen und Fragestellungen darin vermittelt werden.
Das ausführliche Programm finden Sie hier:
KOSMOS Workshop 20 Sep 2014
Die Abstracts zu den einzelnen Vorträgen finden Sie hier:
List of Abstracts_KOSMOS Workshop
Kontakt und Anmeldung bis zum 13. September 2014: nadja-christina.schneider@asa.hu-berlin.de
Einladung zu einem Studierenden-Symposium
Wann? 11.07.2014; 14:30-17:00 Uhr
Wo? Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften der HU; Invalidenstraße 118, Raum 315
Inhalt des Symposiums:
In diesem studentisch initiierten Symposium präsentieren Studierende die Ergebnisse eigener kleiner Forschungsprojekte zum Thema. Die Projekte sind im Verlauf eines Q-Tutoriums am IAAW im Sommersemester 2014 von den Teilnehmenden selbst entwickelt und durchgeführt worden. Dabei haben sie sich aus verschiedenen wissenschaftlichen Perspektiven und mit unterschiedlichsten Methoden mit den Begriffen „Globaler Süden“ und „Global South“ bzw. mit deren inhärenten Konzepten kritisch auseinandergesetzt. Innerhalb des Symposiums werden folgende Fragen im Raum stehen: Woher kommt dieser Begriff? Wie wird er in der Wissenschaft und von anderen Akteuren verwendet? Inwieweit steht der Begriff im Zusammenhang mit den Konzepten Entwicklung und Modernisierung? Wie gehen wir mit diesem Begriff um? Wie wird Wissen über Regionen produziert, die in dominanten Debatten als „Globaler Süden“ bzw. „Global South“ bezeichnet werden?
Im Anschluss an jeden Vortrag, sowie zum Abschluss des Symposiums wird es ausreichend Zeit und Anlass zur Diskussion geben.
Leitung des Q-Tutoriums: Dhanya Fee Koschorreck und Stefan Lüder
Link zum Poster zur Veranstaltung: Poster studentisches Symposium 11.07.2014
Es hat eher Seltenheitswert, dass in Indien ein Dokumentarfilm regulär in die Kinos kommt, denn in der Regel ist es sehr schwierig, für unabhängig produzierte Spielfilme und Dokumentarfilme einen Filmverleih zu finden. Nisha Pahuja ist dies nun mit ihrem vielbeachteteten Film „The World Before Her“ gelungen. Der Film lief Anfang Juni 2014 in Indien an und sorgt dort nicht zuletzt vor dem Hintergrund der zurückliegenden Parlamentswahlen für angeregte Diskussionen.
„The World Before Her“ richtet den Blick auf zwei „Camps“, die zwar ideologisch gesehen höchst konträr sind, jedoch auf der Ebene der Körperpraktiken und Selbsttechnologien durchaus sehr interessante Vergleichsmöglichkeiten eröffnen und einen relevanten Beitrag zur Diskussion über Geschlechterbilder in Indien liefert: zum einen steht das Vorbrereitungstraining zu den „Miss India“-Wahlen in Mumbai im Vordergrund und zum anderen die Frauenorganisation der hindunationalistischen Organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), Durga Vahini.
Link zur Filmbesprechung von Shekhar Deshpande: http://dearcinema.com/review/documentary-film-review-nisha-pahuja-the-world-before-her/0605?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DearCinemaWeeklyNewsletters
Link zu einem Interview von Shazia Javed mit Nisha Pahuja: http://dearcinema.com/interview/nisha-pahuja-interview/4221?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DearCinemaWeeklyNewsletters
Im Rahmen eines Panels der MEDIA FOUNDATION OF INDIA disktutierten Zoya Hasan (Politikwissenschaftlerin, JNU Neu-Delhi), Sudha Pai (Politikwissenschaftlerin, JNU Neu-Delhi), Mukul Kesavan (Historiker und Schriftsteller) und Vidya Subramanian (Associate Editor, The Hindu) über die Rolle der Medien in den zurückliegenden Parlamentswahlen, insbesondere mit Blick auf die mediale Präsenz Narendra Modis. Auszüge aus den Statements wurden auf der Seite von THE HOOT veröffentlicht (22. Mai 2014).
Link zum Artikel auf THEHOOT.ORG: http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=7524&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=19&valid=true
Die neue Ausgabe des MASALA-Newsletters (2/2014) enthält unter anderem drei Beiträge zum Thema Film in Indien:
- Wo es kein Bollywood gibt: eine ethnologische Reise zum „indigenen“ Kino Indiens (Markus Schleiter)
- Neue Räume und Praktiken politischer Jugendproteste im Hindi-Film (Nadja-Christina Schneider)
- Typisch Bollywood? Der Diskurs über Bollywood in deutschen Qualitäts-Tageszeitungen (Katja Molis)
Link: Newsletter Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Südasien (Uni Heidelberg)
PDF: Newsletter Masala, Jg. 9, Nr. 2 (2014)
Indologie und Südasienstudien in Berlin: Geschichte und Positionsbestimmung,
hg. von Maria Framke, Hannelore Lötzke und Ingo Strauch. Der Band ist im trafo-Verlag in der Reihe „Studien zur Geschichte und Gegenwart Asiens“ erschienen und kostet 34,80.
Weitere Informationen: Indologie und Südasienstudien in Berlin – Inhalt
Aus der Einführung der Herausgeber_innen:
„Einführung
Das Vorhaben, einen Band über die Geschichte der Berliner Indologie und Südasienstudien zusammenzustellen, reifte über viele Jahre. Doch erst die existentielle Bedrohung unserer Fächer im Herbst 2007 – ausgelöst durch den Beschluss des damaligen Präsidiums der Humboldt-Universität, den Bereich Südasien ganz aus dem Profil des Asien-Afrika-Instituts zu streichen – führte die Herausgeber zusammen und ließ den Ideen endlich auch konkrete Schritte folgen.
Ein wichtiger Zwischenschritt auf diesem Weg war ein Workshop an der Humboldt-Universität, der im Februar 2010 die meisten beteiligten Autoren zusammenführte. Die vorliegenden Arbeiten sind auch Ergebnis der überaus anregenden, durchaus auch kontroversen Diskussionen auf diesem Workshop. Dass es weiterer vier Jahre bedurfte, um dieses Projekt nun zum Abschluss zu bringen, ist vor allem den zahlreichen anderen Verpflichtungen der Herausgeber geschuldet.
Es soll aber nicht verschwiegen werden, dass auch eine Reihe inhaltlicher Diskussionen den Herausgabeprozess begleiteten, die zwar eine zeitliche Verzögerung mit sich brachten, aber dem Buch als Ganzes sicher nutzen konnten.
Der vorliegende Band konnte auch von einigen bereits vorliegenden Arbeiten zu einzelnen Institutionen und Personen der Berliner Indologie und Südasienstudien profitieren. Von besonderem Stellenwert sind hier die Studien Wolfgang Morgenroths zum Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen1 und Ludwig Alsdorfs ausführlicher Aufsatz über „Die Indologie in Berlin von 1812–1945“.
Grundlegender Ausgangspunkt unseres Vorhabens war der besondere Charakter der Berliner Wissenschaftslandschaft, die von einer Vielzahl von Institutionen geprägt war und ist, welche sich auf methodisch und inhaltlich ebenso vielfältige Weise mit der Region Südasien befassen. Ein zusätzliches Berliner Charakteristikum ist die jahrzehntelange Teilung der Stadt und der darauf folgende, z.T. sehr widerspruchsvolle Vereinigungsprozess, welcher der zuvor bereits bestehenden institutionellen Vielfalt eine weitere Dimension hinzufügte.
Es war unser Ziel, herauszufinden, wie sich die Indologie und die anderen südasienbezogenen Wissenschaften in diesen Institutionen etabliert haben und inwieweit sie in der Lage waren, die Vielfalt der Berliner Wissenschaftslandschaft zur Herausbildung eines eigenen Netzwerkes zu nutzen. Diese Frage sollte aus einer streng geschichtlichen Perspektive gestellt und aus dieser Perspektive bis in die heutige Zeit verfolgt werden. (…)“