Parents! Well…Not Well

A friend of mine told her parents that she wants to marry the man she loves. The entire family is flipping out because the guy’s caste is not good enough. They have asked my friend to choose between them and him.

What sort of parents would ask their child, who they brought to life and nurtured for years, to choose illogical, primitive and oppressive social strictures disguised as tradition and dignity over her happiness?  What sort of parents would threaten their child by saying ‘do what you want (by which they mean ‘be happy’) but over our dead bodies’?  What sort of parents would tell their child ‘if you marry this guy (who you love, respect and want to grow old with) you are on your own’?

I think I know what of sort of parents do this – the ones who are sick and dead in their hearts.

My friend who is – amongst other things – a beautiful human being, is trying hard to make them see reason. She is hurt and her heart is aching. She asked me what she should do. I said, ‘your parents are sick. You and I both know the reasons of this illness. You should forgive them and continue loving them, for we don’t stop loving our parents because they are not well in their head and heart. But DON’T let sick people decide for you.

What is even more sick is that my friend’s not the only one going through this. And that this is happening in 2012!

End Caste. Ending Caste-Based Discrimination is not Enough.

For long years now Dalit rights and human rights organizations and various people’s movements have been challenging ‘caste-based discrimination’. I strongly believe and advocate that the movements should be focused to end and eliminate the very system of caste. To say that we stand against ‘caste-based discrimination’ presupposes that we are okay with the caste system without its discriminatory practices. It does not require much reading of facts and opinions to conclude that the caste system rests squarely on practicing and perpetuating a hierarchical structure of ‘high’ and ‘low’, on a system of ‘purity’ and ‘pollution’. It is amply clear that the system of caste was institutionalized as part of the hegemonic agenda of the dominant castes.

To take an example, the feminist movements in India, and elsewhere, are very clear that as they fight against gender-based discrimination, the larger agenda and mission is to end patriarchy – the very system that produces the discrimination. Similarly, the Dalit rights movements need to now channelize their energies in annihilating the very system of caste.

When I presented this thought a few hours back at the International Consultation on Caste-Based Discrimination organized by the International Dalit Solidarity Network in Kathmandu, an overwhelming number of activists agreed that this indeed is the right way ahead. Why then, it is important to explore and understand, is this not the popular discourse amongst the reformers, activists and academics?

There are several reasons for this:

It is imperative that any movement that is aimed at challenging rights violation, begins by highlighting the atrocities, discrimination and violence that is caused by social, political or structural causes. So, in the process of articulating the importance of protecting the rights of people who are at the receiving end of such violations, it is natural that the prominent discourse is that of ‘ending discrimination’. However, if were to continue to do this narrow discourse, it will be detrimental to the very agenda of promotion of human rights.

When I have proposed this larger agenda of  ‘ending caste’, several Dalit activists, organizations and academics have expressed a fear that ending caste may also end the affirmative actions (known as reservations in India). Yes it will! But isn’t that the ultimate goal? Aren’t we very clear that affirmative actions are merely remedial measures? If we agree that it is remedial then we must also accept that remedies cannot become another system.  On a practical plane, caste has to be dismantled first and then the dismantling of the affirmative actions should follow. In other words, affirmative programs, special statuses and protections should continue when the society has proved beyond doubt that we have indeed become a casteless society.

Popular electoral politics around the world, especially in India and south Asia, is based on community, caste and other identity affiliations. It is very common for electoral candidates to woo people from their own communities/caste groups. In fact this method of nominating candidates, campaigning and voting has become a norm and therefore escapes scrutiny and challenge. Dalit politicians are, unfortunately, not any different in this regard. And it is quite likely that this call for a caste-less society will be a big challenge to all political aspirants who are used to the short cut of garnering votes based on their caste identities.

I believe that if we are truly committed to an equitable society that stands for social justice, and are committed to the practice and promotion of human rights principles, we have no choice but to strive and struggle for ending caste.

Bailing out the King of Good Times

Vijay Mallaya, the self proclaimed ‘king of good times’, and his fleet of aircrafts have fallen from the skies. In the last two weeks the Kingfisher airlines had to ground more than 200 flight routes and scores of Mallaya’s ‘hand picked staff’ have gone on strike. Vijaya Mallaya has sent an SOS signal to the government of India and has pleaded for a bailout. This plea, in the expectation of receiving subsidized loans, is totally hilarious. But this hilarity can well turn into a mockery of the Indian republic and its citizen if the government goes ahead and bails this private enterprise whose greed and bad business sense has brought this situation on to itself.

I am traveling in interior Jharkhand since the last week, meeting various Adivasi groups each fighting and protesting impending displacement that will be caused by corporations that have their eyes set on the mineral wealth here. These are Adivasis, the original inhabitants of these forests and regions, whose relationship and entitlement to their land and forests far predates any state – Moghul, colonial British or modern Indian – or the idea of state. Even so, the corporations have the audacity to conceive of looting these original inhabitants (and have done so many times in the past) because they have utter faith on the heavy muscles of the overzealous government of India. It is perhaps this faith that prompted Mr. Mallaya to seek help from this corporate friendly government.

Why should I and other taxpaying citizens bail out a company that is private enterprise? Why should I bail out a private company that earns millions more through its breweries and other enterprises? Why should I bail out a private company that can spend millions in buying a whole team of cricketers, make them play instant cricket to packed stadiums wearing its logo and earning millions more in the process? Why should I bail out a private airline when my own national carrier (Air India) is bankrupt? What did I do wrong that Mr. Mallaya is expecting that I should cough up my hard earned money so that he can continue to have good times?

If I, and my government did have the money, here’s a list of urgent matters that I would want to bail out:

- The thousands of children dying of malnutrition

- The millions of landless farmers caught in debt trap who still waiting for the effective implementation of the various Land Reforms Acts

- The millions of under-trail prisoners rotting in the various jails in India because they don’t have enough money to bail themselves out (and most of them have already spent more time in jails than they would have if they had been found guilty!)

- The many hundreds of desperate farmers who are about to commit suicide because of failing crops and mounting debts

- The thousands of Dalit children who drop out of schools every year because some teacher or fellow student repeatedly insult them by calling them inferior and untouchables

- The millions of rural artisans who are giving up the artistic professions and forced to migrate and live in filthy slums because we have not yet worked out effective marketing of their produces

- The dozens of human rights activists imprisoned under false charges of sedition and violence against state (some of them even sentenced to death by hanging!)

- The millions of tribals in this country who have been forced out of their farms and ancestral lands because other ‘barons’ of the corporate India are hell bent on mining out the last piece of coal, iron and bauxite from under their homes

This list, very unfortunately, can go on and on and extend endlessly. A short trip outside the brightly lit cities of our country taken with an open heart and ear will result in an atomic explosion of that extended list.

I am sorry Mr. Mallaya, but I cannot bail you out.

Apolitical NGOs

I have spent two decades campaigning for causes I care deeply about – an end to caste discrimination, gender equality, and fighting against divisive and non-secular politics. In this blog post I want to explore the curious occurrence of political apathy in the NGO sector in India. Time and again, when working with colleagues in the ‘social sector’, I encounter a reticence to engage with politics; from the politics of gender to the politics of wealth distribution, the politics of education to the politics of caste.

Let me share a short anecdote with you. A while ago I was invited to evaluate the programs of a very large and very well respected microfinance NGO in India. The evaluation coincided with the NGO’s annual meeting – an occasion which saw the coming together of over 5,000 women (all members of self-help/MFI groups).

Around lunchtime I heard a commotion in the kitchen area. I went over and found a group of 30 or so women having a heated discussion with some of the volunteer organizers. The women were refusing to eat the food that had been prepared. When I enquired as to why this was the case, they answered, ‘because you have already served a bunch of Dalits’. The volunteer organizers were trying to pacify the women, ‘lets not disturb the event, we will make sure there are separate lines for queuing for food and separate seating arrangements for eating’. So I went up to the main organizers, the top layer of management at this large NGO, and I said ‘you have to disband this meeting right now – it has to be called off. This incident is an attack on your basic principles, which I am sure are not negotiable. If your empowered and conscious women are still holding forth their sense of high and low, then you need to rethink your social empowerment strategies. But right now, we have to communicate to them that this cannot, and will not, be tolerated. Everyone needs to be sent home and told that they will be communicated about the future of the SHGs in due course. Your message to the women should be loud and clear.’

Interestingly, the meeting was not disbanded but the organizers agreed to take this matter up with the women in the next meetings. However, the NGO realized how serious I was about my suggestion of not tolerating this nonsense, which resulted in a very interesting discussion with the NGO about the role that our sector, the development, social, voluntary sector, whatever you want to call it, plays. When do we start intervening in which situations? This country has thousands of organizations working for the underprivileged.

Under what circumstances is it fine for these organizations to work on economic empowerment but not be concerned with challenging the politics of power that give rise to the very poverty they are trying to combat? This tendency to avoid active political engagement is most apparent in organizations that are concerned with ‘service delivery’. Their mandate is not political transformation or empowerment – their mandate is ‘let us reach water to X number of villages’ or ‘let us set up X number of micro finance units benefiting X hundred women’. These type of organizations do not want to engage in work that shift paradigms or subverts the status quo – this is seen as too activist. They say ‘we are not jhandadhaaris (flagbearers) – we do not wear the badge of a political movement’.

It is this, this literal aversion to ‘politics’ that I do not accept. An NGO providing microfinance (or any other) service to its ‘beneficiaries’ stating that it will not engage in politics is a very political stand! By taking such a position they are clearly stating that they are interested in maintaining the current castiest and patriarchal power structures.  Very unfortunately, there are a large number of such NGOs with big budgets (and some even have been awarded for their social empowerment work!) that refuse to subvert the existing power structures and take the easier path. They don’t seem to realize that this apolitical easier path they take now is going to cost all of us very dearly in the long run.

Casteism, like patriarchy, racism and violence, should not be tolerated no matter what the consequences are.

Social Media and Revolution

It is undisputed that the social media, unlike newspapers, radio, telephone and television makes many-to-many communication possible. And therefore, it is more democratic. But the technology that social media rides on – the Internet and telephony – are grids that needs to be laid out. The discussions, and the contentious issues now, are no more whether the medium is allowing for democratic participation or not, but rather that of access.

We need to be acutely aware of the fact that access to this powerful and apparently democratic social media needs large amounts of investment in fiber optic cables, satellites, transponders, antennas, servers, technologists, software’s, steel and land. Through out the first, second and third world, these investments are largely made by private corporation supported and facilitated by respective governments through their taxation and subsidy policies, land allocation rules and even immigration policies to set up these information and communication infrastructure. And since this is the case, profit remains at the center of such endeavors, and the purpose and objective is not to foster protest or social movements. The corporations and governments only invest in technology where it suits its needs and agendas. Therefore, it is not surprising that Egypt can and did shut down Internet access for a week during the recent revolution and that China has the most stringent control over Internet access in the world.

In India, the lack of access or the digital divide is the result of general poverty and the traditional rich-poor, urban-rural divide. India has more than 790 million cell phone subscribers as of Feb 2011 but only 100 million internet users (only 11.4 million of those have access to broadband). Though India is the third largest Internet user in the world (but then everything in India, with 1.2 billion people living there, can very easily be in the top ten charts of nearly anything) it is only 8.4% of its population. Yes, Internet is mostly accessed through cell phones and 40% of Internet users in India do so from their phones. But India is largely a 2G country making accessing internet over mobile phones painfully slow, not to mention hurtfully expensive. So, it will be a long time before more than 800 million people in India can drag themselves out of the internet black hole.

They key to conflict resolution and peace building, I believe, is listening, and not, contrary to popular belief, talking. Definitely not chatter. What FB offers is a ready group of ‘friends’ and ‘likers’ who we may perceive to be listening to us. Our posts and tweets being commented on or re-tweeted, or our status being liked, or we being poked, gives us a sense of belonging and being cared for. There is no denying that there is instant, if not deep, gratification to be had from plastering our inanities on the great wall of Facebook. I will not be surprised if, in the near future, shrinks (who we pay to listen to us) may go out of business. Or if a new breed of shrinks will make millions for weaning us of our net-addictions.

Can social media create a movement or revolution? Good question. To me the answer is no. Revolution is created by radicalized communities who are tired of, and extremely angry at, the established power structures or regimes or policies or even attitudes. So, to that extent the ‘creation’ of movements comes from the hearts of living human beings who are not afraid to challenge and oppose. From their aspiration and desire to change and transform their immediate future for themselves. Social media, however, plays a crucial role in organizing and sometimes strategizing, and definitely a great role in publicizing and galvanizing. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube did just that in Egypt. According to one Cairo activist : “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.” It is rather interesting to note that there is nothing about passion, oppression, desire, change, future in this articulation, which is crucial and center-stage for revolution. But, what it does have is ‘management’. And there is a big difference between managing and creating.

What can create social movements is people’s right and freedom to voice so that they can be heard unadulterated and unmediated. Their ability to participate in the decision- making processes of matters that govern their lives and future. Voice is a funny thing –it is simple to understand (and some of us take it for granted) yet it is not as simple too. For a vast section of Indian population voice is denied to if you happen to be the wrong caste, wrong religion, wrong region, wrong class or wrong gender. And at times, you may have a strong voice but you are so far away from those whose ears matter, that it is as good as not having a voice. This is the case with many indigenous peoples in India merely because they live in very ‘remote’ places or have been pushed back into remoter areas with successive development projects. Some communities, like Dalits, have traditionally no voice in their village administrations. This scenario is fast changing because of Dalit assertion and affirmative actions (known as ‘reservations’ in India). But such assertions almost always come at a very high price. The cost can be an arm, a leg, a nose or your dear life. In such a scenarios, which unfortunately are not limited to India, there is a need for empowering voices and sometime to build voice-bridges.

Here’s where my work at Video Volunteers comes in, where we work with the most disadvantaged communities and empower their voices and teach them how to use the power and potential of video, audio, internet, discussions, debates, story telling etc to connect to the world and force it to listen. More about that on VV’s website.

Perhaps the most important role of social media, and which it has proven to do very successfully in some cases, is distribution. Viral has a different connotation in today’s social media era. It does not, unlike a few years back, evoke images of a sick and feverish person. Instead it now means a cause or campaign hitting feverish pitch. Campaigners would give their left arm if their cause went ‘viral’ – which is, all who came in its way would be infected and will happily pass on the infection to hundreds more, and they to thousands more. Since social media enables many to many, which is a radical shift from the traditional one to many, a relevant piece of information or story has the potential to be circulated ‘virally’ by thousands of connectors. And since the world is increasingly shrinking, at least for some of us, these connectors are not, and need not be, from the same country or cultures. It is this fact that makes every company, even those in the business of transporting news and information like news media, to very prominently display two logos, and unwittingly advertize the two respective private companies – Facebook and Twitter.

With 500 million active Facebook users and 75 million (as of Jan 2010) Twitter users, with liking, un-liking, friending, tweeting, re-tweeting etc become part of every day lingo, the conventional media giants have no other option but to ask their readers, listeners and viewers to ‘follow’ them on Facebook and Twitter. They are all gearing for the eventuality that the future eyeballs will all be on computer screens and smart phones and tablets. They realize that ‘mainstream’ media, as we understood that word till 10 years back, is dead or nearly dead. And with that mainstream news and content creation or mainstream journalism too is on its deathbed. But then, that’s another blog.

The future is and should be what the industry calls user-generated content or consumer-generated-media and what I call community created content. The community video producers, the community journalists and community radio reporters I am working with are doing just that. They are radicalized individuals rooted in their communities, not fearful of questioning the established powers, challenging norms, revealing uncomfortable facts, not afraid of putting their hearts out, with cameras and recorders, sharing their stories of triumph and loss, piercing our very short-spanned attentions and inspiring us to take action for a better world.

- This article is an edited version of a lecture on Social Media and Revolution I gave at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, on 28^th April 2011.

Anna Hazare’s Foot in Mouth

Anna Hazare, after a short but successful ‘fast’ run in inspiring people to stand up for the Jan Lokpal Bill, seem to have put his foot in the mouth by praising two totally un-praiseworthy characters. Or should we say, he put his heart in his mouth and spoke his soul?

By now we know that Anna, in a press meet in Delhi, asked Chief Ministers in India to emulate the Chief Minister of Gujarat, apparently for his role in rural development. The truth of Narendra Modi’s development is for anyone to verify, provided one takes the trouble to go to rural and coastal areas. For those who cannot, my friend Mallika Sarabhai has briefly but aptly described the facts. (Full text of her response to Anna is below). Perhaps the old Gandhian, like many others in the country, was dazzled by the urban prosperity in Gujarat. He should have at least checked on the fact that the Lokayukta in Gujarat has been defunct ever since Modi has taken over as the CM!

When reporters reminded Anna about Modi’s role in 2002, he clarified that “I do not support communal politics, riots or any such thing. I am only talking about decentralisation of power.” Decentralization! If anything Modi is the opposite of decentralization. Of the 26 ministers in his cabinet, 17 have no independent charge and are mere Ministers of State. Of the remaining 9 who do have independent charge, 8 manage more than one ministries. Modi himself holds more than 10 ministries, including Home, Industries, Mines, Minerals, Energy, Petrochemicals, Ports, Information & Broadcasting, Narmada, Kalpasar, and Science & Technology. Some decentralization!

What is more shocking than Anna’s praise for Modi, is his soft corner for Hitler! In the same press meet on Monday he praised the former Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler. “The kind of model that the Third Reich has presented, that model should be emulated by all other world leaders…. I am saying this on the basis of the kind of works the German Chancellor has done in the field of development.”

When forced to clarify he said that “I have described the Chancellor as good only partially. While I admire the efficiency with which Herr Hitler has gassed 6 million Jews, alongside I have clarified that I am opposed to any form of communal disharmony.”

He makes it sound as if he supported genocide as long as it was conducted without causing disharmony! If Anna Hazare was German national he would have been prosecuted right away for this ridiculous utterance and stand.

In her letter, Mallika has warned that if Anna does not retract his statement she and others will be forced distance themselves from the Lokpal movement. I totally understand Mallika’s pain and frustration but what we need to do is to distance Anna Hazare from the Lokpal movement.

Zindabad.

Stalin | 12 April 2011|

MALLIKA SARABHAI’S LETTER TO ANNA HAZARE
Dear Annaji
We are deeply shocked by your endorsement of Narendra Modi’s rural development. There has been little or no rural development in ths state. In fact gauchar lands and irrigated farmlands have been stealthily taken by the government and sold off at ridiculous prices to a small club of industrialists. There has been no Lokayukta in Gujarat for nearly seven years so hundreds of complaints against corruption are lying unheard. From the Sujalam Sufalam scam of 1700 crores to the NREGS boribund scam of 109 crores, the fisheries scam of 600 crores, every department is involved in thousands of crores of scams. The poor and rural peoiple are being sold to Modiu’s friends the industrialists. The state is in terrible debt because of his largess to industry while 21 lakh farmers wait for compensation.
Your endorsement is apalling and we will be forced to distance ourselves from the Lokpal movement unless it is irrevocably retracted.
Sincerely
Mallika Sarabhai
11.4.2011
8.23am

IndiaUnheard – Pushing Marginalized Voices to the Mainstream Media

I was recently asked why we set up the Video Volunteers’ IndiaUnheard program. It is a straightforward question with a multitude of replies. Let me briefly outline the IndiaUnheard program before I articulate our motives.

IndiaUnheard is the first ever community news service launched by Video Volunteers. This new initiative is constituted of a network of community correspondents who are trained to tell unique stories; stories about their own communities; stories which are otherwise left untold. By feeding this community-produced content to national and international outlets, such as mainstream television channels and social networking sites, IndiaUnheard links rural communities with a truly global audience.

Relaxing with some of our Community Correspondents at the first IndiaUnheard training

NB IndiaUnheard is designed as a community news service but we don’t see news only as events – it is also stories and features. The reason why we do this is more logistical. It is not possible in India today, for very remote communities to give instant news to a central hub because they are on the wrong side of the digital divide.

So why did we start this program?

Typically information dissemination around the world is on the vertical and top down so there is always something – a state, a powerful person, a market, a religion – talking down to people. Information dissemination is very seldom bottom up. So that is one context.

The other is the way news is generated around the world and particularly, in this case, in India. It is what we call the fishing method, or the pull out method, where the media is already aware of an incident happening because it is so big, or there is a propensity of a story happening and they are stationed their to capture it; just like the fisherman goes to the spot where his propensity to catch fish is high. But it is never adventurous; it is never ‘let me go and see if this place has news’ – no, there are no foot soldiers like that in journalism. Journalists are stationed in front of parliament houses, stock exchanges, sports stadiums and film premieres. So, in a pull method of creating news, the intrinsic problem is that you have already decided what needs to be pulled.

IndiaUnheard tries to subvert this top-down, vertical information dissemination model to a bottom up, ‘push’ model. With this in mind, we are trying to create a network of community activists who we are training as Community Correspondents; their job is to push up content from rural areas. Video Volunteers then facilitates and distributes this ‘pushed up’ content to mainstream media and a global web audience. The aim is to enable stories of the real India to be seen and heard.

Abhay Deol - Video Volunteers Ambassador - hangs out with our Community Correspondents

The success of the program therefore resides in the global audience’s willingness to consume content produced by IndiaUnheard’s Community Correspondents. There are a number of reasons why I have faith in our existing audience and why I think our viewing numbers will steadily increase.

Firstly, I believe that media habits are formed by what is consumed. People don’t enter the media world with existing habits.

Secondly, I do believe that, going by the comments that reside on mainstream news companies websites, people are tired of sensationalist news. With IndiaUnheard we can give our audiences something different; something real.

In this vein, and as a brief aside, I don’t think journalism has to have reporters being unattached to the issue; that journalism has to be ‘objective’. That is what we are taught when we study journalism. However, very soon you realize it is not possible to be objective. What they mean by ‘be objective’ is ‘present multiple points of view’. But, ‘multiple points of view’ do not equate to ‘objectivity’ – that is where the confusion seems to lie.

Nevertheless, traditional journalists will always keep themselves out of the frame. We, on the other hand, encourage our Community Correspondents to be subjective. We want to know how they are connected to the story; for example, in a story about untouchability we want to know if the Community Correspondent has experienced it or seen it and if yes, how did it feel?

People say we live in the age of disbelief. It is sometimes said that with increasing channels of communication and information, this disbelief will decrease. Conversely, people’s skepticism about content has only risen.

It is therefore vital for Community Correspondent’s to place themselves in the frame – it is not, ‘I am totally outside of this and I am therefore going to give you the complete bare facts.‘ I would much rather have someone go ‘I know, I have faced this and I am going to tell you a story about not my facing it but someone else facing it’. That becomes more compelling. And to me that becomes more real.

Our Community Correspondents!

To find out more and watch our videos click here.