The Supermarketisation of Activism

Sometime around a couple of months ago, as we sat down to dinner and television, we saw on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that the US Supreme Court had struck down an important section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a part of Civil rights legislation. According to the previous legislation, certain states with a history of racial discrimination could not amend any electoral laws without getting prior permission, or pre clearance, from the Supreme Court. Now, those states can amend electoral laws to make it more difficult for the poorest people to vote, leaving them disenfrachised. For example, people without specific kinds of identity cards would be people without identities as far as voting is concerned. I am not making up this example. American politicians regularly carry out all sorts of gerrymandering in order to be elected, and the nation's democracy gives the word a bad name. Not that it stops them from using it for other countries as a litmus test, one that they are mostly doomed to fail.

Anyway, that night I thought to myself "they'll pass some sort of gay rights bill soon". The very next day, the American Supreme Court struck down the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus rejecting as unconstitutional the act which defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. It is an important moment in gay rights activism, one well worth celebrating. Why had I been so sure, though, that it would come? Perhaps because it allows the 'you win some, you lose some' narrative of modern activism to be perpetuated.

This is not to imply that there is a conscious deep dark conspiracy wherein 'they', i.e.the sources of institutional power, deliberately take away something one day and give something the next day, thereby keeping protestors in check and appeasing the more conservative elements of society. What I am trying to point out is more insidious. It is the 'supermarketisation' of our activism, wherein we can choose between different causes, and embrace certain oppressions in the name of emancipation in other areas. In this scenario, one step forward and one step backward seems to make perfect sense, even if all it does is keep you in the same place that you started from.

The fragmentation of activism makes it difficult to conceptualise and challenge systemic formulations of any kind. Things are always tackled piecemeal, and it is hoped that these different and independent improvements will aggregate into a better world. At the same time, there is a tacit understanding that some battles will be lost, which effectively nullifies the aggregative utopia even before it comes into being. It is time to claim another way of being radical, it is time to be radical by radically re-ordering the world.

 

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The ABCs of Our Home

Shabdita is learning the ABCs of this household. A for Apple computers, B for Bollywood and C for Cricket. We are open to suggestions for other letters of the alphabet. Yes, K would definitely be for Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, but, as it has to be meaningful for both of us, may end up being for Khanwalkar.

In a bid to make Shabdita a true blue Bollywood baby, we decided that we would each pick one dialogue that we would repeat to her endlessly, and hopefully make it her first line. I decided to go with the iconic and the appropriate "Mere paas maa hai". After all, even A.R. Rahman felt compelled to refer to it, irrelevantly but endearingly, in his Oscar acceptance speech. I was pretty happy with my choice, and even felt bad for Vipul. After all, the most iconic line for a father is "Mera baap chor hai". Until I heard his pick. Now, morning and evening, Vipul tells Shabdita "Ek chutki sindur ki keemat tum kya jaano Ramesh Babu". Its beyond iconic, definitely epic, and I'm jealous about how uncool my choice now seems to be.

Shabdita however seems to have a favourite line of her own, that she lives up to through her actions rather than words. Her line is "Aankhen nikal ke gotiya khelta hoon". After all, my spectacles come off, so why would not my eyes? Everyday she goes after them with a vengeance, pausing only to try and pull off my nose or teeth. I think we should forget cricket and go with C for Crime Master Gogo.

Decolonial Dreams: Good news to share

Excitement and modesty war in my heart as I write this post. I want to share the exciting news that my first solo-authored article has been published. It can be accessed online in the First View section of Modern Asian Studies here. Friends with institutional access, please download the article. And thank you if you do that more than once, or circulate it among those whom you think may be interested. Friends without institutional access, if you want to get a copy, please let me know and I'll inform you when the print version is going to appear.

Those of my friends who are not academics may be wondering "Why is this a big deal?". Well, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a young academic in possession of intellectual ability must be in want of a publication. And getting accepted by Modern Asian Studies is exhilarating, as it is a prestigious journal published by Cambridge University Press and, like most prestigious journals, it has a high rejection rate. (Yes, modesty lost by a large margin!)

At the same time, there is another, less selfish reason for my happiness. And that is because my article, the beginning of my life's work, is on Kanyailal Munshi. Not Shakespeare, not Jane Austen, not Kurt Vonnegut, not Thomas Mann. Not that these are bad writers. Yet I am happy that I am beginning to decolonise my mind. In their focus on specific times and places, Shakespeare and Austen are as "particular" as Munshi and Premchand; in their focus on the interaction between human self and the world through ideas of love, courage, honour, glory and so on, Munshi and Premchand are as "universal" as Shakespeare and Austen. Premchand, Govardhan Ram Tripathi, Dharamveer Bharti, Mohan Rakesh and countless others need the academic industry behind them. They need to be read, discussed and analysed from post-structuralist, feminist, decolonial and other perspectives. When academic literature around them abounds, we shall realise that "universalism" and "particularity" are narratives created by academic industries, and new narratives will allow new valourisations. I dream of a future where literature departments across India will teach Indian novels written in Indian languages. Students can read translations in their mother tongue, closer to the flavour of the original. They can then dissect them in whichever language they prefer, including English, and spread information about them far and wide. The language may be the coloniser's, but why should that stop our thoughts from being decolonial?

Unrequited Love

Shabdita has given her heart away. The object of her affection is literally that: an object.
It is the ceiling fan that hangs above our bed, and is more fascinating to Shabdita than all her toys put together. Often, while drinking her milk or playing, she will stop suddenly, look up, make sure it is still there, and then continue with whatever she was doing. If she is lying on her side, she will roll over to get a view, but will not go back to feeding until she has seen it once.
Sometimes she is in my lap, on our rocking chair, and I am talking to her and she is gazing at my face, in the intensely concentrative way that she has, smiling once in a while. She glances around the room. She looks at her toys. But none of this will do. She looks up. It is still there, weaving its magic by turning round and round, both motion and stillness. She is happy to see it. She can then give all of these other things her attention again. Her mother matters again.
Like all relationships, this one is not perfect. The object of her affection doesn't know she exists, and doesn't really talk to her. And her mother disapproves. I hope that the next love of my daughter's life, at the very least, does not look down upon her!