[Reader-list] [Announcements] Free Speech & Fearless Listening: The Encounter with Censorship in South Asia

[The Sarai Programme]

Dear Friend

The Delhi Film Archive and Films for Freedom, in association with Max
Mueller Bhavan and the Sarai Programme at CSDS, Delhi take pleasure in
inviting you to "Free Speech & Fearless Listening: The Encounter with
Censorship in South Asia".

The three day roundtable to discuss the challenges confronting cultural
producers in the South Asia region will be held at the Max Mueller Bhavan
(Goethe Institute), Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi from February 22-24,
2006. This will be preceded by a 'curtain raiser' called "Interrogating
Censorship" on February 21 at 4 :00 pm at Sarai.

Independent documentary filmmakers, journalists, writers and other
professionals have struggled to create spaces for images, words and ideas
that find little support with governments or market-driven corporations.
Meanwhile the transformed nature of information flows at the cusp of the
late 20th and early 21st Century has rendered inadequate national
territories as exclusive sites of study or debate. As newer technologies of
production and dissemination generate an unprecedented amount of
information, there are simultaneously greater demands for restrictions on
speech from state, non-state and corporate players. The proposed
'roundtable' is an attempt to acknowledge and understand the circulation 
and
curtailment of speech in the South Asia region and will attempt to engage
with the transformed mediascape to understand how images and information 
are
being created or erased.

We look forward to your participation and contribution in what we hope will
be an on-going conversation. Please find attached the Proposed Schedule and
List of Participants. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
get in touch with us at <delhifilmarchive at gmail.com>

For the Delhi Film Archive -

Amar Kanwar / Anupama Srinivasan / Atul Gupta / Gargi Sen / Gurvinder 
Singh/
Kavita Joshi/ Nakul Sood / Rahul Roy / Raj Baruah/ Ranjani Mazumdar/ Saba
Dewan / Samina Mishra / Sanjay Kak / Sanjay Maharishi / Sabeena Gadihoke /
Sameera Jain/ Sherna Dastur/ Shikha Jhingan/ Shuddhabrata Sengupta / 
Shohini
Ghosh / Shubhradeep Chakravorty / Uma Devi)

Feb 22-24 Max Mueller Bhawan,
Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi / tel 23332 9506
Feb 21 Sarai Programme / CSDS,
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi / tel 2396 0040

Information: delhifilmarchive at yahoo.com

---------------------------------

Schedule of Events

Day 1 : 21 February 2006 Tuesday
Sarai CSDS, Rajpur Road

4:00 ­ - 7:00 P.M. : Interrogating Censorship
Andres Veiel (Berlin) Jitman Basnet (Kathmandu/ Delhi) Malathi Maithri
(Pondicherry) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar) Vinod Jose (New Delhi) Chair
Shuddhabrata Sengupta


**************


Day 2 : 22 February 2006 Wednesday
Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg

9:30 - 10:00 A.M. : Opening Remarks
Rahul Roy / Delhi Film Archive

10:00 - 11:30 A.M. : Reports from the Region
Hassan Zaidi (Karachi) Jitman Basnet (Kathmandu/ Delhi) Prasanna Vithanage
(Colombo) Tanvir Mokammel (Dhaka) Tenzin Tsundoe (Dharamsala) Video
Intervention: May Nyein (Burma) presented by Nem Davies Chair Amar Kanwar

12:00 - 1:30 P.M. : Framed by The Law
Lawrence Liang (Bangalore) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Discussants: Jitman 
Basnet /
Prasanna Vithanage / Hassan Zaidi Intervention: Shahid Amin (Delhi) Chair
TBA

2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Court Encounters
PA Sebastian (Mumbai) Sara Hossein (Dhaka)
Discussants: Lawrence Liang / Prasanna Vithanage Chair Prashant Bhushan

4:30 - 6:00 P.M. : Silences from Srinagar & Shillong
Aijaz Hussain (Srinagar) P G Rasul (Srinagar) Robin S Ngangom (Shillong)
Tarun Bhartiya (Shillong) Intervention: Parvaiz Bukhari (Srinagar) Chair
Sanjay Kak

6:00 P.M. : Screening
Black Box Germany (102 min)
dir: Andres Veiel (director present)
discussant: Shuddhabrata Sengupta


**************


Day 3 : 23 February 2006 Thursday
Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg

10:00 - 11:00 A.M. : "Private" Censorship
Andres Veiel (Berlin) Chair Shuddhabrata Sengupta

11:30 - 1:30 P.M. : Locating Hate & Censorship
Deepak Mehta (Delhi) Sara Hossein (Dhaka) Shohini Ghosh (Delhi)
Intervention: Arundhati Roy (Delhi) Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Delhi) Jawed
Naqvi (Delhi) Chair Dilip Simeon

2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Writing The Body and Mind
Malathi Maithri (Pondicherry) Sanjay Srivastava (Delhi) In Conversation:
Shuddhabrata Sengupta & Shohini Ghosh Chair TBA

4:30 - 6:00 P.M. : Fiction in The Censor's Web
Anurag Kashyap (Mumbai) Prasanna Vithanage (Colombo) Tanvir Mokammel 
(Dhaka)
Vimukthi Jayasundara (Colombo/Paris) Chair Ranjani Mazumdar

6:00 P.M. : Screening
Sulanga Enu Pinisa
(The Forsaken Land)
dir: Vimukthi Jayasundara (director present)


**************


Day 4 : 24 February 2006 Friday
Max Mueller Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg
10:00 - 11:30 A.M. : Voices made invisible
Anil Chamadia (Delhi) Ravi Kumar (Chennai) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar)
Intervention: Vimal Thorat Chair Gargi Sen

12:00 - 1:30 P.M. : The Business of Censorship
CP Chandrashekhar (Delhi) Jawed Naqvi (Delhi) Najam Sethi (Lahore) Paranjoy
Guhathakurta (Delhi) Chair TBA

2:30 - 4:00 P.M. : Towards a "Counter Culture"
Amar Kanwar (Delhi) Hassan Zaidi (Karachi) Sudhir Pattnaik (Bhuvaneshwar)
Mukul Mangalik (Delhi) Chair Saba Dewan

4:30 - 6:00 pm : Open Space

6:00 P.M. : Screening
Purahanda Kaluwara
(Death on a Full Moon Day)
dir: Prasanna Vithanage (director present)

------------------------------------------------

List of Speakers and Panelists

Aijaz Hussain, Srinagar currently writes on politics and business for India
Today and Business Standard from Srinagar. Before this, he wrote for about
four years for the Daily Excelsior, a regional newspaper published from
Jammu. He has also worked briefly for CNBC-TV18 television network. Besides
these he has been reporting on assignment for Associated Press. Aijaz
Hussain has an MA in Mass Communication & Journalism (1999).

Andres Veiel, Berlin is one of Germany´s most important documentary
filmmakers. His breakthrough documentary Balagan (1993), was a portrait 
of a
controversial Israeli theatre group. His subsequent film, The Survivors
(1996) investigates the suicides of three young men. His highly acclaimed
Black Box Germany (2001) received the European Film Award for best
Documentary, and was released in numerous German movie halls. His latest
film Addicted to Acting (2004) won the Panorama Audience Award at the 
Berlin
International Film Festival.

Anil Chamadia, New Delhi is a writer and columnist, who has been a
commentator on political and social issues for almost all the major Hindi
dailies - Jansatta, Navbharat Times, Hindustan, Amar Ujala and Dainik
Bhaskar. He also writes a column on the electronic media for the literary
magazine Kathadesh. As a Special Correspondent/Writer with Business India
Television's TVI channel, he has also produced more than 1000 news 
bulletins
for prime-time news.

Anurag Kashyap, Mumbai is a writer turned director and his writing credits
include several Hindi films like Paisa Vasool (2004), Jung (2000), Kaun
(1999) and Satya (1998). He has written dialogues for Main Aisa Hi Hoon,
(2005), Yuva (2004), Nayak : The Real Hero (2001) and Shool (1999). Anurag
Kashyap¹s directorial debut Paanch (Five) (2003) has been twice refused a
clearance certificate by the censor board. His film Black Friday (2004) on
the Mumbai blasts has also run into censor problems.

Arundhati Roy, New Delhi is a writer, and the author of the novel, The God
of Small Things. Collections of her political essays have been published in
India as The Algebra of Infinite Justice and The Ordinary Person¹s Guide to
Empire.

C.P.Chandrashekhar, New Delhi is Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and
Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi. He has taught at the 
Centre
for Development Studies, Trivandrum and the School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London. He is an economic columnist for Frontline 
and
Business Line. His publications include Crisis as Conquest: Learning from
East Asia (Tracts for Our Times 12, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2001) and 
The
Market the Failed: Neoliberal Economic Reforms in India, (Leftword Books,
New Delhi, 2002/2004) both co-authored with Jayati Ghosh.

Deepak Mehta, Delhi is a Reader in the Department of Sociology, University
of Delhi. He is the author of Work, Ritual, Biography: A Muslim 
Community in
North India (OUP 1977). Since 1994 he has been researching on violence
between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay.

Dilip Simeon, Delhi taught at the History Department of Ramjas College,
Delhi from 1974 till1994. His work on the labour movement of southern Bihar
was published as The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism (1995). As
part of the Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan (Movement Against Communalism) he
participated in a campaign for communal harmony and justice for the victims
of the 1984 carnage in Delhi. Dilip has been a visiting scholar at the
universities of Surat, Sussex, Chicago, Leiden and Princeton. From 1998 
till
2003 he worked as senior research fellow on conflict issues with Oxfam
(India) Trust in Delhi, and is now chairperson of the Aman Trust, which
works to understand and reduce violent social conflict.

Hassan Zaidi, Karachi is an award winning journalist and filmmaker, who has
been associated with the Pakistani monthly Herald, Geo TV, Singapore's
Channel News Asia, and Star News. He currently works as a
producer-correspondent for NBC News and writes for a number of 
international
papers (including India Today) and has produced radio packages for the 
BBC's
Urdu service. He has directed a number of documentaries, music videos and
shorts, and the feature film Raat Chali Hai Jhoom Ke. He is currently
Director of the KaraFilm ­ Karachi International Film Festival.

Jawed Naqvi, New Delhi is a former Chief Reporter of Gulf News and News
Editor of Khaleej Times, and a veteran journalist who has also worked for
many years with Reuters in Delhi. He has covered wars from frontlines in
Iran, Iraq, Western Sahara, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and
Jaffna. After the nuclear tests of 1998, he embarked on a mission of
cross-border journalism, campaigning against nuclear madness and human
rights abuses. He writes as a freelance journalist for the Karachi Dawn and
the Dhaka New Age. Occasionally writes for Tehelka and appears as an 
analyst
for TV channels

Jitman Basnet, Kathmandu is a lawyer and journalist by profession, and has
been editor and publisher of Sagarmatha Times a national monthly magazine
published from Kathmandu, and Cine Hotline. In Sep 2002, he was arrested by
the Maoists but eventually released. In Feb 2004 Jitman Basnet was arrested
by the Royal Nepal Army and was in detention for about 10 months. The 
reason
for his arrest was an article that he had written about the army¹s 
violation
of human rights. Subsequent to his release he was forced to escape from
Nepal, and at present lives in exile in Delhi.

Lawrence Liang, Bangalore is a researcher at the Alternative Law Forum a
collective of lawyers who work on various aspects of law, legality and
power. Lawrence has been working on a research project on the politics of
intellectual property in collaboration with Sarai/CSDS, and is also very
interested in the intersection of law and culture. He has recently 
completed
a monograph on censorship and cinema in India called The Public is watching
(for PSBT).

Malathi Maithri, Pondicherry is a Tamil poet (and activist) whose poems are
considered highly inventive in the Tamil context. Her published collections
include Sankaraabarani 2002, Neerindri Amaiyaathu Ulagu 2003, and Neeli
2005. Her articles, serialized in the magazine Theranathi, encouraged many
young woman writers to identify and articulate their silenced voices and 
are
published as Viduthalai Ezhuthuthal (Writing the Freedom) 2004. With her
fellow poet Kirushangini she published an anthology of modern women¹s poems
Paratthal Athan Suthanthiram. She is the founder secretary of Ananku, a
forum for feminist activities.

Najam Sethi, Lahore is an eminent Pakistani journalist, editor, and news
media personality and Editor-in-Chief of The Friday Times and The Daily
Times. An aggressively independent journalist, Najam Sethi and his
publications are often in trouble with Pakistani governments. He was
imprisoned by then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a case that evoked an
international outcry that eventually pressured the government to release
him.

P.A.Sebastian, Mumbai is a lawyer working in the field of civil liberties
and democratic rights of the people since 1977. In the Bombay textile 
strike
he filed 28 writs of Habeas Corpus to secure the release of trade union
workers. He has also fought a celebrated case of illegal land allotment to
Judges of the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. He has written
articles for several journals including the Economic & Political Weekly.

Prashant Bhushan, Delhi is a public interest lawyer and activist who has
been involved in Public Interest Law and activism involving issues of
corruption and accountability, the environment, and human rights. He has
been on the governing bodies of several public interest organisations
including the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, the
People's Union for Civil Liberties, the Committee on Judicial
Accountability, and the Citizen's Forum against Corruption. He has also
authored The case that shook India Bofors: the selling of a nation, and
writes in various publications on issues of public interest.

P.G.Rasool, Srinagar has been writing in Urdu for the past fourteen years,
in a weekly column on current affairs in Kashmir Uzma (Greater Kashmir) the
Urdu weekly published from Srinagar. He has also authored a book titled
Kashmir 1947 (Urdu). The book looks at the events of 1947 and the 
origins of
the Kashmir issue. Rasool is widely respected for his probing and
dispassionate analysis of events and political commentary. P G Rasool is a
postgraduate in Mass Communication & Journalism from the University of
Kashmir.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Delhi started his career as a journalist in June
1977 and has worked with Business India, BusinessWorld, The Telegraph, 
India
Today and The Pioneer. And with TV18 for almost six years where he anchored
a daily interview and discussion programme called ³India Talks² on the CNBC
channel. He has also directed a number of documentary films including Idiot
Box or Window of Hope and University of Delhi: A Haven of Learning. He is
co-author (with Shankar Raghuraman) of A Time of Coalitions: Divided We
Stand, (Sage India 2004). He is currently Director of the School of
Convergence.

Prasanna Vithanage, Srilanka directed his first film Sisila Gini Gani (Ice
on Fire) 1992 won nine OCIC (Sri Lanka) Awards including Best Director, 
Best
Actor and Best Actress. His second feature Anantha Rathriya (Dark Night of
the Soul), 1996 won a Jury's Special Mention at the First Pusan
International Film festival. Pawuru Walalu (Walls Within) 1997 won the Best
Actress Award at the Singapore International Film Festival 1998. His 
feature
Purahanda Kaluwara (Death on A Full Moon Day) 1997, won the Grand Prix at
the Amiens Film Festival. Initially banned by the government of Sri Lanka,
it has since become the most successful film in the half century long
history of cinema in Sri Lanka. Prasanna has just completed his fifth film
ŒIra Madiyama¹.

Ravi Kumar, Pondicherry is a writer, essayist and translator, who started
the critical magazines Nirapirikai (The Spectrum) and Dalit, which does not
limit itself to dalit literature or dalit issues, but focuses on other
writings/cultures. He is the editor of Bodhi, the Tamil dalit history
quarterly. He also wrote the life of Malcolm X in a serialized form for
Dalit Murasu (run by the Dalit Media Network) and the revived history of 
the
so-called untouchable poet, Nandanar, which is carried in serialised 
form in
Thai Mann (run by Dalit Panthers of India). In association with the
journalist S.Anand, he has recently started the alternative publishing
house, Navayana. He is a former President of the People¹s Union for Civil
Liberties, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu.

Robin S Ngangom, Shillong is a Manipuri English poet and a translator of
Manipuri writing. He has published two volumes of poetry, and edited
Anthology of Contemporary poetry from North East. His latest collection of
poems is being published by Chandrabhaga Press. He currently teaches in
Shillong

Sanjay Srivastava, Delhi is a social anthropologist, currently on leave 
from
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. His key publications include
'Constructing Post-colonial India. National Character and the Doon School'
(1998), 'Asia. Cultural Politics in the Global World' (2001, co-author),
'Sexual Sites, Seminal Attitudes' (2004, contributing editor), and, 'An
Education of the Passions. Sexuality, Consumption and Class in India' (In
Press).

Sara Hossain, Dhaka is a lawyer practicing in the high court division of 
the
Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She is actively involved with Ain o Salish
Kendra [law and mediation centre], and the Bangladesh Legal Aid & Services
Trust, a national legal services organisation. She earlier worked with
Interights, and International Human Rights Law Centre, London. Her
publications include Honour Crimes, Paradigms and Violence against Women
(co-edited with Lynn Welchman), Zed Press, London 1995. She has acted in a
number of cases involving the censorship of films, or banning of
publications

Shahid Amin, Delhi received his D.Phil. from Oxford University and is
currently Professor of History at the University of Delhi. Among his
publications are Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (1995)
and Writing Alternative Histories: A View from India (2002) as well as
several seminal essays in Subaltern Studies - of which project he is one of
the founding editors. He is the editor of A Concise Encyclopaedia of North
Indian Peasant Life (2005), the co-editor, with Gyan Pandey, of Nimnvargiya
Itihas, Bhag Ek, Bhag Do (1994, 2001), and has also written the Hindustani
dialogues of the feature film Karvan directed by Pankaj Butalia. He has 
been
a Visiting Fellow at Stanford, Princeton, and Berlin.

Sudhir Pattnaik, Bhuvaneshwar, is Editor of Samadristi an Oriya fortnightly
news magazine and is Chairman of Independent Media - an alternative media
group consisting of filmmakers, writers and journalists who work for
developing alternative media initiatives in Orissa.

Tenzin Tsundoe, Dharamshala is a writer-activist born to a Tibetan refugee
family in India. After graduating from Chennai, he crossed the Himalayas on
foot to enter Tibet, where he was arrested by the Chinese border police, 
and
after three months in prison in Lhasa, was pushed back to India. He has 
been
widely published in a range of Indian and foreign publications and has won
the first-ever Outlook-Picador Award for Non-Fiction in 2001. Since 1999
Tsundue has worked with Friends of Tibet (India) in 1999 as its general
secretary. In January 2002 he scaled the scaffolding to the 14th floor of
the Oberoi Towers in Mumbai to unfurl a Tibetan national flag and a banner
which read "Free Tibet" down the hotel's façade while China's Premier Zhu
Rongji was inside addressing a conference of Indian business tycoons. In
April 2005, he repeated this feat during the Bangalore visit of the Chinese
Prime Minister Wen Jia Bao.

Tarun Bhartiya, Shillong is an activist with the freedom project 
Shillong. A
Hindi poet with published work in Samkalin Bhartiya Sahitya, Pahel, Hans,
Akshar Parv, and the Sarai Reader. Tarun is also a filmmaker whose work in
progress is called Tourist Information for Shillong (four parts done - 
fifth
being thought about). He has worked for NDTV and Campkins Camera Centre (a
camera shop). Currently Tarun Bhartiya is founding-member of alt-space, an
open space for culture and politics in Shillong.

Tanvir Mokammel, Dhaka is a filmmaker with several award winning
documentaries and feature films to his credit. His features include Nadir
Nam Modhumat (The River named Modhumati) 1995 which received three national
awards and Chitra Nadir Pare (Quiet Flows the river Chitra) 1998 a feature
film on the destiny of a Hindu family in East Pakistan after the partition
of India in 1947. It received seven national awards including best film,
best story, best script writing, best art direction and best director of 
the
year. Lalsalu (A tree without roots) 2001 centers on the life of a Mullah
who establishes a false shrine in a remote village in Bangladesh and
received eight national awards including the best film, best script 
writing,
best cinematography, best sound and best director of the year. His latest
feature Lalon 2004 is based on the life and persona of the mystic
song-composer Lalon Fakir. His documentaries include Hooliya (Wanted),
Smriti Ekattor (Remembrance), Achin Pakhi (The unknown bard) and 
Karnaphulir
Kanna, (Teardrops Of Karnaphuli), a documentary on the plight of the
indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a film that has been 
banned
by the Government of Bangladesh. Tanvir Mokammel is a prolific writer who
has taught film and film appreciation at the Viswa Sahitya Kendro and
Standford University. He is the Director, Bangladesh Film Institute.

Vimal Thorat, Delhi is a well-known writer in Hindi who teaches the 
language
at the Indira Gandhi National Open University. She is deeply concerned with
issues of marginalisation, and deprivation of the dalit people and her
pioneering work has brought to the forefront the special deprivation and
status of Dalit women . She was the President of the Dalit Writer's
Association and gave the fledgling group a dynamic direction. She is
associated with many national and international human rights organisations.

Vimukthi Jayasundara, Srilanka As a 28-year-old Vimukthi became only the
second filmmaker from Sri Lanka to compete for an award at the Cannes Film
Festival in 2005. Jayasundara¹s film Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land)
competed in the Un Certain Regard section and received the Caméra d¹Or,
Cannes¹s award for first-time filmmakers. Jayasundara worked in the
advertising industry and wrote film reviews before studying at the Film and
Television Institute of India from 1998 to 2001. Returning to Sri Lanka, he
joined the Government Film Unit and made The Land of Silence, a
black-and-white documentary about the victims of Sri Lanka¹s civil war. In
2001, he received a grant to continue his film studies in France at Le
Fresnoy. As a student there Jayasundara made Empty for Love (2002), a short
film that was selected for Cinéfondation, the student category at Cannes.

Amar Kanwar
Rahul Roy
Ranjani Mazumdar
Saba Dewan
Sanjay Kak
Shohini Ghosh
Shudhabhrata Sengupta
are film-makers and members of the Delhi Film Archive



_______________________________________________
announcements mailing list
announcements at sarai.net
https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements