[Reader-list] reader-list Digest, Vol 46, Issue 43

[atreyee majumder]

On Hindol Sengupta:

"*We, the middle-class, educated, metro-bred,
Christian-education raised, young. We, the backbone of the knowledge,
entreneurial economy. We, who have no representation. We have no voice.
We have no one who speaks our language, our idiom."
*
I think Sengupta hints at something more than the 'objective' position- he
mentions the enormous power wielded by the middle-class- in terms social
capital, economic power, access to global economy and opportunities arising
through the global window, but does not seem to think much of it. He
mentions that the middle-classes don't matter as a vote-bank, but forgets
that our higher judiciary and top bureaucracy is entirely middle-class, and
hence, a large part of the middle-class worldview resonates in the state
machinery already. Sengupta seems to have ignored or underestimated the role
played by agencies like the Planning Commission, other non-elected governing
bodies, which are significant avenues of power and influence especially in
an unwieldy democracy.
Sengupta seems to have also assumed the 'objective' point of view in
imagining that the middle-classes are immune to corruption-
cambridge-educated  leaders, judges, bureaucrats, corporate top bosses
across the world have not exactly lived up to the rational, squeaky clean,
mega-efficient, accountable portrait that Sengupta seems to have  painted.

On the other hand, I don't agree with Shivam's pristine picture of Dalit
political leadership either. Had a Mayawati or Yadav been the key solution
to caste-marginalisation, UP and Bihar would not pick up guns everytime an
election was around. Had the CP(I)M been representative of the 'proleteriat'
it would not be feeding land to big corporates today. I think our
intellectual urge to analyse drives us soemtimes to simplify power
equations, because the other option would be to leave the puzzle
unsolved,  which is an urge I identify with, but wish away...



On 5/18/07, reader-list-request at sarai.net <reader-list-request at sarai.net>
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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Why i am afraid of Mayawati? (Rakesh)
>   2. Re: Why i am afraid of Mayawati? (Shivam Vij)
>   3. National centre for Advocacy Studies - internship programme
>      (anil varghese)
>   4. Dragonball in India? (christiane brosius)
>   5. [Announcements] URBAN ALLEGORIES: The City in Bombay      Cinema -
>      Lecture by Ranjani Mazumdar (Aarti Sethi)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 18:04:56 +0800
> From: Rakesh <rakesh at sarai.net>
> Subject: [Reader-list] Why i am afraid of Mayawati?
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <464C28C8.1030209 at sarai.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed
>
> Certainly not my opinion, but an opinion from a "middle-class, educated,
> metro-bred, Christian-education raised, young" journalist...
> Salaam
> Rakesh
>
> Mayawati's historic victory has left me speechless. And scared. Her
> victory tells me once again how I, and people like me, have no voice in
> Indian politics anymore. We, the middle-class, educated, metro-bred,
> Christian-education raised, young. We, the backbone of the knowledge,
> entreneurial economy. We, who have no representation. We have no voice.
> We have no one who speaks our language, our idiom.
>
> We are the people who rejoice every time Manmohan Singh takes stage. He
> is us. He is the success of education and middle class values rising to
> the top. Only, shudder, he failed to win a poll.
>
> We, the non-vote bank. We, who must remember that Manmohan Singh rises
> because of Sonia Gandhi. Because of loyalty to the Family. We, who form
> no mass base.
>
> For more read
>
> http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/hindolsengupta/104/40458/why-i-am-afraid-of-mayawati.html
>
> --
> Rakesh Kumar Singh
> Sarai-CSDS
> 29, Rajpur Road
> Delhi-110054
> Ph: 91 11 23960040
> Fax: 91 11 2394 3450
> web site: www.sarai.net
> web blog: http://blog.sarai.net/users/rakesh
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 02:28:08 +0530
> From: "Shivam Vij" <mail at shivamvij.com>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Why i am afraid of Mayawati?
> To: rakesh at sarai.net
> Cc: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Message-ID:
>        <9c06aab30705171358s17abbc3cy9c14849d9dfd05d0 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"; format=flowed
>
> Thanks for posting this Rakesh. This is a very important post on the
> CNN IBN website's otherwise dull blog section. It has been written by
> Hindol Sengupta who covers fashion and suchlike for them. He says he
> can't relate to Mayawati, finds it ironic that the "backbone of the
> knowledge, entreneurial [sic] economy" should be a "non-vote bank". He
> says that his class of people, his 'type' - People Like Us, to use a
> cliche - "rejoice every time Manmohan Singh takes stage" but alas,
> even he couldn't win a Lok Sabha election from South Delhi.
>
> The reason why I think it is an important post is that unlike most
> other PLUs, Sengupta makes no claim to 'objectivity'. When Youth for
> Equality / United Students / other 'anti-reservationists' oppose
> reservations, and speak about Dalits/OBCs, they claim to be doing so
> with a claim to 'objectivity', that is, they do not admit that the
> viewpoint(s) they are putting forward are of a certain section of
> society that is influential in shaping public opinion despite being in
> a minority.
>
> Sengupta admits not only his discomfiture with a democratically
> elected Mayawati but also that his discomfiture stems from his
> background, from who he is. He describes himself and his ilk as
> "middle-class, educated, metro-bred, Christian-education raised,
> young." That would abbreviate into MEMCRY, but let's just use the word
> 'yuppie'.
>
> It is quite extraordinary and laudatory for a yuppie to admit his
> distance from the political rise of the 'low-class, neo-literate,
> village-bred, government school-raised, middle aged'. Such an
> admission is a rarity, and it is exactly what the
> 'anti-anti-reservationists' want the 'anti-reservationists' to admit.
>
> Sengupta's 'realisation', though, is an incomplete one. Except for a
> passing reference in the last paragraph, he does not mention that the
> distance between Us and Them is in great measure that of language.
> Conversations on class, social mobility and suchlike these days seem
> to forget the Hindi/English divide. It has been left to Kancha Iliah
> and Chandrabhan Prasad now to remind us of it.
>
> Unfortunately the realisation of his being a PLU doesn't go too far.
> But the honesty does extend to his class bias: his problem with Lalu
> having a buffaloes in his backyard and on Mayawati he writes: "But
> forward planning? Infrastructure ideas? Modernity? Mayawati, alas, is
> the quintessential behenji."
>
> So what about Lalu's success as railway minister? Could it be that
> Mayawati hasn't been able to work on development because she's not
> been in power for more than two years collectively in three terms?
> Could it be that Mayawati's Ambedkar Villages scheme has made the
> ceiling fan finally whirl in a few villages and allowed a few Dalits
> to gather the courage to go to the police station and file an FIR
> against the men who raped their daughter? Could it be that the
> Dalit-Brahmin alliance by Mayawati could force a Brahmin or two to
> give up untouchability and accept dalits as part of the same social
> realm as theirs?
>
> The questions don't bother Sengupta because the answers don't affect
> him. In other words, another area where I would like Sengupta to
> extend his realisation to is middle class self-centredness. The middle
> class cares only about itself, the rest may go to hell. If this is
> true even in perception, that is bad enough.
>
> I also hope his realisation will sooner or later extend to adding the
> phrase 'upper caste' to MEMCRY. After so much heat on reservations,
> are the yuppies still blind to the fact that PLUs are exclusively
> upper-caste? Whether its is by design or default that the middle class
> is predominantly (if not exclusively) upper caste is arguable. Whether
> this should be changed by improving the quality of primary schools
> and/or by reservations in higher education, is debatable. But no one
> can dispute that the Indian middle class is composed of the upper
> castes. Yet they choose not to admit this. Sengupta honestly admits
> that his convent education, metropolitan upbringing, class status are
> the causes of his dismay (and 'fear'!) over Mayawati's victory. I wish
> he'd extend this honesty to admitting that his caste is responsible in
> the first place for his MEMCRY yuppie status.
>
> He detests the heartland politicians because they don't speak his
> idiom. But the heartland politicians are who they are largely because
> of their caste.
>
> Kumari Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Lalu Prasad
> Yadav and others of their ilk are symbols, literally, of the political
> assertion of those below the middle class. The logic of such political
> assertion, according to Sengupta, is:
>
> "It's the same logic that kept Lalu in power, that allowed him to
> argue that development is nothing. He brought something more to his
> voters - he was one of them, and for those who had been oppressed for
> centuries, to see one of them in power, to see a CM who kept buffalos
> in his backyard was intoxicating. It was a real sense of power. No
> roads or electricity could beat that."
>
> If Sengupta roots for Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra just because he
> can relate to them, why shouldn't those not fortunate to have his
> MEMCRY yuppie status not vote for leaders whom *they* can relate with?
> If "those who had been oppressed for centuries" (as if they aren't
> anymore) can enjoy a "real sense of power" by having one of their ilk
> in the CM's chair, then should we conclude that Sengupta and the
> yuppie class he represents also wants the same venal pleasure by
> seeing people of their ilk in power?
>
> Sengupta's understanding of caste politics - that the lower castes,
> the 'oppressed', vote for People Like Them for a sense of power - is
> to miss the wood for the trees. Indeed, if you ask Dalits in a remote
> village in eastern Uttar Pradesh (as I did in the middle of February
> this year) why they vote for Mayawati, they will actually say that
> they do so because she brings them dignity, because she is one of
> their own. In the mid-nineties Mayawati used to say in her rallies,
> "Main Chamar ki beti hoon. Main Chamari hoon, main tumhari hoon."
>
> But the reason why Dalits feel the need to have one of their own in
> power is because they think that only then will they have the roads
> and electricity they need - something Sengupta suggests
> foreign-educated Rahul Gandhi will deliver better than someone like
> Mayawati who has risen from a village and knows what it is like not to
> have roads and electricity.
>
> In one village I went to near Allahabad, there was a road going to a
> Brahmin basti, one to a Srivastava basti, but not one to a Dalit
> basti. The residents of that Pasi (a Dalit caste) basti told me that
> this was plain discrimination because of their caste. And they voted
> for Mayawati for her to change that. They voted for her again and
> again in the hope that some day she'll get full five years in power.
> (I thought it was quite remarkable that in a Dalit basti in a village
> they knew of the five year system!) If they see Mayawati not
> delivering the goods, they will stop voting for her one day. Just like
> they stopped voting for the Congress that produced the Rahuls and
> Priyankas but not roads and electricity in villages.
>
> An office colleague, who despite having done his customary duties at
> the JNU elections can be counted as a member of the MEMCRY yuppie
> class, told me that his Brahmin parents in urban, BJP-voting Lucknow
> enthusiastically voted for the BSP. Growing up in Lucknow myself, I
> learnt less about the non-existent 'Lakhnavi tehzeeb' than about
> Dalit-OBC politics because it was all happening before me. The day La
> Martiniere College shut down to allow a Samajwadi Party rally on its
> grounds was, in retrospect, a remarkable day when heartland politics
> was able to interrupt a middle class factory.
>
> But so many years of living under Maya and Mulayam has taught
> Lucknow's and Uttar Pradesh's middle class to live with it. And love
> it. If my colleague's parents voted for the BSP, and Brahmin lawyers
> like Satish Chandra Mishra are suddenly becoming aware of their
> Brahmin status and joining the BSP in large numbers, it speaks of a
> convergence of interests.
>
> Ambedkar, and his followers such as Mayawati, wanted Dalits to
> "educate, organise and agitate", capture power and then use power to
> open the doors of equality for Dalits. Kanshi Ram translated the idea
> to the masses by showing them a pen. The cap, he said, was how much
> the upper castes were. The rest of the body of the pen was
> Dalits/OBCs/Muslims ("Bahujans"). Despite being together in a majority
> they were being ruled by a minority o upper castes. The pen stood
> vertically. He said he wanted to make it horizontal, where everyone
> was equal. Brahmins, OBCs and Muslims voting for Mayawati and bringing
> her to power is exactly the fulfilment of that idea, even if
> politically but not yet socially.
>
> Caste politics, Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Mayawati n UP have proved,
> is not stagnant. It is rather a caste *churning*. Something's
> happening here. Some thing's changing. Hindol Sengupta doesn't need to
> be afraid of it. He can join it.
>
> [apologies for a long post and for cross-posting it on Kafila.org]
>
> best
> shivam
>
> On 5/17/07, Rakesh <rakesh at sarai.net> wrote:
> > Certainly not my opinion, but an opinion from a "middle-class, educated,
> > metro-bred, Christian-education raised, young" journalist...
> > Salaam
> > Rakesh
> >
> > Mayawati's historic victory has left me speechless. And scared. Her
> > victory tells me once again how I, and people like me, have no voice in
> > Indian politics anymore. We, the middle-class, educated, metro-bred,
> > Christian-education raised, young. We, the backbone of the knowledge,
> > entreneurial economy. We, who have no representation. We have no voice.
> > We have no one who speaks our language, our idiom.
> >
> > We are the people who rejoice every time Manmohan Singh takes stage. He
> > is us. He is the success of education and middle class values rising to
> > the top. Only, shudder, he failed to win a poll.
> >
> > We, the non-vote bank. We, who must remember that Manmohan Singh rises
> > because of Sonia Gandhi. Because of loyalty to the Family. We, who form
> > no mass base.
> >
> > For more read
> >
> http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/hindolsengupta/104/40458/why-i-am-afraid-of-mayawati.html
> >
> > --
> > Rakesh Kumar Singh
> > Sarai-CSDS
> > 29, Rajpur Road
> > Delhi-110054
> > Ph: 91 11 23960040
> > Fax: 91 11 2394 3450
> > web site: www.sarai.net
> > web blog: http://blog.sarai.net/users/rakesh
> >
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
>
> --
> http://www.shivamvij.com
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 05:53:33 +0000
> From: "anil varghese" <aniltharayath at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [Reader-list] National centre for Advocacy Studies -
>        internship      programme
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <BAY112-F3CA0AC4A65710A52F0D50AF320 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
> National centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS)announce internship programme
> for
> 9th batch 2007- 2008.
>
> Advocacy Internship Programme (AIP) is a unique venture of National Centre
> for Advocacy Studies, which has been in operation since the year 1999.  It
> aims at developing a set of young and dedicated professionals who are
> committed to social activism. It is a program that caters to the need of
> social activism and enriches the participants with the political
> perspective, knowledge, and skills required for effective public advocacy.
>
> for prospectus and application form go though the below link:
> http://www.ncasindia.org/public/staticpages/ncas_internship.asp
>
> for more information regarding NCAS go through below link:
>   www.ncasindia.org
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Free & easy posting . Yello Classifieds.
>
> http://www.yello.in/home.php?utm_source=hotmailtag&utm_medium=textlink&utm_content=in&utm_campaign=april
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 07:30:44 +0000
> From: "christiane brosius" <cbrosius at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [Reader-list] Dragonball in India?
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <BAY110-F235AD591C163C2EBDA4D42CF320 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>
> Dear Sarai list-members
> Is there anyone among you who would be able to help me out about a
> particular storyline that has circulated widely, especially in and between
> China and Japan, but also the western hemisphere: I am referring to
> �Dragonball�, also known under �The Journey to the West�, the story of a
> monkey/man going on an adventurous pilgrimage to look for Buddhist
> scriptures in India. The Chinese novel has, for instance, been adapted in
> manga format in Japan.
> I wonder whether this tale has been received and traded in India too, and
> whether you know of comics or any other (audio-)visual media that have
> dealt
> with the theme?
> Looking forward to hearing from you, thanks for our attention and help,
> Christiane
>
>
>
>
> Christiane Brosius
> Assistant Professor,
> Department of Anthropology
> South Asia Institute
> Im Neuenheimer Feld 330
> 69120 Heidelberg
> Germany
> ph.: ++49-(0)6221-548938
> see also www.tasveerghar.org
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 14:41:09 +0530
> From: "Aarti Sethi" <aarti.sethi at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] URBAN ALLEGORIES: The City in
>        Bombay  Cinema -        Lecture by Ranjani Mazumdar
> To: announcements at sarai.net
> Message-ID:
>        <48c2916d0705170211j7e48eab1o9e7d5a4edcabd294 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of
> Westminster
>
> PUBLIC LECTURE
>
>
>
> *URBAN ALLEGORIES: The City in Bombay Cinema*
>
> Dr Ranjani Mazumdar
>
> British Academy/ESRC Visiting Fellow at University of Westminster
>
> Associate Professor of Cinema Studies
>
> School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi,
> India.
>
> Thursday 31st May, 6.15pm
>
> The Old Cinema, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London W1B
> 2UW
> Chair: Rosie Thomas, Director of Centre for Research and Education in Arts
> and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster.
>
> You are invited to a lecture by Dr Ranjani Mazumdar to inaugurate her
> British Academy/ESRC Visiting Fellowship at the University of Westminster
> and also to launch her book* Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the
> City*published this month by University of Minnesota Press:
> Minneapolis and
> London.   There will be a drinks reception afterwards.  All welcome.
>
> Cinema is not only a major Industry in India, it is a powerful cultural
> force. But until now, no one has undertaken a major examination of the
> ways
> in which films made in Bombay mediate the urban experience in India. In
> her
> analysis of the cinematic city, Ranjani Mazumdar reveals a complex
> postnationalist world, convulsed by the social crisis of the 1970s and
> transformed by the experience of globalisation in the 1990s. Her account
> leads us into the heart of the urban labyrinth in India, revising and
> deepening our understanding of both the city and the cinema.
>
> For further details please contact Ranita Chatterjee at CREAM:
> R.Chatterjee at westminster.ac.uk
>
>
> ALL WELCOME
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