[Reader-list] Indo-centrism On Sarai

[Swadhin Sen]

Dear all

The ubiquitous silence of  the  sarai subscribers  about Naeem's mail is noteworthy. 

'Freedom of speech' is always entwined with the power relations. We may send mails after mails to sarai. Yet, it doesn't mean that we will be heard. In liberal version, the act of writing and act of speaking assumes the action of other parties in taken for granted terms. The weak and marginalized may be permitted to speak and write; but this agency doesn't inhere the act of listening and consequent corrective measures.

How will 'we', the non-Indians, interpret this action (in term of refraining from acting and/or participating in the debate)?

Thanking all,

Swadhin
 
Swadhin Sen 
Archaeologist 
& 
Assistant Professor 
Department of Archaeology 
Jahangirnagar University 
Savar, Dhaka 
Bangladesh 
Ph. 88 01720196176 (mobile)

----- Original Message ----
From: S.Fatima <sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in>
To: Naeem Mohaiemen <naeem.mohaiemen at gmail.com>; reader-list at sarai.net
Sent: Saturday, September 8, 2007 3:37:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Indo-centrism On Sarai

No, no... we won't talk about Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Aren't those regions part of the Akhand Bharat. I hope
you know what akhand means. You better start learning
Hindi or else you would be branded anti-national. You
are a security threat to our Rashtra. You are a
Bangladeshi.

(Sorry Naeem - that wasn't real me. I think being on
the Sarai list I am slowly turning into a Patriotic
Indian, which practically means being a Gaurav shali
Bharatiye and no longer respecting other cultures and
languages).

By the way, they were exchanging Urdu couplets, not
Hindi. Since when has Urdu become Indian?



--- Naeem Mohaiemen <naeem.mohaiemen at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are many members of Sarai who are neither
> Indian, nor
> Hindi-speakers.  But Indian members of Sarai seem so
> oblivious to
> their Indo-centrism that they presume that we will
> be able to, or want
> to, follow debates that are at this point even
> written entirely in
> Hindi (I refer to recent posts where entire couplets
> are posted in
> Hindi w. no translation).
> 
> This comes at the cost of many other debates that
> could possibly
> happen.  I've witnessed items posted regarding
> Bangladesh sinking
> without a trace/response.  Recently, particular
> "Indian" topics have
> generated hundreds of replies, drowning out all
> else.  The only time a
> Bangladeshi cultural producer (Taslima Nasreen) gets
> debated is when
> what is at stake is how she was treated in India. 
> Only when Taslima
> is a vehicle to debate Hyderabad values, Indian
> secularism, etc does
> she become a person of interest.
> 
> Bangladesh/Pakistan/or elsewhere in South Asia does
> enter into other
> discussions-- as a foil.  To insert immigration into
> the debate, and
> of course the ultimate insult that can be flung at
> Suddha is that "he
> is no longer in Bangladesh".
> 
> This weekend, I was talking to Manosh Chowdhury, who
> has just returned
> from Japan to Dhaka. Unprovoked he started talking
> about how "we" is
> used unquestioningly on Sarai to mean "Indian". 
> Even "South Asian"
> means "Indian", or at least everything non-Indian is
> through the prism
> of the "center".
> 
> But it's a bore to be the resident scold, or a
> token.  I fear
> eventually most who feel suffocated by the recent
> endless debate (a
> debate which is often between a few individuals,
> sometimes even
> one-to-one, and yet it gets sent to the entire list)
> will have
> Manosh's reaction.  They will drift away, exhausted.
> 
> As Jeebesh pointed out, it takes very little time to
> destroy a
> cyber-community that has been built up painstakingly
> by Sarai over the
> years.  Tyranny of the few threatens to do just
> that.
> _________________________________________
> 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/>



      DELETE button is history. Unlimited mail storage is just a click away. Go to https://edit.india.yahoo.com/config/eval_register
_________________________________________
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/>






       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting