[Reader-list] Thoughts about Indo Centrism from Istanbul

[Gargi Sen]

Dear friends who fear and abhor Indo centrism,
Shudhha, I read your post with the usual delight - of course waiting for and
knowing I was not going to get - a detailed drawing of you experiencing a
massage in the hamam. Nevertheless, I read, enjoyed, and went to bed BUT
couldn't sleep because something kept niggling at me. And here I am, once
again sleepless, writing...

The niggling in my head is with the Indo Centrism that you, Naem and some
others talk about. And to my mind the problem is fundamentally a conflation
of various identities - national, cultural and artistic.

I joined, no I jumped into the debate when I found that this list was
drawing some heavy duty flak from a set of self-appointed guardians without
imagination. My rage arose simply from the conscious, tactical attacks on an
individual, an artist, and the levels to which the allegations stooped.
Nevertheless, my reason for joining were two, first to defend free speech
and artistic freedom, and two, to expose the ARKP+VD for what they really
are: a bunch of bigots braying for blood.Now the incident that provoked me,
and many more to write happened on the accidentally cartographed territory
of India. But the debate is not about India at all.

The debate to my mind is fundamentally about Art entering contested
terrains. It's primarily about art and artistic freedom in areas of
conflict. So it is incidentally about Jashn-e-azadi and Sanjay Kak but more
about freedom or how we are allowed to engage with it. Nevertheless, it is
also about the two as they - the film and the artist - are being evoked over
and over. Replace these two names with Taslima Nasreen and 'Lajja' (Shame)
or any other two from growing history of art and artists in exile/ silenced/
under threat/ forced to migrate/ killed and tell me has the contour of the
debate sifted in any significant manner?

I don't think so. So I refuse to buy the Indo Centric bullshit.

Of course a lot of the talk has addressed the AR2KP+VD bunch. But I see that
as a tactical encounter between freedom lovers and boundary drawers. And I
think there are lesson in it for all. Few days ago I circulated a paper on
this list that brings footsteps from history into the heart of the debate,
(and if memory serves me that was in Germany - has India annexed Germany?
Since when?) And i think while the gang and their string pullers ahve been
somewhat successful on the ground, here on cyber-space they stand exposed.
Now whether that is going to significantly change the ground reality I don't
know, but i can't help but wonder, and I have on and off wondered -
especially since Rana and Jeebesh started to explore terms, methods,
potentials and visions of this list both as a site and object of engagement
- would it have made any difference had there been a cyber community when
Taslima Nasreen was forced to flee into exile? I don't know and perhaps its
simply speculative and hence unnecessary.

But I don't see any reason to be defensive about the debate. its simply
about Art and Survival, and the survival of art.

I am a citizen of India by law and a resident of earth by my political,
intellectual and artistic inclination. I don't believe in borders and
boundaries. nevertheless, I love living in the city of my residence. It
carries the imprint of overlapping of histories, a history of deep love and
deep conflict, od Sufism and invaders, of endless kings and equally endless
resistance, together, simultaneously. I, like many others in this list,
could have chosen to reside anywhere else in the world. But I chose this
ancient land not because I am a national but because my life and spirit is
deeply mingled with the chaotic culture of this city. (RIght now I am
writing from another though.) I remember reading something by the author
Arundhati Roy where she said that she couldn't live in the west simply
because good manners and hyegine would kill her. I echo that sentiment. So
even if, and when, we come to a stage of no borders, I might still end up
living here - in love and hate, living as a nomad but compelled to return
forever, to nourish the spirit by returning home. And the day dual/ triple/
multiple citizenship is allowed i will stand in queue for citizenship of
Zanzibar, then Tanganika and then Peru while my politically correct friends
are welcome to queue up for Palestine, South Africa and North Korea. And
we'll visit each other too. But I will still live and return forever to this
maddening, exhausting, aggressive, chaotic and profoundly contradictory city
because I love it.

Now where is the contradiction in the two? My deep love for a culture I love
(and hate, but love's like that only) and my profound faith in no borders.

The first shapes and nurtures my art and politics and the latter is my
vision that nevertheless I will insist on seeing from the artist's lens -
that is my personal inclination. So I'll choose Zanzibar because I lve the
sound of the name and because I love the mystery of its overlapping history
but will completely support someone's choice of Palestine or even New York.
But what I can't stomach is someone telling me I have no choice, which I
don't at present but I can still dream for  future. And I will protest when
anyone tries to stop me dreaming on the grounds of nation or boundaries of
identity or any other.

The other interesting aspect of the debate is in the tactics of resistance,
resisting mobocracy with reason, logic, arguments and humour. And with hope
and faith that the minds that think such dark, blinkered and perhaps
indoctrinated thoughts, through their engagement with others on htis list,
might just glimpse a different picture of the world that they are prepared
to go to any lengths to build. And this space, this cyber-space, this
perhaps is the only possible space that such encounters can take place, So I
and many others write simply for that reason.

And where in all this is Indo centrism?

Is art attacked only in India? Does the clash of identity and freedom happen
only in India? Is this the only time we have witnessed a tactical attack-art
by-attacking-artist? What is so uniquely Indian about harassing/ accusing
and falsely implicating the artist? Is this the first time that mobocracy
has churned out the mantra of nation and terrorism to restrict and curtail
the boundaries of speech?

And to take that one step further, must I deny/ ignore/ hide the cultural
context of that defining moment in history that brings Art and bigotry face
to face? Is connecting cyber-chord allowed only after disconnecting the
culture-chord? Is culture not political? To be a citizen of the world, to be
relevant to others from other worlds, must I loose my cultural index and
history? But how impossibly boring that would be. if i couldn't talk of
things that shape and excite me, or those that pain and humiliate me, what
can I talk about?

And how deeply intolerant that position is. I can't talk about an attack on
a film because it happens to be Indian! Really. How is this position - and
the boundary that it delineates - different from the boundaries that ARKP+VD
are hammering into our heads? Where's the difference? Except perhaps the
Indian state/ nation/ nation state/ whatever and its completely
discriminatory and big-brotherly attitude to neighbours. I am willing to
apologise for the mis-endeavours of the state as I have once apologised for
the use of Hindustani without providing translations, but how is any of this
relevant when we are talking of Art and artistic freedom?

If the attack on Art doesn't interest Naem and other I am fine with that,
maybe we will connect on ecology, maybe human right, maybe even the Farakka
barrage and the deeply unequal water-sharing treaty. but to trash the entire
debate in which positions are being articulated and explored, face to face
with those totally opposed to those precise positions - an articulation
hitherto impossible but made possible through the internet - on the grounds
of Indo centrism is deeply problematic if not totally prejudiced.

I refuse to paint the recent debate as Indo centric as these problems exists
in all nations, regions, cities, homes and perhaps minds.

Gargi