[Reader-list] Thoughts about Indo Centrism from Istanbul

[Aman Sethi]

Further,

Turkey too, has had a troubled relationship with its idea of
turkishness.  The recent trials of Orhan Pamuk -(of Istanbul and My
name is Red)  and Elif Shafak (The bastard of Istanbul) on grounds of
insulting the Republic.  To quote from Wikipedia

"In June 2005, Turkey introduced a new penal code including Article
301, which states: "A person who, being a Turk, explicitly insults the
Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be punishable by
imprisonment of between six months to three years." Pamuk was
retroactively charged with violating this law in the interview he had
given four months earlier. In October, after the prosecution had
begun, Pamuk reiterated his views in a speech given during an award
ceremony in Germany: "I repeat, I said loud and clear that one million
Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey.""

Now that i put this down, i'm not sure of the point i am trying to
make - but one could say that most nations/states/communities and even
people - seem to have their own spaces of the "unspeakable" - and that
the unspeakable is rarely consistent. Now that the storm has blown
over - perhaps we could engage with the  minor currents that have been
swirling around for a while, but were passed by in the heat of debate.

I would just like to try and explore the idea of the "unspeakable" -
not just in the realm of censorship - either by states or pressure
groups.  Its a question that has troubled me for a while - i dont
claim to have resolved it.

I often travel on work to different parts of North-central India, and
a lot of my work as a journalist involves talking to people about
grief, loss and intimidation by the state and those it patronizes.
The language of narrating grief often tiptoes dangerously along the
boundary of the unspeakable, where the interviewee struggles to convey
an experience - yet at the same time strives to emerge from the
interview with his or her dignity intact.  The narration of a moment
of one's own powerlessness is perhaps the hardest thing that anyone
can do.

So how does an artist/author/journalist deal with this world - how do
they convey the idea of the unspeakable?  What is their responsibility
to the sources of their stories? And how does this tie in to the idea
of the fearless artist or intrepid journalist who dares speak a truth
that no-one else will? Why will no one else speak that truth? What
will that truth do to those who have to live with its consequences
everyday? And is this truth abt the artist, journalist or film-maker,
or is it the truth about a person who he or she has only tangential
affiliation to?

A.





On 9/11/07, Gargi Sen <sen.gargi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
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