No subject

happening in Delhi, and that we did not have to buy an expensive plane ticket 
and worry about a rapidly dwindling set of dollar bills. So, the cost factor 
being brought into this argument is doubly perverse. You cannot argue first, 
that the event is colonialist and then that it would be better if the 
'ex-colonized' such as us were kept out of it by holding it in some place 
geographically near to where you are, where we would never try and catch a 
flight to unless someone was paying for the ticket. We think it reveals some 
foresight on the part of the organizers to actually have platforms dispersed 
in four continents, so that people get a chance to participate even if they 
don't buy expensive plane tickets.

As for your suggestion that the event have better online dissemination 
strategies, we agree that a discussion list for the platforms, as well as a 
more imaginative form of web presence on the part of Documenta XI would have 
helped. (Incidentally, the website - www.documenta.de - has begun to stream 
the Vienna presentations and the responses on their web site, with the Delhi 
ones to follow.)

3. The institutional setting of the location of Platform 2 in Delhi - The 
India Habitat Centre
This has been addressed in the introductory remarks prior to the discussion of 
point 1.

4. The paucity of local participation

This charge is not backed by any material evidence. There were  five Indian 
featured panelists out of a total of twenty presentations from four 
continents. That means 25% of the featured presenters were Indians. The 
majority of Chairpersons and moderators were from India. And there was no 
paucity of Indian discussants after each of the presentations. For someone who 
was not present to pass judgement over the quantity of local participation in 
the event is very strange.

5. The lack of local back up and research

What organizational problems may or may not have occurred due to the quality 
and level of local institutional back up and research is for the organisers of 
the event and the curatorial team to judge. We can say that we personally were 
contacted and met in New Delhi by a researcher working to assist the 
curatorial team as far back as the January 2000. We also know that this 
researcher met and had discussions with many other artists and practitioners 
in Delhi and other parts of India. We were pleasantly surprised to see the 
curatorial team well briefed about the local scene here, as a result of this 
and other inputs.

6. .  The lack of attention to local concerns - and to the
 " the spiritual dimension of truth which underpins india's identity even 
today"

At least four of the presentations, by Urvashi Butalia, Dilip Simeon, Shahid 
Amin and Rustom Bharucha - were specifically addressing difficult and 
contentious episodes in recent Indian history. By this count, India and 
concerns that could be called local in New Delhi got top billing. There have 
been reservations expressed in the discussion about the event on this list 
about the fact that many of the speakers from outside did not do more than 
offer a token obeisance to the specificities of history, society and culture 
in this part of the world. This is a general malaise, and has to do with the 
self-obsessive nature of much of intellectual production, due to which people 
are reluctant to productively engage with those elements of experience or 
discourse that are not immediately available to them. This is more of a 
problem in the west than it is in intellectual circles in India. Indian 
intellectuals happen to know more about Europe and North America, than most 
European and North American Intellectuals know about India. This 'asymmetry of 
ignorance'  that has to do with a skewed intimacy with European intellectual 
culture and the English language is one of those legacies of colonialism which 
contributes to the ascent of the Indian intellectual in a global market of 
ideas. He/she is and is able to appear in some ways far more sophisticated. 
However, the average Indian intellectual would be just as ignorant or unaware 
of matters pertaining to Africa, or Latin America, or West, Central and 
Southeast Asia or even Australia. Intellectuals in India are often pleasantly 
surprised by how well his/her African counterpart knows the history of Indian 
cinema, (because of the long history of the hegemony of Indian popular cinema 
in Africa) but would be hard put to speak about any of the many African cinema 
cultures with any degree of knowledge or understanding. This is an instance of 
a never ending chain of the 'asymmetry of ignorance'.

As for "the spiritual dimension of truth which underpins india's identity even 
today", we find any normative statements about 'India's Identity' flawed by 
their inherent essentialism. To claim, for or on behalf of any culture, 
greater or lesser reservoirs of 'spirituality' or 'reason' or 'aesthetic 
sensitivity' is to do violence to the complex and contradictory nature of 
cultural history. It is also to posit, what in our opinion is, always a false 
boundary. We have never been able to get a satisfactory answer to the question 
as to where the boundaries of India's identity lie, and where the boundary of 
a non-Indian, or western identity begins.

with warm regards
Raqs Media Collective
(Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta)
-- 
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
SARAI:The New Media Initiative
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road
Delhi 110 054
India
Phone : (00 91 11) 3960040