[Reader-list] HIV and male circumcision

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear Sanjay,

You're welcome!!

But tears and laughter apart I am amazed by the articulate silence on
part of our so called intelligentsia and the so called media to
produce informed ideas and arguments about identity, identification
and identification practices.

In the recent history we have seen how -Identity- was used, especially
in the late eighties and nineties, as a force to mobilize people for
political capital and after twenty years this notion has become so
everyday that there's going to be a massive, massive transfer of
capital in the name of securing identities of all 'Indians' and there
seems to be absolutely no sophisticated, intelligent, critical
discourse emerging from our so called sociologists, political
scientists, economists, documentary film makers to analyze, inform and
engage active citizenry. Maybe it is time to do a real time analysis
of an unfolding social reality and built some stakes in way in which
we are governed or we want to be governed.

Here we are... still debating about circumcision, when the State is
telling us, that LOOK!!! circumcision may not matter any more. All men
can grow beard and all can have their penis circumcised, so long as
their fingerprints are in order, so long as they have a plastic token,
so long as they are remembered by a digital archive.

Warm regards

Taha