[Reader-list] Justice on Trial: 3 Days of Cultural Events in Support of Binayak Sen

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

*Justice on Trial:***

three days of cultural events

*April 4 – 6, 2011***

* *

@ Alliance Francaise de Delhi

72, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi 110003



Justice on Trial is a collaborative programme put together by leading
contemporary artists, photographers, film makers, musicians,  
performers, and
activists to commemorate struggles for democracy, freedom and rights. An
exhibition of photographs and art works, talks performances and  
screenings
all are directed at drawing renewed attention to the trial of Dr.  
Binayak
Sen, who has emerged in recent times as a symbol of courageous  
resistance,
and a reminder of the many injustices that surround us. Our aim is to
provoke a dialogue with the colours and sounds that emerge from the  
idea of
what Dr. Sen represents.*   *

*          *

*April 4 (Monday)*



5:00 pm Music: Them Clones  / Imphal Talkies (Auditorium)

6:00 pm Film: “AFSPA 1958” (52 mins, 2006, dir: Haobam Paban Kumar)  
(Audi.)

6:30 pm Opening of Art Exhibition (Gallery) / Poster Exhibition

7:00 pm Panel: Vrinda Grover, in conversation with Prof Ilina Sen and  
Aruna
Roy

8:00 pm Performance: Arjun Raina / "Like a Bird on a Wire" (35 mins)



*April 5 (Tuesday)*



10:00 am – Art Exhibition (Gallery) / Poster Exhibition

5:00 pm Music: Manzil / Faith Gonsalves (Audi.)

6:00 pm Film: Prisoners of Conscience (45 mins, 1978, dir: Anand  
Patwardhan)

7:00 pm Panel: Anand Patwardhan, Sharmila Tagore, Manglesh Dabral

8:00 Performance: Inder Salim / “I am Dr. Binayak Sen” (20 mins )



*April 6 (Wednesday)*

* *

10:00 am – Art Exhibition (Gallery) / Poster Exhibition

5:00 pm Music: The Ska Vengers (featuring Delhi Sultanate) (Audi.)

6:00 pm Panel: Prof Amit Bhaduri / Arundhati Roy / Kavita Srivastava /
Prashant Bhushan

8:00 pm Performance: Dastan-goi / Mahmood Farooqi & Danish Hussain  
(45 mins
)


*
*

*The Participants*

*
*

*The Art Exhibition* has been put together by the artist Probir  
Gupta, and
features work by leading contemporary artists: Anandajit Roy, Arun Kumar
H.G, Bharti Kher, Gigi Scaria, Mithu Sen, Pablo Bartholomew, Parthiv  
Shah,
Prashant Panjiar, Probir Gupta, Ram Rahman, Sharmila Samant, Shreyas  
Karle,
Subodh Gupta, Susanta Mondal, T.V Santosh

*
*

*The Poster Exhibition* is a series on the work of Dr Binayak Sen and Dr
Ilina Sen over the last three decades in Chhattisgarh, where their work
ranged from providing healthcare, to setting up food security systems,
public health campaigns as well as human rights work. This graphic
presentation combines the work of seven graphic artists associated with
People Tree, and are a prelude to a comic book on the life of Dr Sen.  
The
contributing artists are: Orijit Sen, Esa Esasi, Rajiv Gautam,  
Vishwajyoti
Ghosh, Parismita Singh, Girirraj Kang, and Herojit Sinam.

*Films***

**

*AFSPA 1958 / dir. Haobam Paban Kumar / 52 mins / 2006***


The film by a young Manipuri director won the President’s ‘Swarn  
Kamal’ for
the best documentary at the National Film Award, 2008, and the  
FIPRESCI Jury
Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival, 2006. It follows the
protests that engulfed Manipur in the aftermath of the murder of Manorma
Devi by the armed forces. **

“Director Haobam Paban Kumar narrates and observes. He knows the  
difference
between a film and a political manifesto. Besides his personal  
partisanship
and engagement, he is, as a filmmaker he always stays behind the camera.
This makes the great difference
” Rüdiger Suchsland, FIPRESCI Jury member

*
*

**

*Prisoners of Conscience / dir. Anand Patwardhan / 45 mins / 1978*


The film is an important historical record of a traumatic period in  
India's
recent political history, as it unravels the stories of the political
prisoners during the State of Emergency that India experienced from June
1975 to March 1977.


"The power of the film derives from its restraint. Restraint does not  
imply
a reluctance to state facts. The film does that only too clearly." *The
Times of India*


"A paean to those in the past and those in the present who have not
hesitated to struggle for a just society and who, in the process, may  
have
been imprisoned or even lost their lives." * **Critical Asian Studies*

* *

*Performances*

**

*"Like a Bird on a Wire" / Arjun Raina / 35 mins*

This is a performance about two old Indian men, Leonard Peltier,  
leader of
the American Indian movement, and in prison for 36 years for a crime  
he did
not commit, and my nameless father, now 82 years old, waiting for the
political atmosphere between India and Pakistan to improve so he may  
spend
another Basant in his beloved Lahore.



Leonard Peltier is now 65, and more than half his life has been spent  
as a
prisoner. He insists his only enemies are the system, and the justice
department. The case against Peltier was not only flawed, but  
grotesquely
dishonest, unfair and unjust, replete with admittedly perjured  
testimony and
fraudulent evidence by the FBI. Peltier was found guilty in the 1975
shooting deaths of two FBI agents during a range war on the Lakota-Sioux
reserve, near Wounded Knee, where, in 1973, there was a highly  
publicized
71-day siege. The Pine Ridge range war was between traditional,
back-to-roots Indians, and “progressive” mixed-blood Indians who  
favoured
the mining of uranium on Indian land. The militant American Indian  
Movement
(AIM) sided with the traditionalists, while the FBI, Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA) and authorities backed the progressives.



ARJUN RAINA is a Kathakali dancer, an Actor, a Playwright, and an  
Acting and
Voice teacher. Trained as an Actor at The London Academy of Music and
Dramatic Art, and with Sadanam Balakrishnan at the International  
Center for
Kathakali. Has taught Acting, Voice and Speech at the National School of
Drama India. His original plays and performances include: *The Magic
Hour*(Kathakali and Shakespeare, 2000),
*A Terrible Beauty is Born* (on International Call Centers in India,  
2003),
and *Like a Bird on a Wire* (2007)

*“I Am Dr. Binayak Sen” / Inder Salim / 20 mins*

This performance art piece begins outside the auditorium, apparently
randomly, but will culminate on the stage. There is the Colour Red,  
and a
white surface, an Iron Cage and some White Hospital Gauze which will  
speak
loudly, in solidarity with Dr. Binayak Sen, and other such ....



INDER SALIM, born in Kashmir 1965.  His statement -- "I usually  
introduce
myself: This InderSalim Stuff from Kashmir...with love. I do  
Performances,
Photography, Poster making and Video and even Painting and sclupture. I
write poems as well. I maintain a blog : Conceptual is the key word  
which
drives me to do ART. No big claims, in spite of some National and
International exposure."

*
*

*Dastangoi / Mahmood Farooqui & Danish Hussain / 45 mins*

The many adventures of Dr. Binayak Sen as he negotiates the rough  
terrains
of the state of Chattisgarh.



MAHMOOD FAROOQUI studied history In India and at the university of  
Oxford as
a Rhodes Scholar. Over the last four years he has worked to revive
Dastangoi, the lost art of storytelling in Urdu.  Farooqui also  
contributes
opinion pieces to leading newspapers and magazines. His book on the 1857
uprising in Delhi was recently published by Penguin. He is the co- 
director
of the critically acclaimed film – Peepli Live.



DANISH HUSAIN is a poet, actor, and a dastango. With Mahmood Farooqui  
and
Anusha Rizvi he has been helping revive *Dastangoi*. His other recent
projects include acting assignments in feature films *Peepli Live*  
and *Dhobi
Ghat*, and directing the *Making of Peepli Live*.

*MUSIC*

THEM CLONES* *were created sometime in 2000.  Inspired by the  
dramatic world
of rock n' roll and of course themselves, their tryst with  
songwriting has
directed them across the course of the thoughtful to confessional,  
from the
assertive to the provocative; but has been, consistently, accompanied  
by a
tight groove or a silken melody.


FAITH GONSALVES* *is a singer and a social entrepreneur. In 2008 she
founded, "Music Basti", an education and awareness project that works
towards empowering street children through music. Accompanied on the  
guitar
by ADHIR GHOSH, who plays with the band ‘Five8’ in Delhi. He is a  
Masters
student at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU.


MANZIL *is a non-profit organization providing a community - and  
resources -
for local youth from low-income backgrounds to learn, teach, be  
creative,
and see the world in new ways, especially through music.*


IMPHAL TALKIES have been called ‘the new voice of Manipur and the new  
voice
of the Northeast’ by the Rolling Stone magazine. It takes its name  
from the
name of a cinema theatre in front of Kangla fort that screened only ‘A’
rated movies, which in a conservative society like Manipur and in a  
small
town like Imphal, was ahead of the times. The band members write lyrics
contemporary (or ahead of their times) and get invitations to perform  
not
only in music concerts but also during public protest.


THE SKA VENGERS (featuring DELHI SULTANATE) is a new Delhi based band  
who
blend ‘ska’ rhythms with elements of dub, punk, jazz and rap to come  
up with
a form of music that is different, energetic and highly danceable. As
performers in their own right, Nikhil, Stefan, Tony and Samara play in
acclaimed psychedelic disco band Emperor Minge, and are regular  
performers
on India’s first cabaret show ‘The Stiff Kittens’ Medicine Show’. Delhi
Sultanate has garnered much praise for his highly skilled, socially
conscious rap, with drum ‘n’ bass team BASSFoundation, and his highly
rhythmic patois provides a suitable foil to Samara’s more sweet and  
soulful
renderings; whilst Raghav is also known as selecta with DJ collective
‘Reggae Rajhas’.

*
*

*PANELISTS*


ARUNA ROY is one of the founders of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti
Sangathana<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Mazdoor_Kisan_Shakti_Sangathana>,
and a prominent leader of the Right to
Information<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information>movement.
She is also a member of the National
Advisory Council <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
National_Advisory_Council>.

ARUNDHATI ROY is a writer and an
activist<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activist>who has written on
issues of social
justice <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice> and economic
inequality <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality>. She won
the Booker
Prize <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_Prize> in 1997 for her  
novel, *The
God of Small Things* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
The_God_of_Small_Things>,
and has also written two
screenplays<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenplay> and
several collections of essays.

AMIT BHADURI is Professor Emeritus at the Jawaharlal Nehru University,
Delhi, and taught at many universities across the world. His most recent
book is ‘The Face You Were Afraid to See: Essays on the Indian
Economy<http://www.allbookstores.com/Face-You-Were-Afraid-See/ 
9780143068273>’
(2009), essays on economic conditions in India after the ‘reforms’.

ANAND PATWARDHAN is one of India’s best known documentary film makers  
and
internationally acknowledged for his hard hitting films that have
consistently raised the most important human rights issues facing the
country since the mid 1970s.

ILINA SEN is a Professor at the Mahatma Gandhi Antar Rashtriya
Vishvavidyalaya, Wardha, and a prominent activist of the Indian women’s
movement. With Dr Binayak Sen she has lived and worked among the tribal
people of MP and Chhattisgarh since 1980.

KAVITA SRIVASTAVA is the General Secretary of the People Union for Civil
Liberties and a long standing activist of the women’s movement. She  
lives in
Jaipur

.

MANGLESH DABRAL is one of the best known contemporary Hindi poets whose
works have been translated into nearly all the Indian languages, besides
English, Russian, German, Spanish, Polish and Bulgarian. A journalist by
profession, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for the poetry  
collection
Hum Jo Dekhte Hain (That Which We See)

PRASHANT BHUSHAN is a senior lawyer at the Supreme Court, and a  
prominent
public interest advocate, and a leading figure in the Campaign for  
Judicial
Accountability.

SHARMILA TAGORE started her acting career as the main lead in  
Satyajit Ray’s
Devi. She went on to become one of the most outstanding actors of the  
Mumbai
cinema. She was until recently the Chairperson for the Central Board  
of Film
Certification.

VRINDA GROVER is a well-known human rights lawyer based in Delhi.


Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net