[Reader-list] Justice on Trial -4/5/6 April at Alliance Francaise, New Delhi . 5 to 9 pm. Art Exhibition/Posters/Music/Performances/Talks

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

Free Binayak Sen Campaign
 
Justiceon 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 togetherby leading 
contemporary artists, photographers, film makers, musicians,performers, 
and activists to commemorate struggles for democracy, freedom 
andrights. An exhibition of photographs and art works, talks 
performances andscreenings all are directed at drawing renewed 
attention to the trial of Dr.Binayak Sen, who has emerged in recent 
times as a symbol of courageousresistance, and a reminder of the many 
injustices that surround us. Our aim isto provoke a dialogue with the 
colours and sounds that emerge from the idea ofwhat Dr. Sen 
represents.  
         
April 4 (Monday)
 
5:00 pmMusic: Them Clones  / Imphal Talkies(Auditorium)
6:00 pmFilm: “AFSPA 1958” (52 mins, 2006, dir: Haobam Paban Kumar) 
(Audi.)
6:30 pmOpening of Art Exhibition (Gallery) / Poster Exhibition
7:00 pmPanel: Vrinda Grover, in conversation with Prof Ilina Sen and 
Aruna Roy
8:00 pmPerformance: Arjun Raina / "Like a Bird on a Wire" (35 mins)
 
April 5 (Tuesday)
 
10:00 am –Art Exhibition (Gallery) / Poster Exhibition
5:00 pmMusic: Manzil / Faith Gonsalves (Audi.)
6:00 pmFilm: Prisoners of Conscience (45 mins, 1978, dir: Anand 
Patwardhan)
7:00 pmPanel: Anand Patwardhan, Sharmila Tagore, Manglesh Dabral
8:00Performance: Inder Salim / “I am Dr. Binayak Sen” (20 mins )
 
April 6 (Wednesday)
 
10:00 am –Art Exhibition (Gallery) / Poster Exhibition
5:00 pmMusic: The Ska Vengers (featuring Delhi Sultanate) (Audi.)
6:00 pmPanel: Prof Amit Bhaduri / Arundhati Roy / Kavita Srivastava / 
Prashant Bhushan
8:00 pmPerformance: Dastan-goi / Mahmood Farooqi & Danish Hussain (45 
mins )
 


TheParticipants


The ArtExhibition has been put together by the artist Probir Gupta, 
andfeatures work by leading contemporary artists: Anandajit Roy, 
ArunKumar H.G, Bharti Kher, Gigi Scaria, Mithu Sen, Pablo Bartholomew, 
ParthivShah, Prashant Panjiar, Probir Gupta, Ram Rahman, Sharmila 
Samant, ShreyasKarle, Subodh Gupta, Susanta Mondal, T.V Santosh


ThePoster Exhibition is a series on the work of DrBinayak Sen and Dr 
Ilina Sen over the last three decades in Chhattisgarh, wheretheir work 
ranged from providing healthcare, to setting up food securitysystems, 
public health campaigns as well as human rights work. Thisgraphic 
presentation combines the work of seven graphic artists associated 
withPeople Tree, and are a prelude to a comic book onthe life of Dr 
Sen. The contributing artists are: Orijit Sen, EsaEsasi, Rajiv Gautam, 
Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Parismita Singh, Girirraj Kang, andHerojit Sinam.
Films

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


Thefilm by a young Manipuri director won the President’s ‘Swarn Kamal’ 
for thebest documentary at the National Film Award, 2008, and the 
FIPRESCI Jury Awardat the Mumbai International Film Festival, 2006. It 
follows the protests thatengulfed Manipur in the aftermath of the 
murder of Manorma Devi by the armedforces.
“Director Haobam Paban Kumar narrates and observes. He knowsthe 
difference between a film and a political manifesto. Besides his 
personalpartisanship and engagement, he is, as a filmmaker he always 
stays behind thecamera. This makes the great difference…” Rüdiger 
Suchsland, FIPRESCI Jurymember



Prisoners of Conscience / dir. AnandPatwardhan / 45 mins / 1978


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


"Thepower of the film derives from its restraint. Restraint does not 
imply areluctance to state facts. The film does that only too clearly." 
TheTimes of India


"Apaean to those in the past and those in the present who have not 
hesitated tostruggle for a just society and who, in the process, may 
have been imprisonedor even lost their lives."  CriticalAsian Studies
 
Performances

"Like a Bird on a Wire" / Arjun Raina/ 35 mins
This is a performance about twoold Indian men, Leonard Peltier, leader 
of the American Indian movement, and inprison for 36 years for a crime 
he did not commit, and my nameless father, now82 years old, waiting for 
the political atmosphere between India and Pakistanto improve so he may 
spend another Basant in his beloved Lahore.
 
LeonardPeltier is now 65, and more than half his life has been spent as 
a prisoner. Heinsists his only enemies are the system, and the justice 
department. The caseagainst Peltier was not only flawed, but 
grotesquely dishonest, unfair andunjust, replete with admittedly 
perjured testimony and fraudulent evidence bythe FBI. Peltier was found 
guilty in the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agentsduring a range war 
on the Lakota-Sioux reserve, near Wounded Knee, where, in1973, there 
was a highly publicized 71-day siege. The Pine Ridge range war 
wasbetween traditional, back-to-roots Indians, and “progressive” 
mixed-bloodIndians who favoured the mining of uranium on Indian land. 
The militantAmerican Indian Movement (AIM) sided with the 
traditionalists, while the FBI,Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and 
authorities backed the progressives.
 
ARJUNRAINA is a Kathakali dancer, an Actor, a Playwright, and an 
Acting andVoice teacher. Trained as an Actor at The London Academy of 
Music and DramaticArt, and with Sadanam Balakrishnan at the 
International Center forKathakali. Has taught Acting, Voice and Speech 
at the National School of DramaIndia. His original plays and 
performances include: The Magic Hour (Kathakali and Shakespeare, 2000), 
 A Terrible Beauty is Born (onInternational Call Centers in India, 
2003), and Like a Bird on a Wire (2007)
“I AmDr. 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 
willspeak loudly, in solidarity with Dr. Binayak Sen, and other such 
....
 
INDER SALIM, born in Kashmir 1965.  His statement -- "I usually 
introducemyself: This InderSalim Stuff from Kashmir...with love. I do 
Performances,Photography, Poster making and Video and even Painting and 
sclupture. I writepoems as well. I maintain a blog : Conceptual is the 
key word which drives meto do ART. No big claims, in spite of some 
National and Internationalexposure."


Dastangoi/ Mahmood Farooqui & Danish Hussain / 45 mins
Themany adventures of Dr. Binayak Sen as he negotiates the rough 
terrains of thestate of Chattisgarh.
 
MAHMOOD FAROOQUIstudied 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 ofstorytelling in Urdu.  Farooqui 
alsocontributes opinion pieces to leading newspapers and magazines. His 
book on the1857 uprising in Delhi was recently published by Penguin. He 
is the co-directorof the critically acclaimed film – Peepli Live.
 
DANISH HUSAIN is a poet, actor, and adastango. With Mahmood Farooqui 
and Anusha Rizvi he has been helping revive Dastangoi. His other 
recentprojects include acting assignments in feature films Peepli Live 
and DhobiGhat, and directing the Makingof Peepli Live.
MUSIC
THEMCLONES werecreated sometime in 2000.  Inspired bythe dramatic world 
of rock n' roll and of course themselves, their tryst withsongwriting 
has directed them across the course of the thoughtful toconfessional, 
 from the assertive to the provocative; but has been, 
consistently,accompanied by a tight groove or a silken melody.


FAITHGONSALVES is asinger and a social entrepreneur. In 2008 she 
founded, "MusicBasti", an education and awareness project that works 
towardsempowering street children through music. Accompanied on the 
guitar by ADHIRGHOSH, who plays with the band ‘Five8’ in Delhi. Heis a 
Masters student at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU.


MANZIL is a non-profitorganization providing a community - and 
resources - for local youth fromlow-income backgrounds to learn, teach, 
be creative, and see the world in newways, especially through music.


IMPHALTALKIES have been called ‘the new voice of Manipur and the 
newvoice of the Northeast’ by the Rolling Stone magazine. It takes its 
name fromthe 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 townlike 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 musicconcerts but also during public 
protest.


THESKA VENGERS (featuring DELHI SULTANATE) is a new Delhi basedband who 
blend ‘ska’ rhythms with elements of dub, punk, jazz and rap tocome 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 inacclaimed psychedelic disco band Emperor Minge, and are 
regular performers onIndia’s first cabaret show ‘The Stiff Kittens’ 
Medicine Show’. Delhi Sultanatehas garnered much praise for his highly 
skilled, socially conscious rap, withdrum ‘n’ bass team BASSFoundation, 
and his highly rhythmic patois provides asuitable foil to Samara’s more 
sweet and soulful renderings; whilst Raghav isalso known as selecta 
with DJ collective ‘ReggaeRajhas’.                  


PANELISTS


ARUNA ROY is one of the founders ofthe Mazdoor KisanShakti Sangathana, 
and a prominent leader of the Right toInformation movement. She is also 
a member of the NationalAdvisory Council.

ARUNDHATI ROY is a writer and an activist who haswritten on issues 
of social justice and economic inequality. She won the Booker 
Prize in1997 for her novel, The God of SmallThings, and has also 
writtentwo screenplays and several collections of essays.

AMIT BHADURI is Professor Emeritusat the Jawaharlal Nehru University, 
Delhi, and taught at many universitiesacross the world. His most recent 
book is ‘The Face YouWere Afraid to See: Essays on the Indian Economy’ 
(2009), essays on economic conditions in India after the ‘reforms’.

ANAND PATWARDHAN is oneof India’s best known documentary film makers 
and internationally acknowledgedfor his hard hitting films that have 
consistently raised the most importanthuman rights issues facing the 
country since the mid 1970s.

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

KAVITA SRIVASTAVAis the General Secretary of the People Union for Civil 
Liberties and a longstanding activist of the women’s movement. She 
lives in Jaipur
.
MANGLESH DABRAL is oneof the best known contemporary Hindi poets whose 
works have been translatedinto nearly all the Indian languages, besides 
English, Russian, German,Spanish, Polish and Bulgarian. A journalist by 
profession, he received theSahitya Akademi Award for the poetry 
collection Hum Jo Dekhte Hain (That WhichWe See)

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

SHARMILATAGORE started her acting career as the main lead in 
SatyajitRay’s Devi. She went on to become one of the most outstanding 
actors of theMumbai cinema. She was until recently the Chairperson for 
the Central Board ofFilm Certification.

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






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