#Mukul Kesavan

[indizombie]

Palestinian violence is not unprovoked. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is amongst the longest-standing occupations of modern times. It is an occupation that has continuously expanded. The land earmarked for a Palestinian State has been deliberately sown with Jewish settlements to ensure that no contiguous territory exists on which a Palestinian State might be built. The theft of land destroys Palestinian livelihoods. Their disenfranchisement reduces them to helots. Their claim to East Jerusalem is continuously eroded through evictions. Hard Right governments, settlers and orthodox fanatics relentlessly challenge the status quo at Jerusalem's sacred sites. The nature of the occupation produces a routine of provocation which the Palestinian subject of Israel's raj must endure daily, to merely survive.

Mukul Kesavan, ‘Philistines and Pharisees’, Telegraph

[momental]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi fulfilled a long-standing dream on Monday by presiding over the opening of the Ram Mandir, a Hindu temple in Ayodhya. He described it as the 'beginning of a new era' during the temple's inaugural ceremony. The temple's construction marks a decisive break with secularism in India, as it was built on the site where a four-hundred-year-old mosque, Babri Masjid, once stood before being destroyed by a mob in 1992.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary organization, were aligned with the mob that destroyed the mosque. Both the BJP and RSS envision India as a Hindu nation, despite its large Muslim population. In 2019, after a legal dispute, the Supreme Court of India allowed for the construction of the Hindu temple on the disputed site.

Modi's involvement in the temple goes back several decades when he was a young Hindu activist raising funds for its construction. Now, as the Prime Minister in his second consecutive term, the completion of the temple is likely to be a centerpiece of his future election campaigns.

In an interview with essayist and historian Mukul Kesavan, they discussed Modi's popularity, the violent history of the Ayodhya dispute, and what sets India apart from other countries experiencing right-wing political movements.

In 1925, the R.S.S. was founded as a nationalist organization with a Hindu majoritarianism focus. It aimed to create a unifying ideology for the diverse subcontinent of India. The R.S.S. felt alienated from the Congress Party and its anti-colonial nationalism. The Congress Party viewed India as a human jungle with diverse communities, while the R.S.S. and Hindu-majoritarian movements wanted a more homogenous nationalism. The Ram Mandir, a Hindu temple, played a significant role in the rise of the B.J.P. and the political mobilization of Indians. The R.S.S. has always had the ambition to reconstitute the Indian Republic and believes that the soul of India was suppressed between 1947 and 1950 when the constitution was written. The Ram-temple movement, which began in the 1980s, was led by organizations affiliated with the R.S.S. and the B.J.P. The movement argued for the right of Hindus to worship at the site believed to be the birthplace of Ram. The state often ignored provocations related to the temple, either considering them too sensitive or too troublesome to address.

In 1992, the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya shocked the country. The building was brought down by hand with crude tools, causing massive communal violence. The leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.) claimed they didn't want this criminal act to happen, but the shock it caused was intense. Decades later, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of building a temple on the site. This ruling, while acknowledging the mosque's destruction as a criminal act, ultimately gave the land to the Hindu party. It is seen as a capitulation to Prime Minister Modi and the Hindu nationalist movement.

Source Link: How the Hindu Right Triumphed in India

[somerabbitholes]

hello, could you suggest some books/essays on photography? I feel like you already answered this ask but I can't seem to find it anywhere :(

here you go —

books

on photography by susan sontag — essays on photography, transparency, ethics, voyeurism

camera lucida by roland barthes — on photographers and photography as a medium and as art; particularly on how photography or the photograph is related to loss, the body and mind

between the eyes: essays on photography and politics by john berger, david levi strauss — a much more recent collection; about photography and politics and society; on reality, what photographs convey, what they end up doing etc

another way of telling by john berger — on developing a theory of photography; so it covers a bunch of questions about what the nature of a photograph is, if photography is more of an art form or a medium to document 'reality'

bystander: a history of street photography by colin westernbeck — this is a fun one; about how photography on the street took place in urban chaos

towards a philosophy of photography by vilém flusser (trans. anthony mathews) — pretty much like berger or sontag; on the tension between aesthetics, politics, and morality implicit in photography and the possibility of developing a philosophy and a theory that takes into account all of these tensions

essays

'looking at war' — susan sontag

'daydreams and fragments' — maël renouard

'what it was like when peter hujar took your photograph' — linda rosenkrantz

're-framing photography: some thoughts' — stefanie michels

'raghu rai' — mukul kesavan

happy reading!

[vedantvarma]

Like many Western commentators, Gray acknowledges that China and East Asia have had a good ‘war’. He suggests that East Asian societies have succeeded in containing the virus because their traditional cultures prioritize collective well-being over personal autonomy. He then predicts that Western societies like Britain’s will learn to do the same, that Britain’s citizens will, in the foreseeable future, be willing to sacrifice some part of their privacy and personal freedom and to open themselves to forms of State intrusion like the bio-surveillance that helped East Asian nations to control the pandemic.

Mukul Kesavan, here.

Will the Covid 19 change the world? 

[randomwordbyruth]

Ode to a Cow

Ode to a Cow

When life seems one too many for you,  Go and look at a Cow.  When the futures black and the outlooks blue,  Go and look at a Cow.  For she does nothing but eat her food,  and sleep in the meadows entirely nood,  Refusing to fret or worry or brood,  Because she doesn’t know how. Whenever you’re feeling bothered or sore,  Go and look at a Cow,  When everything else is a fearful bore,  Go and look…

[sgtechs-in]

What will happen to Sairat when it is appropriated by Bollywood?

What will happen to Sairat when it is appropriated by Bollywood?

[ad_1]

Around this time two years ago, Indian audiences were spellbound by Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat — its likeable young lovers, brash heroine, quiet hero, symphonic music, the resoundingly silent finale, and the infectious beats of ‘Zingaat’ that refused to fade.

But there was one person who expressed deep disappointment with the Marathi blockbuster. And as I watch the heated debates on social…

[surejaya]

Rahul Dravid: Timeless Steel

Rahul Dravid: Timeless Steel by ESPN Cricinfo

Rahul Dravid was probably one of the last classical Test match batsmen. The lynchpin of India’s Test match side through the 2000s, he combined technical virtuosity with a legendary work ethic and near-yogic powers of concentration, and epitomised an old-school guts-before-glory approach in an age increasingly defined by flashy strokeplay and low attention spans. A collection of 30 pieces – new and previously published on ESPNcricinfo and its sister publications – this book features contributions from Dravid’s team-mates and peers, some of the finest cricket writers around, and interviews over the years with Dravid himself. It attempts to paint a picture of a cricketer who embodied the best traditions and values of the game, and a man who impressed the many people who came in contact with him. Greg Chappell remembers the India captain he worked alongside. Ed Smith, who shared a dressing room with Dravid at Kent, writes of a thorough gentleman. Sanjay Bangar relives the splendour of Headingley 2002. Jarrod Kimber tells of how Dravid became the reason for him getting married. Mukul Kesavan analyses how his technique allows for more style than one might assume. Sidharth Monga puts Dravid’s captaincy under the spotlight. Rohit Brijnath looks back at the twin peaks of Adelaide 2003. Vijeeta Dravid gives us a look at her husband the perfectionist. Those and other articles make Timeless Steel as much a celebration of a colossal cricketer as of an exceptional human being.

Download : Rahul Dravid: Timeless Steel More Book at: Zaqist Book

[indizombie]

If Palestinians were to begin uploading pictures of exploded Gazan babies on TikTok, it is unlikely that Biden would share them. Nor would Blinken consent to an atrocity tour of a Gazan neighbourhood levelled by Israel. Killing civilians remotely or from a great height is not as wicked as killing them at close quarters. Western leaders and Western newspapers have taken to calling the Hamas massacre Israel's 9/11. This makes Israel's pulverisation of Gaza Palestine's Dresden. The difference is that every Western state endorses this bloody bombardment: give them this day their daily Dresden.

Mukul Kesavan, ‘Philistines and Pharisees’, Telegraph

[inkv]

To describe the bilingual, often multilingual, contexts in which anglophone writers live and work in India, it might be useful to change metaphors, to replace the swimming bath with the bucket “bath” so we can escape the idea of immersion. Indians don’t immerse themselves in baths; they sluice themselves with muffins of water. The moral, I suppose, is that the anglophone Indian doesn’t need immersion to sustain language: small quantities of running English- spoken, written, sung and heard - will do.

The Anglophone

from Homeless on Google Earth by Mukul Kesavan

[amupapers]

Jamia Millia Islamia Personalities

JMI Faculty

Akhtar Wasey

Farhat Basir Khan

Farida Abdulla Khan

Furqan Qamar

Imran Ali

Mohammad Mujeeb

Mohammad Zahid Ashraf

Mukul Kesavan

Nuzhat Parveen Khan

Shohini Ghosh

Zafar Ahmad Nizami

Zayn al-Abidin Sajjad Meerthi

JMI Faculty education

Professor Emeritus Islamic Studies, former Head of the departmentof Islamic Studies and former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Languages.

Professor of Photography

Former Dean of the Education faculty of Jamia.

Professor of Management, Former Vice-chancellor of Central University of Himachal Pradesh, and Adviser to Planning Commission (Education)

Professor of Chemistry, adjudged number one scientist in India in the field of Analytical Chemistry by Stanford University.

Former VC of the Jamia.

Professor, Department of Biotechnology

Professor, Department of History, Jamia Millia Islamia

Professor, Faculty of Law, Jamia Millia Islamia

Director, AJK Mass Communication Research Centre

The former head of the Department of Political Science.

Professor of History and former head of the department of Islamic Studies.

Founders of Jamia Millia Islamia

Mahmud Hasan Deobandi

Mohammad Ali Jauhar

Hakim Ajmal Khan

Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari

Abdul Majeed Khwaja

Zakir Hussain

[haftaichinews]

While India is desperate for oxygen, its politicians deny there’s even a problem | Mukul Kesavan

While India is desperate for oxygen, its politicians deny there’s even a problem | Mukul Kesavan

Join Hafta-Ichi to Research the article “While India is desperate for oxygen, its politicians deny there’s even a problem | Mukul Kesavan” In India’s capital city, citizens are dying in their hospital beds because they can’t breathe. Their lungs, clotted with Covid-induced pneumonia, need oxygen to function. Overwhelmed by India’s tsunami-like second wave and undermined by the smug inertia of…

[esytes69]

From namaste to corona drugs, West is looking to East for survival tips

Once we brought back Camay soaps. Now we bring back the virus. “Foreign-returned” has acquired a patina of suspicion rather than pride. The foreign-returned are sent to quarantine much like Americans once did to all immigrants during the cholera US President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ask him to release shipments of Hydroxychloroquine tablets hoping they might be a “game-changer” in the fight against Covid-19. Whether they work or not, that call underscored how the pandemic has turned the world order upside down. As a new immigrant in America in the 90s, I was used to thinking of the US as the safe zone and India as the dangerous outback swarming with exotic diseases. I remember pots of water being boiled at my home every time I returned to Kolkata. Indian water was deemed unsafe for my Americanised digestive system. It seems an ironic twist that now an American president is looking to India for help in keeping Americans safe, that too with a drug used to fight malaria. America-returned or London-returned used to be badges of pride in middle-class India. Your stock went up in the neighbourhood with that visa stamp. I always brought back extra Camay soaps and Kitkat chocolates to distribute among the neighbours, cheap treats in America that still carried foreignreturned cachet in India. Once we brought back Camay soaps. Now we bring back the virus. “Foreign-returned” has acquired a patina of suspicion rather than pride. The foreign-returned are sent to quarantine much like Americans once did to all immigrants during the cholera epidemic of 1892. Parents in India worry more about their children in America than in some other corner of India. Countries like Italy are regarded with trepidation the way the West traditionally regarded yellow fever zones in Africa. Foreigners in India, usually on the top of high society’s guest list, are objects of suspicion these days. When my friends Milena Chilla-Markhoff and her mother, who live in Kolkata about half the year, opted for repatriation back to Germany after commercial flights ceased in India, their biggest hurdle was getting someone to take them to the hotel from where the evacuees would leave for the airport. The cab services that would have once clamoured to take foreigners were reluctant to ferry anyone who looked foreign. To go or not to go has become a difficult question. A US consular official said while some 7,000 people had registered for repatriation to the US, when their staff cold-called 800 people for one of the evacuation flights, they got only 10 positive responses. I hear stories of Americans choosing to go back to the States because they are worried about aging parents back in America, but unsure whether it’s the safest thing to do, the old immigrant story turned on its head. It’s not that India is a safe haven from the virus. While the death toll has crossed into three figures, the low levels of testing make it unclear what kind of infection rates India is grappling with or where hotspots will erupt next. The point is that for the first time America feels no safer than India. Even more disorienting, the West is having to look to the East for survival tips from namaste to antimalaria drugs. Until recently leaders like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump had downplayed Covid-19, Trump calling it a hoax that would disappear like magic. The West was open for business as usual unlike Asia with its heavy-handed lockdowns, thermal scans and flight bans. Now as the toll spirals in America and Boris Johnson emerges from the ICU, Indian academic Mukul Kesavan writes “There is a First World defined by pandemic readiness; its capital is Seoul.” Addressing his party, Modi claimed the “speed with which India took decisions in a comprehensive and holistic manner is not only being talked about in the world but has been praised by the World Health Organisation.” Brazil’s president flatters India by evoking images of Hanuman bringing lifesaver herbs from the Himalayas. The fact is countries like India have long sought America’s favour. They are not used to America seeking favors from it. But this is not the time for schadenfreude. Rather it is about shared suffering. One just hopes that when we emerge from this pandemic, we will remember these lessons with humility. My friend Milena has reached Berlin with her mother. After undergoing ten days of India’s stringent lockdown, she felt compelled to hand out sanitisers to young people sitting too close together on the train in Germany. She has also figured out what gifts she could bring back from India that her friends in Germany might truly value the way Camay soaps once raised my stock in Kolkata. She is gifting them something the West covets in these days of Corona panic but is of little value in India — rolls of toilet paper. Read the full article

[indizombie]

Hamas is not just a terrorist organisation but, as Mukul Kesavan has said, it is also a “protection racket, social welfare organisation and national liberation movement”. Like Hezbollah, it has gained legitimacy and credibility amongst the local population by laying down deep roots; apart from the much-decried “terrorist infrastructure”, it also provides most of the civilian administration for Gaza, ranging from teachers, doctors, imams, engineers, bureaucrats and police officers (altogether estimated to be about 40,000), forming an entire array of institutions that are responsible for governing Gaza, whose absence would form a devastating vacuum. Those who believe in eviscerating Hamas completely as a political organisation would do well to remember what happened in Iraq in 2003, when American governor Paul Bremner summarily dismissed thousands of civil servants because they were members of the Ba’ath party, causing widespread chaos and setting back the rehabilitation of the civilian sector and economy by years.

Conrad Barwa, ‘Palestine: Some Unpleasant Truths And The Prospects For Peace’, Free Press Journal

[bigyack-com]

Mira Nair, Naseeruddin Shah among 300 signatories extend support to students protesting CAA-NRC: ‘Our silence ends now’ - bollywood

More than 300 prominent individuals, including filmmakers Mira Nair, Nandita Das, actors Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Jaaved Jafferi, Homi K Bhabha, Partha Chatterjee, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, TM Krishna, Ashish Nandy, and Gaytri Chakravorty Spivak, among others, have signed an open letter, expressing their solidarity with the students of India who have been protesting Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and against the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Extending their support to the students, the signatories said in their letter, “We stand in solidarity with the students and others who are protesting and speaking out against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and against the National Register of Citizens (NRC). We salute their collective cry for upholding the principles of the Constitution of India, with its promise of a plural and diverse society. We are aware that we have not always lived up to that promise, and many of us have too often remained silent in the face of injustice. The gravity of this moment demands that each of us stand for our principles.” Also read: Shah Rukh Khan: ‘I am a Muslim, my wife is a Hindu and my kids are Hindustan’. Watch video Here is the complete text of the letter: An open statement from members of the Creative and Scholarly Community in IndiaWe are artists, filmmakers, writers and scholars. Our work reflects people’s lives, struggles and hopes. We offer our dreams to everyone.But what dream can show us the way in the midst of the present nightmare? Our vision for this nation demands that we speak up now, in the name of our democracy and the constitution that protects it. We stand in solidarity with the students and others who are protesting and speaking out against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and against the National Register of Citizens (NRC). We salute their collective cry for upholding the principles of the Constitution of India, with its promise of a plural and diverse society. We are aware that we have not always lived up to that promise, and many of us have too often remained silent in the face of injustice. The gravity of this moment demands that each of us stand for our principles.The policies and actions of the present government, passed quickly through parliament and without opportunity for public dissent or open discussion, are antithetical to the principle of a secular, inclusive nation. The soul of the nation is threatened. The livelihoods and statehoods of millions of our fellow Indians are at stake. Under the NRC, anyone unable to produce documentation (which, in many cases, does not exist) to prove their ancestry may be rendered stateless.  Those deemed“illegal” through the NRC may be eligible for citizenship under the CAA, unless they are Muslim.Contrary to the stated objective of the government, this does not appear to be a benign legislation, only meant to shelter persecuted minorities. The list of exclusions seems to indicate otherwise. Why are minorities from other neighbours like Sri Lanka, China and Myanmar excluded? Isit because the ruling powers in these latter countries are not Muslim? It appears that the legislation believes that only Muslim governments can be perpetrators of religious persecution. Why exclude the most persecuted minorities in the region,the Rohingya of Myanmar or the Uighurs of China? This legislation only acknowledges Muslim perpetrators, never Muslim victims. The aim is transparent: Muslims are the unwelcome Other.This is state-sanctioned religious persecution, and we will not condone it. In Assam and the Northeast, and in Kashmir, the indigenous identity and livelihood is threatened as never before, and we will not condone it. The response of the government and law-enforcement agencies to the distress of its citizens has been callous and high-handed. India has seen the most Internet shutdowns of any democracy in the world. Police brutality has left hundreds injured, including many students from Jamia Milia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University. Several citizens have been killed while protesting. Many more have been placed in preventive detention. Section 144 has been imposed in numerous states to curb protests. We need look no further than Kashmir to see how far this government is willing to go to suppress democratic dissent. Kashmir is now living under the longest Internet shutdown ever imposed by a democratic government. Enough is enough.Those of us who have been quiet in the past, our silence ends now. We will be clear-sighted in our dissent. Like our freedom fighters before us, we stand for a secular and inclusive vision of India. We stand with those who bravely oppose anti-Muslim and divisive policies. We stand with those who stand up for democracy. We will be with you on our streets and across all our platforms. We are in solidarity.” Here is a list of some the signatories: Rahman Abbas, Anvita Abbi, Ajayan Adat, Ramona Adhikari, Faraz Ahmad, Anvar Ali, Zaheer Ali, Lalitha Alilu, Shimit Amin, Jyothi Ananthasubbarao, Vidya Das Arora, Sushila Bahanda, Vikas Bajpai, Ritwik Banerjee, Sudeshna Banerjee, Sumanta Banerjee, Susan Barton, Aamir Bashir, Amit Basole, Rakhi Basu, Dev Benegal, Homi Bhabha, Amit Bhaduri, Madhu Bhaduri, Nabakumar Bhattacharyya, Akeel Bilgrami, Rani Day Burra, Sundar Burra, Meena C. K., Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Suresh Chabria, Amitabha Chakrabarti, Pariplab Chakraborty, Sudhir Chandra, Civic Chandran, Indu Chandrasekhar, R.K. Chandrika, Partha Chatterjee, Shoma A. Chatterji, Salil Chaturvedi, Amit Chaudhuri, Neel Chaudhuri, Vasundhara Chauhan, Rajendra Chenni, Anuradha Chenoy, Kamal Chenoy, Zasha Colah, Naresh Dadhich, Vasudha Dalmia, Sumangala Damodaran, Swati Dandekar, Arpita Das, Nandita Das, Vibha Puri Das, Maya Dayal, Naina Dayal, Deena VJ, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Sudhanva Deshpande, Meera Devidayal, J. Devika, Asish Dey, Dipak Dholakia, Arundhati Dhuru, Xavier Dias, Anju Dodiya, Atul Dodiya, Jean Dreze, Lillete Dubey, Avalokita Dutt, Indranee Dutta, Walter Fernandes, Arunima G., Karen Gabriel, Ramakrishna Gampalahalli, Leela Gandhi, Mridula Garg, Geetika, Amitav Ghosh, Jayati Ghosh, Persis Ginwalla, Roshmi Goswami, Sheela Gowda, Srinivasa Gowda, Meena Gupta, Rajiv Gupta, Atul Gurtu, Rajan Gurukkal, Leela Hansda, Saba Hasan, Zoya Hasan, Sohail Hashmi, Shabnam Hashmi, Vinita Hembrom, Nataraj Honnavalli, M. G. Husain, Shamsul Islam, Sameera Iyengar, Vikram Iyengar, Jaya Iyer, Jaaved Jaferi, Bharati Jagannathan, Jagmani, N.D. Jayaprakash, K.P. Jayasankar, Pervin Jehangir, Dhirendra Jha, Ram Naresh Jha, Mary John, Mary Joseph, Rajesh Joshi, Jane K., Sushi Kadanakuppe Srinivas Kakkilaya, Vimala Kalagar, Priya Kalapurayil, Rina Kamath, Kalpana Kannabiran, Aman Kanwar, Harsh Kapoor, Ram Kapoor, Geeta Kapur, Manju Kapur, Aruni Kashyap, Suhit Kelkar, Sonal Kellogg, Mukul Kesavan, Faisal Khan, Habib Khan, Shah Alam Khan, Devaki Khanna, Ayesha Kidwai, Santosh Kiro, K John Koshy, Mridula Koshy, Teresa Kotturan, Ancilla Kozhipat, Pradip Krishan, Sumi Krishna, T.M. Krishna, Amitadyuti Kumar, Ashutosh Kumar, Kirtana Kumar, Radha Kumar, Sandhya Kumar, Sitanath Lahkar, Basanti Lakra, Jyotsna Lall, Swapna Liddle, Ania Loomba, N. S. Madhavan, Surabhi Sharma, Jatin Sheth, Mira Shiva, Geetanjali Shree, Dilip Simeon, Devika Singh, Savithri Singh, Preeti Sinha, Sachidanand Sinha, Shantha Sinha, Kita Sinku, Jawhar Sircar, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, M. S. Sriram, K. V. Subrahmanyam, Kadayam Subramanian, Sumita, Vivan Sundaram, Sehba Taban, Deepika Tandon, Kiran Tandon, Vikram Tandon, Anand Teltumbde, Anita Thampi, Romila Thapar, P. K. Michael Tharakan, Susie Tharu, Asha Tirkey, Palo Tunti, Ananya Vajpeyi, Vamsi Vakulabharanam, Achin Vanaik, Sankar Varma, Sushma Varma, Sushma Veerappa, Prem Verma, Gauri Vishwanathan, Asha Vombatkere, Sudhir Vombatkere, Salim Yusufji, Ajit Zacharias. Follow @htshowbiz for more Interact with the author @swetakaushal Read the full article

[gkt49]

Opinion: A Butterfly In Brisbane And India's Magic - by Mukul Kesavan

Opinion: A Butterfly In Brisbane And India’s Magic – by Mukul Kesavan

The newspapers have been full of the rousing backstories of India’s novices: their journeys out of poverty, their personal tragedies, their sacrifices. We should be careful not to patronize their…