1. Some thoughts after the latest trip to Shaheen Bagh.
Never in my life have I seen the Indian flag so joyously, proprietorially claimed.
A part of what is happening seems to be about de-colonisation, about heretofore subjects claiming their rights as citizens.
Never in my life have I seen the Indian flag so joyously, proprietorially claimed.
A part of what is happening seems to be about de-colonisation, about heretofore subjects claiming their rights as citizens.
2. India might have won freedom on 15 August 1947, but it was far from a full freedom. Ambedkar, Nehru, and Gandhi all underlined this.
Much of the state structure remained the same, and citizens, poor and uneducated, had difficulty claiming their rights.
Much of the state structure remained the same, and citizens, poor and uneducated, had difficulty claiming their rights.
3. This is not to say the marginalised didn't believe in democracy - by the evidence of their voting patterns it is clear that they valued the vote the most, both by their words and actions the privileged seem to value it least - just that the state was not accountable to them.
4. For many within its borders the state remained a colonial one, dealing brutally, without any veneer of democracy, with both areas like Nagaland, Mizoram, and Kashmir, but also with poor and marginalised populations on a day-to-day basis.
5. The scandal of the Mandal Commission report and the Sachar Commission report is, in a sense, similar: both pointed out that the state was actively excluding the vast majority of its population, in different ways maybe, but with strikingly similar outcomes.
6. What has changed is that - despite the hurdles and difficulty - previously poor and disempowered communities have clawed their way up to some small semblance of economic security - free of bowing before the state.
This independence, this freedom, is a threat to the state.
This independence, this freedom, is a threat to the state.
7. The state remains deeply colonial - witness the rules and regulations of its two most important institutions: the police and the IAS, witness also the dire efforts to shut down accountability, whether through the judiciary or the RTI.
The state resents accountability.
The state resents accountability.
8. The demand for "kagaz" is the demand of a colonial state towards its subjects, the upholding of the Preamble of the Constitution, is the "kagaz" of the people demanding that the state be accountable to them.
9. This is also why people like @BhimArmyChief and Rohith Vemula are so troublesome to the state, because they represent another strand of those marginalised, colonised, standing for decolonisation, for the demand of democracy.
10. This is also why Ambedkar outnumbers Gandhi in the posters, people have moved from thanking a leader for winning freedom, to thanking a leader who gave them tools to assert their own rights as free citizens.
All of this is, ironically, the success of Indian democracy.
All of this is, ironically, the success of Indian democracy.
11. Without the consistent demand for "bijli, sadak, paani" election after election, the pressure to produce result, the few pathways to economic sustenance and educational upliftment (however flawed) wouldn't have existed.
12. As a postscript, it is worth noting that through the radical land reforms by Shiekh Abdullah - which led, one way or another to his jailing and dismissal - Kashmiris achieved independence from the state earlier, maybe why it could never be countenanced by Delhi.
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