A 🧵- on why struggles & resistance in 🍉 ,
Syria, Ukraine, struggles against anti fascist/authoritarian regimes/forces in India, Brazil, Iran, China, US, UK, European countries, Sahel nations etc need to support each other, & demand the same from allies. We often like to talk of double standards on 🇺🇦& 🍉, saying brown lives, Arab lives, Muslim lives aren’t valued as much as white ones. But do we value all brown/Arab/Muslim lives? Or do we select solidarities based on camps of some kind?

#thread on #gatekeeping on #ManipurViolence
What's your response to
- a 7-year-old boy & his mum burnt alive in an ambulance by a Meitei chauvinist mob?
- a 20-year old Kuki girl being thrashed by a mob while Meitei women shout "Rape her! Torture her! Cut her into pieces!" If your first response is to scold or lecture me (or "mainland media" for cherry-picking cases & focusing more on Meitei mob massacres than on Kuki militants & Indian Army, you need to stop & take a closer look at yourself.

@lbary @UkraineSol @dsa_intl_com @SocRuch @ahatanhel @VlStarodubtsev @YPYurchenko @EuropeanWith @Ilw_Ukraine @righttoresistua @UkraineCampaign @ukraine_network Frankly, even though I’m on the Left, I’m done worrying about salvaging the credibility of the Left, by saying, look we’re Left AND yet we are able to have solidarity with Ukraine without having to “balance” it with some Kremlin talking points. + @lbary @UkraineSol @dsa_intl_com @SocRuch @ahatanhel @VlStarodubtsev @YPYurchenko @EuropeanWith @Ilw_Ukraine @righttoresistua @UkraineCampaign @ukraine_network I analyse “ multipolarity” as used by Putin and others, because I’m concerned about the Right. I analyse the Left here because its language & logic right now is indistinguishable from that of Putin etc. But increasingly I’m trying to get out of the deeply ingrained habit of +

Thread:
#Putin on Feb 1: Under guise of "democracy & freedom" imperialist West forces the world to accept LGBT" perversion; but Russia will not allow Western imperialists to pervert Russia's unique civilisation, culture, "family values" that r based on Russian Orthodox Church @nramind on Feb 22 at @ruscult_chennai:
Ukraine's been tied to Russia since "the history of Russian Orthodox Church" & it's impossible for Ukraine to sever those "historic ties", even "with support of most reactionary forces in the world."

Who released these posters & why? Why echo the Sanghi "Hijab OR Kitab" narrative? Why "pehle hijab fir kitab', why not 'hijab bhi, kitab bhi'? 🤮 "Precious things shd b kept covered"?! NO, women are not "things", rape isn't theft of "precious things". #thread Some (not all) of these posters & statements are old but show how "Precious things shd be covered", like "stay in your veil & the world will stay in line" "Don’t cross Lakshman rekha, you won't be raped' is rape culture, victim blaming. #HijabisOurRight struggle says the opposite

@ghazalawahab Ghazala, I’m sorry, I’m rather shocked at your position. You’re missing the Islamophobic wood for the patriarchal trees. Who has the power in this situation? It’s the principal & the Sangh not the Muslim parents. See my thread addressing various arguments & scenarios.

https://twitter.com/kavita_krishnan/status/1489456210617466887

@ghazalawahab The argument that hijab isn’t mandated by Islam is one to be had with anyone shaming Muslim women for NOT wearing it - not with Sanghis who are denying Muslim women education for wearing it. +

On the one hand, auction Muslim women online & threaten to sexually enslave them. On the other, deny them the right to education. That’s BJP policy.
#thread on how the ban on hijab is not only unconstitutional but absurd.

https://twitter.com/dpkbopanna/status/1489117646482472961

Kerala HC has clearly held that it was unconstitutional for CBSE to prevent girls in hijab from taking exams. The same applies here in Karnataka. indiankanoon.org/doc/185172001/

To all those spreading communal spins, here is something I’ve learned today through members of the Bhedkut and Sansi communities: Bhedkuts are nominally Hindu but follow many Sikh practices and customs. I was directed to this website #thread bhedkut.blogspot.com/p/bhedkut-pron…

https://twitter.com/kavita_krishnan/status/1488936076072816642

As the person from the Bhedkut community who runs this website explains “Bhedkut call themseleves Hindu but their traditions are same as Sikh Dharam . Marriages and other ceromonies are based on Sikhism” bhedkut.blogspot.com/p/bhedkut-pron…

The age of marriage for all adults should be 18. If you’re old enough to choose a government, decide the country’s future you’re old enough to decide your own future; to marry or not. Support women’s autonomy, don’t force women to marry, don’t criminalise consensual relationships Early pregnancies can be injurious to women’s health - the answer to that issue isn’t to criminalise adults who decide to marry. The answer is to ensure that women have the autonomy to decide if or when to marry, if or when to bear children.

What Ms Ranade calls “freebies” are in fact the opposite of “free = unearned”: they represent a “minimum” fraction of the wealth workers and farmers actually produce by their labour. My response to the anti Left tirade by @sonaliranade kavitakrishnan.substack.com/p/why-would-a-… If we agree with Ms Ranade the Hindu majority was magnanimous enough to include Muslims & Christians in the idea of India, we imply it’s ok for Hindus to feel that in return for such magnanimity, the least Muslims & Christians can do is to avoid eating beef & converting Hindus.

@sonaliranade Here’s a point by point take down to all that’s wrong with your tweets:
1) Since 1920s some Hindus have demanded a Hindu SUPREMACIST nation in which others will be treated like Jews in Nazi Germany. No one has a RIGHT to such a nation.
+ @sonaliranade 2) Yet your question is pointless since Hindu supremacists have freely exercised the political freedom to demand a Hindu supremacist nation without any hurdles (barring the brief RSS ban). They have used parliamentary space to promote that agenda through hate speech with impunity

First they came with the NRC, and I thought, what’s the harm with just identifying the “infiltrators”?

Then they called the “infiltrators” termites - and I said, that’s not nice, they’re just illegal immigrants. Next they began evicting the illegals and demolishing their homes, and I said, well the indigenous do need the land, but can’t you clear the settlements after the rains?

पहले वे आए NRC के बहाने और मुझे लगा घुसपैठी पहचानने में हर्ज क्या?
फिर उन्होंने कहा ये घुसपैठी तो “दीमक” हैं और मैंने सोचा, दीमक नहीं …पर घुसपैठी तो हैं न?
फिर मेरे ही भाई ने मरते हुए इंसान को “घुसपैठी दीमक” कहकर उसके छाती पर छलांग मार कर नाचा - और मैंने पूछा - अरे ये सब कब और कैसे हुआ? मेरा सुंदर देश और मेरे ही भाई बहन कब हिटलरशाही नशा करने लगे? कब से इंसानों को दीमक मानने लगे?
… जवाब मेरे ही दिल ने मुझे दिया: ये सब तुम्हारे ही तो आँखों के सामने होता रहा.

On the 4th anniv of the assassination of #GauriLankesh: a thread to remind us of the Hindu-supremacist terrorists who trained, armed & instigated her killers - and the fact that the same terrorists are targeting many of us today. Read where the case stands thenewsminute.com/article/gauri-… Hindu-supremacist outfit @SanatanSanstha is named by SIT as responsible for the assassination of not only Gauri but activists and writers Dabholkar and Pansare, & academic Prof Kalburgi. All were targeted for writing against “Hindutva” - Hindu-supremacist ideology & politics.

Dear @PreetiChoudhry the guy who just spoke on your show as a "riot victim" has himself admitted that men in a video with guns in their hands were "his boys"

https://twitter.com/SreenivasanJain/status/1235567890448834560?s=20

. @SreenivasanJain had investigated riot videos from Brahmpuri and Pandit Shankar Lal Gautam had admitted it was "his boys" in this video, with the laughable claim that they were carrying "water pistols" to protect Hindus from Muslims!

https://twitter.com/SreenivasanJain/status/1235566851687477251?s=20

One of the justifications for CAA was 'Muslims cannot face persecution in Islamic countries', an always-specious argument now more exposed by the horrific images of refugees (mostly Muslim) fleeing Afghanistan, clinging to & falling from wings of planes in the process. #thread Ashamed that the Govt of India response now is to look at desperate Afghan refugees not as humans fleeing persecution & sure death, but from the view of whether or not they’re Muslim. That’s the Modi regime for you.

On #Che93, here's a short note I wrote as a foreword for a book with Che's writings, drawing on Eduardo Galeano to understand why he & the Cuban revolution continues to be admired nearly a century later. To this, in the following tweets, I'll add more from Galeano on #CheGuevara Of Che's remarkable decision to leave Cuba to join Bolivia's revolutionary movement where he was killed, Galeano wrote: "this is the unique case of a man abandoning a revolution already made by him and a handful of comrades, to throw himself into the launching of another." #Che93

I've had the most wonderful Holi celebrations on JNU campus & homes of friends in Allahabad, Patna. Likewise, I've faced sexual harassment on Holi, on streets everywhere. Lesson: Holi itself can be fun, beautiful. But to make sure Holi is fun for women, there's work for us We need to acknowledge that Holi is widely used as a licence for sexual harassment. Only if we acknowledge it can we resist it. It's the sexual harassers who give Holi a bad name. Not the women who speak of their experiences of harassment. +

Recently heard the podcast by @sikhyaent on Saravana Bhavan founder P Rajagopal, who stalked the young daughter of an employee & had her husband killed. Observations: the podcast's title ('Dosa King') glorifies PR, the script trivialises his crime, calling it a mere "scandal" It refers to the whole stalking and murder episode as something that led to Rajagopal's "fall" - i.e a story of crime against a woman is turned into a story about the impact of the said crime on its perpetrator, not its victim.

How can I have anything but contempt for a CJI who asks a man who violently, repeatedly raped a minor girl, pushed her to attempt suicide, if he will marry his victim. How can any girl or woman in India be safe with CJIs like Gogoi & Bobde? #thread bit.ly/3b3yRI5 The accused stalked a Std 9th girl, entered the house in her family's absence, tied up, gagged & raped her. Then raped her repeatedly with threats of acid attacks, burning alive, killing her brother. The victim attempted suicide, then the mother got to know of the rape

Please read the thread by @AudreyTruschke, and this one by me. The verdict that convicted Mahmood Farooqui of rape was a landmark one like the #PriyaRamani one of yesterday. The Feeble No verdict that overturned it is an affront to our legal system.

https://twitter.com/AudreyTruschke/status/1363116053610528773

I had in mind the Farooqui case when I wrote yesterday about "campaigns (across political aisles) claiming that the amendments to India’s sexual violence laws in 2013 are “draconian” when applied to privileged men." indianexpress.com/article/opinio…