South Asia : Shared Space of Composite Heritage - ISD

SACHSouth Asia : Shared Space of

Composite HeritageSouth Asia has tremendous socio-cultural diversity which can be observed within each country of the region.This diversity or divide is age-old and continues unabated. Despite diversities people of the region sharesocial, cultural, linguistic and religious practices across national boundaries. It is a region where severalreligions are identified with different ‘civilizations’ that have been interacting and potentially challenging theidea that a region forms a cultural realm. South Asia region has a complicated relationship of religion, politicsand nation-building which are often associated with the construction of post-independence nation-statemodels. Contradictory policies adopted by the British colonisers played an important role. On the one hand,they laid the foundations for mental representation of the region, through its unification policies, and on theother contributed in creating divisions between distinct states and across common cultures at the time ofIndependence. Perhaps, ever since the emergence of independent nation-states in the region, the nation-building process continued to foster national unity without acknowledging the cultural, social and linguisticcommonalities. The political narrative in the region was gradually formed on those lines. People are oftenrepeatedly reminded that they belong to one particular community or religion or ethnic group or nationalitywhich is different from those who do not fall in this category. They are hardly made aware of the fact that theyhave many things common with “others”.

Commonalities in social and cultural practices find their roots in centuries-long cultural encounters. Suchcommonalities are numerous and varied. They can be found from marriage customs to material culture andculinary habits. South Asia region has huge trans-border population which is spread across different regionsof this part of the world. Some genres in music and dance such as qawwali, bhangra, Kathak, andBharatanatyam have come to acquire a pan-South Asian character. These music and dance forms arepracticed and appreciated much beyond the national scale. Some scholars have argued that in everydayconstruction of the region, platforms like Indian Bollywood offers great opportunities for interaction amongartists not only across regions and religions but increasingly across borders as well reflective of closeinterconnectedness. Some critics say some Bollywood movies directly address the issue of cross-borderrelations but at the same time, they demonize the “Other”. Scholar Manan Ahmed argues that”demonizationstill ‘showcases the capacity to imagine the ‘Other’—or they find ways, sometimes amusing ones, tohighlight commonalities beyond borders and/or try to erase lines of difference”. Social, cultural and historicalcontinuities contribute to the notion of building a common and composite South Asian heritage. Compositeheritage, “tangible and intangible.” is unique to the South Asia region. It has been a way of living for people.It is called composite because it belongs to everyone and owned by everyone. It brings national boundariesas well as the whole region together. This was very aptly described in the declaration of the ‘People’sSAARC’, a forum composed of a network of organizations from regional civil societies: “We, the people ofSouth Asia, not only share a contiguous geographical space but also a social and cultural history thatshapes our lifestyles, belief systems, cultural particularities, material practices and social relationships”.

South Asian Composite HeritageISSUE NO. 54 APRIL -JUNE 2019

2 SACH APRIL—JUNE 2019

I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,or your entertainment at India habitat center,or your entertainment at India habitat center,or your entertainment at India habitat center,or your entertainment at India habitat center,or your entertainment at India habitat center,I am not your field, your crowd, your history,I am not your field, your crowd, your history,I am not your field, your crowd, your history,I am not your field, your crowd, your history,I am not your field, your crowd, your history,your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,I refuse, reject, resist your labels,I refuse, reject, resist your labels,I refuse, reject, resist your labels,I refuse, reject, resist your labels,I refuse, reject, resist your labels,your judgments, documents, definitions,your judgments, documents, definitions,your judgments, documents, definitions,your judgments, documents, definitions,your judgments, documents, definitions,your models, leaders and patrons,your models, leaders and patrons,your models, leaders and patrons,your models, leaders and patrons,your models, leaders and patrons,because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space,because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space,because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space,because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space,because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space,your words, maps, figures, indicators,your words, maps, figures, indicators,your words, maps, figures, indicators,your words, maps, figures, indicators,your words, maps, figures, indicators,they all create illusions and put you on pedestal,they all create illusions and put you on pedestal,they all create illusions and put you on pedestal,they all create illusions and put you on pedestal,they all create illusions and put you on pedestal,from where you look down upon me,from where you look down upon me,from where you look down upon me,from where you look down upon me,from where you look down upon me,So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,I make my own tools to fight my own battle,I make my own tools to fight my own battle,I make my own tools to fight my own battle,I make my own tools to fight my own battle,I make my own tools to fight my own battle,For me, my people, my world, and my Adivasi self!For me, my people, my world, and my Adivasi self!For me, my people, my world, and my Adivasi self!For me, my people, my world, and my Adivasi self!For me, my people, my world, and my Adivasi self!

We all share spaces, we all share natural resources, we all believe in our CompositeHeritages which brings us together, Tribal’s or Indigenous people whose CompositeHeritages are based on forest and natural resources, whose bonds are based on theirtotem which they developed through natural resources have always been targeted bythe mainstream society. They have been exploited in the name of their exotic image,unique lifestyle and their natural resources. People from mainstream society havedeveloped various research on Tribal’s and given them names and identities based ontheir own observations and assumptions. But now tribal’s don’t want to be part ofthis anymore, they have developed in every possible way and as part of their resistanceAbhay Xaxa one the prominent leader, activist and academician of Adivasi Rightssays Tribals are not a simple data for mainstream researchers we are more than thatand we can write our own history.

I Am Not Your Data

Poem by ABHAY XAXAABHAY XAXAABHAY XAXAABHAY XAXAABHAY XAXA, INDIA

Abhay Xaxa an Adivasi Rights Activist and Sociologist by training, has worked with grassroots organisations, camaigns, NGO’s,media, research institutions in different capacities on the issue of Adivasi land rights in central India.

APRIL—JUNE 2019 SACH 3

A woman saint-poet, a contemporary ofBasavanna called Urilinga Peddigala PunyaStri Kalavve, critiqued the orthodoxBrahmanical traditionsand the caste system.“The Hindu religion,which stands on thefoundation of the castesystem,” she wrote,“distinguishes peopleaccording to what theyeat. Those who eatchicken, sheep and fishare considered middlecastes. Those who eatbeef are consideredoutcastes, since the cowis believed to have given panchamrita toShiva.” It was the sharana movement —adramatic development led by Basvanna andothers in erstwhile Karnataka — that gave adalit woman poet like Kalavve the confidenceto be be a rebel. The sharana movement enabledpeople from the lower rungs of society to raisetheir voices against the dominant castestructures.

In our own times, the words of UrilingaPeddigala Punya Stri Kalavve act like an axeto hit at the roots of Manuvadi, and theconstant discrimination against dalits andminorities in the name of cow slaughter. Thesharana period, and its ideas of equality, stillhas much to say to us.

The sharana movement encouragedequality, brotherhood and free thinking. It wasrevolutionary: people of the working class gottogether to fight for equality, and againstinhuman caste and gender discrimination.

Basavanna – A Man Who RebelledAgainst Sanatana Tradition

By HUCHANGI PRASADHUCHANGI PRASADHUCHANGI PRASADHUCHANGI PRASADHUCHANGI PRASAD, INDIA

They created awareness about superstition bypropagating reason. Most of all, the massmovement created by Basavanna and aimed

at the root ofexploitation byopposing the sanatanatraditions of theBrahmins.

Basavanna was,perhaps, the first personin the world who wroteabout the novel andrevolutionary idea thatwork is worship. Heorganized people fromthe lowest strata of thesociety to realise this

worthy objective. This leader of the workingclass became a saviour of the people who hadbeen suffering for centuries. He worked hardto spread the concept of one God. Heemphasized the importance of education andinsisted on gender equality.

To the orthodox Brahmins who said aperson was born untouchable because of thekarma of the sins committed in previous births,Basavanna said, “Look at the houses of thepoor, all the sharanas of Koodala Sangamaare champions of self-respect.” This is how hemotivated the exploited to strive for self-respect.Basavanna was a pioneer in making peopleaware of political consciousness, and ideas likeequality and freedom.

Again, the sharana movement has alesson for us about freedom of expression – ata time when free speech and dissent are beingcurbed. Basavanna built an “AnubhavaMantapa”, a platform to express views without


caste and gender prejudice. Basavanna handedover leadership to the oppressed castes. TheAnubhava Mantapa consisted of 770 sharanas,something like the first parliament in the world.Allama Prabhu, a dalit, propagated thephilosophy ‘attainment of nothingness’ waslike the Speaker of this parliament, whichincluded women saints such as Akkamahadevi,Gangambike, Neelambike, Sule Sankavva,Dhanamma, Kalyanavva and AydakkiLakkamma, and others such as DoharaKakkayya, Ajaganna, Kurubara Bommanna,Holeyara Boganna and Madhuvarasa. All ofthem, women and men, participated in thediscussions on the welfare of the people.

Basavanna introduced an adulteducation system which led many people fromthe lower castes to become writers –vachanakaras or writers of vachanas. This ledto a boom in literary production; moreimportant, it proved that knowledge did notbrook discrimination. These vachanas couldbe considered the first writings produced bydalits and other lower castes, as well as women.

But a shocking development was in storefor the sharana movement. Hundreds of themwere hounded and butchered for havingthought of, and put into practice, a movementagainst inequality and human rights violations.One instance of the sharana practice of equalitywas a marriage arranged between the son ofthe dalit Haralayya and the daughter of thebrahmin Madhuvarasa. As Haralayya’s sonSheelavanta and Madhuvarasa’s daughterLavanyavati had become sharanas, thereshould have been no obstacle such as castekeeping them from marrying each other. ButManuvad did not want this marriage to takeplace. The conservative Brahmins argued thatthis marriage was against Hindu tradition andRajadharma which would eventually lead todestruction of the empire. The conflict wasbetween people who firmly believed in castehierarchy and who did not. The noteworthypoint here is that the sharanas were even readyto sacrifice their lives to fight against the crueltyof Manuvad.

The sharanas decided to face whatevercame their way, saying, “Let what is likely to

happen in the far future happen now, andwhat might transpire the next day, let it happenthis minute.” Although King Bijjala and thebrahmins opposed the inter-caste marriage,the sharanas went ahead with the inter- castemarriage despite death threats. Enraged, thebrahminsplucked out the eyes of the sharanasand tied them to the legs of elephants to bedragged along the streets. Then the Sharanaswere trampled to death by the elephants. Othersharanas were beheaded and cut into pieces,such was the hatred and cruelty of the“Hindutva elements” of the time. The sharanasmartyrs died for the sake of a secular marriage.The remaining sharanas went into exile to savethe vachanas.

Literary critic and historian RamzanDarga notes, “This movement which foughtfor human dignity on the basis of an idea of‘one path, one tone’ witnessed the worst killingsin history.” He adds, “The counter protest byManuvadi-s which halted the revolution ledby Basavanna and other Sharanas was a hugesetback for humanity.”

While anyalysing caste, BabasahebAmbedkar writes that “Buddha’s revolutionwas followed by the Brahmin’s counter attack.This led to the spreading of the roots of thecaste system helping spread the cruelty ofinequality everywhere.” It is a well documenteddisaster in history that the Kalyana revolutionwas followed by a counter-protest by Brahmins.Anyway, one should not forget the fact thatthe revolutionary event of inter-caste marriagewas symbolically against the caste system. It isalso quite evident that Basavanna and othersharanas addressed the core issues of people’slivelihood.

The sharanas’ struggle against castestructures through their vachanas is stillremembered by the lower castes.

In recent times, people belonging to theLingayat caste project Basavanna as theirleader. It is shameful that few self-proclaimedfollowers of Basavanna glorify Hindu gods bymaking use of Basavanna’s ideas. There havebeen thousands of mata-s built in the name of

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ViranganaBy HELENA KHANHELENA KHANHELENA KHANHELENA KHANHELENA KHAN, BANGLADESH

THE eight-day moon smiled bright. In partlight, part shade the world appeared anenchanted place. Still, silent the world waitedmotionless. The moon smiled. But the smileseemed awry, mysterious and meaningful.Rehana’s mind was overwhelmed with thatsame old feeling, so experienced yet so different.For one brief moment, she was lost in theloveliness of light and shadow. She came outonto the porch in the middle of the night. Hersleepless eyes, like the branches of a tree,stretched out in the sun, seemed to see againthat university square, the debate programme,the stage, the musical soiree. . . The singer thatevening had been Rehana. Amazing! Her voicewas gone, crushed under the weight of herscreams and cries. Rehana stood up. She feltsomewhat dizzy. Were the crickets droningsomewhere in a monotonous voice? Was somebird flapping its wings ceaselessly? Or was shehearing the heavy, concentrated sound ofnumerous boots gradually coming nearer? Shetottered into the house, clasping her head withher two hands and flopped down on the bed.Did the nights of Poush rain fire nowadays?

Her head and forehead became wet withperspiration. The room seemed intolerablydamp and sultry. Once again Rehana cameout. She scooped up water from the pool andsplashed it on her eyes and face. She dabbedher head with the cold water. Her lips movedsoundlessly, No, no, no. She rubbed her hairwith the corner of her sari. Her short hairbarely touched her shoulder. Rehana once hadlong hair as dense as a forest. In that forest,she had tried to hide her shame. But shecouldn’t. They had trimmed it short. Oh Lord!Rehana clasped her hair with her hands andpulled it again and again. Despite herintolerable restlessness, she finally lay down. Ifonly she could sleep for a little while. Shepassed the hours of the night still as death, likea phantom, like the shadow of night. Rehana,companionless, remained lost in thought ofthe days past. But still she felt thirsty . . .Without her own knowledge; the breath of herwill grew warm. She had a mother and twoadolescent brothers whose eyes were notinquisitive; whose mouths did not utter anyawkward question. They were really glad to

Helena khan a well known Bangladeshi writer and educationist, a famous name in children’sliterature passed away in the evening of 15 March 2019. As an author, she received manyliterary awards such as Bangladesh Shishu Academy Purashkar (2001), the Bangla AcademyAward (2008) and the Ekushey Padak (2010) for her contribution to literature. Among hermany work Virangana a story set in Bangladesh after a liberation war depicts themaltreatment of women in ethnic and religious conflict and gives an evidence that thediscourse around chastity, dishonour, and shame does not differ. The endemic refusal tohear the voices—the sorrows, anger, pain of violated women is not bound by a historicalmoment or geographical region. It is a story of a woman trapped in her identity of virangnaor ‘war-heroine’. The story portrays the irony of the Virangan who is treated as special inan effort to ‘protect’ her, while in fact it isolates and destroys her. The injustice of the labellies in the way others behave towards woman who returns home; as Virangna she is almosttoo precious to touch, but her embodied shame is never far.


have their Apumoni back. Looking at theirsleeping faces,

Rehana was inspired to live. Yes, shewould live and why shouldn’t she? She wouldraise her two small brothers on behalf of herfather. They would grow up. And she wouldlive to see that with her happy eyes. Ah! Whata sweet smell suddenly entered through theopen window! The pleasant fragrance ofhasnahena! In a pleasing drowsiness, Rehanaclasped the side pillow. But the sweetfragrance was slowly becoming odorous! Thewhole room filled with that strong odour. Herbrain cells filled with that odour. Everythinggrew confused. Rehana tossed about all night.The next day she opened her eyes at hermother’s call. The way her mother startedlowering her voice and kept her eyesalarmingly on her every moment shook thevery foundations of her strong will to rebuildher life. Her firm endeavour wavered. “Areyou feeling all right? Now, don’t try to hideanything from your mother. It will onlyincrease your problems.” The wounds of herbody had healed. But the swollen woundwithin her heart still bled. Her mother’s eyesgrew dim as she looked at the face of herdaughter. Rehana came down to the yardquickly. The vegetable garden was shroudedby a curtain of mist. The lanky bean stalkclimbed up the tin roof of the kitchen. Rehanahad sown with her own hands the crotons,the rangan tree and the sheuli tree next to thewall. As in the past this year too the trees hadflowered. Nature was beautiful and vibrant.She alone was a misfit, a weed that needed tobe uprooted. Her cousin Salma had come fromCharpara. Salma, who was of her own age,hugged her, “O! After such a long time! Wecouldn’t imagine that you were alive!” It wasa completely natural and warm salutation.Still, it stabbed her heart. She was no longer afilled pitcher. Today she was just the lees ofan empty bottle. There was an unbridgeablegap between her and Salma. The colours oftheir two bloods were different. The warmthof Salma was sharp like the edge of a curvedsword. The aunts of the neighbourhood came

with auspicious wishes. They were notinsincere. But their gaze? There was some sortof hidden question in their eyes. Rehana couldnot bear it any longer. She came inside andsat motionless, holding the bed for support.Her mother finished the incomplete task ofpreparing tea and served it. There was anembarrassing disquietude in her very ownhome, her own environment. How couldRehana survive in this environment supportedon shame and sighs? “Apumoni, Moyna’smother has just arrived.” Babul’s voice broughther back to her senses. Moyna’s mother! Acomplicate character whose only satisfactionwas to find fault with others. Babul loweredhis voice as he came nearer, “Mother saysthat you should not come out of this roomuntil she leaves.” And then, without wastingtime, Babul asked, “Why? Why Apumoni?Moyna’s mother is not the Khansenas whowould shoot you if you came out. Then whyis mother forbidding you?” His questionscould not be answered. She was unable toface a single Moyna’s mother. How wouldshe face hundreds of thousands of Moyna’smothers on her way? She reasoned withherself that there were so many people shecould lose herself in the crowd. But the shieldof reason was not enough to hide the meanmentality of others and their prejudices. Whatcould she do about that? Rehana had heardthat a pearl-studded seat of honour had beenprepared for her. But how many had thecourage to sit on that seat? The glaring blackcopper of shame and distress would tarnishthe glittering gold of honour. Her eyes filledwith tears. “Why are you crying, Apumoni?Is there anything to cry for? You never usedto cry before.” The naïve Babul could notunderstand how terribly his words struck hissister. Rehana burst into sobs. No, Rehanacouldn’t live in this place. She left thesuffocating environment for far awayJamalpur, the working place of her maternaluncle. Her mother thought it would be betterfor her to be away from home. Her uncle andaunt did not know Rehana’s unbearableshame. Rehana got to know her neighbours.


The place was new and she met new people.She hoped to renew her life in this new place.The other day a storm had been raised whenshe was conversing with Shamsher, a youngprofessor who lived next door. Rehana felt asif the world had grown calm after a storm.There was a deep plea in the eyes of Shamsher.No, no it couldn’t happen! She wouldn’tdeceive Shamsher. She would tell himeverything. After hearing everything, knowingeverything, if Shamsher still wanted her . . .Rehana felt a great power inside her. And inthat power she saw the light of her salvation.She understood clearly that people’s attitudeswere caused by prejudice. Nothing more. Shefelt that a weight had been lifted. There wereso many answers to so many questions. Beforeher there was an oscillating string. Her handraised up involuntarily to break that string ina single stroke. One day, while Rehana sat atthe sewing machine on the other side of thepartition, Shamsher’s mother said, “My sonlikes your niece very much. So do I.” “ OurRehana is educated, beautiful. And there canbe no question about her family. No one candislike her. But I’ve heard that Shamsher’smarriage with Lina is fixed. Lina knows fromher childhood that she is going to be a memberof your family and Shamsher will be herhusband.” “No, she can’t marry Shamsher.She can’t,” Shamsher’s mother said loudly.

Basavanna. These have become centres for business. Followers of Manu are against the demandof a separate Lingayat religion. Lingayat leaders have been misled since they have joined handswith the Sangh parivar.

M.M. Kalburgi, who wrote the play “Kettithu Kalyana” (Destruction of Kalyana) basedon the killings of Sharanas in the twelfth century, was killed by the Hindu extremists. Similarly,Gauri Lankesh was murdered for spreading rational thought. The followers of Basavannashould worry deeply about the growth of the Sangh Parivar, and the growing intolerancewhich has led to the killing of progressive writers.

Every Indian should understand that the Indian constitution is replete with the ideas ofBasava and his followers. It is the need of the hour to come forward and support these voices touphold human dignity. We have to try build afresh, for our own times, the Kalyana revolution.

Courtesy : Indian Cultural Forum

Basavanna

“Why, what has happened?” “No, nothing!Shamsher has announced clearly that hewon’t marry her any more. We too don’t wanthim to!” She was silent for a few moments.Then she said in a low voice, “Don’t you knowshe was kept in the cantonment for two days?That’s why Shamsher can’t marry her.” “O!That’s what you mean.” It seemed to Rehanathat she had stumbled on quicksand.Bewildered and agitated, she sank deeperwhen she heard the inevitable, calm remarkof her aunt. The ground under her feet waslost! And there was nothing for her to clingto. Yet Rehana laughed. It was a terrible laughthat bled . . . Now there was nothing for herto tell Shamsher. She was a virangan! What aglorious title! How high she had been raisedby this honour! But in what golden box wouldshe hide this diamond-like title? She wouldn’teven be able to come out on the street withthat title And . . . and if somebody found thetrace of this valuable document, her new jobat the school might be at stake. “A virangana!A virangana!” Rehana laughed unabashedlyas she uttered these words. She felt as light asthe clouds that float in autumn. It was likethe last ray of the sun at twilight. It was likethe peaceful cessation that comes with thetremulous last sigh after a heart-breaking cry.

Courtesy : “1971 and After slected Stories” by Niaz Zaman

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MAINSTREAM Pakistan is shocked by theslogans of Aurat March. A nation that ischaracterised by its free use of sexual abusethat not only targetswomen with explicitreference to their sexualbody parts, but does sowith impunity, isshocked by women’sdemand for bodilyintegrity and safety. Aculture where men —all men — ranging fromthe highest in the landto the littlest streeturchin and the localbadmash, freely interlard their speech withlanguage that strips women of their clothes,their autonomy; their self-respect, reduces themto their sexual bodily parts and spells out inexplicit detail what they, as men, can do tothem — is shocked by the slogans of AuratMarch.

The nation which remained silent atKhadim Hussain Rizvi’s filthy languagetargeting women in violent street protests, ismorally outraged by women speaking out fortheir own bodies and staking their claim toagency, autonomy and respect in the home,the street and the marketplace.

Shocking? Yes. Surprising? No!The Aurat March slogans challenged the

status quo and put patriarchal authoritythresholds to doubt. The terms and terminologyof Khadim Hussain Rizvi’s sex-based abuse

did no such thing. Thus while some did takeexception to his language, the greater concernof the many was not with Rizvi’s hate speech

and incitement to rapebut with the publicinconvenience causedby the protest.

When womencame out into thestreets of Lahore onFebruary 12, 1983 toprotest Zia ul Haq’sproposed Law ofEvidence, fatwas werepassed invalidatingtheir marriages and

declaring their children illegitimate. They werelabelled as prostitutes, kafirs and CIA/KGBagents and accused as elitist women who knewnothing about the ‘real’ lives of ‘real’ women.This too was not surprising. At a time whenmainstream political parties were either silentor colluding with the military government,women were the first to challenge a dictatorialregime and raise their voice for democracy;the first to speak publically for women’s social,economic, legal and political rights and thefirst to openly highlight the gap between groundrealities and the complacency of the societalself-image as a culture that accords high statusand respect to women. But why the hysteriaover the Aurat March in 2019? The 40 or soyears that lie between February 12, 1983 andMarch 8, 2019 should have inured society tothe phenomenon of women raising their voices

Aurat March and its Discontents

By NEELAM HUSSAIN, NEELAM HUSSAIN, NEELAM HUSSAIN, NEELAM HUSSAIN, NEELAM HUSSAIN, PAKISTAN

Society takes exception to women’s rejection of the authority of the male voice andtheir daring to speak of things that only men can do and speak about. The march hasopened up space for debate on some serious concerns.


for their rights. As part of WAF and the largerwomen’s movement, women have turned tothe law on issues as disparate as theprivatisation of the Women’s Bank and theadult woman’s right to choice in marriage;they have prevented marriages to the Quran,protested honour killing, marched for jointelectorates, minority rights and peace; theyhave spoken out against religious extremism,discriminatory laws and violence againstwomen in the home and the street and haveraised their voice for women’s parliamentaryrepresentation; for women’s right to paid work,labour rights and the rights of landless peasants.

Orchestrating their demands, and in theirown right too, writers like Kishwar NaheedandFahmida Riaz have rejected patriarchythrough poems like ‘Ham Gunahgar Aurtein’and ‘Hazoor, yeh siah chadar meri nahin, aapki zaroorat hai.” So why the hysteria now,when a new generation of women voice theirdemands for respect, safety, agency andautonomy? The answer lies in the shift from thebroad outlines of larger public issues to theirdetailing as experienced and expressed publiclyand privately in the daily routines of life. It liesin the irreverent tone of voice; in theappropriation and subversion of gender-basedstereotypes and clichés that naturalise maledominance and routinise violence againstwomen. It lies in women’s use of satire, humour,aphorisms, inversions, role reversals thatchallenge powerbased privileges. Not only didthe Aurat March foreground the personal asthe political, it challenged patriarchal authoritythresholds by turning language on its head,and joked and laughed while doing so.

Authority takes itself seriously and doesnot respond well to laughter. And that is thereason why Aurat March slogans were metwith howls of outrage, anger, accusations ofvulgarity, immodesty and much more and the‘bahaya’ slogans of the Minhaj al Quranwomen’s counter-march that calls the AuratMarch women ‘gali ki kutiya’ accepted ascivilized expression.

This is not to say that society condonesrape, sexual harassment, honour killing etc.What it takes exception to is women’s rejection

of the authority of the male voice and theirdaring to speak of things that only men can doand speak about. Given the furore, there is aneed to examine the Aurat March slogans andconnect them to their underlying meaning andreferential field. ‘Apna khana khud garamkaro!’; ‘Mujhe kia maaloom tumhara mauzakahaan hai!’ is not just about warming up thefood and lost socks. It is about male privilegeand entitlement that take the woman’s servicesfor granted and see her compliance as moralimperative. Not a serious issue? Elitist?‘Westernised’? Take a look at recent newsreports of the husband who killed his wife forserving a cold dinner even as the March wastaking place, and the father who beat his twelveyear old daughter to death for not making a‘gol roti’, and justified his act with the statementas reported by the media: ‘You would do thesame if it happened to you!’

‘I will burn your honour to the groundand walk smiling through the gates of heaven’.Shocking! Only the worst can be said of awoman who defiantly dispenses with herhonour! Except that the slogan is not about thewoman’s honour at all, for the simple reasonthat society gives her none. It is about malehonour and privilege, and the murder andmutilation of women in the name of thathonour. About forced marriage and male prideand the denial of women’s right to education,paid work, mobility. It is about theobjectification of women as property and themale right to dispense with them as they will.It is about the law of Qisas and Diyat thatmakes murder easy.

In the face of this, should she allow herselfto be fooled by the ‘ghar ki rani’ myth andendorse a value that is the cause of her shaming,deprivation and death? Is this still an immoralstatement? If so, whose immorality is it about —the man’s, the woman’s, or of the society thatcondemns her for speaking out? The AuratMarch has opened up space for serious debate.Moral outrage as refusal to look uncomfortablerealities in their face should not deflect attentionfrom what are very serious concerns.

Courtesy: http://tns.thenews.com.pk/aurat-march-discontents/ via @TheNewsonSunday


They Peddle Myths and Call It History

By ROMILA THAPAR, ROMILA THAPAR, ROMILA THAPAR, ROMILA THAPAR, ROMILA THAPAR, INDIA

THE election of Narendra Modi and hisBharatiya Janata Party, or the B.J.P., in 2014led to renewed efforts to rewrite Indian historyso as to legitimize Hindu nationalist ideology.These efforts had begun when the B.J.P. firstgoverned India between 1999 and 2004.

Under Mr. Modi’s government andvarious state governments run by his party,the attempts to change history have takenmany more forms, such as deleting chapters orpassages from public school textbooks thatcontradicted their ideology, while adding theirown make believe versions of the past.

They have peddled myths andstereotypes through pliant media networks —and have been teaching these versions as historyin schools run by the Rashtriya SwayemsevakSangh, the parent body of Mr. Modi’s party,which he served as an outreach worker andorganizer for numerous years.

Why is history so important to the Hindunationalists?

Nationalists are known to construct anacceptable history to identify those they claimconstitute the nation; extreme nationalistsrequire their own particular version of the pastto legitimize their actions in the present.Rewriting Indian history and teaching theirversion of it is crucial to justifying the ideologyof Hindu nationalists.

Secular anti-colonial nationalism, aprimary organization of which was the IndianNational Congress led by Mohandas K. Gandhiand Jawaharlal Nehru, won independence forIndia by basing itself on the equal and inclusiveparticipation of all citizens as constituents ofthe nation.

This approach was challenged in the1920s by two specific and at that time relativelyminor forms of nationalism: the Muslim

League, a party established by Muslimlandowners and the educated middle class,which claimed to represent Muslimnationalism; and the Hindu Mahasabha,created by upper-caste, middle-class Hindus,which asserted that it represented Hindunationalism. It later morphed into theRashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh, also knownas the R.S.S.

The Muslim League spearheaded thecreation of Pakistan in 1947. The R.S.S. and itsaffiliates are still waiting to convert India froma secular democracy into a Hindu religiousstate. Their ideology, which attempts tolegitimize the politics of Hindu majoritarianism,goes by the name of Hindutva (Hindu-ness).Both Muslim and Hindu nationalism wererooted in Britain’s colonial understanding ofIndia. Policymakers endorsed the two-nationtheory proposed by James Mill, author of theinfluential “The History of British India,”published in 1817. He maintained that therehave always been two separate nations in India— the Hindu and the Muslim — constantly inconflict.

Linked to this idea was Mr. Mill’s divisionof Indian history into three periods — Hindu,Muslim and British. Both these theories, initiallyaccepted by Indians, were later questioned byhistorians and discarded half a century ago.However, they remain the bedrock of Hindutva.

To establish a Hindu state, democracyhas to be replaced by a state where the fact ofHindus being in a majority in itself gives thempriority. The Hindutva definition of the Hinduis that both his ancestral homeland and theHindu religion’s place of origin are within theboundaries of British India. This makes theHindu distinctly different from those that camefrom elsewhere, as well as from those of other


religions — Christians, Muslims and Parsis aretherefore aliens.

The origin of the Hindus is traced backto Aryan culture. Aryan identifies a languageand a culture, not a biological race, whoseemergence historians date to the secondmillennium B.C. But the Hindutva version ofhistory is frantically pushing the date back toinclude the Indus civilization, a sophisticatedurban civilization that preceded the Aryansby a millennium, as part of the Aryan origin ofthe Hindus. The word is derived from “arya,”which means “those regarded with respect.”If the Hindus are of Aryan origin, therefore,they feel they can claim superiority over allothers. This reflects not just the 19th centuryEuropean obsession with Aryanism, but alsothe imprint of German and Italian Fascism ofthe 1930s on the founding members of theR.S.S., easily found in their writings. Whereashistorians are exploring the obvious interfacebetween various communities and cultures ofthe second and first millenniums B.C.,Hindutva ideologues insist on a single uniformculture of the Aryans, ancestral to the Hindu,as having prevailed in the subcontinent,subsuming all others.

Recent genetic evidence fromarchaeological sources has pointed to a mixtureof populations in northern India at that time,with people of Iranian and Central Asianorigin. Historians see this as evidence ofmigrations into India, but the idea is anathemato the Hindutva construction of early history.

To assert that the pre-Islamic period ofIndian history was a golden age, claims arerepeatedly made that this “Hindu period” from1000 B.C. to 1200 A.D. was so scientificallyadvanced that Hindus were already using manymodern scientific inventions, such as airplanes,plastic surgery and stem-cell research. Thesestatements are applied to the activities of godsand men from the ancient past. The otherequally insistent Hindutva argument is thatthe Hindus were victimized by the Muslimsand were slaves for the thousand years ofMuslim rule. In demanding a Hindu Rashtra,or Hindu state, they claim to be asserting theirhistorical rights and avenging theirvictimization. The history of the “Muslim

period,” the second millennium A.D., is seensolely from this perspective and remains amechanism for fueling hatred.

Historians find no evidence for suchsweeping generalizations, but their views aredismissed. There certainly were conflictsbetween Hindus and Muslims, just as therehad been conflicts between Hindus andBuddhists in pre-Islamic times. Some powerfulMuslims did attack Hindu temples, both toloot their riches and to direct aggression againstthe religion. But this again was known in pre-Islamic times when some Hindu kings lootedand destroyed temples to acquire wealth. Therewas more than religious prejudice involved insuch actions. The claim to victimization is ironicgiven that the worst form of victimization —declaring the lower castes to be so polluted asto be untouchable — was practiced by upper-caste Hindus for 2,000 years, including throughthe period when they were supposedly beingvictimized.

It is striking that remarkable new ideassurfaced in Hinduism during the period ofMuslim rule, such as those developed by itsmany devotional sects, which enriched thereligion and gave it a form that is currentlyobserved by some Hindu devotees. But theseare treated as isolated incidents. Nor is therereference to some of the most exquisite religiouspoems in praise of Hindu gods that werecomposed by Muslim poets, and that continueto be sung in repertoires of classical the centralityof secularism in Indian society, is a covert wayof attacking secular democracy. The antipathyand the effort to diminish the achievements ofMr. Nehru also stem from the R.S.S. not beingpart of India’s anti-colonial struggle.

The most dangerous aspect of theimplanting of the Hindutva version of historyacross Indian society is that the divide betweenprofessional history and the version of the pastused to legitimize Hindu majoritarianism isincreasing. The latter has the patronage of thegovernment, is well financed, and ispopularized in a variety of ways. Those criticalof this Hindutva history are already beinglabeled anti-national in an attempt to subverthistorical research.

Courtesy : New York Times


Sri Lanka Blasts: Shattering aDecade of Relative Peace

By SUNIL KUKSAL, SUNIL KUKSAL, SUNIL KUKSAL, SUNIL KUKSAL, SUNIL KUKSAL, INDIA

SRI LANKA was less than three weeks awayfrom commemorating a decade of relative peacewhen co-ordinated series of terrorist suicide-bombings in churches and hotels on the EasterSunday on 21 April 2019 killed at least 321 people.The goal of the well-orchestrated and synchronisedbomb blasts in 2019 – worse than any conductedby the island’s Tamil Tiger rebels in a quarter-century of war – appears brutally to kill innocentpeople and provoke already existing communaltensions between religious communities. Thevictims were mainly Christians who perishedwhile attending Easter services in three churchesin Colombo, nearby Negombo and Batticaloa onthe east coast. At least 36 foreigners were amongthe dead in three other explosions at five-starhotels in Colombo. More than 500 people wereinjured in the explosions. The gruesome bombingswere a stark reminder of the nation’s violent pastwhich has been largely peaceful in recent years.The bombings may be the latest permutation ofviolence in the country which shattered a decade-long peace on the island nation.CIVIL WAR AND LTTE

Sri Lanka witnessed one of the world’sbloodiest and longest civil wars in modernhistory from 1983 to 2009 when the Tamilsecessionist led by the Liberation Tigers of TamilEelam — known as the Tamil Tigers fought foran independent homeland in the north and eastof Sri Lanka. During this time coordinatedbombings using improvised explosive devices(IEDs) were a regular phenomenon. TheLiberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE)extensively used IEDs against an array of targets,including Sinhalese residential areas, high-valuetargets like lawmakers and heads of state, andfinancial hubs like the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

On May 16, 2009, the Sinhalese governmentsteamrolled the last stronghold of the notoriousterrorist group “The Tamil Tigers.” Accordingto conservative U.N estimates, some 100,000people were killed in Sri Lanka’s conflict.THE COMMUNAL DIVIDE

Clearly, Sri Lanka’s minority Christiancommunity was the main target of this terrorattack. While there have been scattered incidentsof anti-Christian harassment in recent years, therehas been nothing on the scale of what happenedon 21 April 2019. Christianity is a minorityreligion in Sri Lanka, accounting for less than10% of the total population of 21.4 million. Thereligious tensions have grown in recent years,with the emergence of radical Islamist groups onthe one hand and a surge in ultra-nationalistBuddhism led by the Bodu Bala Sena on theother. The attacks were not thought to be carriedout by Buddhist extremists. They broke fromprevious patterns of violence. With the growingfault lines between the Sinhalese Buddhist andMuslims, the key question remains: why was theChristian community the target of the attacks onEaster Sunday? Now global narratives areseemingly influencing Sri Lanka’s local conflict.The exact motivations of the attackers are stillnot known. But they may have targeted churchesin part because these spaces are powerful symbolsof the West. Fairly or unfairly, Sri LankanChristians have long been associated with colonialpower; today, connections to global missionarynetworks and massive institutions like the RomanCatholic Church compound that association.While Muslims and Christians in Sri Lanka donot have a history of mutual hostility, the generalatmosphere of religious repression may havecontributed to the attackers’ desire for violence.


TARGETING MUSLIMSThere is also no history of violent Muslim

militants in Sri Lanka. However, tensions havebeen running high more recently between hard-line Buddhist monks and Muslims. The trendbegan around 2012, barely three years after theSri Lankan armed forces defeated the LTTE,bringing the country’s three-decade-long war toan end. Extremist Buddhist groups, emboldenedby the LTTE’s defeat in the civil war, begantargeting Muslims, even though most Muslimssupported the state against Tamil separatism.Reactionary groups among Sinhala Buddhistscampaigned against the Hijab and then sought aban on Halal certification, forcing shops to stopselling meat labelled according to Islamicguidelines. A few Muslim-owned chains wereattacked. In 2013, a Buddhist mob attacked amosque in Colombo, injuring 12. In 2014, mobsattacked homes and properties of Muslims livingin the southern town of Aluthgama.Muslimsaccount for 10 per cent of the population and arethe second-largest minority after Hindus. Tomany, it seemed that Muslims had emerged anew adversary to hard-line sections of themajority Sinhala-Buddhists. The Muslims had notretaliated in any of those instances.EMERGING THREATS OF MILITANTISLAM

According to Sri Lankan governmentofficials, all seven of the suicide bombers in theattacks were Sri Lankan citizens associated withNational Tawheed Jamaath (NTJ), a local militantIslamist group with suspected foreign ties. TheNational Tawheed Jamaat had been an offshootof the Tawheed Jamaat, often known for itsrabid speeches against non-believers. Sri Lanka’sdefence minister said there were nine suicidebombers in total. Eight have been identified,though Sri Lanka has not formally named them.Oe was a woman. Investigators have been tryingto determine the extent of any connectionsbetween ISIS and the attack cell, looking atwhether ISIS mostly provided violent inspirationor whether its members or former fighters helpedcoordinate the attacks

The Wahhabi aligned NTJ has a significantpresence in India’s Tamil Nadu state particularly

in districts close to the maritime border with SriLanka. It appears the NTJ has links to jihadistsoutside Sri Lanka, including the Islamic State, orISIS. If that attribution bears out, the attacks arelikely to inflame tensions between the country’sBuddhist majority and its Muslim minority anddestabilise an already febrile political situation.Moreover, if this case of home-grown terrorwith transnational links is established, it wouldpoint towards the dangers of growing religiousextremism and radicalisation not just in Sri Lankabut in the South Asian subcontinent at large.POLITICAL CHALLENGES

Government dysfunction and intelligencefailure have been blamed for the Easter Sundaybombings in Sri Lanka despite early warnings ofpossible attacks in the intelligence sector. The SriLankan government admitted to a “lapse ofintelligence” after officials failed to act uponnear-specific information received from foreignagencies. The government’s dysfunction is beingtraced to simmering divisions between thepresident and prime minister after a week’s longpolitical crisis that crippled the country in October2018 when the latter abruptly sacked the formerand installed Mahinda Rajapaksa, the country’sformer president, as the new premier. ThoughRajapaksa was ousted less than two months laterwhen the Sri Lankan courts overruled Sirisena’smove. The crisis ended, but the division anddisarray went on. Now, there are fears that thepolitical feuding could have provided a windowfor a catastrophic security lapse that couldreverberate across the region.

The bombings and the government’s failureto thwart the bombings could cast a tremendousinfluence on the future leadership of Sri Lanka.According to its constitution, the next presidentialelection of Sri Lanka is due in December 2019,with parliamentary election to follow in 2020. Inthe meantime, the attack also constitutes anearthquake in the economic sense, and theconsequences could last for a longer period. Since2015, Sri Lanka’s economy has been on thedecline. It remains to be seen whether Sri Lanka’spoliticians will unite in the face of the attacks,which threaten to destabilise the countrypolitically and further hurt its economic growth.


Transcending BordersThrough Melody:

A New South Asian Symphony?

By LEKSHMI PARAMESWARAN, LEKSHMI PARAMESWARAN, LEKSHMI PARAMESWARAN, LEKSHMI PARAMESWARAN, LEKSHMI PARAMESWARAN, INDIA

Former Indian top diplomat Nirupama Rao’s attempt to unite South Asian nationsthrough a South Asian Symphony Orchestra (SASO) and concert, ‘Chiragh,’ hassparked debate on whether cultural diplomacy remains the most powerful medium toforge people to people links

THE image of a womanstanding before a crowdin Khartoum, Sudansinging revolutionarysongs while protestingagainst the reign ofPresident Omar-alBashir struck a chordwith people across theworld. The woman,Lana Haroun has cometo symbolise the kind of hope that can onlyarise when cries of despair become loud andpainful. Through her songs, she made peopleacross borders empathize with the plight ofSudan and root for her country. Such is thepower that music has always had on the psycheof nations in transcending boundaries andbringing about unity in times of adversity.

In South Asia, that was witness to one ofthe most diabolical acts of devastatingfundamentalism on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka,the invisible lines of ideological warfare havebeen drawn. The choice of Sri Lanka for thedastardly attacks, which killed over 250 people,sent messages at multiple levels that it is warthat has just begun, and the region will haveto fight many more battles in the coming days.

The signs that South Asia is becoming

the new terror hub afterthe fall of Islamic State(IS) in Syria firstemerged when aPentagon report twoyears ago stated thatAfghanistan may havearound 4000 IS fightersafter they were forcedout of their territories inSyria and Iraq. The

multiple devastating attacks that followed oninstitutional establishments made it clear thatthe threat of Islamic State is real and SouthAsia is faced with a challenge that it was illprepared to address.

The symbolism of the church attacks inSri Lanka on a day when the world wascelebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ wasnot lost on anyone. It was a stark reminderthat in a region that is already battling weakdemocratic structures and power struggles inmany of its nations, there was a space fordisruptive forces to wreak havoc. The risingChinese and US influence in the region is yetanother reminder that South Asia is becominga pawn in the great power play of internationalpolitics.

At a time like this, former Indian top


diplomat Nirupama Rao’s attempt to uniteSouth Asian nations through a South AsianSymphony Orchestra (SASO) concert ‘Chiragh’has again sparked debate on whether culturaldiplomacy remains the most powerful mediumto forge people to people links. Her choice offorging links through music should be seen inthe context of history where music has playeda powerful role in helping communities andnations express their anguish as well as theirhopes for a better tomorrow.

It was during the Cold War era thatmusic as a medium for expression began togain prominence. After the end of World WarI, then US president Woodrow Wilson steppedaway from the pressures of traditional back-channel diplomacy and announced the startof open diplomacy. Much before Joseph Nyecoined the term ‘soft power’ in the late 1980s,the world was introduced to a method ofdiplomacy where artists could take centrestage.The US State Department organised a series ofjazz concerts across the world in the 1960s,intended to spread the values of freedom andliberty. Coming at a time when the world wasdivided between stringent state control andliberalism, the concerts helped bring thosedifferences in sharp focus.

Since then, music has remained animportant component of world events. Thefall of the Berlin Wall is even today rememberedby the iconic song by Scorpion, “The Winds ofChange”. That IS in Libya had released videosof musical instruments being burnt in 2015was a clear indication that the groupunderstood the power of music in bridgingcultural gaps. In later years, when it was losingcontrol of its territories, it used musicalpropaganda in a desperate attempt to attractyoung fighters. It recorded battled hymns anddisseminated these online, realising that musicis perhaps the only medium where language isno barrier.

Today, when IS has claimed responsibilityfor the ri Lanka attacks, it is evident that SouthAsia is not battling a conventional terror outfit.IS works to erase the heterogeneous nature of

societies. It is no longer a question of forcesprotecting the borders, but also of savingvulnerable minds from radically destructivethoughts and ideals. It is here that South Asiacan come together and unleash the power ofmusic as a calming force. It should be seen as amedium that will open up dialogue betweenthe nations in understanding the culture andcommonality that have bound people of thisregion together for millennia. While music fromindividual countries are popular, there havebeen no concerted eÀÛàÜorts made in SouthAsia to form a collective identity. The sharedcivilizational values should have ideally pavedthe way for such an identity, but internalconflicts and inherent animosities betweennation states have always been a barrier inartists and people coming together for a greatercause.

Rao, a former foreign secretary and alsoambassador to the United States, in aninterview to News18 said, “People are the samein all these countries. If there is climate changein one part of South Asia, it affects the otherpart. If pollution levels go up, we all suffer.These things know no borders and weshouldn’t have the illusion that we are safewithin our borders and what happens outsidethat is none of our concern. We share oneatmosphere, one South Asia and one Earth.So, I thought that while we cannot solve theborder tensions at our level, each of us cancultivate a sense of empathy for one anotherand move beyond hatred, suspicion, ignoranceand prejudice. I think we must have a sensibleapproach to these issues, and how wecommunicate with each other. Music to me isa great way to start such communication.”

This is this spirit that needs to be imbibedby South Asia if it has to fight risingfundamentalism in the region. Where theminds are open and fearless, there is seldomspace for external agencies to infiltrate andtake control of nation states.

Courtesy : South Asia Monitorhttps://southasiamonitor.org/news/transcending-

borders-through-melody-a-new-south-asian-symphony


Redress Gender Injustice, IncludeWomen in Afghan Peace Process

By ZARIFA SABET, ZARIFA SABET, ZARIFA SABET, ZARIFA SABET, ZARIFA SABET, AFGANISTAN

UN Security CouncilResolution 1325 onWomen, Peace andSecurity was adoptedby the UN SecurityCouncil on October31, 2000 to recognizethe importance ofwomen at thed e c i s i o n - m a k i n gtable and theirpositive contributionto conflict prevention, conflict resolution andpromotion of peace and security, especially inwar zones and in post conflict contexts aroundthe world. UNSCR 1325 recognizes thatwomen and children constitute the majorityof victims of armed conflict and that womenand girls are affected by conflict differentlyfrom men and boys.

Afghan women have paid a highprice for decades of war in the countryand are primary victims of war andconflict. The agenda for women’s peace andsecurity is new and barely accepted inAfghanistan, which has the highest rate ofgender inequality. The role of women inconflict resolution and the peace process hasbeen ignored and women don’t have anyinfluential role in the country’s peace andsecurity process.

Peace and conflict are all men’s businessin Afghanistan. They decide the fate of

women in thecountry. Women areat the forefront ofinsurgency, violentextremism andradicalization inAfghanistan; theyhave defended peacewithin homes/community, butwithin society atlarge, they remain

unheard, their efforts unrecognized.The Afghanistan Peace Council,

which was established in September 2010for peace negotiations, has 70 members ofwhich nine are female. This council haslimited influence on the overall peaceprocess and women, specially, have limitedinfluence in the council, which has a moresymbolic than effective role in the peaceprocess.

Afghanistan adopted its NationalAction Plan for Women of Afghanistan in2015, responding to UNSCR1325. In spiteof this, the role of women and theirinclusion in addressing peace and securityconcerns remains unclear. In 23 rounds oftalks held between 2005 and 2014, therewere only two occasions where Afghanwomen were directly represented at thenegotiation table; the 2010 talks in theMaldives and the 2011–12 talks in France.

The absence of women and their voices in the process casts doubt on the type of peacethat these talks would bring to the country.


In July 2015, in peace talks between theAfghan government and Taliban, not asingle representative was a woman.

“We are concerned and unhappythat we have not been consulted. Theyhave not been very transparent withwomen about the peace process,” saidHasina Safi , director of Afghan Women’sNetwork (AWN). Sadly, this is not unique.In most post-conflict peace processes,women have only been given piecemealroles.

Not only are women unrepresented inthe peace process, their agenda is largelyabsent in peace talks, meaning that mendecide the fate of the women who haveno role in determining their future. Afghanwomen paid a very heavy price duringTaliban oppression and they do not wishto return to those dark days. Peace talksdo not make any sense for Afghanwomen unless their voices are heard andtheir demands are included in the peaceprocess. The aim of a peace processshould not only be to end violent conflictbut also to build a lasting peace whereeveryone has a voice. The absence ofwomen and their voices in the processcasts doubt on the type of peace thatthese talks would bring to the country. Agrowing body of evidence shows thepositive correlation between women’sparticipation in peace negotiations anddurable peace.

In recent peace talks, in Moscowearly 2019, women were under-represented; among 40 men, there weretwo women and they did not have anyactive role. The key speakers were onlymen.

The chief Taliban negotiator inMoscow promised women’s rights based inIslam once they come to power. “Islamhas given women all fundamental rightssuch as trade, ownership, inheritance,education, work and the choice of partner,security and education, and a good life.”But Afghan women have not forgotten

that they were denied even basicfundamental rights during the Talibanregime. It remains unclear if there is anyreal change in Taliban’s approach towardwomen.

If they come to power they willjustify their oppressions and deny anymodernizations and women rights in thename of Islam and seek legitimacy throughit. Afghan women are unhappy withTaliban sayings and are not hopeful ofany change in their approach towardwomen. Afghan women are concerned thatpeace with the Taliban should not be atthe cost of women’s rights in the country.

Over 700 Afghan women from all 34provinces participated in February 2019 ina National conference to demand inclusionin any peace talks with the Taliban. Theystressed the importance of preservingwomen’s rights and upholdingAfghanistan’s democracy. Activists andother women’s rights advocates cametogether to draft a document demandingthat their rights should not becompromised even for peace.

The document titled ‘AfghanWomen’s Six Point Agenda for MoscowPeace Talks’ brought together women fromurban and rural areas. This documentemphasizes the importance of humanrights, women’s rights, law and order inpeace talks with the Taliban.

The exclusion of women in peaceprocesses has serious repercussions forwomen’s rights in post-conflict settings,particularly in Afghanistan, where women’srights remain precarious. Failure toconsistently address women’s rights willreinforce gender injustice. Including womenat the negotiating table for consultationsbeyond formal talks is a necessary steptowards a lasting and legitimate peace inAfghanistan.

Courtesy : South Asia Monitorhttps://southasiamonitor.org/news/redress-gender-

injustice-include-women-in-afghan-peace-process


Innocent Until Found ProtestingBy SUSHMITA PREETHASUSHMITA PREETHASUSHMITA PREETHASUSHMITA PREETHASUSHMITA PREETHA, BANGLADESH

IN December 2018 and January 2019, workersfrom Bangladesh’s ready-made garment (RMG)industry went on spontaneous mass protests andstrikes around major industrial belts in Dhaka.They were agitating against what they deemedinsufficient wage increases, announced by agovernment-appointed wage board in September2018, that would go into effect three monthslater. Garment-factory owners and theBangladesh government responded with a triedand tested strategy: repression and attack.

As a result, more than 11,000 workers havebeen terminated from their jobs – many withouttermination benefits – and thousands more havehad criminal cases filed against them. So far,over 50 workers have been arrested and manymore live in fear of imminent arrest. At least oneworker has been killed, while several othershave been assaulted, tear gassed, and shot withwater cannons and rubber bullets – sometimes intheir own homes.

Unlike past struggles by garment workers,these protests were not organised by the majortrade union federations. The government’scrackdown on labour activists in 2016, and itshandling of the movements for quota reformand road safety ahead of the December 2018general elections, had sent out a clear message topotential dissidents. Unions got the memo loudand clear. The workers could not, however, beso easily appeased.

With the RMG sector earning over 80percent of Bangladesh’s export revenue in 2017,the government has used rhetoric of external‘infiltration’ and ‘instigation’ to dismiss thelegitimate grievances of garment workers.Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi has claimedthat, “A certain quarter infiltrated the garmentworkers’ movement and instigated anarchy… todamage the RMG sector.” Meanwhile, in theabsence of strong trade unions and in the face ofbrutal repression, workers have had little choicebut to take to the streets.OLD DEMANDS

Bangladesh’s garment workers are someof the worst paid among workers in major

garment producing countries. Even with the payincrease in September 2018, to USD 95 per month,the country’s garment-sector minimum wage lagsbehind those of its competitors China, Vietnam,Cambodia, India, Pakistan and the Philippines,for all of whom the figure ranges between USD120 and 170. According a 2018 report by Centrefor Policy Dialogue (CPD), a Dhaka-based think-tank, at least 17 percent of the country’s garmentworkers sleep without a bed at night, 16 percentdo not have ceiling fans in their homes, 86 percenthave to share toilets with other families, and 45percent are unable to save anything from theirearnings. Another survey of 200 workersconducted in 2018 by Bangladesh GarmentSromik Samhati, a Dhaka-based labour-rightsgroup, found that an average garment workerhas the ability to spend BDT 1110 (USD 13) perperson per month on food. However, the studyfound that a worker must spend at least BDT3270 (USD 39) per month to meet the calorificneeds, as determined by the Institute of Nutritionand Food Science at Dhaka University. Thiscaloric requirement excludes food with highernutritional value, like meat or fruits.

In light of these factors, garment workersand unions have been demanding a minimummonthly wage of BDT 16,000 (USD 190) for atleast three years.LONG MARCH

In December 2016, tens of thousands ofworkers in the manufacturing hub of Ashulia, anarea near Dhaka, protested and went on strikesdemanding a fair living wage. In the repressionthat ensued, at least 1500 workers were firedand 38 workers and union leaders were arrested.Nine factories – six of which were suppliers forthe multinational clothing-retail company H&M– filed criminal charges against union leadersand unnamed workers.

The government, too, acted in the interestsof the factory owners, filing cases against workersunder the draconian Special Powers Act (1974) –which allows for detaining a person if thegovernment simply ‘suspects’ them of carryingout an act deemed detrimental to the interest of


the state. Thanks to coordinated internationalpressure from labour-rights groups, nationalfederations and a global union, nearly all thefactories agreed to withdraw their cases.However, the cases filed by the state under actssuch as the Special Powers Act, which includescharges such as sabotage, which have provisionfor imprisonment up to 14 years, are yet to bedropped. This means that the accused have toappear in court every month, incurring expensesthey cannot afford, and also live in fear of re-arrest.

That these cases were filed to harass unionactivists after the 2016 strikes was obvious. TheWorker Rights Consortium (WRC), a US-basedlabour-rights monitor, concluded that most of thecomplaints made by Ashulia factory managerswere against unnamed people. Some of thosearrested in connection with these incidents werenot even working in Ashulia, where the strikeshappened. Instead, they were detained inneighbouring Gazipur and Chittagong forincidents that occurred months, or even years,prior to the December 2016 protests. Members ofunions and labour-rights groups were harassed;their offices were surveilled and, in some cases,forcibly shut down by security forces in Ashulia,Savar and Gazipur. For instance, the office of theBangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, labour-rights non-profit, was forcibly evacuated, and itsdoors locked, by the police on 29 December, 2016.On 20 January 2017, an International LabourOrganisation-funded training programme in theGazipur office of the Bangladesh IndependentGarment Workers Union Federation was haltedso that law enforcement could question andphotograph the participants.NEW WAGE BOARD

Following sustained pressure by the tradeunions, in January 2018, the Bangladeshgovernment finally appointed a wage board todecide new wages for the garment sector. Theboard consisted of representatives from thegovernment, owners’ associations and workers.To the frustration of activists and workers, theworker representative appointed, ShamsunaharBhuiyan, was a member of the Jatiya SramakiLeague, which is affiliated to the ruling AwamiLeague. In an interview with the DailyStar, Bhuiyan said that as sympathetic as shemight be to the workers’ cause, she could notsuggest a wage that “might harm the stateeconomy and tarnish the party’s political image.”

After months of deliberation, in September2018, the wage board announced that the monthlygross minimum wage for Grade 7 RMG workers– the lowest paid category of garment labourers– would increase by 51 percent, from BDT 5300(USD 63) to BDT 8000 (USD 95). Workers andactivists assumed that Grades 1 through 6 wouldreceive wage increases of similar proportions.However, another announcement in November2018 made it clear that the proportion of increasewas lower for the higher grades.

To make matters worse, workers realisedthat their basic wage – the portion of their totalwage which is used to calculate benefits such asovertime and a five-percent yearly increment,which was introduced in 2013 – hadactually decreased as a proportion of their grosswage. For some workers, once the yearlyincrement was accounted for, the new basic wagewas either an insignificant increase or an outrightdecrease. For example, workers in Grade 3, whowere earning BDT 4075 per month as basic wagein 2013, would anyway be entitled to BDT 5204in basic monthly wage by 2019, under the five-percent annual increment rule. But the new wagestructure set the basic wage for Grade 3 at BDT5160 per month, which is BDT 44 lower than itwould have been without the change.

Even including the increased percentageof allowances (for food, housing, transport, etc)in the new gross wages, it is unclear on whatbasis these wages were calculated as they didnot in any way reflect the spiralling cost of livingin Bangladesh. The government’s own HouseholdIncome and Expenditure Survey, conducted in2016, stated that the average householdexpenditure per month was BDT 15,715 (USD186). A 2018 CPD survey found that the averagemonthly expenditure for garment workers wasBDT 22,435 (USD 270). It also showed that thatthe average monthly expenditure for a garmentworker increased by a whopping 86 percent from2013 to 2018, with inflation figures hoveringaround six percent over these years. Thesefindings highlight that there is no way for aworker to support his or her family on the newminimum wage, unless another member of thehousehold also holds a job with an equal orhigher wage.

When protests began in December 2018 inresponse to the newly implemented wagestructure, some factories retaliated withterminations, threats and violence. For instance,


in Abanti Colour Tex, one of the first factorieswhere workers demanded higher pay, themanagement reportedly fired 1043 workers.Workers claim that since they brought forth thedemands for fairer wages to their management,they have been subjected to beatings,harassment and even threats of ‘disappearances’by management and local goons, to say nothingof the disproportionate violence of the police,as evidenced from the use of rubber bullets,water cannons, tear gas and batons, on whatbegan as peaceful protests. In other factories,the management reportedly appeased workerswith the promise of reconsidering an increasedpay in consultation with the government.

The factory owners argue that no‘innocent’ worker needs to be afraid ofretaliation. Yet, thousands of workers – whoinsist they did not partake in any violence butmerely participated in strikes, and who urgethe authorities to check CCTV footage beforefinding them guilty – have not only lost theirjobs but are unlikely to find another one in thissector after being branded as ‘troublemakers’.According to IndustriALL Bangladesh Council(IBC), the national coordinating body ofaffiliates of IndustriALL Global Union, biometricdata linked to employment records are nowbeing used to identify workers involved intrade-union activities and deny thememployment. Active union members and vocalworkers in Worker Participation Committees –which mediate grievances between workers andemployers – are also being targeted throughcases. The police have the option of listing‘unnamed’ perpetrators in their case files,allowing law enforcement to make arbitraryarrests. Unions claim that at least half of theworkers picked up were not specificallymentioned in the case documents.

There are also multiple instances ofworkers from one factory being picked up incases filed by another factory. In one case filedby A R Jeans Producer, for instance, unionleaders of FGS Knitwear – which shares thesame ownership as the former – have beencharged, even though the two factories areseparate entities and the case document doesnot cite the involvement of outsiders in thealleged vandalism that took place. Similarly,workers from Saybolt Textiles have beenarbitrarily picked up in a case filed by MahmudFashion.

STRUGGLE AHEADIt is no secret that most factory owners

dislike trade unions. The state, too, irrespectiveof which party is in power, has supported theowners, be it through laws such as theBangladesh Labour Act 2006 – which makes itdifficult for unions to organise within factoriesand facilitates arbitrary denial of unionregistrations – or by ignoring management’sviolent retaliation against trade-union activists.

Weakening of the labour movement –partly due to the fragmentation of trade unionsalong party lines, and partly due to an unhealthycompetition among the major federations – hasmade collective organising a dream of the past.It hasn’t helped that more and more unions areembracing the ‘NGO model’, whereby theyreceive foreign funding for organising trainings,workshops and seminars. This in itself may nothave been problematic if such programmes didnot take precedence over radical collective action,such as the physical occupation of the streets orcivil disobedience that Bangladesh witnessed inthe 1980s and early 1990s.

In its pursuit of unsustainable economicgrowth and eagerness to facilitate capital, thestate has created apparatus like the IndustrialPolice – whose self-described mission is to“ensure safety and security of industries” and“take necessary measures to prevent any labourunrest in the industrial area” – and continues toconflate workers with criminals and factoryowners’ profits with national interest. Everymajor workers’ protest in the last decade hasbeen met with violence, with many resulting inone or more deaths of workers. None of thesedeaths have ever been investigated properly.

In the aftermath of the 2018-19 strikes, aten-member committee, with five representativeseach from trade unions and factory owners, wasformed on 8 January 2019 to review the wagestructure. As the protests continued, less than aweek later, the board decided that wages wouldgo up by BDT 15 for workers in Grade 6, BDT20 for those in Grade 5, BDT 102 in Grade 4,BDT 255 in Grade 3, and BDT 786 in Grade 2.Given how insufficient these increases are, it ishardly surprising that the state-business nexushas had to resort to bullying and violence toscare the workers into submission. But for howlong can a disgruntled workforce be kept incheck ?

Courtesy : HIMAL South Asian


CHAPTER : IX

The Psyche and Phantasy

By CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL

...Continued from previous issue

IMAGINE, therefore, the firstsub-man leading his almostsolitary life of the instincts inhis nearly private world ofreality, dreaming like the dogof the simplest actions thatanswer his desires, and facedby reality with the need for

making that dream more real, more full ofcontent, more useful.

His solution we have already recordedwhen we dealt with the birth of poetry. Manmade a tremendous stride forward when heinjected the dream into waking life, whichforced it to answer the categories of wakingreality.a

But it was essential that he should dothis without losing the very quality that madedream useful, its plasticity. Now ifconsciousness is faced with the demand ofcompletely coinciding with external reality, itthen becomes indistinguishable fromperception – perception of things round-me-now, perception of feelings inside-me-now.

Hence the joints of this wakingconsciousness had to be somehow loosened.Imagine the “I” located at a point in the solidcrystal of space-time. So far as the “I” isconscious of its relations with space-time, theyare simply a perceptual glowing networkrunning from the “I” out into infinity.

Two ways of “loosening” are possible:(i) One involves a separation of the subject

from the object. This in itself gives rise to thepossibility of two further subdivisions-

(a) It is possible to concentrate on thereality of feeling-tone, and dissolve the crystal

of external reality. This does not mean thatexternal reality disappears; it means thatexternal reality is manipulated not primarilyaccording to its own laws but according toinstinctive and subjective laws. Hence theplasticity of dream is retained, but the wakingreality of subjective consciousness is injectedinto dream to enrich it. This gives us the fieldof the illusory Mock World (but real commonego), the world of art.

(b) Or it is possible to concentrate on thereality of the object and dissolve the nucleus ofinternal reality. This does not mean that the“I,” the observer, disappears; it means that the“I” is manipulated not according to its owndesires but according to the necessity of externalreality. Once again the plasticity of dream isretained, but the reality of the wakingenvironment is brought into the world ofdream to stiffen it. This gives us the realperceptual world of the impersonal,omnipresent, unemotional Mock Ego, the worldof science.

(ii) It is possible, besides separating subjectfrom object, to separate space from time, likefrom unlike, and quantity from quality. Thisdoes not mean that space or time disappears,but that one or the other is the manifold inwhich distortion takes place.

Spatial organisation gives us theclassificatory sciences and poetry.

(b) Temporal Organisation gives us theevolutionary sciences and the story.

The classificatory sciences, of whichmathematics is the queen and physics animportant sphere, deal with space-likeorderings which are independent of time. Timeenters only as a homogeneous oscillation inwhich no new qualities emerge except that of


entropy. This is the field of timeless order, ofquantity, of mechanical materialism.

The evolutionary sciences, which developlater, are historical in their approach. Theydeal with reality as a process, as the emergenceof new qualities. Sociology, biology, geology,psychology, astronomy and physiology are allsciences which are interested in time, whichroam about through time and therefore abstractby telescoping, condensing and generalisingtime, just as the classificatory sciences telescope,condense and generalise space. Obviously thesefields penetrate. Only mathematics is purelyclassificatory and dialectics purelyevolutionary. The rise of the evolutionarysciences from 1750 to 1850 was what alteredthe mechanical materialism of Condillac,d’Holbach and Diderot to the dialecticalmaterialism of Marx and Engels and made itcapable of including all the active side of thesubject-object relation developed by idealism.

The same division in the field of art givesrise to a similar distinction. In literary art thenovel is evolutionary and the poem isclassificatory. As this distinction is offundamental importance, it must be consideredin detail later.

Obviously the brute-man did not evolvethese externalisations of dream, as we havedone, by taking thought. They were generatedby his struggle with Nature, by the need forassociation in that struggle, and by thedevelopment of vocal and visual symbols whichthat association made necessary. The realworld discovered with the aid of the mockego, and the real ego explored by means of themock world are the conscious world and theconscious ego and, therefore, the social worldand the social ego.

In the dance and the chant man retiresinto a half-sleep by dismissing the world ofimmediate reality. This enables him to playfast and loose with the world of external reality,to build and unbuild it. But not arbitrarily andlawlessly – there would be no point or objectin such an occupation. He builds it accordingto the laws of the social ego, and he does thisbecause in the dance and the chant, whilewithdrawing from the world of external reality,he maintains in touch with the subjective worldof his fellows by moving his body in rhythm,

by repeating the same words in unison, byweaving between them an emotional networkof common feelings evoked by socially commonobjects, such as notes of music, animalsmimicked in the dance, words denoting sociallyrecognised entities or experiences. Thus theitems of the common perceptual world areselected, organised, blended and reorientatedround the social ego, the “god” of early Greekritual who descended into his worshippers andwho was nothing but the symbol of theheightened common ego formed by the dance.

Of course, as society develops, poetrydetaches itself from the common festival.Civilised man more easily secures physiologicalintroversion – the rhythm of poetry is sufficientto achieve it – and the collective subjectivesignificance of words keeps him in touch withhis fellows without the need for that collectivefestival which has been out-moded by thedivision of labour, a division reflected in thewider range and greater content of languageitself.

Such art is timeless, for man himself isstill timeless , still lives entirely in the Nowfrom age to age, with only a fabulous past andfuture. This ideal timelessness reflects the factthat man’s division of labour itself has notextended into time, that he lives from hand tomouth, that he does not, like modern man,inherit all the capital, the congealed labour,the technique and cultural achievements ofchanging generations of men. He has only thebarest social relations with the dead and theunborn. A few tools, a limited technique andan unwritten language he has certainly, andthis commonness with the past is reflected in afew time-myths – about heroes and a goldenage and a Prometheus or Moses, bringers ofknowledge to barbarous men. But, in general,the timelessness of poetry matches his ownchildish simplicity which thinks, like Traherne,that the wheat was golden and immortal, cornthat had never been sown or reaped.

But as history develops, man’s interplaywith his changeful past is reflected in townsand temples and states and irrigation andfinally in stories – in images of men’s changinglives organised in time. So a new art emergeswhich reaches its height – the novel and film –exactly in that era from 1750 onwards when


the evolutionary sciences rise to notice. All thisnew insight is in turn a product of the terrifichistoric changes in Nature made possible byindustrialisation.

In the story, man is young and growsold, and we are interested in watching how inthis process of maturing his external worldand his own heart change. This distortion,organisation, condensation and selection of thesubjective contents of the psyche and its realenvironment in relation to a temporal life-linedistinguish the story from the poem.

This in turn reveals the greatersophistication of the novel. In theundifferentiated tribe it is easily and alwayspossible for all men to be in one mind in onetime in one place, and for a universal andtimeless ego to emerge from this congress,speaking for all with one voice. But the moredifferentiated life of modern societyis contrapuntal; men’s lives blend and overlapand interweave in a complicated tapestry, andthe moments rarely arrive when all their mindsand emotions are gathered together in onepublic universal “I.” Hence the hero of thenovel is not like the “hero” of poetry, a universal“I,” but a real concrete individual.

How is the “collectiveness” of the novelassured? It inheres in the real environmentthat always figures in the novel – the realismof the actions, of the other characters, and theevents considered as one social plexus. Thusexternal reality, dismissed by introversion fromthe immediate attention of the reader, returnsin another guise – not as reality-now, not asthe room in which “I” am sitting reading, butas the external reality which has been or maybe; and this is only possible precisely becausethe novel is plastic in the time dimension. Hencethe immediate reality of the reader is pushedout or blanked off by the verisimilitude of themock world of the novel, which is thereforemach more realistic and factual than theshimmering, dream-like mock world of poetry.

In this the novel resembles the day-dream.As compared with the ordinary dream the day-dream has more reality, it remains in the field ofthe possible, it does not contain theextravagances or abrupt transitions of thedream. It is more orderly and less primitive, andthis is necessary because in the day-dream we

are awake and therefore the phantasy has tohave this material coherence, this stiffening ofobjects ranged in a real order so as to screen outthe everyday environment and draw the mindto it. This quantity of “matter” in the day-dream and the novel makes necessary theirtemporal organisation, because without suchan organisation the narrative would becomeoverloaded and confused and would finallybulk out to coincide with the slow unwieldymovement of perceptual reality itself – at whichpoint it would lose all value, or possibility ofaffective organisation. Dream by its sensoryintroversion, and poetry by its rhythm andconcentration, escape the need for so great astiffening of reality and so marked an“organisation” in time. Theirs is an organisationin space.

The day-dream is characteristically amore “civilised” form of phantasy. It is theexpression of man as an individual plastic inreality, just as the dream is the expression ofreality plastic in the man. One expresses man’spower over Nature derived from alteringhimself: the other man’s power over himselfby altering Nature. In the day-dream, manexperiments with adapting himself to reality;in the dream, with adapting reality to himself;both these characteristics are carried over intotheir respective arts.

Science in its dichotomy reveals the sameparentage. In the classificatory sciences mandoes not introvert himself from present realityby interposing thoughts of another precedentor subsequent reality, but by spreading overpresent reality categories derived from himself.This is precisely what the field of order orquantity really is. Just as man derives fromrhythm certain instinctive commonnesses, sohe derives from perception certain perceptualcommonnesses. Three cows, three sticks, threeapples, when bare of subjective aspects (thecow appearing as one thing to one man, theapple as differently valued to another), yethave a perceptual commonness among menwhich is “threeness,” number, quantity. Allthese qualityless categories of classification, byrobbing the present of its peculiarities, enableman to “abstract,” to blend, select and combineall reality in a timeless way. By purging fromthe common ego all those qualities which are

peculiar to one man in one place, it becomespossible to give man a phantastic and flexiblegrasp of the whole field of reality. The processrobs reality of the time in it – the emergence ofnew qualities.

It is for that reason that in man’s dailylife, counting, the herdsman’s science (India),and geometry, the agriculturist’s science(Egypt), emerge before the more qualitiedhistorical sciences. In a more primitivecommunity men have much the sameexperiences in common from day to day, andit is easy for them, meeting together in a group,to make of their experience a bundle of world-perspectives from one point of spare-time, abundle bare of quality, of feeling-tone – whichis just what mathematics is. It is easy for themto “abstract” themselves from thosesurrounding by abstracting from thesurroundings all feeling-tone and therefore allquality. Because they perform tasks in commonit is easy for them to abstract the commormessin all tasks – the quantitive element in them,the number of cattle tended, of acres planted.

Thus dream becomes mathematics when,for the introversion of sleep shutting out allsensory stimuli from the environment, issubstituted the introversion of mathematics,which shuts out all sensory qualities and so isable to extend its grasp beyond present realityto all reality. In sleep the rhythm of breathingand the flow of blood draw the perceptualworld into the ego; in mathematics the rhythmof breathing and the flow of blood push theego into the perceptual world.

It is only later, when civilisation becomescontrapuntal, and men’s labours, aspirationsand aims cross and interweave, that theevolutionary sciences arise. Here introversionfrom present reality is secured, not byabstracting all quality from consciousness but

by substituting an ego whose appreciation ofquality is limited, distorted and organised intime. This mock ego is not like that ofmathematics, the ego gazing everywhere andnowhere seeing quality, but the ego gazingeverywhere yet seeing only one particular typeof quality, the qualities that demarcate theparticular sphere of science in question. Hence,with the rise of the evolutionary sciences, sciencenecessarily splits up into different spheres eachwith their own distinct qualities – the spheresof chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology,etc. These spheres do not contradict each other;they are selections from the one universalmovement of qualities which is reality, butwhich without this division of labour wouldbe beyond man’s grasp.

The spheres are not arbitrarily selected,they are determined by the nature of realityand of man’s active relation to it, and mark hissuccessive concern with dead nature, withhimself as body, with his own mind and withthe society that is the matrix of their mutualrelations. Because of the fullness of qualityeven in any one sphere, it is still necessary toorganise and condense them in time, just asman organises in retrospect his own experience– by a condensation, blending and fusing ofthe qualities that emerge in this sphere in theprocess of reality.

Just as the hero of the novel is an individualsurrounded by those very events and personswhich will actively call forth the subjectivereactions for which the novel is written, so thehero of an evolutionary science is a particularsphere of quality observed by just that mock egoor one-sensed man whose peculiarities of sightwill call forth the relations which the science isevolved to organise and study.

to be continued...Courtesy : Illusion and Reality

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