Daily Archives: July 3, 2022

The textbook controversy raging in Karnataka shows no signs of subsiding. As details of the changes made become public, the protest against the selective inclusion and exclusion of texts inspired by Hindutva ideology is slowly evolving into a movement against the Brahminical saffronisation of education.

The ruling BJP was defensive in the beginning but is becoming more and more aggressive as the protest intensifies. The party is using the state machinery and also affiliated activists and groups to counter and malign the resistance as inspired by vested interests pursuing anti-national politics. Hence the textbooks controversy has snowballed into a conflict between an establishment wedded to Hindutva on the one side and civil society and various communities on the other.

By itself, the routine revision of textbooks ought not to result in controversy since it is a necessary academic and pedagogic exercise for students to be able to adapt to changing needs and times. But when you have an ideological state pro-actively engaged in rewriting history with the aim of promoting its Brahminical Hindutva politics, the interest of students, of education and, indeed, the nation is bound to be compromised.

Textbook revision as a political exercise

In fact, the textbooks currently under the radar have been revised thrice in the past decade twice by the BJP government and once by the erstwhile Congress government.

Baragur Ramachandrappa, head of the textbook revisions during the Congress government of Siddharamaiah. Photo: Wikimedia

The BJP revised almost all school textbooks according to its guiding principles during the later part of its first tenure from 2008 to 13.

Since numerous complaints were made that the revised textbooks were not in sync with the national curriculum framework (NCF) guidelines and had introduced unsubstantiated averments as facts, the Congress government under Siddharamaiah, which came to power in 2013, constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Baragur Ramachandrappa to look into the matter. Baragur is an educationist and professor who taught at different universities in Karnataka. He is also a famous writer and an award winning film director.

In 2017, the Baragur committee was given the responsibility to look into the textbooks and recommend revisions and corrections according to the changing needs, reflecting the spirit of constitution and also complying with the NCF of 2005. Accordingly, Baragur constituted 27 sub-committees with subject experts to work on the textbooks.

After the BJP came back to power in 2019 by poaching MLAs from the Congress, the then education minister for primary education through an order in September 2021 nominated Rohit Chakrateertha to examine half truths in the textbooks prepared by the Baragur committee, especially the language and social science texts, and submit a report within a month if revisions were necessary.

An all-RSS committee

Rohit Chakrateertha is a famous young orator who came to limelight as a person pursuing extreme Hindutva politics on social media. He is close to the RSSs ideology and suspicious of all progressive and left leaning scholarship and individuals. As per his own admission, Chakrateertha pursued an MSc from a college in Tamil Nadu and later started working as a mathematics lecturer in Bengaluru. He was also working with an education platform, training students for competitive exams such as CET, IIT and Olympiad, among others.

Rohit Chakrateertha, head of the textbook revisions committee appointed by the Bommai-led BJP government in Karnataka in 2021.

Unlike Baragur or his committee of experts, Chakrateertha lacked the expertise that the work demanded. Despite this, the government decided to expand his mandate to make him chairperson of the textbook revision committee and asked him to revise all changes made by the Baragur committee from a nationalist perspective. He was assisted by a committee whose members were all Brahmins except for one person. This expanded mandate came as a surprise to even Chakrateertha, who was well aware about his lack of qualifications. In fact, the education minister was out of his wits when grilled by the press about the academic credentials of the chairperson of the textbook review committee. He made himself a laughing stock when he declared that the chair was a professor of IIT and CET a claim that Chakrateertha himself was forced to deny.

When the Chakrateertha committee gave its report and the government accepted it in totality, the teaching fraternity and student organisation were both curious and suspicious about the nature of his revisions because the draft was never released for expert scrutiny or public debate.

When some of the contents leaked during the printing process, all hell broke loose. People who were in possession of a PDF copy of the textbooks circulated them widely on social media, leading to a protests.

The revisions made by the Chakrateertha committee broadly fall into three categories: inclusions, exclusions and interpretations.

All the revisions are guided by the declared objective of making the textbooks nationalist and inculcating pride in Indias glorious past and traditions by decolonising the thought process corrupted by Western and left leaning perspectives. In reality, the revisions make it clear that the agenda is to promote Brahminical Hindutva perspectives.

Inclusions that give the game away

Let us consider the inclusions. At the outset, according to a study conducted by experts in the field, more than 90% of the inclusion of texts made by the Chakrateertha committee is from Brahmin writers from south Karnataka. Not only that, most of the inclusions reflect the world view and the culture of that community. According to experts, this lack of diversity of cultures in the texts, unlike the earlier texts, reinforces the existing cultural hegemony and hierarchal social order.

The real intent of the inclusions and the BJPs government aggressiveness in pushing for them is illustrated by the inclusion of a speech by RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar, under the guise of facilitating good language. Its a lesson which profess that the real ideals before young people should be good values and not leaders. While this may look innocuous, the real story comes later when the writer says hence the RSS reveres the bhagva flag (saffron flag) and not leaders. As an afterthought, the reference to bhagva was deleted later. Of course, the cat is let out of the bag in the introduction about the author where the textbook says the RSS is a premier nationalist organisation which fought selflessly for Indian Freedom and also against centuries of cultural slavery.

Deleting Dalit-Bahujan India

The deletions comprise a long list of what the RSS-BJP want to erase from history and contemporary India. It starts with deleting a reference to Tipu Sultan as Tiger of Mysore, and his contributions to the states society and economy. The portions retained portray him essentially as a bigot and Muslim fanatic. The committee had also deleted a lesson on Bhagat Singh but after a sustained protest from student organisations another piece written by a Hindutva orator on the martyr was inserted. Apart from this, more than 90% of the lessons deleted by the committee belong to non-Brahmin and Muslim writers who vaguely subscribe to the values of communal harmony, peace and inclusive development and social equality.

An exhaustive lesson on Periyar has been deleted. Replying to a query about this, education minister B.C. Nagesh asked why students should learn about a Brahmin baiter. In the same vein, he also asked why students should read letters written by Nehru to his daughter. In social science subject textbooks, many hagiographical accounts of Hindu rulers and their valour in defeating Muslim invaders have been inserted to inculcate national pride among the students. The same minister even referred to historians like Romila Thapar as part of an anti national brigade working against nationalist ethos of the country.

Along with this, many historical non-Brahminical social reformers and poets who valiantly raised their voice against Brahmanical oppression like Akka Mahadevi, Kanakadasa, Sufi saints and others have been summarily deleted and instead Brahmanical writings have been inserted.

Distortions, from early history to Basavanna

The Hindutva Brahminical agenda behind the revision exercise becomes brazen in the interpretations and misinterpretations of various personalities and facts.

To start with, in social science, references to the oppressive Brahmanical order as the reason for the emergence of new religions like Buddhism and Jainism have been censored and instead the antipathy to growing animal sacrifice is cited as the major reason for their emergence. Justifying this interpretation, the minister and the chairman of the committee said that exploring the non-existent conflict between Vedic and non-Vedic religions is un-Indian, and a colonial and communist construct. Aryans are taught as Indias original inhabitants and the Harappa civilisation which existed before Aryans migration/invasion is collapsed into the enigmatic Sindhu Sarasvati civilisation etc. Even the Arya-Dravida theory which considers Aryans as migrants from Eurasia, if not invaders, is dismissed as a colonial construct.

In the same vein, Basavanna, who founded the Lingayat religion in Karnataka in opposition to Brahminical theological and social orthodoxy, has been presented as a social reformer from within the Hindu religion. His negation of the sacred thread and enunciation of a theology which considers all men and women as born equal has been deleted by the BJP committee. Another BJP leader, C.T. Ravi, who is the partys national secretary in charge of the southern states, has gone on record to say it is wrong to consider Basavanna and the Lingayats as outside the ambit of Hindu religion. He said Basavanna only preached the humanistic ethos embedded within Vedic thoughts through his new sect.

The Lingayats are a dominant community in the state which wields considerable social and political power. Lingayat Mutts are corporate bodies wielding overwhelming influence on the community. Predictably, this belittling of Basavanna and the Lingayat religion has enraged the Lingayat community. Incidentally, Chief minister Bommai also belongs to the same caste and the support of the Lingayat community is a major reason why the BJP is in power in the state. Thus, the state government has now promised that some modifications will be made to the sentences on Basavanna.

Even Kuvempu not spared

Likewise, the Brahminical textbooks revision committee also tinkered with lessons by K.V. Puttappa popularly known as Kuvempu the great Kannada poet and novelist.

Kuvempus celebrated call for universal humanity (vishvamanava) for people to get out of the cocoons of sectarian religions and develop a universal perspective of brotherhood has been the guiding principle of many progressive movements in Karnataka. His poem hailing Karnataka as the daughter of mother India is officially considered the state song and is sung in all schools, colleges and government programs. While the BJP committee has increased the number of poems by Kuvempu, it has attempted to blunt and even censor his political message.

Moreover, Chakrateertha has also been accused of sharing a Facebook post abusing the state song and belittling Kuvempus contributions. Since Kuvempu is from the Okkaliga caste, another dominant community in the state, this allegation against the chairperson of the revision committee drew the wrath of the community and even a strong worded letter from former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, who also belongs to the same community.

The state government was quick enough to respond to these grievances and has already filed a case with the police to trace the original offensive post, while protecting Chakrateertha by giving him a clean chit even before the investigation by stating that he is not the originator of the post. In the process, the BJP was cunning enough to reduce the whole resistance against its textbook revision and the objections raised against the belittling of Kuvempu to the incident of a Facebook post. It also sought to that the community and the BJP government are on the same page. This was an immediate electoral and political necessity for the BJP-RSS because its base among the Okkaligas is not yet consolidated, unlike the Lingayats.

Belittling Dr B.R. Ambedkar

The textbook revisions do not even spare Dr B.R. Ambedkar a figure the BJP is going out of its way to appropriate so that Dalits are retained in the Hindutva family without demanding radical changes. He, too, has been completely misrepresented, misinterpreted and belittled.

To start with, the reference to Ambedkar as the principle architect of the constitution has been deleted. Even Ambedkars mission for social equality as against the inequality embedded in the Hindu religion based on caste has been rephrased as a mere struggle for social reforms within the ambit of Hinduism. Any reference to his fight for the Untouchables against discrimination by caste Hindus is also sanitised as an abstract reformist enterprise. Even Ambedkars embracing of Buddhism his way of renouncing the hierarchal essence of Hinduism is highlighted as a simple conversion to a religion which is an integral part of Hindu culture. References to the social, economic and political reasons behind this conversion have been deleted.

The resistance, historic but inadequate

The committees recommendations became a bone of contention right from the time they became public. Since them, activist-volunteers and experts have been bust exposing the content and intent of the revisions on social media. Leading Kannada newspapers like Prajavani have taken the lead in exposing the changes and facilitating an informed debate.

The resistance slowly gathered momentum when student organisations and intellectuals in the field started to register their protest against the revisions. They demanded that the corrections be scrapped and that the government use the textbooks prepared by Baragur for this year. Many prominent Dalit-Bahujan and Left intellectuals like Devanur Mahadeva and G. Ramakrishna who had survived the purge issued a statement demanding the government drop their writings from the revised textbooks as a form of protest. Many authors followed suit.

Later when it became known that the revision committee had tinkered with Basavanna and Kuvempu, many Lingayat seers and Mutts and Okkaliga seers and social organisations also wrote letters and participated in the protest. A huge rally on was held in Bangalore on June 18 by left-progressive student and civil society organisations, non-BJP political parties and pro-Kannada organisations along with the seers of different communities, which gave the government an ultimatum to withdraw the textbooks. The Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) also wrote an open letter to the CM calling on him to withdraw the textbooks and continue with the old ones. Thus, the battle line is drawn where all the prominent non-BJP, non-Brahminical, left-progressive forces are on one side and the BJP-RSS and kindred groups are on the other.

The limits of caste as a rallying point

Still, the BJP government is undeterred by this seemingly alarming polarisation against it. The only concession it has made has been to file a case against the Facebook post maligning Kuvempu and agreeing to amend the sentences referring to Basavanna. It has also made it very clear in a recent press conference led by senior Okkaliga cabinet minister R. Ashok, that no fundamental objections pertaining to its rewriting and reinterpretations, inclusions and exclusions even of Kuvempu or Basavanna shall be entertained.

On June 27, the government issued an official corrigendum to carry out some nominal corrections. Out of the eight corrections officially conceded, one is to restore the prefix Architect of Indian Constitution before the name of Ambedkar, two pertain to a nominal correction to Basavannas introduction and the inclusion of another name of a Lingayat Mutt in describing the glory of Karnataka, and three pertain to inclusion of the photo of Kuvempu and the deletion of belittling references made to him, etc.

Thus, these corrigenda once again establish the manipulative hypocrisy of the BJP government where it reinforces the essential core of Brahminical Hindutva while pretending to be inclusive in the form and periphery. Significantly, the BJP-RSS are using the occasion to step up their ideological offensive on progressive personalities and ideologies by hosting seminars all over the state.

Though the resistance is growing and evolving on the ideological plane, it currently lacks the ability to see through the designs of the RSS-BJP leave alone defeat it. That the BJP government has mastered the art of breeding divisions in the ranks of the opposition is once again established when its ministers made multiple visits to the Lingayat Mutts and dissuaded them from participating in the ideological battle waged against Brahminism. It was also successful in dissuading the dominant Okkaliga seers from participating in the protests. The recent visit by Prime minister Modi to these Mutts during his visit to Karnataka has also helped the BJP.

This is also a reflection of the Brahminisation and Sanskritization of the elites of these communities, who serve not only as gatekeepers but also as stakeholder in the empire of Brahminical Hindutva in its present avatar. Thus, how far caste will play a role against neo-Brahminical hegemony when elites from the non-Brahmin dominant castes are beneficiaries of the regime as a class is a serious question.

In spite of all these limitations and the impossibility of immediate success, the textbook controversy has been somewhat successful in exposing the Brahminical-Hindutva ideology of the BJP-RSS regime. Thanks to the debate, more people in Karnataka are aware of the need for a sustained ideological and political battle against this ideology. The controversy and the capitulation of elite non-Brahmins has also highlighted the importance of formulating an alternative, egalitarian vision that can empower the broad masses of the people to take the lead. While this process will take time, the textbook movement can be considered one small step in that direction.

Shivasundar is a columnist and activist in Karnataka.

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Battle Over Textbook Revision in Karnataka Has Helped Expose the Ideology of Brahminical-Hindutva - The Wire

Governments tend to define democracy as narrowly as possible. The story they tell goes as follows: you vote; the majority party takes office; you leave it to govern on your behalf for the next four or five years. If you dont like one of its policies, your representative will put their own ambitions, party loyalty and pressure from powerful interests aside to ensure your voice is heard.

We can trust the government to spend our money wisely; to defend minorities against more powerful or larger groups; to resist undemocratic forces such as oligarchs, the media they control and corporate lobby groups. We can trust it to ensure everyones needs are met; workers are not exploited; our neighbourhoods and quality of life are not sacrificed to corporate profits. We can trust it not to abuse the political process; not to wage wars of aggression against other nations; not to break the law. There cannot be many people who have lived in the UK or many other nations for the past few years and still believe this fairytale.

We have seen what happens if we leave politics to governments. Fairly elected or not, they will, without effective public pressure, abuse their power. They will change political rules to favour their party, subordinate public interest to that of corporations and billionaires, beat up vulnerable groups, sacrifice our common future to expediency and impose ever more oppressive laws to bind us.

Trust in governments destroys democracy, which survives only through constant challenge. It requires endless disruption of the cosy relationship between our representatives and powerful forces: the billionaire press, plutocrats, political donors, friends in high places. What challenge and disruption mean, above all, is protest.

Protest is not, as governments like ours seek to portray it, a political luxury. It is the bedrock of democracy. Without it, few of the democratic rights we enjoy would exist: the universal franchise; civil rights; equality before the law; legal same-sex relationships; progressive taxation; fair conditions of employment; public services and a social safety net. Even the weekend is the result of protest action: strikes by garment workers in the US. A government that cannot tolerate protest is a government that cannot tolerate democracy.

Such governments are becoming a global norm. In the UK, two policing bills in quick succession seek to shut down all effective forms of protest. They enable the police to stop almost any demonstration on the grounds that it is causing serious disruption, a concept so loose, it could include any kind of noise. They would ban chaining yourself to railings or other fixtures, and interfering with key national infrastructure, which could mean almost anything. They expand police stop and search powers, an effective deterrent to civic action by black and brown people, who are disproportionately targeted by them. They can even ban named people from engaging in any protest, on grounds that appear entirely arbitrary. These are dictators powers.

In the US, state legislatures have been undermining the federal right to protest, empowering the police to use catch-all offences such as trespass or disrupting the peace to break up demonstrations and make arrests. Proposed laws in states such as Oklahoma and New Hampshire have sought to grant immunity to drivers who run over protesters, or vigilantes who shoot them. In Russia, a new law against discrediting the armed forces has been used to prosecute dissenters engaging in actions as mild as writing no to war in the snow. Similar draconian laws are being imposed by governments in many other nations.

Why do governments want to ban protest? Because its effective. Why do they want us to accept their narrow vision of democracy? Because it makes our power ineffective.

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The protests governments seek to ban broaden the scope of democracy. They permit us to challenge malfeasance and resist oppressive policy. They are the motor of political change, and the early warning system that draws attention to the crucial issues governments tend to neglect. The extraordinary people in these images understand this from suffragettes picketing the White House in 1917 to Patsy Stevenson being manhandled by police at last years Sarah Everard vigil; from relatives of those killed at Amritsar in India in 1919 to those taking to the streets after George Floyds murder in the US.

Almost everything of importance is disintegrating fast: ecosystems, the health system, standards in public life, equality, human rights, terms of employment. Its happening while elections come and go, representatives speak solemnly in parliament or Congress, earnest letters are written and polite petitions presented. None of this is enough to save us from planetary and democratic collapse. Business as usual is a threat to life on Earth. Disrupting it is the greatest civic duty of all.

They will continue to demonise us as a threat to the democracy we seek to protect. They will continue to arrest us and raise the penalties for being a good citizen. And we will continue to come out in defiance, as people have done for centuries, even when facing state violence and repression. Everything we value depends on it.

Pussy Riot was formed in October 2011, because we didnt want Putin to stay in power for ever, and we felt that if we didnt get rid of him, he would bring a great deal of pain to our country, says Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founding member of the Russian protest group-cum-punk band.

On 20 January 2012, eight members of Pussy Riot climbed on to the platform in front of St Basils Cathedral in Moscows Red Square and staged a guerrilla performance of their song Putin Zassal (Putin Has Pissed Himself). Operating anonymously at the time, the women wore brightly coloured ski masks as they sang and set off smoke bombs.

We had religiously rehearsed the whole of January, Tolokonnikova recalls. Coming to the square many times in advance; trying to calculate when there would be fewer police cars; getting climbing equipment for our shoes because the podium was covered in ice; discussing in detail what to do if we were detained.

Immediately after the performance, the women were detained. We spent eight hours at the police station and were let go. Exhausted. But happy.

That day is remembered as Pussy Riots big breakthrough. After their next performance held inside Moscows Cathedral of Christ the Saviour three members, including Tolokonnikova, were prosecuted for hooliganism, and the veil of anonymity was lifted. Yet through multiple arrests and jail terms and as Putin has tightened his grip on power the group remains determined to give voice to the resistance. In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, the stakes have only grown. Protest activity is becoming increasingly dangerous in Russia, Tolokonnikova says. You face 15 years in jail for calling a war a war, not a special military operation. And still, people protest every day. Not because they want to be heroes: because they cant lie to themselves. GS

In early 1963, Martin Luther King Jr described Birmingham as probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. He and other civil rights leaders organised a campaign of nonviolent protests, placing students at the centre of the movement. Eugene Bull Connor, the citys commissioner of public safety and a staunch segregationist, directed the use of fire hoses and police dogs to quell the demonstrations. Charles Moores images of a dog attacking a young man on 3 May 1963 drew national attention to the Birmingham movement and led to Connors ousting from office. GS

Around three million people took part in the wave of protests against the government that swept Turkey in the summer of 2013. It began with a small, peaceful protest on 28 May against the planned demolition and redevelopment of Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul; police then attempted to disperse protesters using teargas and water cannon. This image of activist and academic Ceyda Sungur being teargassed quickly became an emblem for the movement. Images of the lady in red, as she was dubbed, appeared on posters and online graphics, galvanising protests across the country. GS

The artwork Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) was originally produced by Barbara Kruger as a poster urging people to attend the March for Womens Lives in Washington DC in April 1989. The demonstration was organised in protest against the Republican administrations attempts to overturn Roe v Wade that year. Formerly an editorial designer at Cond Nast, Kruger knew how to create a memorable image: I was able to use the fluencies I developed with pictures and words and transform them into my own engagements as an artist.

Today, Krugers rallying cry for bodily autonomy continues to appear around the world. In this photograph, a Polish version of the poster, first produced in 1991, is shown plastered on a street in Szczecin in 2020. Abortion laws in Poland are among the most restrictive in Europe. Language has power. And the velocity and accessibility of that power is dependent on its readability, Kruger says of her decision to translate the text on the poster in Poland.

How does it feel to see her artwork still circulating so widely especially in the wake of the renewed assault on reproductive freedoms around the world? It is tragic that the war against womens bodies, against their power and agency, and against the notion of a multiplicity of genders, is continuing in the most brutal of ways, Kruger says. GS

This was taken on 21 December 1956, the day of the desegregation of the public transportation system in Montgomery, Alabama. More than 12 months earlier, Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat for a white man, sparking the 382-day Montgomery bus boycott the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the US. The white man in this photo was not a random passenger but veteran UPI reporter Nicholas Chriss: the shot was staged by an uncredited photographer to illustrate this important victory. GS

This was the only moment in my career when I instinctively knew it was going to be just fine that I had a great shot, Dario Mitidieri says. It was the Italian-born photojournalists final evening in Beijing, where he had flown to document the protests in the square. He had a return ticket to the UK the following morning.

When he first arrived in the Chinese capital, Mitidieri recalls that the atmosphere had been quite joyful. It was like a massive student party, they were dancing in the streets at night, singing Chinese opera. We knew there were secret police filming everywhere but there was no sense of danger, he says. But then soldiers began assembling around the square. Mitidieris photo of a young boy sitting on the shoulders of a relative, above a sea of helmets, was shot at around 6pm on 3 June 1989, only a couple of hours before the massacre began. In order to get the best angle, he climbed on to the seat of a nearby bicycle, held upright by two student protesters.

The image would become a potent symbol of the innocence of the protesters who were violently oppressed when the troops were sent in that night. Mitidieri, who never learned the name of the boy in the photo, thinks of his record of the events at Tiananmen Square as a true example of the value of the work photojournalists do. He compares it to the current situation in Ukraine: We have this propaganda coming from the Russian government, but the rest of the world is very well aware of whats going on because of the presence of photographers and journalists documenting it all, risking their lives. GS

This photograph was taken by Stuart Franklin, a British photographer, on 5 June 1989, the day after the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which its believed as many as 10,000 pro-democracy protesters in Beijing were killed by troops sent in to quash the demonstrations. A lone protester, dubbed Tank Man, stood blocking the path of a column of tanks leaving the square. Footage of the incident was smuggled out of China, with the still-unidentified man instantly becoming an icon in the western world. As Franklin put it: Here was a modern-day version of David and Goliath. GS

No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one, John F Kennedy said about this image of an elderly Buddhist monk taking his own life, on 11 June 1963, in protest against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnams largely Catholic government. American photojournalist Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer prize for his documentation of the shocking event. GS

Aed Abu Amro was among tens of thousands of Palestinians taking part in weekly protests at the Gaza border from 2018-19. Among their demands were an end to the blockade and right of return for Palestinian refugees. This image by Gazan photographer Mustafa Hassona of the young man with the flag of Palestine and a slingshot was seen around the world, drawing comparisons to Eugne Delacroixs 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People. Abu Amro was later shot and injured by Israeli troops at another protest. GS

There arent many student art projects that receive as much attention as Emma Sulkowiczs final-year thesis at Columbia University in New York. For Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), Sulkowicz vowed to carry a mattress wherever they went on campus until the school agreed to expel a fellow student whom they had accused of rape. The performance continued until their graduation and became a potent symbol of protest against rape culture in universities. That image, Hillary Clinton said in 2015, should haunt all of us. GS

On 28 August 1963, a quarter of a million people marched on the US capital to protest for civil rights in America; this was the day that Martin Luther King Jr made his famous I have a dream speech. Danny Lyon was a staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and close friends with the activist and later congressman John Lewis, who helped organise the march. I spent the night prior to the march sleeping on the floor of John Lewiss small hotel room, he remembers. It was very hot, and very sunny, just the worst light to make photographs.

This image, of a group of high-school students singing at the march, later became a symbol of the civil rights struggle, and was used as a poster by the SNCC throughout the 60s. The unusual angle was a result of Lyon trying to get other nearby photographers out of the frame: I fell to my knees to shoot, and shot up to the sky.

The picture has had a powerful afterlife. In 2020, as the city of Louisville banned street protests in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Black Lives Matter artist-activists led by Darius Dennis painted a vast, 45ft-high mural of the photograph on the wall of a government building in downtown Louisville. For Dennis, the image represented the spirit of protest history; by displaying it publicly at a moment when protest was banned, his team wanted to make these moments of black and brown and Indigenous people more accessible than they are in our schools. FB

In 1919 a peaceful crowd gathered in an open area called Jallianwala Bagh, in the Indian city of Amritsar, to protest against the British authorities arrest of pro-independence leaders Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. The crowd was surrounded by troops from the British Indian army who, under orders from the acting brigadier general, Reginald Dyer, began to fire on the protesters, killing many hundreds of people estimates suggest 370 to 1,000.

A young photographer called Narayan Vinayak Virkar arrived to document the aftermath. These images are very different from the rest of his work, which largely consists of sumptuous portraits of nationalist leaders such as Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose; instead Virkar took a series of sparse crime scene pictures, with the bullet holes from the shooting circled in white chalk. Relatives of those killed point to the holes.

For art historian Christopher Pinney, Virkars work is a very significant moment in the history of photography. In the 19th century it had been used as a tool of scientific or political authority, but in the 20th century, photographers such as Virkar began to use it to challenge the power structures around them. Virkar undoubtedly saw his images as involved in a fightback against colonial oppression, Pinney says. He sees a link between Virkar and the citizen journalists of today who document wrongdoing by the powerful. FB

This was taken from my friends balcony, recalls Egyptian-Lebanese photographer Lara Baladi. During the initial 18-day uprising in Egypt in 2011, when thousands gathered to protest against President Hosni Mubaraks authoritarian rule, the flat overlooking Tahrir Square became a meeting place for journalists and activists, always filled with people working, texting, tweeting.

Previously Baladi had been documenting the movement down below, but on 18 February, she wanted to see the view from above. It was the week after Mubarak had been toppled, so that day was named the Friday of Victory. It was a beautiful sunny day, she remembers. As she watched people in the square celebrate, two young men emerged next to her; they had just bought a massive bale of fabric at the textile market, basically 100 metres of the Egyptian flag. Taking hold of either side of the fabric, they threw it down. In no time it unrolled all the way into the crowd. As soon as it reached the square, people caught it. Minutes later it was stretched out and knotted to other pieces of fabric, and Baladi took the picture: It all happened very fast.

Looking back, for her, this photograph marks a turning point in the uprising the victory, the height of the revolution, before reality kicked in and the social divisions and nuances began to surface.

The events of the last 10 years have confirmed for her that change does not begin with the uprising. What happens before and after it is just as important, if not more. Revolution is a continuous process. FB

In May 2018, two-thirds of Irish voters opted to legalise abortion in a referendum pro-choice activists had long called for. A defining image of the campaign was of a march two years earlier outside the Irish embassy in London. We wanted to make a visual statement that might reach decision-makers at home, says Hannah Little (front). We decided 77 women should walk silently with suitcases towards the embassy, the number of women then travelling from Ireland to Britain every week to access terminations.

People who question if a protest accomplishes anything dont see the butterfly effect: strangers meet, swap details, start a campaign. Thats exactly what happened here. The London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign met with MPs, launched legal cases, raised money for pro-choice causes, held protests and mobilised Irish voters abroad. I dont see myself in this photo at all. Oddly, I never have, Little says. I see young women who are angry and ready to take power back. It resonates with people because we look unstoppable. And we were! GS

Italian photographer Tina Modotti became famous for the images she produced in Mexico in the 1920s of working-class life and political organising. This image of a workers May Day parade in 1926 was reprinted multiple times within her lifetime and reflects her stylistic mixture of art photography and reportage. In 1930 she was arrested and given an ultimatum: she could either cease her communist activities or leave Mexico. She chose to leave. FB

You could have heard a frog piss on cotton, John Carlos (right) said in an interview with Gary Younge in 2012 of the moment he and Tommie Smith raised their fists in a black power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, during the medal ceremony for the 200m race. Theres something awful about hearing 50,000 people go silent. The silence was followed by a torrent of racial abuse and though their protest made them famous around the world, it had grave repercussions for both men, whose careers suffered. Carlos had no regrets, however: I had a moral obligation to step up. Morality was a far greater force than the rules and regulations they had. FB

On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King Jr led thousands of civil rights protesters to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a five-day march that started in Selma; 25,000 people joined in across the 80km march, demanding the right to vote. Moneta Sleet Jr covered the landmark event as a photojournalist for Ebony magazine. FB

Is the dystopian future envisioned in The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwoods novel turned TV show about a theocratic regime that strips women of their basic freedoms, already here? In recent years, the red cloaks and white bonnets worn by the handmaids of Gilead have become a familiar feature at protests on womens issues around the world. The group of women standing outside the US Capitol in this image from 2017 were demonstrating against a bill that sought to defund the sexual healthcare provider Planned Parenthood. GS

Maidan was the first act in a great historical movement, wrote Jrme Sessini prophetically in 2019. It was just the beginning of a coming confrontation on a much larger scale. The Magnum photographer covered the protests in central Kyiv that led to the ousting of the pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Sessini was present during a period of extreme violence, when snipers killed at least 70 people; he captured the events with a series of extraordinarily dramatic and disturbing images. In this photograph, an Orthodox priest blesses the protesters on a barricade on 20 February 2014. FB

Associated Press photographer Julio Cortez captured this image just before midnight on 28 May 2020, the third day of protests after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. With its charged symbolism the United States Flag Code says a flag should never be flown upside-down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property the photograph conveys the deep sense of anger and injustice that would go on to fuel a mass movement of anti-racism protests across the globe. GS

In the early hours of 28 June 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York, prompted a spontaneous outburst of resistance that lasted for six days and was a watershed moment for LGBTQ+ rights. This photograph of young rioters gathered outside the boarded-up inn after the raid, shot by Fred W McDarrah for the Village Voice newspaper, captures the celebratory atmosphere that prevailed as gay and trans people refused to submit to state-sponsored oppression. The first gay pride march was held a year later to commemorate the event. GS

From April 2016, members of the Standing Rock and other Native American communities began to protest against construction of a pipeline in North Dakota, on the basis that it would affect local water supplies and cross sacred native lands. Barack Obamas administration halted construction, but Donald Trump would later reverse this decision. The pipeline remains in operation today. FB

In November 2020, images of Thai pro-democracy protesters using inflatable rubber ducks to shield themselves from police water cannon went viral. They had originally been bought for protesters to float down the Chao Phraya River near Bangkoks parliament, but after the images were publicised, they became an unlikely symbol of the protest. FB

This enigmatic image by the Japanese photographer Shomei Tomatsu presents a blurry figure caught in the act of throwing a stone in a protest against the Vietnam war. Tomatsu, whose subjects had included the vast changes taking place in postwar Japan, as well as the lingering traumas of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was known for formal experimentation and unusual compositions, which inspired a whole generation of photographers in Japan. FB

On 16 June 1976, thousands of black schoolchildren from the township of Soweto in Johannesburg, South Africa, took to the streets, protesting against a decree that all black schools must teach in Afrikaans what Desmond Tutu called the language of the oppressor. The children were initially hesitant to be photographed the Johannesburg-born photographer Peter Magubane convinced them, he later recalled, by telling them struggle without documentation is not struggle. The images would prove vital when coverage of the brutal police response at least 176 people were killed began to spread around the world, triggering mass outrage and firing up the anti- apartheid movement. GS

In 1960s Japan, a coalition of thousands of leftwing student activists and farmers came together to wage a years-long campaign against the construction of a new international airport in a rural area 40 miles east of Tokyo. The biggest clash at the Narita international airport construction site erupted in September 1971, when 5,000 police were sent in to expropriate the land. The airport finally opened in 1978, after many delays. GS

On the first Earth Day, held in cities across the US on 22 April 1970 to support environmental protection, an estimated 20 million people took to the streets for clean-ups, marches and performances. This photo, of student Peter Hallerman, became an emblem of the modern green movement that was born that day. GS

The Prague spring began on 5 January 1968, when Alexander Dubek took over the Czechoslovakian Communist party from his Stalinist predecessor; he introduced reforms that distanced his party from Moscow and promised socialism with a human face. Seven months later, Soviet tanks invaded and Dubek was eventually deposed. Josef Koudelka took about 5,000 photographs that week documenting acts of resistance by civilians but his identity was kept anonymous to prevent reprisals. After smuggling his film abroad, Koudelka fled the country, revealing himself to be the Prague Photographer only following the death of his father in 1984. GS

A group of artist-activists laid out a vast image of a child in a Pakistani field to pique the conscience of US drone operators who watched the border with Afghanistan from above. The portrait is by Noor Behram, who worked in North Waziristan, an area targeted by drone strikes. The girl pictured lost both her parents to one in 2010. FB

A small neo-Nazi rally in the Swedish city of Vxj made worldwide news when this image of a woman striking a skinhead with her handbag began to circulate. Danuta Danielsson, a 38-year-old Jewish woman whose mother had survived the Holocaust, hijacked the demonstration by the Nordic Realm party on 13 April 1985, in an impulsive counterprotest that has since been memorialised in multiple statues. GS

The Met Gala in New York is known for attracting outlandish outfits and wealthy guests, with tickets reportedly costing around $35,000. In 2021, the Democratic congresswoman caused controversy with her gown bearing the message Tax the Rich emblazoned across the back, created by the designer and activist Aurora James. Critics charged her with hypocrisy; she maintained it was worthwhile because it created a conversation about taxing the rich in front of the very people who lobby against it. FB

Mass protests broke out in Colombia on 28 April last year in response to proposed government reforms, including increased taxes and an overhaul of the healthcare system. Lasting six weeks, the protests were met with violent crackdowns resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. But amid the repression, one image of joyful resilience stood out: the moment when three activists ascended the steps of the National Capitol in Bogot and starting vogueing.

We decided to protest because, as LGBTQI+ people, all the government reforms affect us much more, says Piisciis (pictured centre), a non-binary activist who created the music for the performance and invited fellow voguers Axid Ebony and Nova Ebony to collaborate on the steps. There is very little representation at these marches, so I wanted to open this dialogue.

The trio found themselves dancing metres away from the Esmad, Colombias notorious riot police. At that moment, I saw a lot of fear in Nova and Axids eyes; I also felt it, Piisciis says. Everything went well, but it could have been catastrophic. The dancers continued for a few minutes, cheered on by fellow protesters. Initially, the police seemed unsure what to do, but then, It turned into chaos: there were explosives, stones, weapons, and we had to run. The impact of the protest for the queer community in Colombia was, Piisciis says, epic. It was a moment of empowerment, strength and representation. If in the future there are history books, surely well be in them. GS

In the spring of 1963, a sit-in was organised by students and staff of Tougaloo College, at a Woolworth lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi, which had a whites-only policy. Anne Moody, who went on to become a famous author, is seated to the right, with student Joan Trumpauer and professor John Hunter Gray. Over the course of a few hours, an increasingly rowdy white mob pulled the hair of the women, dumping mustard and condiments over them, and attacked Gray, cutting his face and neck with brass knuckles and broken glass. Gray later recalled the atmosphere as a lavish display of unbridled hatred. FB

Rachel and Rabbi Dr Akiva Posner were a Jewish couple with three children, living in Kiel, Germany, in the early 1930s. As part of Hanukkah celebrations, the menorah must be prominently displayed; but it can be hidden during a time of persecution. Rachel documented the moment just over a year before Hitler took power when the rabbi defiantly lit their menorah in the window, facing a building decked with Nazi flags. The Posners fled Germany two years later. FB

On 18 March 2022, 23 days into Russias war on Ukraine, 109 empty buggies were laid out in a square in Lviv, each representing a child who had been killed. Today the official estimate stands at more than 300. FB

Jan Rose Kasmir, 17, holds a chrysanthemum before a row of bayonet-wielding soldiers. This shot was taken by the Magnum photographer Marc Riboud on 21 October 1967 at the March on the Pentagon, a rally in Washington DC attended by 100,000 anti-war protesters. It would become the defining image of that movement. The soldiers, Kasmir later said, were just as much a victim of the war machine as anyone else. GS

Getty photographer Chung caught the moment a brave woman sat in front of riot police to protect a larger group of protesters, during anti-government protests in Seoul on 24 April 2015. FB

During the pro-democracy protests that took place in Hong Kong in 2014, many protesters used umbrellas to defend themselves from pepper spray. After journalists referred to the demonstrators as the umbrella movement, umbrellas quickly became a powerful symbol of the independence movement, carried by protesters to signal their allegiance and also used in art installations and countless memes. FB

We were seeking freedom, and we were seeking our dreams, and we were seeking a new Sudan, recalls artist and musician Lana H Haroun of the 2019 revolution. Initially, forces loyal to president Omar al-Bashir had cracked down violently on protesters. But then some members of the army began to defend them, creating a safe space outside the presidential palace. People travelled from all over Sudan to be there.

Every day I was there, capturing photos, Haroun recalls. It felt like history itself. One day, she noticed people rushing towards a figure addressing the crowd, a 22-year-old called Alaa Salah. Haroun took four photos, and shared the best one online. It went viral, first on social media, then in newspapers around the world. A lot of things happened after that. Previously it had felt as if there was very little global coverage of what was going on in Sudan, but after Harouns picture it suddenly felt as if everybody in the world was focusing on what is going on in Sudan.

Women played a powerful and visible role in the protests; for Haroun, the picture was a strong message that women can lead. Salah went on to speak at the UN and was a Nobel peace prize contender. FB

This famous chapter of the civil rights movement was captured by African American photojournalist (later revealed to be an FBI informant) Ernest C Withers. On 28 March just days before his assassination Martin Luther King Jr arrived in Memphis to lead a march in support of the citys 1,300 striking sanitation workers. Spurred by the deaths of two garbage collectors due to malfunctioning equipment, the strikers were calling for higher pay and safer working conditions for the citys Black employees. Their slogan was a simple but effective assertion of dignity: I am a man. GS

Prince William and Kate Middleton made an ill-fated visit to the Caribbean earlier this year, where they were met by protesters calling for reparations, an official apology and the cutting of ties with the British monarchy. Around the time of the visit, Jamaica confirmed its plan to begin removing the Queen as sovereign. FB

Today, Greta Thunberg is one of the most famous living activists on the planet. But nobody knew who she was when, on 20 August 2018, the 15-year-old set up camp outside the Swedish parliament and declared that she would not attend school until after the general elections the following month. Her goal was simple: to force action on the climate crisis. The situation we are in is very dire and it seemed like no one was doing anything and someone needs to do something, she recalls. I thought, if this doesnt work, then Im going to try something else until I find something that works. I had no idea it was going to take off like it did.

The School Strike for Climate quickly became a global movement, with children around the world organising walk-outs. The following year, at the UN climate action summit in New York, Thunberg condemned world leaders for their failure to effect any meaningful change. It was like a very weird movie that was way too unrealistic and cliched to be any good, Thunberg says of the seismic public response. But its also quite hopeful, because it shows that the most unexpected things can happen in a very short amount of time.

On why young people have played such a significant role in climate protests, Thunberg says: It feels like our natural state of mind is to rebel. We dont use the excuse that its always been this way. But also its children who will live in this world, experience the consequences much more. Its closer to home.

After taking a year-long break from education to focus on climate activism, Thunberg is about to enter her final year of school and continues her protest by skipping classes every Friday. Looking at the photo from her original demonstration, she says she still has the banner, but now keeps it at home to avoid rain damage. The bright yellow raincoat, which she borrowed from her dad, is also still around Its still his, but I still steal it, she jokes. And if she could say anything to the girl in that image, what would it be? I would probably say: start crocheting and knitting earlier, because its really fun and it keeps you focused, she says with a laugh. But thats probably not the answer you want! GS

In a country where protest is brutally oppressed, the bravery of Russians who publicly oppose the war in Ukraine has not gone unnoticed. The 76-year-old artist and activist Yelena Osipova became the face of the anti-war movement after footage of her arrest by police in St Petersburg on 2 March was seen around the world. In this image, the woman dubbed the grandmother for peace is holding her handmade protest banners while a crowd of supporters can be glimpsed in the background. GS

On 10 January 1917, a dozen suffragists gathered silently at the gates of the White House, becoming the first group to picket the presidential residence. Dubbed the Silent Sentinels, they held up banners calling on President Woodrow Wilson to support a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote. Two thousand protesters joined the picket, which continued until 4 June 1919, when the 19th amendment was eventually passed. Many were arrested and jailed for their involvement reports of the prisoners mistreatment played a key role in garnering wider public support for womens suffrage. GS

When Susan Meiselas arrived in Nicaragua in June 1978, she had no idea that a popular insurrection was about to erupt. The American photographer stayed in the country for 13 months, documenting the uprising of the FSLN, popularly known as the Sandinistas, against the US-backed Somoza dictatorship. The world didnt know much about what was happening in Nicaragua, Meiselas says. It was a time when we were not seeing images which is unimaginable now.

Meiselas felt compelled to witness the events as they unfolded. This image depicts a funeral procession in Jinotepe for recently assassinated student leaders. The protesters are holding up a large photograph of Arlen Siu, a singer and Sandinista who had been killed by the National Guard three years earlier. Siu went on to become a revolutionary icon.

Meiselas attributes the impact of her photograph in part to the contrast between the monochromatic portrait of Siu and the vivid colour of the surrounding scene. There was a lot of criticism at that time of working in colour very few newspapers published colour, she recalls.

Today, of course, almost everything is shot in colour and Meiselas, who is president of the Magnum Foundation, is widely recognised for her work. But she doesnt see the plaudits as solely for her. Of the long afterlife of the image of protesters in Jinotepe, she says: Now Arlen Siu has more of a profile. I think of it as her getting her honour. GS

Gordon Parks was the first African American staff photographer employed by Life magazine. This image from a protest in Harlem in 1963 spurred by the police shooting of seven unarmed black men outside a Nation of Islam mosque in Los Angeles the previous year is part of his series documenting the black Muslim movement. Parks was assigned the story after several white journalists failed to gain access to the groups leaders. GS

These images are a snapshot of a rich global history of resistance. Which images did we miss? Email saturday@theguardian.com. We will feature a selection in an upcoming edition of Inside Saturday, our email newsletter

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'It felt like history itself' 48 protest photographs that changed the world - The Guardian

Local News

Following the Supreme Courts decision on June 24 to overturn Roe v. Wade, hundreds gathered in downtown Fullerton to join a nationwide protest. These rallys and protests continued on Friday, July 1. Protestors gathered at the intersection of Harbor Blvd and Commonwealth and marched through Downtown Fullerton.

The protest was organized by the Orange County chapter of RiseUp4AbortionRights. The organization is demanded that the federal government reinstate nationwide legal abortion now.

Some performed street theater in the form of a die-in representing those who could die from unsafe abortions.

Another pro-abortion/pro-choice protest is planned for July 16 at 2pm at Fullerton City Hall, organized by Melanated Youth, a BI&POC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Color) youth-led coalition dedicated to mobilizing youth voices to fight against systematic oppression against marginalized identities.

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Protests for Reproductive Rights Continue in Fullerton - Fullerton Observer

By Callista Gingrich and Newt Gingrich

On Independence Day, we reflect on a remarkable moment 246 years ago, when 56 courageous leaders from 13 colonies gathered in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence.

There, our founders declared with one voice: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

This act of political and moral courage changed the course of history. Since 1776, the values and ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution have been exported to democracies around the globe and have lifted millions of people out of tyranny, poverty, and oppression.

Today, however, many seek to devalue Americas founding, rewrite our history, and undermine the spirit of independence that guided our founders to create the greatest, freest, and most prosperous nation on Earth.

Regrettably, the Biden administration has let millions of Americans down this Independence Day. Across the country, hardworking families are struggling due to inflation, receding markets, and rising costs.

So, this year, perhaps more than ever, we must remember and preserve our remarkable American story. The great experiment our founding fathers initiated in 1776 necessitates that each generation safeguards its freedom for the next. As Benjamin Franklin cautioned, we have a Republic if you can keep it.

The lessons of Americas independence were not meant to be left behind in 1776. Our freedom is priceless, and it must not be taken for granted.

Our founders vowed to each other their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on the principle that government must derive its power from the people. As Americans, we must honor their great courage and continue to defend life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans.

We hope you have a happy Independence Day!

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Callista Gingrich and Newt Gingrich - Reclaiming the Spirit of 1776 - Gingrich 360

Reviews & Culture

Ilham Tohti appeals for an end to the repression of the Uyghur Muslims in this unique insight, writes Simon Gilbert

Monday 27 June 2022

In the past few days, I have been under constant surveillance by police vehicles and national security police officers, wrote Uyghur intellectual Ilham Tohti in July 2013. I dont have too many good days ahead of me, it is necessary for me to leave a few words behind before I no longer have the ability to do so.

The Chinese government is trying to get rid of me this time. And so it did. One year later, Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment. His book, We Uyghurs Have No Say, presents some of those words he left behind, available for the first time in English.

Despite the extreme harshness of his sentence, Tohti is certainly no revolutionary firebrand. He describes himself as an intellectual who relies only on pen and paper to diplomatically request human rights, legal rights, and autonomous regional rights for the Uyghurs. He is at pains to reject any accusation of separatism, calling himself a Chinese patriot. But Tohti became increasingly frustrated at the regimes failure to implement its own legal commitments to Chinas minorities, or to give any substance to the autonomy they supposedly enjoy.

The Uyghurs are a Turkic Muslim people, living in Xinjiang in Chinas far north west, who have long been made to feel strangers in their own homeland. The US has used their plight to justify trade wars and sanctions in its imperialist clash with China. But, as Tohti makes clear, the Uyghurs oppression at the hands of the regime is horribly real.

At the heart of the book is an essay where Tohti lists nine grievances over the treatment of his people. To take a few examples. Uyghur children are the victims of a bilingual education that is really monolingualthey have to learn in Chineseand widely seen as part of a forced assimilation drive. After they leave school to look for work, they face significant employment discrimination, making their prospects far worse than those of Xinjiangs Han Chinese. This is despite an employment law that mandates government and state enterprises to give priority to ethnic minorities.

Uyghurs cannot even pray in peace. A strategy of opposing three forces, introduced to Xinjiang in 1997, has morphed into a policy of opposing religious tradition and suppressing normal expressions of religious belief. In the process, these forces of terrorism, religious extremism and separatism have been made virtually synonymous, justifying the imprisonment of Uyghurs.

Since the 1990s, the Chinese regime has intensified repression in Xinjiang. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 saw neighbouring central Asian republics, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, gain independence. The disintegration of another state capitalist regime was a shock to the Chinese Communist Party bosses, and raised hopes of Uyghur independence. The US war on terror, and wave of state-sponsored Islamophobia in the West, allowed the Chinese state to recast Uyghur repression as counter-terrorism. And, as Chinas turn to the market took off and inequality grew, the CCP relied more on crude nationalism to ensure social stability.

At the end of each section, Tohti recommends policy changes to improve the situation. But the regime under Xi Jinping is heading in the opposite directiontightening its grip across China, most severely in Xinjiang.

Yet if assimilation is the objective, increasing repression may be having the opposite effect. Tohti writes about Uyghurs adopting a form of silent resistance by privately turning back to traditional culture, religious worship, and a strengthened sense of ethnic identity. Suppression of open religious observance has allowed imported ultra-conservative and xenophobic strains of religious thought, which previously had little appeal to the Uyghurs, to be disseminated via the religious underground.

This book provides a unique record of a voice, whose critique of ethnic policy remains within the parameters set by the regime. But it could only counter that voice by silencing it. Throughout the book Tohtis humanity shines through. For instance, he rejects the idea that the international community can solve their problems and argues for dialogue between Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

His optimism is admirable too. Even on the verge of incarceration he remained convinced that China will become better and that the constitutional rights of the Uyghur people will, one day, be honoured. Making that a reality will certainly require the sort of unity across ethnic lines that Tohti advocates. But it will also require a much more radical political vision that challenges Chinas state capitalist rulers who exploit Chinas workers and oppress the Uyghurs.

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We Uyghurs Have No Say by Ilham Tohtitelling a story of oppression - Socialist Worker

Today, June 30, is considered the anniversary of the beginning of the six-month Santhal rebellion.

The struggle of man [humans] against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting, wrote Milan Kundera in one of his works.

This powerful quote is reminder of many things, of which one is the act of remembering. The very act of remembering is not a neutral act but laden with ideological considerations and biases. This hold truer when we remember historical events and figures of political importance. How we remember past events and figures, what are the things and acts that we omit or leave out from remembering and what we remember is motivated by our ideological considerations and political projects.

One such popular act of ritualised remembering is that of the great Santhal rebellion that took place in mid-19th century in British India.

Every year the Santhal rebellion and its leaders Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu are remembered in ritualistic way by different political parties and communities, all from different perspectives. But beneath all these different ways of remembering there lies a unitary theme; that the Santhal rebellion was one of the first expressions of revolt against the British colonial regime.

This framework, though true but limited, has become so dominant that the Santhal rebellion is now merely seen as a part in a series of similar such events that took place in colonial India.

This dominant understanding is informed by a nationalist framework in which almost every revolt in British India is interpreted only as anti-British revolt while other aspects of them are totally omitted from public memory. A strict and only location of the Santhal and other similar Adivasi revolts within the framework of national liberation struggle also reeks of cultural imperialism as it seeks to erase the cultural or identity aspects of these tribal revolts.

Also read: Remembering Santal Hul, a 19th Century Struggle Against Imperialism

The Santhal rebellion began on June 30, 1855, and went on for almost six months before it was finally suppressed by January 3, 1856, leaving over 15,000 Santhals dead and over 10,000 of their villages destroyed. This great insurrection known as the Hul, was led by four brothers, namely Sidhu, Kanhu, Chand and Bhairav Murmu of village Bhagnadihi, under whom almost 60,000 Santhals mobilised with traditional weapons.

This rebellion in spite of it having largely been woven around the theme of anti-British revolt actually began as revolt against exploitation by Indian upper caste zamindars, moneylenders, merchants and darogas (police officials), collectively known as diku, who had come to dominate the economic sphere of Santhal life.

The Santhals who originally spread over regions of present-day Bihar and West Bengal were relocated by the Britishers in the Rajmahal hill region between 1790 and 1810 following the great Bengal Famine of 1770 which had killed between 7 to 10 million people and had affected 30 million.

A piece from the artist Chittaprosad Bhattacharyas well-known album of paintings of the Bengal Famine.

The reason behind the relocation of Santhal people was the demand for agricultural labour following the depletion of population in permanent settlement zones of Rajmahal and Jungle Mahal hills. Sponsored by the British and local landlords, Santhal people entered the area and began clearing the jungles. They were employed as agricultural labourers or got land on lease. The region in which the Santhals were relocated came to be known as Damin-i-koh.

The Damin region soon became a centre of Santhal socio-cultural life and attracted Santhals from neighbouring districts. As late Adivasi scholar has Abhay Xalxo noted, The formation of the Damin came as a great blessing to the Santhals. They thought that at last they would have a homeland of their own and would be able to live an independent life and preserve their culture and identity.

Also read:Remembering Birsa Munda, the Social Reformer and Revolutionary Leader

But this blessing did not last long as non-tribals from adjoining areas started to settle in the Damin and began to oppress and exploit the Santhals and other tribals groups of the region.

Giving a vivid description of the exploitation of Santhals by merchants, traders and mahajans who belonged mostly to the Hindu community William Wilson Hunter, a colonial bureaucrat wrote:

Hindu merchants flocked thither every winter after harvest to buy up the crop, and by degree each market-town throughout the settlement had its resident Hindu grain dealer. The Santal was ignorant and honest; the Hindu was keen and unscrupulous. Not a year passed without some successful shopkeeper returning from the hill-slopes to astonish his native town by a display of quickly-gotten wealth, and to buy land upon the plains.

The Santhals were exploited and robbed in and out, right and left without any remorse from merchants and traders. Hunter further writes:

The Santal country came to be regarded as a country where a fortune was to be made, no matter by what means, so that it was made rapidly hucksters settled upon various pretences, and in a few years grew into men of fortune. They cheated the poor santal in every transaction. The forester brought his jars of clarified butter for sale; the [merchants] measured it in vessels with false bottoms; the husbandman came to exchange his rice for soil, oil, cloth and gum-powder; the merchants used heavy weights in ascertaining the quantity of grain light ones in weighing out the articles given in return. If the santal remonstrated, he was told that salt, being an excisable commodity, had a set of weights and measures to itself.

The fortunes made by traffic in produce were augmented by usury. A family of new settlers required a small advance of grain to eke out the produce of the chase while they were clearing the jungle. The dealer gave them a few shillings worth of rice, and seized the land as soon as they had cleared it and sown the cropfrom moment the peasant touched borrowed rice, he and his children were the serfs of the corn merchant.

No matter what economy the family practiced, no matter what effort made to extricate themselves; stint they might, toil as they might, the [mahajans] claimed the crop and carried on a balance to be paid out the harvest. Year after year the Santhal sweated for his oppressor. If the victim threatened to run off the jungle, the usurper instituted a suit in the courts, taking care that the Santhal should know nothing of it till the decree had been obtained and the homestead were sold, omitting the brazen household vessels which formed the sole heirloom of the family. Even the cheap iron ornaments, the outward tokens of female respectability among the Santhals, were torn from the wifes wrist

In the wake of these varied forms of exploitation, there emerged two systems of bonded labour in Santhal territory, namely kamioti and harwahi. Under the first system, the borrower had to work for the mahajan till the repayment of the loan; under the second the borrower had in addition to personal services, to plough the mahajans field whenever required till the loan was repaid. The terms of the bond were so stringent that it was practically impossible for the Santhal to repay the loan during his lifetime.

Apart from oppression from merchants, mahajans and traders, the Santhal also faced oppression from the zamindars and capitalist agriculture. The zamindars and landlords extracted huge rents from the Santhal peasants while those Santhals who were employed in indigo plantation worked long hours and with extremely low wages. In such an extreme situation, the Santhals tried to petition to the British government and approached courts, but without any respite. Every time they went to the court or tried the official channel, they were met with disappointment.

This extreme form of oppression and neglect from British administration gave birth to social banditry in 1854 when a band of Santhals under the leadership of Bir Singh Manjhi, and others like Domin Manjhi and Kewal Pramanik, began to attack moneylenders and zamindars and distribute the loot among the poor Santhals.

Illustration: Saheb Ram Tudu from Ruby Hembroms Disaibon Hul (2014).

Bir Singh claimed to have been granted magical power by one their deities, Chando Bonga. The wide popularity of these bandits and frequency of attacks alarmed the moneylenders and zamindars who appealed to the royal family. This lead to police action and subsequent humiliation of those social bandits, as well as a few affluent Santhals who were accused of being robbers themselves. It was in this background that the Santhals raised the banner of revolt in 1855.

The brothers Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu claimed to have received word from Thakur Bonga, who urged them to revolt against the exploitative powerful. Prior to the decisive moment of revolt, the Santhal villages were replete with rumours derived from religious myths. Abhay Xalxo has listed four such rumours in his article The Great Santhal Insurrection (Hul) of 1855-56. These played an important role in developing communal solidarity among the Santhals just before the rebellion began.

On the night of June 30, 1855, some 10,000 Santhals gathered at Bhagnadihi where the orders of Thakur Bonga were read to them. Sidhu and Kanhu announced that god had directed them to: Slaughter all the mahajans and darogas, to banish the traders and zamindars and all rich Bengalis from their country, to sever their connection with the Damin-i-koh, and to fight all who resisted them, for the bullets of their enemies would be turned to water.

The rebels demanded that Britishers and native exploiters withdraw from the Damin-i-koh, and if not, they would declare a war on them sanctioned by god.

The rebellion, apart from acting against oppression and exploitation was also inspired by the political project of building and establishing an independent Santhal Raj. In the course of rebellion, the Santhal people developed their own infrastructure of governance. The leaders of the rebellion appointed themselves as governors of the region and many Santhals were appointed in the capacity of darogas, subordinate officers and naibs. The Murmu brothers promised deliverance from oppression and a utopian Santhal Raj free from exploitation, oppression and the diku.

This from of rebellion where a divine authority is cited by rebels who have a utopian vision, is labelled a millenarian movement by social scientists. As historian Michael Adas illustrates in his work Prophets of Rebellion (1979), millenarian movements were a consistent feature of colonial societies, especially among tribal societies all across the world during the colonial period. For example, the Pai Marie movement of the Maoris in New Zealand, the Cargo cult of Java islands, the Maji-Maji rebellion in east Africa, all displayed it. Even in India, the Munda rebellion and the Thana Bhagat movement have been described as millenarian movements. Invoking divine authority for the purposes of social transformation has been an important feature among oppressed and exploited communities throughout history.

Watch |Khunti: The Birthplace of Birsa Munda, and the Pathalgadi Rebellion

The Santhal rebellion began with the killing of a daroga on July 7, 1855. The policeman had gone to arrest the Santhal leaders. The police had been bribed by local mahajans, who had been ill at ease upon hearing about the huge Santhal gatherings. They asked the policemen to arrest the Santhal leaders under false changes of theft and dacoity. When the daroga, with his party, reached to arrest the Murmu brothers, Santhals attacked him.

This began the hul which spread like wildfire in neighbouring regions.

Santhals, along with local peasants, attacked local zamindars and moneylenders and looted their property and cattle. They also captured the treasuries of nearby royal families. Meanwhile, local zamindars and moneylenders helped the British forces quell the revolt by providing them with shelter and other daily provisions. The Nawab of Murshidabad even provided the British army with war elephants and trained soldiers.

On the other hand, the rebels were helped by a large number of non-tribal and poor mainly belonging to lower castes groups. Dairy farmers helped the rebels with provisions, while blacksmiths accompanied the rebels and helped them with their weapons. The Santhal rebellion also had a class component to it as oppressed groups united to fight against economic and cultural oppressors.

The British suppressed the movement with utmost brutality. Sidhu was hanged by the British army on August 19, 1855, while Kanhu was arrested on in February 1856. After this, the movement subsided. Even though this great insurrection lasted only for six months, it had a huge impact upon the Adivasi community and served as an inspiration for other Adivasi revolts.

Also read:Remembering Madari Pasi: The Uncelebrated Peasant Leader of the Eka Movement

Today the Santhal revolt along with Munda rebellion, Kol rebellion, Thana Bhagat movement and others are mainly remembered as anti-British revolts and while doing so the important component of internal colonialism is glossed over.

The British rule though extremely exploitative on economic fronts brought some respite for the lower castes by opening up opportunities for them under promises of liberal democracy. For the upper caste Hindus, the British rule provided an opportunity to reclaim their cultural and economic dominance over Indian society, which they had lost since the beginning of the medieval period. For Adivasis, the story of colonial and postcolonial rule has only been a story of continuous exploitation and erasure of their way of life.

Harsh Vardhan and Shivam Mogha are research scholars at Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU.

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Santhal Hul Wasn't Just the First Anti-British Revolt, It Was Against All Exploitation - The Wire

One of the most unsettling debates in contemporary India has been on sex markets and sex work.

Stemming from obscurantist sexual moorings of orthodoxy, the public impulse has been fragmentary. The premise underlying the internal contradiction is the delusive alienation of labour and sex.

There are three dominant paradigms to examine sex work. The first treats it as a deviant behaviour-anomie embedded in traditional stigma; the second considers it a quintessential type of gender relations subjected to oppression and violence against women; and the third focuses on the empowerment aspect of sexual commerce.

The historical evolution of the sex market is, according to historian Gerda Lerner, related to its relationship to sexual regulation of all women in archaic states and its relationship to the enslavement of females.

In ancient societies, poverty pushed womens sexual labour to rulers wealth and status. Hidden legitimacy was founded on the necessary fulfilment of the sexual needs of men, particularly when heterosexist marriage was required to preserve womens chastity. The origins of modern sex work are tied to the ascendancy of patriarchal kinship systems in which women were ritually exchanged as mere gifts among families.

In both contexts, masculinities were specific in structuring the conditions of vulnerability in sex work.

Public morality discourses sanction sexual relationships only in certain socially defined contexts, particularly marriage. Outside marriage, sex is perverse, immoral and sinful. It is a rupture of the misogynist link between sex, love and reproduction. Womens exercise of their sexuality itself is perceived as a threat to societal stability.

Corollary to this are the forbidden anxieties about the stigma and demonisation of sex work. Unless the core idea of sex as work is delinked from the normativities of sexual morality, it cannot be premised on the questions of legitimacy, identity, labour rights and decriminalisation.

Also read: SC Orders Police Against Abuse Of Sex Workers, Media From Publishing Their Pictures

Global legal approaches to sex work

Globally, there are broadly four distinct approaches to laws governing sex-work. The first is prohibition, which entails the criminalisation of sex work; the second is the abolition of sex-work; the third is regulation, which involves government licensing and regulating the sex-work business; and the fourth is decriminalisation, which removes all criminal prohibitions for the acts of consenting adults in either purchasing or selling sexual services.

Feminist dilemmas revolve around sex workers being subjected to systemic patriarchal exploitation. Obviously, sex work involves varying degrees of coercion, resistance and agency. While the inherent risk of violence and oppression cannot be dismissed, it is equally significant to recognise the need for the protection of rights. The danger of prosecuting women for selling sex lies in compounding their victimisation while criminalisation will force sex workers to go underground to protect customers.

The complex systems of regulation in Germany and the Netherlands have sought to reduce the harms of sex work rather than call for its elimination. New Zealand, on the other hand, has adopted the decriminalisation model.

Be it any model, the costs of the vulnerability of sex workers and their well-being must be legitimate moot-points of policy making.

Reimagining sex work

I argue that the conceptual shift has to be from regarding sex workers as merely exploited victims to sexual labour. Consensual sex work should be recognised as paid labour. A re-conceptualisation of sex work as a form of sexual labour will increase sex workers accessibility to resources, mobilise them for representation and participation, and challenge social exclusion.

A more conscious and non-discriminatory regulatory framework that protect the rights of sex workers through labour legislation; ensuring workplace health and safe working environments; and legal support for redressal in case of injury, abuse and unfair treatment are all needed.

According to government statistics, there are over two million sex workers in the country. Be it G.B. Road in Delhi, Sonagachi in Kolkata or Kamathipura in Mumbai, sex work is widely prevalent in both rural and urban areas. And in India, the Immoral Trafficking of Persons Act (ITPA) does not punish prostitution. What is punishable is sexual exploitation, commercial sex, the running of a brothel or seducing another person.

Also read: Why Sex Workers Organisations Arent Pleased With the Draft Anti-Trafficking Bill

Legal precedents

Judicial decisions on the rights of sex-workers have vacillated between empathy and contempt. Firstly, the discourse largely tilts towards portraying the sex worker as a victim rather than as an autonomous agent capable of decision making. Secondly, there is an apparent tension between fundamental Constitutional guarantees and the corporealities of extreme marginalisation for such women.

As early as 1997, in Gaurav Jain versus Union of India, the protectionist approach of the court exacted the right to equal opportunity, care and protection to children of sex workers. The court, in Manoj Shaw versus State of West Bengal, issued directions for sex workers to be considered victims. In several other decisions, the court backed the right to life and dignity of sex workers under Article 21 of the Constitution.

A faint idea of sex work-by-consent underlined the courts assertion of the fundamental right to carry a vocation of ones choice in Kajal Mukesh Singh and Ors. versus State of Maharashtra. There is a definitive disquisition in Delhi versus Pankaj Chaudhry and Ors that a womens character is unquestionable, even if she is of easy virtue or habitual of sexual intercourse. However, such a framework is rejected by the larger rectitude of the society. The condemnation dismisses any negotiation of the rights of women engaged in sex-work.

The recent order by the Justice L. Nageswara Rao-led three-judge bench Supreme Court is a historic reiteration of the Constitutional will towards every citizens right to live with dignity.

It unfolded a non-discriminatory humanitarian framework of entitlement to women who have been disadvantaged because of their profession. It is retributive in the sense that it redirects state intervention to be protectionist and welfare oriented towards sex workers. The role of the police is circumscribed to neither interfere nor take criminal action against consenting adult sex workers.

Significantly, it upheld the basic protection of human decency and dignity to both sex workers and their children.

Social respectability to sex work can be achieved only when social and legislative changes go hand-in-hand. Like Martha Nussbaum writes, there is a need for greater public engagement with the issue without either aristocratic class prejudice or fear of the body and its passions. Till then, Who says Sex is Work?

Anita Tagore is Associate Professor in Kalindi College, University of Delhi. She holds a doctorate in political science with a degree in law.

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Sex Workers Need to be Seen as Labour, Not Victims - The Wire

From the brutish and nasty state of the dark ages, societies have evolved and experienced growth and development according to the strength of their institutions. To achieve social order and peace, societies set cultural goals and rewards and create institutions through which people must progress to attain those goals. The medical profession is an example of a cultural goal since it has economic benefits and social prestige, but for one to join this vocation, one has to pass through rigorous trainings and be certified as competent by a medical college or related institutions.

However, when people fail to achieve the cultural goals despite the institutionalized means, illegitimate means invariably develop from a forceful configuration of the peoples survival instincts which leads to social crisis and a breakdown in the regulatory structure of society. This is anomie, a state of chaos or the recalibration of society into its brutish, nasty state.

In 1897, Emile Durkheim, a French classical sociologist, first used the concept of anomie in his book (Suicide) to describe the prevalence of suicide in Europe due to the breakdown of the collective values which led to a feeling of despair and hopelessness in the people. However, in 1954, Robert K. Merton, an American Sociologist, developed the concept into a model that analyses the five personality types that respond to anomic conditions in the society which include; the Conformist, the Innovators, the Ritualists, the Retreatist and the Revolutionary.

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According to Robert Mertons Strain theory, the conformists play by the social rules and invariably seek the politically correct means of achieving the cultural goals. The innovators identify the blind spots in the social system and develop unconventional means of achieving the cultural goals. The Ritualists abandon all hopes of achieving the cultural goals due to a repeated experience of failure but still adopt the institutionalized means. The Retreatists become completely disinterested in both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means; they often come off as sociopaths withdrawn to drugs, alcohol, and suicidal thoughts. And the Revolutionary seek to disrupt the existing system and replace it with a perceived better system.

In Nigeria, several conditions of anomie have evolved into social crisis which make major headlines on the news and the social media on a daily basis. Incidences of increasing inflation, poverty and youth unemployment contribute daily to a surge in crime and want of peace in the country. Thus, from banditry to kidnapping, cyber fraud to drug trafficking and social media bullying to ritual killings, Nigeria has been included in the league of unsafe countries to live in the world, with the country ranking 146th out of 163 countries in the 2021 Global Peace Index, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).

Consequently, there are a growing number of social innovators in the country who leverage technology and the new media to develop alternative means of economic survival. These emerging innovators are largely ensconced in the youth population and are mostly tech savvy with deep knowledge of the dark web. Cybercriminals such as the yahoo boys, the benefit boys, the black-hat hackers etc. belong in this disruptive cohort. Recently, a significant part of the cohort has developed political consciousness through an alliance with the revolutionary to influence a major upheaval in the country.

This played out during the End SARS campaign against the police brutality and oppression of the youth in October 2020. During the campaign, agitated Nigerian youths were able to massively mobilize and crowd-fund intellectual resources and foot soldiers through the social media platforms, especially Twitter, and the decentralized financial markets block-chain system. Thus, the innovators exhibited the cunning of the fox and the revolutionary engaged the bravery of the Lion to execute one of the most successful campaigns in the history of social movement in the world.

On the 11th of October 2020, the Nigerian government dissolved the Special Anti-Robbery Squad. However, this was followed shortly by a national ban on crypto-currencies which according to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, were being used to sponsor illegal activities in the country. More so, on 5 June 2021, Twitter was banned in Nigeria over a deleted tweet of the president of the country from the platform but on 12 January 2022 the ban was lifted after Twitter reached an agreement with the Nigerian Government. However, many believe that the twitter ban was a reprisal of the government on the #endsars movement.

There are also indications that the #endsars memories will continue to shape the political consciousness of the Nigerian youth. One veritable example is the #PVC campaign that currently floods the internet and the social media platforms to influence a great number of the youth to get their permanent voters cards towards the 2023 general elections in the country. Never before in the history of Nigerian politics have Nigerian youths shown this much political awareness and social will to power, analysts remarked.

There are many ways to conceptualize the myriads of problems with Nigeria. But for the strain theory analysts, two conditions are evidently insidious to social progress in the country one is the absence of accountability and the other is a crooked reward and punishment system which overtime have supplanted the moral fabric of the nation. These conditions are mainly due to the failure of the Government institution which determines and enforces the collective value system. The other social institutions such as religion, education and family can only struggle to perform their function of promoting the collective values where the Government institution has failed to enforce those values. Thus, social rehabilitation must be approached top-down that is, from the Government institution down to the family institution.

Contrary to many peoples belief that social and attitudinal change must be approached bottom-up or from the micro to the macro levels, the strain theorists consider such an approach utopian due to the effect of the law of social gravity. Hence, it must be stated that the Nigerian Government needs to prune itself of corruption and promote sanity across its agencies to build a society where accountability and fairness in reward and punishment determine the political and socioeconomic relations. Only afterward can the bottom-up approach yield significant results.

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Anomie and the Political Disalienation of the Youth Population in Nigeria - Tekedia

02 Jul 2022 | 07:38am ISTSurat, Guwahati, Goa-Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai-Government change needs cross-country pit stops, where the anti-defection law is an enabler of defection

SUJAY GUPTA

The contour of toppling politics continues to throw up different strands. But the strand that stands out is the one that binds the wrongs in our democracy together, to belittle our Republic.

The country-wide private charter crossings and landings in three different cities culminated in Goa becoming the last pit stop and camp for the final coup dtat, launched by the rebel Shiv Sena against their mentor Uddhav Thackeray, the son of their supreme leader Bal Thackeray; was the running soap across all channels. But the worry is different. The show at hand was another episode of using the anti-defection law as an enabler of defections and not the preventer.

The fundamental flaw, with the benefit of hindsight, is that the law punishes single MPs and MLAs from leaving their party and joining another. But it is no impediment if a group of MPs and MLA split, join and merge with another party or form a new party in the same legislature without facing the penalties in the anti-defection law. The law itself was a course correction to the manner in which government after government in the states got toppled by party hoppers after the Lok Sabha elections of 1967. But it has completely veered off its course.

But the core of punishment is that it has to be meted out at a speed that makes committing the crime a deterrent. Defections in Indian politics, even if you fall foul of the law are no deterrent.

Speakers, especially if they are from the party which is the beneficiary of defection, do not determine the cases of defecting MLAs who almost always become ministers till the end of their term. In 2020, the Supreme Court dismissed a minister in Manipur when the Speaker did not decide on his defection petition for three years.

The worry here is that the subjugation of the anti-defection law has been brutalised to such a worrying degree that when MLAs defect en masse and enter the bazaar, their shenanigans, jet setting, their card, and ludo games held at resorts in States ruled by friendly governments are like Instagram reels, watched, liked and shared even as democracy disseminates.

It is this normalisation which is the elephant that has brought the room down. Democracy is not about voting. Its about institutions keeping governments accountable and the institutions that frame and support check violations and punish the ones that get past the need to ask if they have done their job.

It is perhaps time to deep dive into the fundamentals of what the nature of governance in India entails. Shruti Gopalan, one of the scholars involved in the Brainstorm Project, where issues of importance are curated in a series of essays by critics, writers, and researchers in the Future of the Indian Republic series in her essay Democracy vs The Republic, writes: India is both a democracy and a republic, and they are not the same. A democracy and a republic have different functions and implications for the relationship between the individual and the state. A democracy is rule by the people, chosen by a majority of the group. While this is also true of the republican form of government, republicanism is more than merely the process of choosing the sovereign. The supreme republican values are individual liberty and independence from arbitrary power. A republican form of government, therefore, is intended to limit the excesses of democracy or majority rule. In India, however, democracy is cannibalizing republicanism. And within this chaos of tyranny and oppression is a new type of order. One where there is no room for republicanism, but instead different groups fighting for the top spot.

When this happens, there is a fundamental shift. Democracy no longer represents the will of the people but the will of some people.

Larry Flynt, otherwise known as a publisher of adult magazines who became one of the most influential defenders of free speech once said that majority rule only works if youre also considering individual rights. Because you cant have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.

The average citizen is like sheep. And so is the Republic when it gets cannibalized by democracy.

What just happened in Maharashtra is one more episode in the long-running seasonal OTT series. Lets call it the Not So Sacred Games. But the Maha topple took the twist to another level. Eknath Shinde, the Sena rebel, claiming to be the real Sena took a private charter to Mumbai from Goa to be sworn in as Deputy CM but returned to Goa about 8 hours later as CM of Maharashtra, becoming the first (perhaps) CM to spend the night of his swearing-in outside his State.

And then there was Devendra Fadnavis. He had prepped himself to be the CM even having received the new Police Commissioner as the CM in waiting. The wait continues as he was first asked to name Shinde as CM. And then after saying he would stay out of the Government, was directed to take a demotion and become a deputy to Shinde when he, as CM in his first term, was his boss.

While the institutions of the State are withering, the engine of politics runs with no limits to its authority. The founder of Indias constitution Babasaheb Ambedkar said: The purpose of a Constitution is not merely to create the organs of the State but to limit their authority, because, if no limitation was imposed upon the authority of the organs, there will be complete tyranny and complete oppression. The legislature may be free to frame any law; the executive may be free to give any interpretation of the law. It would result in utter chaos.

Ambedkars foresight and vision are being felt, with pain to the real sheep even as the wolves in sheeps clothing write the epitaph of the constitution.K

Sujay Gupta is the Group Editor Herald Publications and tweets @sujaygupta0832

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Politics of toppling: When wolves in sheep's clothing write the epitaph of our Constitution - Herald Goa

Kevin Ovenden reflects on the Stonewall riots of 1969, the historical dynamic that gave rise to it and the potential for struggle today

Fifty-three years ago tonight was the start of the Stonewall riot. Police in New York City raided a mafia-run bar where gays and street kids paid over the odds to get a drink, hang out and maybe hook up.

The mafia and police worked hand in hand and dollar for dollar. It was a routine raid. This time people erupted in resistance. Crucially, itcontinued for three days and nights sparking a wider movement.

There had been at least a dozen knownconfrontations with the police at gay bars in the US in the 1950s and 1960s. They included "unlikely" places, such as Milwaukee. Repressed and illegal it may have been, but homosexuality, both male and female, existed in the US at that time and so did a semi-underground culture. Stonewall went on longer than previous flashpoints, drew in wider numbers and came after the global eruption of 1968 and the radicalisation of the US civil rights movement.

Some of the efforts by the US state to demonise homosexuality in the post-war period had led to the creation of highly localised communities able to organise themselves socially and at points politically. Thus San Francisco's famous gay area arose from the US navy dumping sailors accused of same-sex activity onshore at that port in the 1940s and 1950s. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.

There was already before Stonewall an important historical dynamic. Shifting post-war mass consciousness, particularly among young people, ran up against an archaic social and legal order, and against old conservative forces. The state drive to get women out of the factories and back to the home to make way for men returning from the war was a driving force of what became a new upsurge of the women's movement in the 1960s. In the US especially there was a female revolt against domesticity and the conservative view of women as dutiful wives making a nest for the family.

The 1950s was a period of state reaction in the US and in its western allies as the Cold War set in. But beneath that was a deep social shift: urbanisation, industrialisation and new horizons. All of this is explored in Chris Harman's great history of 1968.

The result was a kind of tectonic social and political pressure that would find a way to explode.

Crucially, there was the interaction between the revolutionary developments in what we now call the global south and the social struggles within the US, and in Europe. A pivot of that interaction was the struggle against colonialism abroad and against racism at home.

So even before Stonewall you had agitation for liberal reform by very brave activists, often connected to the left in a broad sense, and sadly too often forgotten today.

There were some sincere liberal political figures also.

The 1957 Wolfenden Report in Britain recommended legalising homosexuality, which was a criminal offence between men.

It took until the 1967 Sexual Offences Act for parliament to act on it. In the US the lobbying for change in the 1950s and 1960s is also interesting. There it especially ran up against the anti-Communist witch-hunting. You saw the fusion of the defence of racist segregation, of a conservative view of family relations, of the subordination of women, of anti-socialism and of violent oppression of lesbians and gay men.

A result of these contradictions in Britain was the socially reforming Wilson government elected in 1964. It sought modernisation of bothBritish capitalism (which included confronting trade unionpower) and its archaic institutions. There was also a reforming part of the capitalist class. Difficult as it is to imagine now, but Margaret Thatcher voted in 1967 for Labour MP Leo Abse's Bill on liberalising the law on homosexulaity, on her own capitalist-individualist grounds.

There was, of course, the agitation and campaigning. After that came the radicalisation into seeing the issue as revolutionary gay liberation in the 1970s. That came to Britain formally in 1971 with the creation of a British Gay Liberation Front echoing what had developed post-Stonewall in the US.

The "revolutionary" part had a huge range of meanings from versions of Marxism through to radical drag. That was men dressing as women, while being and identifying as men, in order to provoke bigoted reaction and thus create a moment in which to question sex role stereotypes. Gutsy, whatever its effectiveness.

Important gains were made. They survived the backlash of the 1980s, though not without major mobilisations under the hammer of the Aids pandemic.

If convservative reaction came from one direction, liberal-capitalist absorption came from the other.

We have had 25 years of corporate capitalist efforts to adopt a deradicalised parody of the politics of gay, LGBT and women's liberation. It is simultaneously testimony to the gains have been made but also to the capacity of this system to blunt and trivialise them.And so we have had for a couple of decades a period of what you mightcall liberal light-mindedness.

It has been a kind of political decadence in which we have had an indulgence of more and more absurd and splintering debates about language and privilege as opposed to defending and extending rights in the real world.

I mean in the US, Britain, Australia and the like. There are vast parts of the world where to march for gay or LGBT (or whatever term you use) rights is to be met by state violence. Turkey, for example.

So, many places have not had even the minimal liberal breakthroughs in law or in corporations and military bureaucracies displaying the right flag in the right month in the right place. The US embassy in Greece flies a huge "Progress Pride" flag this month. It doesn't in Saudi Arabia - why not, do you think?

Events in the US, Poland, Malta and elsewhere in the west over the throwingback of women's rights tell us that we don't have room for that luxury anymore. By luxury I don't mean taking up and fighting on the issues of specific social oppression. Far from it.

I mean the folly of substituting navel-gazing drivel for actually fighting over oppression and unifying struggles against the capitalist class, its state and the forces of reaction.

Stonewall was a wonderful event. We do not have to wait for such events. The years prior to it show that it is possible to organise and win things out of a system under strain.

Corporate brands will pretend to be responding to any and all of our personal branding as an individual. They are not. They are sucking the life out of the liberatory potential of half a century ago.

We should unite and get our lives and true individuality back - whatever flags states and billionaire-owned companies choose to fly.

Counterfire is expanding fastas a website and an organisation. We are trying to organise a dynamic extra-parliamentary left in everypart of the country tohelp build resistance to the government and their billionaire backers. If you like what you have read and youwant to help, please join us or just get in touch by emailing [emailprotected] Now is the time!

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Stonewall, the state and the struggle for liberation - Counterfire