Maanya Anand Week 7

During this week we looked at readings pertaining to Ambedkar and also the correlation of COVID to these readings. The article that I found particularly interesting was Anand Teltumbde's open letter and our discussion about it in class. He talks about how the police entered his house in Goa when him and his family were in Bombay and took videos of the entire house. He is also called 'Mayavi Ambedkarite' and Mayavi in Hindu mythology means demonic. No only that, he has also been called a Maoist because his brother is a Maoist. He was also illegally arrested in Pune even though he was protected by the Supreme Court. The recent arrest of Anand Teltumbde has come at a very well planned time as we discussed in class. he is over 60 years old and as we are aware, COVID 19 has the most dangerous impact on the elderly. to arrest Anand Teltumbde when the entire country is on lockdown and put him in the deadly conditions of the prison where he can be exposed to conditions that lead to him to contract this virus seems like a very well thought out scheme. Further we also look at Avanish Kumar's article where we realise about the inequality between classes and castes. We look at a concept called Social Endosmosis, which talks about a free flow of ideas, knowledge, values, energy, public goods between the privileged and oppressed classes and castes (Ambedkar). However, this seems to be more of a concept on paper than in actuality as seen in this COVID stricken time where even though the worst affected people are the elderly, we forger that this also includes the oppressed, poor classes and castes who have never had access to the most important public good i.e. healthcare and are now bearing the brunt of this deadly virus unlike us who get to sit safely inside the 4 walls of their homes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

week 10- Aishwarya Ramkumar

DALIT MUSIC Arivarsu Kalainesan, fondly called Arivu amongst Tamilians is a popular playback singer who has sung songs for mainstream setups. However, his focus lies on writing music and poems about caste and poverty. He is highly inspired by Ambedkar and Buddha, and his music brings to life many of their ideals. He is a proponent of the Arivoli movement which is a southern left literacy movement and got introduces to these ideas by his parents who discussed these with him. His family used to attend Dalit culture events which celebrated anniversaries of leaders and organized protests. He is currently working on writing lyrics a project called the 'Casteless Collective' and had made raps on Ambedkar by drawing inspiration from various Dalit poems. While many have deemed his raps anti-Indian, others appreciate his ideas and welcome these into mainstream cinema and music. He was written various songs for other pertinent social causes such as the LGBTQIA+ movement, and his rap...
Read more

Nayonika Sen Week 2

Contested Citizenship, Caste, and the Politics of Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’             The CAA-NRC agitations have perhaps reached a tipping point in mainland India. Yet, the contention and agitation has been brewing in Assam for a while now. Until the threat of a nation-wide NRC, it wasn’t even a peripheral topic of discussion. ‘We people’ were largely unfazed by it. However, a brief reading of the recommended articles and a short explanatory video with Ms. Bina Pallical reaffirms my continuous contention with the NRC. Even the ‘Liberals’ comprising mainly of upper-caste educated persons have bought the narrative of it being an exclusively Hindu-Muslim problem. Yet, how is it going to affect the people who have historically never been considered Hindu? The current political narrative is trying to homogenise the ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan’ identity. The BJP has repeatedly issued statements about how the CAA is pro-Dalit and yet...
Read more

Week 10 - Samyuktha Rao

I'm sharing something interesting that I've come across during my search for dalit music. In the state of telangana, India's largest tribal festival is conducted on an annual basis in the month of February. The festival witnesses largest gathering of dalit communities as the goddess who is worshipped during the festival belongs to the Koya tribe. However, Hinduization of this festival has begun to take place in the last few decades. I'm attaching articles from the wire and feminism in india which talks in detail about how upper castes are controlling the image of the goddess as theirs and their other  other practices of Hinduization that are taking place during the festival. There are multiple songs on the internet (by upper castes) but most of them as talked above, fail to emphasize on the history and story and are centered around celebration of the festival.  https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/feminisminindia.com/2020/03/18/the-medaram-jana-jatara-indias-largest-tri...
Read more