#
Towards the end of the conversation you're about to listen to, my guest said something
#
that struck me as a beautiful, clarifying thought.
#
She said, I am not a feminist, but I am a feminist and.
#
And indeed, in her remarkable career, she has studied not just feminism, but also subjects
#
like caste and Buddhism and our fractured society, both in the current time and in times past,
#
and examined the ways in which they are so woven together.
#
I was awed by her work, both when I was researching her and later when I had this conversation.
#
But before we get there, I want to circle in onto this formulation.
#
Not feminism but, instead, feminism and.
#
Many of us discover a powerful frame to examine the world, and then it becomes the one hammer
#
we use for every nail, and often we don't see other frames that are all so useful.
#
Many of us see one way in which the world is messed up, and we don't notice other ways,
#
even when they have a direct bearing on what we are worried about.
#
But the truth is, the world is more complex than we think, even if we already think the
#
Firstly, it is complex because it contains many things.
#
Secondly, it is complex because of the many different ways in which these things relate
#
Even if you can figure out the first kind of complexity, the second is orders of magnitude
#
We can never make sense of it all, but we can come closer to an accurate picture of
#
the world if we talk to each other, if we keep an open mind, and if we celebrate the
#
thinkers who live among us and work among us and make the world a better place in their
#
Welcome to The Scene and The Unseen.
#
My guest today is a remarkable Uma Chakraborty, a living legend and a figure of inspiration
#
among those of us who care about either feminism or caste or Buddhism or indeed oral histories.
#
Uma has not just been a path-breaking scholar, she is a pioneer of Indian feminism and has
#
taught generations of young Indians in her 32 years of teaching between 1966 and 1998.
#
She participated in many women's movements and also studied them as an academic.
#
Her work on caste is also remarkable, as is her work on Buddhism.
#
She is also a pioneer of collecting oral histories, she has worked on Partition, she has worked
#
She has also been a documentary filmmaker.
#
It was such a delight to sit with her and even though we recorded for almost 6 hours,
#
I couldn't cover a lot of what this remarkable woman has accomplished, so maybe we will record
#
This is such a memorable conversation with a woman who has made a seminal contribution
#
to our times and to our society.
#
But before we get to the conversation, let's take a quick commercial break.
#
Do you want to read more?
#
I have put in a lot of work in recent years in building a reading habit.
#
This means that I read more books, but I also read more long-form articles and essays.
#
There is a world of knowledge available through the internet.
#
But the problem we all face is, how do we navigate this knowledge?
#
How do we know what to read?
#
How do we put the right incentives in place?
#
Well, I discovered one way.
#
A couple of friends of mine run this awesome company called CTQ Compounds at CTQCompounds.com,
#
which aims to help people up-level themselves by reading more.
#
A few months ago, I signed up for one of their programs called The Daily Reader.
#
Every day for 6 months, they sent me a long-form article to read.
#
The subjects covered went from machine learning to mythology to mental models and marmalade.
#
This helped me build a habit of reading.
#
At the end of every day, I understood the world a little better than I did before.
#
So if you want to build your reading habit, head on over to CTQCompounds and check out
#
New batches start every month.
#
They also have a great program called Future Stack, which helps you stay up-to-date with
#
ideas, skills, and mental models that will help you stay relevant in the future.
#
Future Stack batches start every Saturday.
#
What's more, you get a discount of a whopping Rs. 2500, 2500 if you use the discount code
#
So head on over to CTQCompounds at CTQCompounds.com and use the code Unseen.
#
Uma, welcome to the scene and the Unseen.
#
You know, one of the fascinating aspects of reading your work has, for me, been reading
#
about memory, which is something I've gotten very interested in, like whether it's your
#
work of, you know, talking to people about the partition, whether it's examining your
#
own memories, even the oral histories you collected after the 84 riots.
#
And you've pointed out at different places that how memory can both be fickle, but it
#
can also be adaptive in the sense that you'll often fit your memories into whatever frames
#
you've built around you to explain the world and all of that.
#
And you know, at this point where, you know, you were born before our nation, in a sense,
#
and here we are, and you mentioned to me before we started the show that one of the things
#
that you're interested in is not just archiving in general the experiences and memories of
#
people, but also your own, you know, getting a sense of, you know, your own life and which
#
is why you agreed to the show.
#
And I'm so grateful for that.
#
But tell me a little bit about, you know, what this process is like.
#
Like, I did an episode with another person who's written a book on partition though much
#
younger than you, Anshul Malhotra, and, you know, we discussed, you know, while researching
#
for that episode, I realized that the nature of memory is such the way our brain works
#
is that the first time we remember something, we remember the event, but every subsequent
#
time we remember the remembering.
#
So the same thing can happen to two people when they're together, but after 30 years
#
is completely different things.
#
So when you look back on your own life, what do you think about memory?
#
Do you sometimes have to, you know, strain to remember or contextualize and, you know,
#
what is, in a sense, that project like for you of your own construction?
#
I think you don't actually remember coherently till you begin to have a project of some kind.
#
Like, I mean, if one is writing, say, for instance, a memoir, which many of your interviewees
#
have been, then perhaps you order your thoughts and your memories and your experiences in
#
a certain frame and you try and make it coherent.
#
But in and of itself, the nature of memory is that it's episodic and it isn't actually
#
something that is structured.
#
It seems to come to you in, you know, literally in fragments and bits and pieces, and you
#
might remember a stray element of something, which then, you know, it's a passing thought,
#
which goes off in some direction and perhaps it goes into some part of your subconscious.
#
But it's not something that you're actively sort of conscious of and you don't make it
#
speak in a way or order it in a way in which you are telling it to someone.
#
The nature of memory is that it's fragmented, it comes in your brain or in your consciousness
#
and then it sort of passes off.
#
I think it begins to become more, let's say, not orderly so much as you start to make some
#
kind of a pattern out of it or some kind of a logical sequence out of it, when things
#
don't seem to gel with the facts that you've accumulated over the years, which is also
#
part of your memory, but it's not something that you are, you have absorbed in a more
#
conscious way, whereas the nature of, say, for instance, childhood memories or things
#
that you may have experienced, but then you buried somewhere, is that it remains actually
#
So let me tell you the example that I am thinking of, for instance, my earliest memory of partition-related
#
or let's say communal violence is just a passing recall in which I'm going to see, I'm five
#
years old, my little sister is born, she's born in the same hospital that I was born
#
in, which is in St. Stephen's Hospital in Delhi, and I'm going along with my father
#
to meet my mother and the baby who's born, and it's immediately, why it stays in the
#
memory is because we are accosted by a group of men who say there's going to be trouble,
#
go back home, and I don't understand it, but we sort of turn around and we return home.
#
Now, it's incomprehensible that that memory for a child or that experience for a child
#
is completely incomprehensible.
#
Why can't we go where we are going and what is going to happen?
#
So it gets put in some part of your body or your memory bank as something that was bewildering
#
and you couldn't explain it, and it stays there.
#
So for some reason, when I became conscious of partition and partition violence, which
#
one experienced at that stage, but then there is a recall of it as you proceed in your life,
#
because there are people you talk to and you interact with and so on, and it's there.
#
It's part of your consciousness at that stage itself.
#
So again, the logic or the illogic of your memories remains buried somewhere and you
#
don't actually extract it, but you extract it when you start to think about it in a coherent
#
fashion or you have to write about it in some way.
#
And that's how that memory of the five-year-old who is bewildered by what happens, but then
#
as I proceed, I'm also bewildered by why is there this discussion of violence in 1946?
#
And you know, partition violence is supposed to have been something that, you know, in a sense,
#
took its vociferous turn in and around the August independence.
#
So everything we had learned, everything that you heard of was around that time.
#
And you could go a few months before, but this was a year before.
#
It's exactly a year before because it's August 46 that I was remembering.
#
And so it made no sense to me.
#
I couldn't make sense of it till I finally found the reason for it.
#
It's because there was violence in Calcutta and there was a consequence of that violence
#
And this act, this incident in my head, which had stayed as a question which I could make
#
sense of, fell into place.
#
And so one realized, so the audit of what you read and what you understood and apprehended
#
about the partition then started to fall into place.
#
But other than that, it would have remained a stray, inexplicable memory.
#
And there were lots of memories of this kind.
#
My siblings also remember different things.
#
So everyone is remembering.
#
And interestingly, the whole thing begins to, the whole sequence or trying to make sense
#
of what one experienced as children began to take some kind of an orderly fashion.
#
When I was to write, I got involved with a partition project.
#
And I began to order my thoughts.
#
I began to think more coherently.
#
And at that stage, I remember a chain of emails.
#
By this time, of course, we have the emails.
#
So there is this chain of emails that I have with my elder sister and my younger brother.
#
And we come up with a series of things that we try.
#
And each of us remembers only a fragment.
#
Each of us is actually apprehending that moment or that memory is partial and it remains in that
#
person's head or that brother and sister's experiences also as a fragment,
#
not as a coherent account.
#
And it's that which was interesting from the point of view of them.
#
I mean, as a child, I don't think that the only memory I had was of this terrible
#
bewilderment, stroke, fear, which you couldn't quite relate to.
#
But there were other things that were happening.
#
And I think one of the things that again stayed in my head was this.
#
Our school was in tents.
#
And it was actually the school itself was interesting because it had started off as a
#
sort of little kindergarten type school in the New Delhi church.
#
There's a redemption church over there.
#
And the pastor of that church ran the school also.
#
So our first school was this place.
#
Then he must have committed some misdemeanor of some kind, maybe.
#
And so he moved the school to a tented area in what is now South Avenue, just outside,
#
North Avenue, actually, just not very far from that church school that we were in.
#
And in this tented space, which we stayed for about two, three years,
#
I think, two to three years, we were in that space.
#
The other memory around the partition was the stray presence of a sick, older, middle-aged man
#
who would wander into the school and sort of stand around and whatever it is.
#
And he was known for solving sums in there.
#
He would be making actions of the calculations in the air and solving them in some way or the other.
#
But from time to time, he would also mutter incomprehensible stuff.
#
And that incomprehensible material, that articulations of his were, again, confusing.
#
This is probably 47, 48, or maybe early 48.
#
This person's experience is not tangible.
#
You can't extract what is going on.
#
But his distress begins to speak to you.
#
And I've always been struck by the fact that the children,
#
we were all children and children can be very cruel to people who don't conform.
#
But there was nobody who actually targeted this person.
#
His troubled soul seemed to have communicated to everybody.
#
So there was a way in which he was regarded as
#
having virtually almost a right to wander in and wander out.
#
And I think everyone was kind to him because they knew
#
somewhere that he'd been through this thing.
#
Now, many years later, when one read the story of Manto and Toba Tek Singh,
#
he became, for me, my personal Tek Singh, who couldn't make sense of what had happened.
#
Because he used to say, I'll not go to Pai.
#
And it was, again, death, killing, not clear in children's minds.
#
Violence, yes, to some extent.
#
So in that sense, I think memory has got a very strange way of going in and out.
#
And then it's all sedimented because I'm told I raved in my sleep because
#
in my delirium I was very sick.
#
And my mother describes that I would moan saying,
#
why are the Hindus and Muslims killing each other?
#
So in a sense, the child's incomprehension is what I remember about the earliest memories.
#
It's somehow distress that got congealed in the memory as far as I was concerned.
#
Because there's another incident that I can recall.
#
In that school that we studied, in the church school,
#
we used to play on the steps.
#
And I fell and cut my head.
#
And I still have a mark on my eyebrow, which is a cut.
#
And so I bled and whatever it was.
#
We used to have a woman who helped us.
#
South Indian widows had a certain garb.
#
And years later, I don't want widowhood also.
#
But all that stayed in my head was that she has this woman.
#
And she wept when I came.
#
She cried as if to say I was her child.
#
And she was so distressed at the fact that I was bleeding.
#
That too stayed in my head.
#
It's an act which I couldn't quite make sense of at that stage.
#
Why did she cry when my mother didn't or when others didn't?
#
And somehow she reached out.
#
My distress is something that spoke to her in a certain kind of way.
#
And that's a strange memory that also has stayed in my head, apart from other things.
#
So memory is a bit, I mean, it's not idiosyncratic.
#
I think there's a structure.
#
And I haven't really done any serious work around it.
#
But I think there's a deep place where it goes.
#
There's also a surface way.
#
And the more you talk about it, the more you actually make it comfortable
#
from the point of view of your telling.
#
And make it orderly from the point of view of your recall of it also.
#
So I think that's something.
#
Otherwise, it's really terribly episodic.
#
Yeah, I mean, two of these three memories that you shared
#
are in this wonderful essay you wrote for at Harvard Project on Partition,
#
And then there's Gentleman, which kind of moved me a lot.
#
You know, when he says,
#
And I'm just thinking aloud and thinking that perhaps what we would call his madness,
#
the Tobatek Singh, the Tobatek Singh kind of delirium,
#
comes from an inability to process what has happened.
#
Typically, what would happen is, yes, our memories are episodic.
#
And, you know, some will surface when we are thinking about something in particular,
#
like I imagine that you worked so much in Partition that perhaps
#
those memories would surface more readily to the fore.
#
And we make sense of the world by telling ourselves stories.
#
And in a similar sense, I think we make sense of our own lives
#
by telling ourselves stories using our memories, which are episodes.
#
And sometimes there's no story you can tell.
#
I mean, this poor guy, if he's seen whatever he,
#
you know, like I remember a story that my friend Amitabha Kumar once told me where
#
he went to this village somewhere in central India,
#
where all the Muslims of the village had been slaughtered by the Hindus.
#
Except for one man, like he had gone off to hide somewhere else.
#
Everybody, including his wife and children, went into the fields.
#
And Amitabha went to catch up on the story a few months later, a few years later.
#
And he found that this man is living with another wife and kids.
#
And it's as if that thing never happened.
#
It's as if it simply never happened, right?
#
So sometimes you use your memories into your story,
#
but sometimes you can't and sometimes you just are in denial of it.
#
Like I think you pointed out that the reason you were crying out in your sleep
#
is your elder brother and sister had seen a man being killed.
#
There were three Muslims running and one of them is killed.
#
And, you know, and I guess for a kid to process that,
#
it's again that, you know, it's so hard.
#
And I think you later said that your father found out that he was a peon
#
who had refused to be transferred to Pakistan,
#
which is also kind of poignant in a different context.
#
Poignant and tragic when you think of what kind of,
#
what led people to make certain decisions
#
and how one might actually regret it afterwards.
#
Because your understanding of what is going to happen or what can,
#
I mean, why should anyone have to go?
#
I mean, this is the other thing that came up about the partition.
#
Why should anyone have to get up and go?
#
The lands were divided and only Punjab and Bengal were divided.
#
Sindh and all of these other states stayed as units in the new regime.
#
And the unpredictability of that violence is,
#
I mean, both it's structured and it's unstructured in some ways,
#
because it should have been expected since 46 had happened.
#
And since March onwards in Pakistan and in Rawalpindi,
#
Thoa Khalsa incident has already taken place in March 13th or March 15th or whatever.
#
So it's not that violence can't be anticipated.
#
And yet people could not imagine,
#
couldn't understand what the meaning of partition was.
#
So what is this partition?
#
You know, at the end of the day,
#
you're going to sort of carve up territories.
#
And among the interviews,
#
among the statements that made a major impact on me,
#
at least in the narratives that you picked up or you collected,
#
was this business of Raj badalta hai,
#
So that is the understanding.
#
So the state will change.
#
And another person said,
#
chose to be in Pakistan because the lands were in Pakistan.
#
His son was in the army and his son was told,
#
stay with, stay with, choose India, choose Pakistan,
#
because our lands are there.
#
And in order to actually make that a logical thing or acceptable thing,
#
so what's the big deal, you know?
#
So the rulers come and go.
#
And that is critical for me when you think of it now.
#
That is, it was not inevitable.
#
The violence was not inevitable.
#
And yet, when it happened,
#
it had this most disastrous consequences.
#
And then there was this.
#
So should it have been expected?
#
Why was it not expected?
#
Why was not a structure of governance put into place
#
that ensured that the violence was minimized or didn't happen?
#
Why did Mountbatten file the partition deed away,
#
store it in his little drawer,
#
and produce it only on the 17th of the...
#
That is, partition has happened
#
and people don't know where they are.
#
They don't know all along the border areas.
#
They don't know whether they are there or they are here.
#
And again, one of the oral history interviews showed that to us.
#
So it's actually incomprehensible.
#
So incomprehensibility becomes associated also with what you remember.
#
Iska logic kya hai, you know?
#
And you can't make sense of it at the end of the day.
#
And that level of violence that you did not anticipate
#
and you did not try and do something to minimize it,
#
that is what is left in it.
#
As a historian who's looking back,
#
why did that have to happen?
#
And so the child's incomprehensibilities,
#
to some extent, match by the incomprehensibility of the adult.
#
Why did Mountbatten advance the time of the partition?
#
Why couldn't he have left it?
#
I mean, there was a six-month phase that they were talking about.
#
It was meant to only happen that much later.
#
So what is this hurry about the administrators that they need to...
#
And the pettiness of it at the end of the day.
#
He has to do something in a glorious kind of way
#
and he does what he's doing.
#
And look at the consequences that human beings paid
#
for that terrible destruction.
#
And it's scarred our history.
#
It's scarred our own, not only individual memories,
#
but scarred the memories of the nation
#
as it is at the moment of its birth.
#
So to that extent, I think it's unforgivable.
#
The mistakes in history are unforgivable.
#
And one of the great points you made is that
#
the violence wasn't necessarily inevitable or unavoidable.
#
And also when we look back at this period,
#
we always look at history with hindsight.
#
So everything that has happened seems inevitable.
#
It seems inevitable that the borders between India and Pakistan
#
would be what they are.
#
And yet, for almost a couple of decades after partition,
#
people were moving more or less freely back and forth.
#
It seems inevitable that the Indian nation state
#
would remain in more or less the same form that it is.
#
But at that time, there were doubts.
#
You never knew if the center would hold.
#
There was violence all across the country.
#
It was like such a project in the making.
#
And that gentleman, your father's being,
#
who was offered a transfer and refused to go,
#
reminds me of Ehsan Jafri,
#
who there was a riot in the late 60s.
#
why don't you go to that Muslim locality and live there?
#
And he said that, no, that's not the India, I believe.
#
And I'm going to stay here.
#
Why should I go to a ghetto?
#
And look what happened to him.
#
And I'm thinking it's, in a sense,
#
it's almost the same thing playing out,
#
except partition was a lot of violence
#
in this compressed period of time.
#
And maybe now it's spread out
#
and maybe now it's less visible, more unseen,
#
and less inevitable because all of it hasn't happened yet.
#
Or maybe it's being made to be unseen.
#
Let's put it like that.
#
You know, it's like it is.
#
So what was the difference?
#
Not just that I'm a child
#
and I believe in simple things
#
like human decency or compassion or whatever,
#
intuitively, not rationally.
#
It's something that is there
#
as part of your way of growing up.
#
But there's something instinctive about that process.
#
And today, what is happening is being rationalized.
#
That is, the hatred is being rationalized.
#
So it's like stoking the history to extract from it
#
only the negative, only the vicious,
#
only the killer instinct, you know,
#
not the long shared histories that you have had.
#
Who remembers, for instance,
#
that I mean in this recasting of the medieval period
#
and particularly the Mughals as the invaders
#
who have, you know, sort of reduced you to rubble
#
Who will remember that Humayun or even Akbar,
#
I can't remember the precise incident
#
There is a Rajput woman who is going to be made a satti.
#
And I think it's Humayun's case
#
and he's her dharam bhai.
#
And there's a rista between them.
#
They've obviously exchanged the rakhi brother.
#
And she sends a message out to him.
#
He rides, it's either his story or it's Akbar's story.
#
But he rides two days to get to the place
#
and stop the satti from happening.
#
So actually, how are we casting our history?
#
How are we mining it from the point of view of hatred
#
rather than from the point of view
#
of the affective ties with which you lived?
#
You know, I mean, take the story of Kabir.
#
Now, what do you do with the story of Kabir?
#
He has a man who in the mythology and the folklore,
#
he's the son of a Brahmin widow.
#
And Brahmin widows are not meant to be having children.
#
I mean, they're not having their birth from their sexual life
#
They die at the death of their husbands virtually.
#
Civil death happens to them.
#
And so we are told that he's the son of this widow.
#
And then he's brought up by the Muslim weaver.
#
So what is this shared history that we have?
#
And ultimately, when Kabir is writing,
#
using the weaver metaphors constantly in his compositions,
#
the genie beanie, what's that kind of shared history
#
that we had, the accommodations,
#
the histories that people built from below
#
and live with each other.
#
That whole history you need to erase
#
and then you just have to fill it with hatred.
#
And then you have to, so you actually,
#
you're stoking the most, the basest sentiments
#
in human beings rather than either the confusions
#
or actually the manner in which human beings
#
have actually created systems of bhajjara
#
and affective relationships across the board.
#
So it's, to that extent, at this point of time,
#
we just had this little conversation about how are you?
#
And I said, I can't, don't ask this question of me
#
because what am I supposed to say?
#
Am I supposed to say that I'm fine?
#
I don't treat it as a routine question.
#
I'm in a deep state of distress.
#
And one of the most painful parts of living today
#
is to say that I was born at a time
#
when the nation was coming into being
#
and it was filled with hope.
#
It was filled with hope.
#
And I said this, I was put under some kind of investigation
#
And so I said that I got my say when they were going off,
#
the interrogators, quote unquote,
#
the interrogators were going off.
#
So they stopped at the front door.
#
And I said, I was born in,
#
I saw that flag, the first flag,
#
when Tiranga spread for the first time,
#
and we were given sweets.
#
And then when Gandhiji was killed,
#
I went to see his ashes and his body.
#
He was a six-year-old child.
#
My father put me on a cart so that I could see the thing.
#
So what the hell are you trying to tell me
#
that I'm anti-national?
#
I mean, you're mining me for my,
#
I mean, I can tell you a few things about
#
what is the meaning of nation.
#
What is this bakwas that you're fixing us with and so on?
#
And they were so shocked.
#
They were so shocked because I was like,
#
The questions went the way they went.
#
My husband and I both, my partner and I,
#
answered them in the way we did.
#
But then when he was going, I couldn't hold on.
#
I had to tell him this thing.
#
And they were quite stunned.
#
And they actually may have mellowed
#
and they went off saying bye and whatever it is.
#
Are you now going to put me on the,
#
you know, and I don't mean myself as a person.
#
I mean, actually, all of us,
#
you're going to judge us on the basis of some standard
#
And that same Gandhiji who, you know, goes on a fast
#
and he's killed my husband actually was,
#
heard the shot that killed him because he was,
#
they used to live next door from the Birla house.
#
You know, this is the history that we have.
#
And that's the country that we all thought
#
that we were going to build, you know,
#
and it was going to be the,
#
I mean, it was our notion of a society
#
which was compassionate, humane, equal.
#
Equality was very important for us, you know.
#
And then when you think back, you say to ourselves,
#
And I'm convinced I will die in this moment.
#
I mean, in this phase, I have to die at a time
#
when it's all shattered.
#
I mean, we basically lynched the constitution.
#
We lynched the soul of India
#
and we are supposed to live in it.
#
And then I'm supposed to say, how are you?
#
You know, I'm not at all fine.
#
I just feel the anguish of my times, you know.
#
That's my history of the partition.
#
And today, I share the anguish.
#
And by the way, the Mughal emperor,
#
I think must have been Akbar
#
because I know I have discussed it on the show
#
with someone and I've had an episode
#
on all the Mughal emperors except Humayun.
#
Okay, so it must be Akbar then.
#
And I think Aurangzeb also tried to outlaw Sati
#
at a point in time, I vaguely remember.
#
So it must be in one of my episodes
#
with, you know, either with Parvati Sharma,
#
Jahangir Veshi may have mentioned it
#
or Ira Mukhati or Mani Mukti Sharma or whatever.
#
You know, I do want to talk about your childhood
#
and we'll go back to that
#
and I want to hear a lot more about that.
#
But first, I want to double click on, you know,
#
what on this deep state of distress
#
that you sort of mentioned.
#
And it strikes me that like one of the things
#
that I've learned over time is that I grew,
#
that I've realized over time
#
and it took me until a few years ago
#
and therefore well into adulthood to realize it
#
is that I grew up in an elite English speaking
#
And my default assumption was
#
that we are a tolerant secular nation
#
and everything is cool and, you know,
#
the hatred is there among outliers
#
and otherwise we are fine, you know.
#
That was the idea of India, kind of.
#
And what I have come to realize
#
and obviously reality mugs you and teaches you that
#
is that no, you know, we are not in that India.
#
As, you know, Akshay Mukul has been on the show
#
a couple of times in his masterful book
#
on the Geeta Press showed us
#
how a lot of this toxicity was part of our culture.
#
A lot of these modern political issues
#
that divide us like love jihad and cow slaughter
#
were active political issues
#
exactly 100 years ago in the 1920s as well.
#
And therefore there has been that strain.
#
And I remember I had done an episode with JP Narayan once
#
and I was making the point of what an illiberal society
#
we were because of gender and caste and all that.
#
And he was saying that yes, you are right
#
but if you look at it another way
#
we there is also a lived liberality
#
something that you also referred to in a sense
#
that look at our food, look at our cuisine,
#
We've embraced everything.
#
We are kind of together.
#
It's like there are these two sort of strains
#
the battle angels of our natures
#
and the worst aspects of our character.
#
And to dig deep into a further point
#
I think one thing I sort of thought about
#
again during my episode with Anshul
#
talking about partition made me think about it
#
is a distinction between the abstract and the concrete
#
and the role that plays in people's lives.
#
Like Anshul speaks of how she was chatting
#
with this couple in Lahore or Karachi or somewhere
#
who had crossed over after partition
#
and at one point when their memories became fresh
#
they were ranting and raving and saying
#
Hindus are this, Hindus are that and blah blah blah
#
and then they realized she was sitting with them
#
And to me that's a difference between
#
the abstract and the concrete
#
that what we are divided by is abstract notions
#
of nationalism and purity and all of that nonsense.
#
But in the concrete we live kind of differently
#
and obviously there are exceptions to these also
#
abstract notions like individual autonomy
#
in the concrete some people are lynching other people
#
but it strikes me that that's also part of the issue
#
and I recorded an episode recently with a guest
#
who made a very interesting point
#
and she said that in her experience
#
she felt that partition was invoked most bitterly
#
by people who did not experience it.
#
Like she said that if you come to Maharashtra
#
you will find that they are invoking it bitterly
#
and they talk about the anti-Muslim hatred
#
and you know they're talking partition
#
but in the north a lot of people came to accept it
#
and that hatred is not quite so true
#
and her thesis I'm not I don't know enough to agree
#
but this was her thesis
#
and one possible reason for this is that
#
you know partition did not cause anything
#
I mean it was just an instantiation of it as it were
#
and you can justify the bigotry by saying
#
partition or Mughal emperor or Aurangzeb
#
or whatever the hell you want
#
there is a deep humanity innate in us
#
like Yogendra Yadav's father naming him Saleem
#
despite all that happened
#
which is such a moving and powerful story again
#
and I want to ask you your impression of this
#
because yes in this particular moment
#
it seems politics has caught up with society
#
and in my bleaker moments I feel that this is it
#
you know that this is all that there is
#
but what is your sense in the journey that you've made
#
that maybe now this is on the ascendance
#
but that you know we contain multitudes
#
see we contain multitudes
#
but we are also a very complex society
#
and we are a deeply stratified society
#
and this is my specific the bee in my bonnet
#
I believe the caste is actually the base
#
the first form of communalism
#
so the hatred of the other
#
which is what you now we see it in
#
being full scaly enacted
#
as far as the stoking of the violence
#
against the Muslims is concerned
#
but that is something that is actually
#
unfortunately I don't even know
#
whether I can call them Hindus
#
I mean the upper caste have been made to believe
#
and not only the upper caste
#
because everybody subscribes to that ideology
#
right from the top down to the bottom
#
because as I don't know if it was
#
Balagopal puts it very well
#
I think in one of one line of his
#
he says there is a little enemy of equality within all of us
#
so we can't actually tolerate equality
#
and our history has made us
#
Do you actually like them?
#
I'm not even sure that the Brahmin likes his own wife
#
because she's got bad days and good days
#
you can't touch her on some days
#
you can't touch her on some days
#
I mean the whole attitude to other human beings
#
is built around the touchability
#
and the untouchability factor
#
and if you construct that into an ideology
#
and that is the stuff you internalize
#
before you learn to love
#
so the child who comes to play with you
#
you can't play with him
#
the boundaries are so well laid
#
that you won't even consider that I can play with him
#
so where did that come from?
#
where did those codes come from?
#
it has been fed into even children
#
in a certain kind of way
#
so I really believe that
#
in some ways we've created a history of hatred
#
rather than the history of love
#
and that's why I will see the Buddha
#
as someone who stands outside this framework
#
you know to some extent
#
compassion, love, Karuna, Maitreya
#
those are the sentiments
#
those are the elements that I now read out of him
#
and I'm not interested in saying
#
did he endorse inequality or not
#
because our Marxist friends will always tell us
#
and as a good historian and a scholar
#
I know what the texts are telling me
#
of course he made his accommodations
#
with the existence of inequality
#
give Karuna its place in our way of thinking
#
that's a very powerful thing
#
that is you have compassion
#
and you have good fellow
#
Maitreya is literally fellow feeling
#
good relationship with your others
#
that philosophy did not actually become
#
and become internalized in people
#
and stand as perhaps the way to be
#
it was picked up by Bhakti tradition
#
the similar kinds of things
#
so there've always been critiques of this hatred
#
and this kind of deep indignity
#
that you cause to human beings
#
so people have not accepted the caste system
#
people have not accepted
#
there's a way in which you have tried to sort of
#
and the better human beings
#
and the better thinkers
#
have always tried to go beyond it
#
but unfortunately the structure of caste
#
is I mean if you have to turn around and say
#
what is the definition of the Hindu
#
it becomes the one who practices caste
#
less than is he a shy white
#
proponent of Bhakti or whatever
#
it's the practice of caste
#
makes you into a certain person
#
and not a certain person
#
so in that sense I think that
#
there's a deep problem with our society
#
and the battle is always to try and
#
to try and rewrite that history
#
I mean that's what the constitution of India
#
I mean that is why Ambedkar is so important
#
I mean he is trying to make everyone
#
have the same dignities
#
and it's not that he articulates it very well
#
I'm sure there were people in history
#
that have thought in similar ways
#
but he is able to conceptualize
#
and put it into the constitution in a certain
#
there's obviously some people who support
#
the history of our freedom struggle
#
is also that we are trying to achieve
#
the better understanding
#
of what kind of society we should be
#
it's got its own contradictions
#
it's got its own practices of caste
#
and this and that and the other
#
but there's also the other sense
#
of being able to reach out
#
I mean the equality paradigm
#
is antithetical to India
#
there's no equality in this
#
so if you are making that a principle
#
and maybe you understood it only
#
because the British came and sat on your head
#
but the fact is that you did imagine
#
that you could create a world
#
in which everyone had the vote
#
you didn't have to have
#
those violent struggles
#
in order to achieve the simple things
#
that democracy and liberalism
#
and secularism could put
#
I mean you put it quite naturally
#
there were no major debates around it
#
it was the ideological underpinning
#
in the national movement
#
and if there were some darker forces
#
they were suppressed at that point of time
#
so that's the model that we
#
and yet it was very clear
#
that everything that Ambedkar does
#
I mean Gandhi tried all his life
#
as far as caste is concerned
#
the Varanasi Madharma and so on
#
so but so I understand the agony
#
and the pain of an Ambedkar
#
who few months before he dies
#
needs to make that statement
#
I may have been born a Hindu
#
but I will not die Hindu
#
of course that's a statement he's made
#
but he makes that conversion move
#
only a few years before he dies
#
few months before he dies
#
look there is something wrong
#
it is not going to easily
#
accommodate itself to the whatever it is
#
so ordinary people understand that
#
you know I mean common people
#
understand that we are doing
#
fact-finding on the so-called
#
in which the Jat girl is
#
or is in love with a Dalit boy
#
and you meet the elders of the village
#
and they turn around and say
#
the whole problem is with the Samvidhan
#
neither the Samvidhan comes
#
nor our daughters go to school
#
and neither our daughters
#
so education itself is seen as a
#
force that takes you away
#
so actually it's a there is a
#
there's a massive tussle going on
#
constantly on the principle of equality
#
it's only there in the constitution
#
it is a battle that's being enacted
#
so it's a deep deep structural flaw
#
and why would we not have
#
if you have a iota of decency
#
you would have to stand up
#
you know at the end of the day
#
so when I do ancient India
#
and I study ancient India
#
and I have to write about it
#
I'm not going to put my blinkers on
#
it was a very good time
#
you know at the end of the day
#
so at the end of the day
#
cumulatively you can see
#
but there is a structure
#
and see the dynamics of
#
the Hindus into a block
#
and how can you do that
#
that the caste divisions
#
a unified block of the Hindus
#
so at the end of the day
#
you know this whole debate
#
I mean that is the logic of history
#
is that post-independence history
#
these dispersed communities
#
you know suggest that the
#
because at the end of the day
#
you continue to practice
#
a caste in everything that you do
#
so lots of resonates in there
#
the one that I'll start with is
#
and I did an episode with
#
I've done a couple of episodes
#
and the first of them was
#
you know about Hindutva itself
#
he made over there was that
#
if you ask the Hindutva
#
people what they are for
#
they don't have an answer
#
they only know what they are against
#
so you're being totally defined
#
by the hatred by the other
#
but what are you actually for
#
is you know this question
#
and I remember I'd done an episode
#
she has this great line
#
Hindutva is a theory of violence
#
you know which also kind of resonates
#
you know I am an atheist
#
I don't call myself a Hindu
#
of course the original sin
#
sort of my great revelations
#
that I've had while doing the show
#
about the genetic evidence
#
one really interesting thing
#
that after the Aryans came here
#
for a couple of thousand years
#
there was intermingling
#
there were no divisions
#
but from about 2000 years ago
#
a particular ideological strain
#
in the Gangetic belt won out
#
and we've had severe caste endogamy
#
you know which is by David Reich
#
you know if you want a large population
#
look at the Han Chinese
#
of many small populations
#
and when you have severe caste endogamy
#
what follows from there
#
is a worsening of the patriarchy
#
because then you need to control
#
you need to control their access
#
to the outside world and so on
#
and then caste and the patriarchy
#
just feed into one another
#
and they get continuously worse
#
that has brought us to where we are
#
and what's interesting also
#
about the Hindutva movement
#
their desire to build this block
#
who is the other you know
#
you know caste is there
#
gender is of course there
#
but in the political thing
#
they've actually managed
#
Mandir irrelevant to some extent
#
you know more Dalits voted for Modi
#
than for any other party
#
and one would not condescend to them
#
and say that hey they voted
#
for the wrong reasons or whatever
#
you know people contain multitudes
#
and they're emphasizing other priorities
#
and that is actually one
#
like you know there will be some people
#
who will say that hey Hindutva is ugly
#
and I don't agree with that
#
I think there are some aspects where
#
I don't think caste is an open question
#
and the question I want to come to you
#
that you've spoken about
#
make the mistake of speaking
#
as if it is almost a holy book
#
and you know we should venerate it
#
and I think what happened
#
a set of liberal tenets
#
and the constitution is not as liberal
#
but it's more than society itself
#
an illiberal population
#
and then we allowed ourselves
#
I think even Ambedkar realized
#
the problems with the constitution
#
when a couple of years after that
#
if I could burn it down
#
you know reality was ugly
#
in the Ambedkar-Gandhi battles
#
was just virtue signaling
#
and trying to have it both ways
#
but there is one aspect
#
where I think Gandhi got it right
#
which is to say that you have
#
you can't change society
#
like you yourself have spoken
#
of so many bottom up movements
#
like Kabir and all of that
#
and to me it feels like
#
that is our great failure
#
that one it is our great failure
#
of liberals to even recognize
#
that this is a society we are in
#
and two there is a complacence
#
that we have our holy book
#
which most of the country
#
could argue is not legitimate
#
because it doesn't conform
#
to what society is like
#
the constitution a holy book
#
because equality is written in it
#
so there should be equality here
#
I don't think that's an argument
#
I think where we failed
#
is in making society liberal
#
if we have values we care for
#
it's a grassroots fight
#
to do it from the bottom up
#
and I feel like we failed in that
#
but I am no one to come to
#
such a vast and sweeping judgment
#
because I am an armchair warrior
#
but you've actually been out there
#
fantastic feminist movements
#
what is your sense of this?
#
you yourself have framed it
#
what would you call it?
#
that's the constitution of India
#
and we don't even see that
#
because what is wrong with it
#
means you eat something
#
and something else is made
#
in someone else's house
#
and the argument would often be
#
the young men will have
#
a nice time with all the girls
#
but they won't marry them
#
my wife should be comfortable
#
so they put it on the women
#
and what is the kitchen?
#
and it's only the reproduction of caste
#
the blueprint by which you
#
is through the caste system
#
but the caste system itself
#
is contingent on the practice
#
and if you want to stop
#
if endogamy would be thrown
#
you will get some broad blocks
#
but the structure of caste
#
now that's not the model
#
nobody thinks it's part of progress
#
for you to consider that
#
where my spirit moves me
#
that's itself something
#
so let's say the material
#
aspects of caste reproduction
#
which we would now call
#
is the complete immoral acts of
#
nobody is even taking it seriously
#
who who thinks it's serious
#
that the even the girls
#
will turn around and say
#
so and I am not suggesting
#
that you need to be radical
#
lots wrong with marriage itself
#
and lots wrong with the manner
#
are reproduced and so on
#
in reproducing caste-based patriarchy
#
and caste-based inequality
#
which is very different from class
#
there is a uthal-puthal
#
but what do you do with caste
#
and everyone is practicing it
#
even the dalits within themselves
#
because the maang and the mahar
#
will not marry each other
#
the ideology of caste of
#
aur kisko tum apni beti doge
#
and that's the only one
#
your loyalties to that group
#
whereas buddha has gone
#
into places like Sri Lanka
#
it's gone into that form
#
diluted form of endogamy
#
than the elaborate structure
#
that we that we practice
#
and at the end of the day
#
something that we've had
#
and all societies have it
#
but what form is that inequality
#
of inequality being practiced
#
and the one that we have
#
so I was struck by this
#
now suppose for instance
#
that Ashoka was pursued
#
he could what would you call it
#
frame within the parameters
#
and understanding of kingship
#
what's interesting is that
#
he also uses class categories
#
just as the buddha says
#
be humane to your daasakarma karas
#
your slaves and workmen
#
Ashoka puts it into his
#
and those who don't have
#
so how would we have gone
#
just before and perhaps
#
giving you a taxonomy of how
#
new castes come into existence
#
so from the four varnas
#
how do you get these multiple
#
and Tambayya has a brilliant essay
#
in which he talks about
#
leads to the production of new caste
#
so this proliferation of caste
#
which keeps organically
#
tied to the control of resources
#
and the denial of resources
#
would have read as class
#
creates an elaborate structure
#
in which those who have
#
in a hierarchy themselves
#
and those who do not have
#
are also in a hierarchy themselves
#
so at the end of the day
#
you have actually divided up
#
whatever you want to call it
#
and at the end of the day
#
everybody is higher than someone
#
so stratification is built
#
into the manner in which you
#
go from class inequality
#
to caste-based inequality
#
so that deep structure now
#
is what you have to acknowledge
#
in the time of the Buddha
#
so he didn't have to address it
#
we don't really get serious reformers
#
even Buddhism has reached its pinnacle
#
and in terms of kingship
#
the new kings with new dynasties
#
understand the power of
#
the greater exploitative power
#
and so they actually endorse Brahmanism
#
because it's a it's a much more
#
much more successful system
#
of surplus appropriation
#
and much much more complex system
#
sort of the high and the
#
so at the end of the day
#
so and the Buddha's own solution
#
which was not as I said
#
because the system has not been
#
his solution is more based on
#
so he is concerned with the manner
#
and that the family is crucial to it
#
that's part of the system
#
but he doesn't have to address
#
this complex inequality pattern
#
renounces his place in society
#
and creates a parallel society
#
where he can order equality
#
to practice to be practiced
#
so you know there's this
#
between family property
#
and social reproduction
#
of property relationships
#
that's it's already come to be
#
so in the imagination of the seekers
#
you can't actually achieve
#
the liberation of the self
#
okay so at the end of the day
#
the only system they can think of
#
is you you can't change
#
and that's the first accommodation
#
you it's difficult to change
#
so you create a parallel society
#
and in that parallel society
#
you practice more humane
#
and more egalitarian modes of being
#
when he decides to go off
#
and become part of the Buddhist Sangha
#
that follows the Buddha
#
are his own Shaken kinsmen
#
and they're all going off
#
and they're also being part of the
#
I mean there's obviously
#
great deal of affective ties
#
that are tying them together
#
so they're off they're going
#
they're carrying their clan
#
and family ties along with them
#
and so they're all going off
#
and then there's the story is that
#
she turns around and says
#
and when they get to the Buddha
#
because he does not want
#
the inequality to be introduced
#
is the principle by which you will
#
actually order organize
#
okay so everyone is equal
#
but in that equality how will you
#
so consensus is a model that he creates
#
you lose your original social
#
what's it called location
#
when you enter the Sangha
#
and then everybody becomes equal
#
to actually practice equality
#
but it's confined to the
#
the sphere of the of the Sangha
#
now the rest of society carries on
#
the revival of Brahmanism
#
Brahmanism actually is not
#
but post the post Mauryas
#
as much more successful
#
in actually creating a labor
#
creating a sort of congealed inequality
#
and I think one of the most
#
in in many interesting things
#
you did not need either slavery
#
to have a pliant labor force
#
would successfully do the same thing
#
and it's absolutely true
#
because the caste system
#
absolutely pliant labor force
#
a notion of cash being paid
#
in order to eat tomorrow
#
you have to borrow from your landlord
#
who will give you enough
#
so that you can survive
#
so you caste and class inequality
#
can then get gets collapsed
#
and it's most successful
#
through the intervention of
#
the control over women's sexuality
#
class, caste and gender
#
they're all tied together
#
that I have not been able
#
academically they might understand
#
but actually they don't
#
because it's not something
#
and I often say to people
#
you can't have a separate
#
and a separate caste movement
#
and a separate gender movement
#
I mean you have to have
#
as you address all of it
#
you can't separate these things
#
because they're inextricably
#
I think understanding your society
#
and understanding your society
#
and also recognizing its strengths
#
you know its structures
#
that society to be reproduced
#
wants that inequality to end
#
so for all of those reasons
#
I think now the buddhas do this
#
you know two separate spheres
#
okay bhakti actually is interesting
#
because bhakti did not create
#
they have a pool of people
#
but by and large people continue to
#
they may be the best bhakti singers
#
but they continue to practice
#
social relations of the same kind
#
and she'll even scold the god
#
for not alleviating her misery
#
but she continues her own
#
so does in the realm of ideas
#
you may achieve equality
#
okay in the realm of the search
#
a certain level of equality
#
you remain stuck in the
#
the most poignant story
#
to my mind is Jokhamela
#
the wall that he's constructing
#
falls on him and he dies
#
so if you look at these stories
#
the ideology of caste and Brahmanism
#
because you can't change society
#
you can you can liberate yourself
#
to actually practice that
#
and I think that to that extent
#
I mean while we may see
#
why do they not succeed
#
in embedding themselves
#
so there was a innate flaw
#
to break into that block
#
yeah and and that phrase
#
you use parallel society
#
this little parallel society
#
where there is no caste
#
those things separately
#
but you know from within
#
nothing much really happened
#
I think there are parallel societies
#
we occupy different centuries
#
of globalized cosmopolitan people
#
who don't even think of religion
#
but we are a very tiny chunk
#
you know like just in economic terms
#
done an episode with me
#
he wrote pointing out that
#
you know maybe 50 lakh people
#
are living like the west
#
there's another 10 crore
#
which is like a middle income country
#
but most of our country
#
more than 90 percent of our country
#
is in sub-saharan Africa
#
and that's where the problem
#
there isn't enough social change
#
and even among the 10 crore
#
all our pervasive issues
#
but for the vast majority
#
everything that you are describing
#
and the question that I asked about
#
you know what have you experienced
#
in terms of social change
#
over the last few decades
#
answering that by pointing out
#
there was this realization
#
that society can't change
#
that this stuff is too pervasive
#
top-down efforts to change society
#
and I believe are bound to fail
#
whether it's bhakti movement
#
or whether it's whoever
#
to being like this forever
#
you know other things are changing
#
while there's no panacea
#
mitigates the effect of caste a bit
#
because incentives change in cities
#
with larger economic networks
#
and discrimination gets more costly
#
so maybe there is slow change
#
still seems to be mired
#
optimism of the intellect
#
I do have optimism of the intellect
#
I think the question is
#
will we understand our society
#
that's why for me I say
#
you know I reduced myself
#
all that I am looking for
#
now is that so difficult
#
am I saying something radical
#
am I saying something like
#
you know burn the world
#
of being able to understand that
#
and one of my tragedies
#
so you have what could have
#
what is actually a vertical
#
a vertical polarization
#
addressing that question
#
is not even being addressed
#
the broad left liberal ideology
#
is the one that could have
#
unfortunately even the left
#
and the practice of caste
#
and couldn't build it into
#
their theoretical framework
#
one of the biggest mistakes
#
we can accuse the left of
#
is that they didn't create
#
and seem to be satisfied
#
of this is the Russian line
#
or you know the Albanian line
#
have to do with our society
#
and what is the kind of
#
creatively and critically
#
think about our society
#
in which it can be done
#
and that transformation
#
can happen with slow change
#
and that's the next question
#
that one will have to think about
#
given the practice of caste
#
it's not easy to actually say
#
everyone give up on their
#
everyone is above someone
#
even if everyone is below someone
#
and are you willing to give up
#
in that sense of the term
#
there's a critical role of gender
#
I think it's something that is
#
I think the caste practicing woman
#
is perpetuating gender inequality
#
without even thinking about it
#
she's perpetuating gender inequality
#
so it's not enough to say
#
that's the epiphenomenon
#
and I don't know if we are
#
we have made for change
#
and there's no doubt that
#
and also current economics
#
and current lifestyle aspirations
#
made it impossible for you
#
the old kind of consigning of women
#
but now you have to actually
#
you may not change your ways
#
but the woman double income
#
has become actually critical
#
and its aspiration levels are
#
I mean it really wants the best
#
and it's the most global
#
so if for all of those reasons
#
the structure of inequality
#
even as the epiphenomenon changes
#
you know I mean at the end of the day
#
you have transformed some things
#
there's no doubt about it
#
I mean women are going out to work
#
women are doing a number of things
#
which has given them agency
#
in a certain kind of way
#
and so I think that's all there
#
but how are we addressing
#
other forms of inequality
#
a means by which we can break
#
in order for us to actually
#
be able to get the gains
#
you know the equality paradigm
#
which is actually a liberal
#
I mean nobody built into
#
to productive resources
#
you know everyone has a right
#
we didn't even practice
#
and how will you create
#
the structural basis of inequality
#
in this deep-seated society
#
and you know we may write
#
the most beautiful plays
#
do the create best cinema
#
but its impact in our lives
#
I'm not sure how much it is
#
I think we have a challenge
#
than most societies have
#
so here's my question for you
#
like you pointed out how
#
sort of a western frame of reference
#
and try to apply it to India
#
and you know before change
#
obviously there must be understanding
#
and I want to ask a question
#
about frames of understanding
#
thinking about the world
#
we look for frames that explain it
#
and typically when we are 17, 18, 19
#
we take the first frame
#
we adopt it for a while
#
then later on we perhaps realize
#
that the world is more complex
#
and we kind of move the frame about
#
and has there been a situation
#
where the frames that we are using
#
are either borrowed from the west
#
that is really deeply complex
#
you've written about how
#
that Marxists were so enamored by class
#
that caste was a different
#
you had to kind of look at it separately
#
so that was one particular blinker
#
that one particular ideology might have
#
and similarly there are other blinkers
#
you've also been at pains to point out
#
which are linked from the show notes
#
feminism is not something
#
we borrowed from the west
#
that there was an inherent
#
feminist movement that's you know
#
there have been these strains
#
that have been around for centuries
#
and yet a lot of people will borrow
#
a feminist frame from the west
#
and try to apply it on India
#
they all kind of intersect
#
especially young people
#
there is the easy seduction
#
of narratives that explain everything
#
you have no doubt shifted frames
#
like you've spoken about
#
you find social history
#
more interesting than political
#
cultural or art history
#
that you move from social history
#
to gendered social history
#
and then later you speak about
#
that once you're looking at gender
#
you're looking at everything
#
and similarly everything
#
of deepening your frames
#
whereas with many other people
#
or virtue signalers on Twitter
#
and then that hammer is a hammer
#
you're breaking every nail with
#
you're banging on every nail
#
therefore maybe what we need to do
#
is not be intellectually lazy
#
and just engage more and more
#
and deepen our understanding
#
what are your thoughts?
#
Yeah so I think in one sense
#
I'm a little bit of a seeker
#
and a seeker not necessarily
#
for a congealed ideology
#
okay this is what I've discovered
#
and this is how it's going to be
#
and I'm going to teach the world
#
expect that the world practices that
#
I think that the seekerness
#
comes from the fact that
#
with the explanation system
#
okay or the segmented way
#
in which you look at you know
#
so that's not something
#
so in bringing caste and gender
#
I mean writing about gender
#
without looking at caste
#
it was my first challenge
#
okay I've done the little bit of the
#
see the women's movement started off
#
women's movement in India
#
in the late 70s early 80s
#
and typically growing up
#
you were struck by the movements
#
so while Mathura is described
#
to the autonomous women's movement
#
in the context of custodial rape
#
and I emphasize custodial rape
#
and we begin to sort of
#
I'd like to make is that
#
separate the relationship
#
between the different parts
#
in the sense that I never
#
joined a political formation
#
I never I remained a teacher
#
and I responded to things
#
as organically developed
#
major crisis in our lives
#
so for me the emergency
#
the civil rights movement
#
but I could never separate that
#
from the parallel journey
#
that began on the context of
#
in the context of gender
#
and so I often say that
#
that outrageous judgment
#
there are no marks on her body
#
and she's whatever it is
#
because they're looking
#
at middle-class morality
#
doing the bloody Hyman test
#
and how it reaches is that
#
I mean the man's sexual history
#
has nothing to do with him
#
or in an act of violation
#
immediately subject you
#
to that two-finger test
#
and how much we've had to
#
but all that is used to say
#
you're using a casteist
#
premarital sexual relations
#
they put all of that together
#
but the most striking thing
#
as far as I'm concerned
#
indelibly part of the state
#
and the state repression
#
and that's where you got your
#
I mean that's where this
#
structure of oppression
#
that kind of phenomenon
#
that you get to the emergency
#
because one lakh people
#
you may have been terrorized
#
from where that repressive
#
and you know the classic
#
that said that this person
#
you see it for the first time
#
and the tappa being marred
#
you know this aberration
#
in your political system
#
that does bring the police station
#
captures the imagination of people
#
it has happened in a police Thana
#
and then it's so outrageous to say
#
and the judges are endorsing it
#
by saying she consented
#
what do you mean by consent
#
I mean what is the first thing
#
that we learned about consent
#
in a deeply hierarchical
#
is there such a thing as consent
#
now we're critiquing the judiciary
#
but the fact of the matter is that
#
the judiciary was the first
#
on the Mathura judgment
#
so are you lordship saying
#
that's what the letter says
#
that needs to be put in
#
that letter open letter
#
was not published in India
#
it was published first in
#
they are the ones who picked it up
#
then it circulates in India
#
and people in Bombay pick it up
#
little newspapers over there
#
sexual violence and rape
#
most oppressed sections
#
I mean then there's all this
#
the dowry violence begins
#
there is this dowry violence
#
or the South Asian Indian family
#
because this is happening
#
the killing is happening
#
now the spontaneous movements
#
have a demonstration here
#
or a demonstration there
#
and one of the early ones
#
and then I had this young woman
#
who was really anguished
#
who goes away from her house
#
can never come back to it
#
don't come to the demonstrations
#
she's giving me latitude
#
you've studied the text
#
what there is in this culture
#
so many alternative versions
#
was there are so many versions
#
that they are so distinctive
#
explosion of possibilities
#
but this is proliferation
#
that don't give your daughter
#
they are oppressive over there
#
they each individual hair
#
I know I'm becoming a thing
#
rather than go back to Ram
#
and her degradation over there
#
but also on a hopeless note
#
of equality and dignity
#
part of the social world
#
so it's a very depressing
#
is that we have traditions
#
the desire for equality
#
sexual division of labor
#
and the Silbatta ki zindagi
#
Akasha I think is the term
#
I mean it's absolutely rich
#
in terms of their experience
#
of what things were like
#
so I think that in the end
#
is a very powerful reason
#
the search for equality
#
that's something that we can
#
there's sufficient material
#
I love the way you ended
#
even though as you point out
#
history has been written
#
that there are so many versions
#
and each of these versions
#
you know it's almost as if
#
you're changing that myth
#
either the world you are in
#
or what you want the world to be
#
and you've pointed to so many
#
like in some variations
#
Ita and Rama are brother and sister
#
and there are some variations
#
she's not bowing down meekly
#
and she's kind of fighting back
#
what you just described
#
as an explosion of possibilities
#
like such a great tragedy
#
that explosion of possibilities
#
it might seem inevitable
#
that she had to come here
#
but there might have been other ways
#
What do we say about this
#
nothing is static in history
#
and the very possibility
#
that change is inevitable
#
that everything is changing
#
there is human intervention
#
you do not deny human agency
#
and that's again an interesting thing
#
that I will draw from the Buddha
#
not the other religious traditions
#
did not believe in human effort
#
as changing their destinies
#
and it's a very powerful metaphor
#
and you can be the Ajivikas
#
and there's a classic book by
#
history and doctrine of the Ajivikas
#
now one of the interesting things
#
that is described is that
#
the philosophy is sort of summarized as
#
human effort is ineffectual
#
human existence is like a ball of wool
#
which will keep unwinding
#
till it reaches the other end
#
good action will not shorten it
#
bad action will not lengthen it
#
the left bank of the Ganga
#
no harm will occur to you
#
nothing will stick with you
#
the right bank of the Ganga
#
doing distribution of arms
#
and it could be the reverse
#
I don't stick my neck out on that
#
no good will come to you
#
when that ball of thread goes
#
so they are Akriyavadis
#
they do not believe in Kamavad
#
now that for the Buddha
#
so he's not so pessimistic
#
I mean I always thought that he was
#
because he's so soaked with sorrow
#
the tragedy of human existence
#
actually it's suffering
#
that is key to his understanding
#
and that makes him think
#
everything is all is suffering
#
but they are strongly against
#
do not believe in the power of Karma
#
so if human beings have agency
#
over determined and overwhelming
#
and you have the power of action
#
I also think that it is up to us
#
to create the world in which
#
yes there will be less misery
#
just as the Buddha did in his time
#
provide a means by which
#
the overwhelmingness of sorrow
#
to be still countered by something
#
that gives him whatever it is
#
you do good human action
#
and you know automatically
#
in some ways things will be
#
so there is a positive dimension
#
as far as our efforts are concerned
#
in creating the human world
#
the less exploitative world
#
so that's a challenge that we have
#
I think it was more an observation
#
and you were reacting to that
#
but everything that you said
#
is perfect and resonant
#
and I think we should fight
#
the overwhelmingness of sorrow
#
with the power of action
#
by taking a quick commercial break
#
and we'll talk more about your life
#
have you always wanted to be a writer
#
but never quite gotten down to it
#
well I'd love to help you
#
27 cohorts of my online course
#
the art of clear writing
#
and an online community
#
of all my past students
#
a newsletter to showcase
#
and vibrant community interaction
#
spread over four weekends
#
and practice of clear writing
#
there are many exercises
#
and a lovely and lively community
#
the course cost rupees 10,000 plus GST
#
head on over to register
#
at indiaankar.com slash clear writing
#
that's indiaankar.com slash clear writing
#
doesn't require god-given talent
#
just a willingness to work hard
#
welcome back to the scene
#
and we have so much to talk about
#
that I'm you know wondering
#
how we'll ever finish today
#
but let's take a stab at it
#
and look I want to know
#
about your childhood now
#
Antim thing was happening
#
he put you on top of a car
#
and showed you whatever
#
you had sisters and brothers
#
paint that picture for me
#
was the youngest of his
#
which I'll see if I can
#
I suppose in every household
#
there'll be that story of
#
and actually if you probe
#
there's a lot of this stuff
#
his father seems to have been
#
someone who wasn't good at
#
and probably didn't work
#
logic of this community
#
which actually came from Tanjore
#
which means that they actually had
#
rather than the land ownership
#
and over a period of time
#
coming in by way of whatever
#
my father was born in 1898
#
so he would have been someone who
#
so they're all experimenting
#
you know of whatever it is
#
now I do want to mention
#
my father's grandfather
#
of education in the family
#
seeking education and jobs
#
because that would give them
#
some financial stability
#
there are these brothers
#
basically the law is available
#
was seeking an exit from
#
although there's education
#
there's also other kinds
#
of dreams and aspirations
#
because he couldn't achieve
#
the goals that he was looking for
#
we wanted to go to Burma
#
Burma seems to have been
#
so I think nothing came of that
#
and everyone has children
#
and because my grandfather
#
creating a running income
#
they seem to have got into debt
#
was the youngest brother
#
the person who paid out
#
and deferred his own marriage
#
till he was in his mid-30s
#
which was very old for that
#
and he got a job in the
#
initially was appointed
#
the Quartermaster General's Office
#
and he arrives here in 1924
#
and he doesn't have a word of Hindi
#
and he tells the tanga wala
#
and that fellow doesn't understand
#
because it's 24 cantonment lane
#
anyway finally they figure it out
#
and he lands up over there
#
and so my father then stayed on
#
in those days 18,000 rupees
#
which is a lot of money
#
and finally when he was
#
so my father's already 34 or 35
#
they talk to each other
#
before they are married
#
and my father is a decent man
#
he had something of a temper
#
mostly it was in control
#
so there's this marriage
#
my father never goes back
#
I think he goes back only after
#
and then he never goes back
#
that's almost 12 years later
#
event where he's married
#
whose English is good also
#
stream of consciousness
#
stream of consciousness
#
gets absolutely correct
#
he's the top of the clericaldom
#
and he's as assistant secretary
#
private secretary of Amrit
#
and obviously she likes him
#
because she chooses him
#
but my father has then these
#
it's it's stable income
#
of these other brothers
#
regular income coming in
#
and which caused certain
#
in a sense was the bridge
#
between me and my father
#
and I was supposed to be
#
when my mother went away somewhere
#
so we used to go for a walk
#
and I would ask him about
#
Balghat and stuff like that
#
and then there's this description
#
which was very minimalist
#
it was very poignant also
#
and then he came to a point
#
and somehow we all fall ill
#
all of us get chicken pox
#
who could who was not ill
#
at that stage of smallpox
#
you're actually struck by
#
itty bitty bits of information
#
a very emotional relationship
#
because she's immediately
#
with her with her nephew
#
who has no with her brother
#
who is married to her daughter
#
this uncle niece marriage
#
and the daughter has died
#
so my aunt has taken over
#
this aunt and my father's mother
#
write and ask him for some money
#
and he doesn't have the money
#
because we've all been ill
#
and there's whatever it is
#
and he doesn't send it home
#
you know 50 years later
#
and he's full of this anguish
#
that they asked me for money
#
and I didn't send it to them
#
and so he's carried that guilt
#
and then I try and tell him
#
you didn't have the money
#
he said I could have borrowed
#
you couldn't have borrowed
#
because you had paid off debts
#
so the borrowing was one thing
#
that was that was the syndrome
#
in the that he's working with
#
but it also made me realize
#
we classically read patriarchy
#
I mean I think men carry
#
a certain degree of the burden
#
also of this unequal history
#
and there's so much anguish
#
that they suffer because
#
there are failed marriages
#
there are there's all of this stuff
#
you know insanity and so on
#
what it translated to later on
#
but is this fierce feeling
#
that the girls must be educated
#
and they must never have to do this
#
that is not even the husband
#
that women must be able to earn
#
for themselves you know
#
and that's the only way
#
so what is very interesting
#
I was teaching in a school
#
and I joined my partner
#
and was doing field work
#
I didn't think much of it
#
you resigned a permanent job
#
he's basically suggesting
#
I could have had a vacation marriage
#
you know that that kind of stuff
#
coming out of the sense
#
that you must not be dependent
#
you must actually have your own income
#
ultimately he was very fixated
#
my involvement with history
#
and although he was disappointed
#
that I didn't do the civil service
#
and why was he disappointed
#
now that I work it back
#
because the civil service
#
that gave you a pensionable job
#
who's living through uncertain times
#
the income and then the pension
#
is the way you can retain your autonomy
#
I mean it's one of the ways
#
but my father was thrilled
#
that I had done all of that
#
but you know as a family
#
she not even passed her metric
#
I think she failed her metric
#
couldn't clear her maths
#
but she spoke good English
#
and she was she was intelligent
#
she had native intelligence
#
so and we were these seven children
#
my father had a steady income
#
but we didn't have that much money
#
so but he put us in good schools
#
and I went to this place
#
this place which became
#
Naveen Bharat High School
#
the one I've described earlier
#
the Delhi Public School
#
it is the first Delhi Public School
#
and it was on Mathura Road
#
we moved there and whatever
#
all of us three four of us
#
the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara
#
and so that features in my childhood
#
because we would go to the Gurdwara
#
you know sort of on Sundays
#
we'd get the Kadha Prasad
#
there was a nice relationship
#
which is why that first occasion
#
when my sister and brother
#
described the killing of the Muslim
#
because these nice Sardars
#
whom you know from your childhood
#
we're very individuated
#
and we have massive fights
#
is going in a different direction
#
we actually have a colorful childhood
#
my brother was already into
#
because he's four years older than I am
#
he was four years older than me
#
going not going to school
#
not interested in education
#
and landing up in the cinema house
#
running theme as far as
#
and going and seeing films
#
actually one should also talk about
#
the fact that my mother
#
so my mother was obviously
#
but my brother doing it
#
cutting class and going in
#
and he does impromptu things
#
we have very little money
#
all our entertainment is
#
we create for ourselves
#
so there is my mother's
#
and then enacting things
#
so I have never forgotten
#
I think there's the whole
#
tragic hero Mr. Dilip Kumar
#
and so he's a blind singer
#
I don't know when he becomes blind
#
and then the doctor that
#
gives him back his eyesight
#
so when he opens his eyes
#
he's going to marry Nargis
#
and it's like tragic hero
#
and Didar's songs were also very good
#
so my brother's enactment
#
is that he has two pens
#
and he's putting it in his
#
putting it close to his eyes
#
I have not seen the film
#
but the scene is so graphically
#
the window to the world
#
but my mother took us to
#
there was old films of that kind
#
which was sort of period stuff
#
a little bit of a social message
#
in fact I remember very clearly
#
I must have been three or four
#
and I'm not actually watching the film
#
I'm running up and down the aisle
#
and my uncle has taken me
#
and it's Saigal's Tansen
#
and Khurshid is the woman actress
#
the famous song that he sang
#
such a huge generation gap
#
because he has to revive
#
I don't think there was a daughter
#
of I never knew it at least
#
and she's become Thanda
#
and finally she revives
#
he has begun to burn up
#
it's had its consequences on him
#
and that can be quenched only
#
so he's out in the open
#
and his lady love Khurshid
#
so his graphic description
#
that get stuck in your head
#
I could not have registered it
#
I must have seen it later
#
onto the magic of cinema
#
and the world that it created
#
in the worlds of emotion
#
also it was a window to a world
#
so for instance Rural India
#
and what the sequence of it
#
when I started making films
#
in some form or the other
#
so childhood was in that sense
#
rich and fairly interesting
#
irreverent bunch of kids
#
and we were quite high spirited
#
was an interesting place
#
and it was still in tents
#
so actually there was no building
#
the grounds were surrounding a tomb
#
so the place was dotted
#
it's dotted with monuments
#
Humayun's tomb is in the neighborhood
#
it's historical ambience
#
and almost like a bizarre dynamic
#
the sole makbara that's there
#
which chat and all the rest of it
#
okay so if you're unwell
#
you've got a stomachache
#
you go and you lie on that
#
and the doctor pokes you
#
I mean how bizarre is that
#
but it's part of your history
#
I mean and so history is all around you
#
and we would cycle to school
#
and so I I mean it was independence
#
and it was such fantastic liberation
#
and it was actually fairly safe
#
I started to cycle to school
#
and I don't even go straight to school
#
by going all the way from
#
the you know Ashoka road
#
Gold Post Office kind of
#
the Mangala Sahib Gurudwara
#
all the way to Mathura road cycling
#
and and then I decide to take
#
rituals because a friend of mine lives
#
one of my partition post-partition friends
#
it lives in in another area
#
so first I go to her house
#
and then she gets onto the back of my bicycle
#
and then we cycle to school
#
and quite you know it was quite
#
it's rich in terms of its relationships
#
and there's no money at all
#
there's no money at all
#
so one of the ironies in my life is that
#
we are invited to birthday parties
#
I should also have a birthday party
#
so I announced to my friends
#
and I come back and I tell the household
#
my friends are coming for my birthday
#
and my mother is shocked
#
she's like what the hell is she supposed to
#
now she's supposed to organize this party
#
but my father rises to the occasion
#
I think there's three or four
#
girls who turn up and so on
#
but the sense of I we don't have
#
and we're always with a set of people
#
because they are better off
#
so that was an element in the thing
#
but it the sense of deprivation was not high
#
one has you know I mean
#
not retained all through the years
#
but friendships have become
#
very important part of growing up
#
and then but then my father retired
#
and we moved to Bangalore
#
and then things shifted quite
#
but this family of seven kids
#
is enough solidarity amongst ourselves also
#
because my elder sister
#
very interesting dynamic person
#
very fanatical in some ways
#
my elder brother is there
#
lift the family out of its
#
and so my father has put ideas
#
he was a what would you call it
#
I mean he was like a lived in
#
I can't even describe it
#
some some kind of world of his own
#
for everything or the other
#
so his his name is also Anand
#
what are you going to be
#
I will retire as the governor
#
of the reserve bank of India
#
all that came to a mess
#
because he went to study
#
in St. Stephen's College
#
where he met my husband
#
who also had a civil service
#
his father was in the ICS
#
to study in St. Stephen's
#
and he meets my partner Anand
#
conversation between them
#
but my my partner Anand says to him
#
and you know it's like what
#
and and my brother quit the
#
and very interesting man
#
very raconteur of stories
#
very creative person also
#
so we it's a it was a family
#
with a lot of rich emotional
#
the emotional connections
#
that we have with each other
#
now the real crisis in my life
#
comes when I want to study history
#
and I want to study history
#
I want to go and do an MA in history
#
we are living in Bangalore
#
and my there's no history in
#
there's no history MA in Bangalore
#
there was it used to be
#
so Mysore University is
#
and Mysore is 92 kilometers
#
and in order to go and study there
#
because they have the humanities
#
and Bangalore has the sciences
#
so in order to go and study there
#
I need 90 rupees a month
#
for my for the tuition fee
#
as well as the hostel fee
#
my father's entire pension
#
he's had these late children
#
not something that he can make
#
so I have to settle for something
#
you do it from 7.30 in the morning
#
till 10.30 in the morning
#
and everyone else goes off to
#
and then I filed at the same time
#
and so that's how I got mine
#
and managed to do reasonably
#
so history is all I wanted to study
#
and that has kept me going
#
in some way as a person
#
in the long arc of history
#
I know this will not count
#
that I will die in this age
#
so that kind of thing is there
#
well I mean the world is changing
#
so I would not be so pessimistic
#
give it a few years who knows
#
I want to double click on
#
I want to go back to your childhood
#
I'll combine two questions into one actually
#
and the core question is that
#
and perhaps other people
#
but especially our parents
#
in a very fixed kind of way
#
like to us father is father
#
they play a certain role
#
every morning comes back
#
mother maybe in the kitchen
#
very good at making pulao
#
we have these fixed things
#
and that is who they are
#
until after my parents passing
#
in another light as real people
#
and dreams of their own
#
when I look at old pictures
#
when they are in their early 20s
#
or when they are in their 40s
#
and younger than I am now
#
and you suddenly begin to
#
you know that shift kind of happens
#
and all their interestingness
#
which might have been hidden
#
married when she was so young
#
and she poor thing must
#
you know what has happened to her
#
you're supposed to play
#
you do the best you can
#
I don't know if you'll agree
#
but I've always felt that
#
women have a much richer
#
while women have to spend
#
a lot of time with themselves
#
even though they work as
#
even in Sub-Saharan India
#
there's so much housework
#
and all of that always there
#
that interesting interior life
#
so first about your mother
#
I'll go back to your father
#
what sense did you have
#
what things are for her
#
like I've had interesting
#
you know other feminists
#
have spoken about their mothers
#
in the sense that you get
#
the bare biographical details
#
there's nothing feminist in it
#
they're doing what they have to do
#
these are like feisty women
#
they are making accommodations
#
they are carving out spaces
#
making life a little better
#
like taking you to see movies
#
so tell me a little bit
#
when you began to see her
#
as something other than
#
so she's so busy early years
#
like keeping track of you
#
you don't get into trouble
#
and the richness of our lives
#
is actually between our siblings
#
so we are doing things together
#
caught up in domesticity
#
but you discover for instance
#
that she's quite a great reader
#
when my youngest sister is born
#
who's 10 years younger than I am
#
I mean in a strange way
#
the 10 days in the hospital
#
is something that she feels
#
is it gives her time to herself
#
because the child is being
#
looked after by somebody
#
your children are being
#
looked after by somebody else
#
she was an inveterate reader
#
and she the younger children
#
and so there was a comfortable
#
space and stuff like that
#
and along with this fact that
#
I think when she was having
#
the last of the children
#
who's 10 years younger than me
#
she was probably unwell
#
to see films as a kind of
#
and so I remember feeling
#
really upset at the fact
#
that where has she gone
#
she's gone to see a film
#
and what and so I pursue her
#
and I end up in the cinema house
#
which means as a nine-year-old
#
and it's the last scene
#
gone to see Anna Karenina
#
and the ashram at the gate
#
is telling where I'm going
#
I said my mother is inside here
#
huh so I and he lets me go
#
I have not seen Anna Karenina
#
Vivien Ley Anna Karenina
#
so she's the last scene
#
in which she is kind of
#
and the engine comes in
#
and she it's the last scene
#
but all I remember is that
#
mothers are meant to be
#
that you're thinking of
#
when you went inside the hall
#
she probably took it in her stride
#
you could fight over her head
#
if you did all of those things
#
her policing us very much
#
you know at the end of the day
#
now I was a third of these children
#
and the mother and parents
#
not my father so much but
#
and I was also the peacekeeper
#
between the different groups
#
we were always crapping
#
about something or the other
#
my mother somehow seemed to be
#
in the middle of all this
#
I can recall that she would make
#
when we arrived back from school
#
and that tiffin had to be proper
#
idli, dosai or whatever it is
#
which would be placed over it
#
so one recalls with memory
#
you know you don't recognize
#
could be made more interesting
#
ultimately your conventional
#
you are also struck by the fact
#
because you're growing up
#
and you're going to get
#
you know there's all this trouble
#
the girls can become ariel
#
and they can be a nuisance
#
worry about their whatever
#
so my sister was the one
#
who was always taking her
#
she was an obstinate creature
#
and it felt to me to be
#
tensions in the household
#
and so I played something
#
it's not that I didn't have
#
apart from this reading
#
and the fact that she would
#
obviously she needed an inner
#
which where she could be
#
we also discovered that in her
#
soon after she was married
#
she tried to learn music
#
so she learned Hindustani music
#
when we had all grown up
#
my mother actually went back to
#
formally to learning music
#
so when she and my father
#
she sang along with her teacher
#
so my mother was someone
#
and she could not squash her
#
she had native intelligence
#
an enormous native intelligence
#
and so in all of those ways
#
on hindsight as I see it
#
she became very close to me later on
#
I was generally a good child
#
we were always doing these things
#
running off and seeing films
#
before this MA stage comes
#
we have a Sunday parade
#
every Sunday we have a parade
#
and it's very close to the
#
so you were always going off
#
morning shows at half rate
#
and I don't know how many films I saw
#
I mean I became a cinema buff
#
by and large my mother let us be
#
and let us be irreverent
#
and irrepressible characters
#
she didn't really squash us
#
although she felt anxious
#
to the codes that we would have to
#
conform at some point or the other
#
but on the whole she was
#
my father was more volatile
#
but you could catch him
#
and when he was reading his newspaper
#
he was like lost to the world
#
when he's reading his newspaper
#
so there was a educational tour
#
when I was nine years old
#
it requires 90 rupees a month
#
90 rupees to go on that education
#
and you'll see 19 places
#
and you'll be in a train
#
you know 90 rupees is just like too much
#
when he's reading his newspaper
#
so he's reading his newspaper
#
there's this educational tour
#
and it requires 90 rupees
#
what a revelation it was
#
because you're sitting in the train
#
and my mother lets me go
#
because I used to sleep walk
#
and so she's very worried
#
and she comes to see us off
#
and the windows do not have bars
#
it's a third-class compartment fitted
#
so they made it into a phatta
#
like a big taqat they made
#
by inserting a bench in between
#
and this bunch of students
#
are going along on this trip
#
you arrive in some station or the other
#
and then you are disgorged
#
Aligarh, Kanpur, Lucknow
#
Lucknow, my residency stories
#
are telling you very colorful stories
#
about Jessica had a dream over here
#
the Janunis are going to come
#
and whatever it is like
#
history coming alive again
#
all this entertaining stuff
#
I went down a coal field
#
so they say there's a bar
#
you can't take children
#
lower than 12 years old
#
so I go down into the pits
#
and then you land up in
#
and you go to the Gandhi
#
you know it's that space
#
after all I saw him as a child
#
I saw his end as a child
#
so there's a sense of engaging
#
with history even there
#
who had shaved off her head
#
because she was a Gandhian
#
and she's been discovered
#
she shaves off her head
#
so this place is strange
#
you know it has its ambience
#
so it was a very very rich engagement
#
so this too was part of one's childhood
#
in which you could actually
#
that's how the relationship
#
over the many years later
#
I had a very protective
#
build a good relationship
#
but in our childhood years
#
as well as she policed us
#
Let's talk about your dad
#
I was I was struck by something
#
learn to earn for yourself
#
a laid a tremendous stress
#
on the girls being educated
#
so they could do exactly
#
they stand on their own feet
#
once overtly advised her
#
right which strikes me again
#
as an extremely enlightened
#
you said also struck a chord
#
you know victims of patriarchy
#
called loneliness of the Indian man
#
where we kind of looked at it
#
and and the great tragedy
#
men are stuck in these roles
#
that have been given to them
#
where they are the provider
#
and they have to behave
#
are not even self-aware
#
to see what is going on
#
may not be self-aware either
#
but a significant number of women
#
would at least have the tools
#
you know especially today
#
you can learn about feminism
#
to understand what's happening
#
there is a problem very often
#
and one interesting way
#
and what Shantaji's father
#
because you love your daughters
#
that she should be independent
#
that love for the daughters
#
and may not necessarily
#
and there is this old saying
#
about how paradigms die
#
where the implication is
#
that change is generational
#
that a person may not change
#
but the next generation
#
and then the next generation
#
and that's a glacial pace
#
and then it can accumulate
#
so when you look at your father
#
when you think of your father
#
you know was he self-aware
#
perhaps a difference between
#
you know how he looked at his daughters
#
and how he looked at his wife
#
and a more general question
#
about men of that period
#
you know what was it like for men
#
what did you see around you
#
and all of those things
#
but that's just one thing
#
I think the codes at the time
#
but then you're growing into
#
and someone who's poised to
#
I think in my father's case
#
because it is his relationship
#
which is making him feel that
#
and he's an emotional person
#
he never put us on his lap
#
I don't remember ever being
#
you know till late in life
#
when he was in his late 80s
#
and I would want to touch him
#
and then I used to shake his hand
#
I used to hold his hand
#
because that was the way
#
in which you could establish
#
so we weren't a demonstrative family
#
at all there was no hugging
#
there was no putting arm round
#
and on the whole he was
#
it was a protective thing
#
that came from the point of view
#
the women to be miserable
#
somewhere he saw that as humiliating
#
something that should happen
#
of the stereotypes of men women
#
and he was also someone who
#
actually believed in the
#
he invested a lot in studying
#
I never took my studies seriously
#
but he I think took the
#
and he was quite attached to history
#
so he would I would bring back
#
sometimes he would pick them up
#
he was an anti-colonialist
#
and a kind of intuitive nationalist
#
but so there was some book
#
which was written by some English guy
#
and it had its stereotypes
#
he would pick it up and read it
#
who brought his book home
#
because he was so angry
#
with what was written in the book
#
what was written in the book
#
it was some anti-colonial nonsense
#
so you stereotype of some kind
#
but he was quite interested
#
history and that kind of reading
#
I think was he was interested in
#
somewhere he may have decided
#
that I'm less obstinate
#
and that I will actually follow
#
the the hopes my father
#
that I sit the civil service exam
#
now I am so from a time
#
were spent in completely in the office
#
and come back from office
#
he didn't know too much
#
even very very effectively
#
and I remember I think I
#
and I was having my birthday
#
the children my younger brothers
#
he said oh congratulations
#
and he's shaking my hand
#
saying congrats congrats
#
how old are you today 11
#
he doesn't even know how old I am
#
so I was very upset with him
#
he went to one in which he wanted
#
he was looking at my books
#
he's looking at my stuff
#
because once he retired
#
so he's like all his ambitions
#
and my sister is damn obstinate
#
so he she he there's no way
#
he can make her do anything
#
but he thinks maybe he can
#
or whatever I'm reading
#
anything wrong with this
#
he's trying to direct me
#
happy with that situation
#
but he genuinely wanted me
#
and ultimately I worked out
#
why he wanted me to do that
#
I was like full of this
#
who is stuck in my life
#
she didn't invest that much
#
in whatever I was doing
#
as well as for his father
#
should be the way they are
#
of communicating anxiety
#
there was no question of
#
a lot of love between us
#
I mean despite the fact
#
that he's a very rational man
#
or maybe he's not rational
#
who used to be an astrologer
#
who would read horoscopes
#
that I was going to have
#
now he's whining about it
#
God knows how many years
#
19 or something like that
#
and doing things of that kind
#
I was always multitasking
#
and he said where's she gone
#
in the flying contingent
#
and cycling long distance
#
and then doing the gliding
#
and my father discovers
#
what does she think of herself
#
I mean first she's not only
#
doing one thing and another
#
and then along with that
#
she says he's just gone
#
you're going to have an accident
#
so he's worrying about it
#
I said I mean what is this
#
when she has an accident
#
she'll be in better health
#
Did you have an accident
#
I always had this thing
#
I'll be lying on the ground
#
people will come and save me
#
and till my friend turned around
#
and you think that's very romantic
#
we'd gone with my daughter
#
and there was a troop of monkeys
#
that advanced towards us
#
and there was a panic situation
#
my daughter and her friend
#
and we were in the second row
#
and I knew that we have to retreat
#
and I had to have stitches
#
and I remember my daughter saying
#
so I'm taken to the hospital
#
you've lost your memory
#
but I was actually in a daze
#
See, your daddy saved you
#
saved me from the ferrodols
#
about doing the right thing
#
so we're fairly conventional
#
marriages were supposed
#
she was engaged to someone
#
and that didn't materialize
#
it was an arranged marriage
#
and my mother put her foot down
#
and my sister put her foot down
#
and that was the end of that
#
about these Tambram households
#
a pair of diamond earrings
#
that's an essential component
#
it is a fundamental job
#
diamond earrings should happen
#
so one day we're all sitting
#
definitely very irreverent
#
of diamond earrings in the house
#
and then my sister had it
#
my mother bought one for her
#
so then we're talking about it
#
I can remember my father's face
#
that he hasn't been able
#
to provide for his daughters
#
it didn't matter one bit
#
because neither the diamond
#
basically we all found our partners
#
so that was the end of the story
#
but that's the kind of burden
#
so along with the ferrol
#
and but also this commitment
#
independent and autonomous
#
so it's all coming there
#
there's no demonstration at all
#
I mean no demonstration
#
he's not put an arm around me
#
it's this this is the nature of the
#
of the fact that I did a PhD
#
and he lived long enough
#
and I was interested in Buddhism
#
so he was very invested
#
and I remember I had a big fight
#
I wanted to submit on his birthday
#
I wanted to submit the thesis
#
you're not allowed to submit
#
so I was almost already
#
typed thesis in those days
#
there would be typing mistakes
#
and you learned the technique
#
of doing all of that stuff
#
but it was with great attention
#
and I sent him off the thing
#
he never wrote to us much
#
and he always only used a postcard
#
so he wrote this postcard
#
this sense of achievement
#
so I think there was that
#
You still have that postcard?
#
I don't know what I did with that
#
I used to always save things
#
I don't know what I did with the letters
#
Well, the memories are there
#
All the memories are there
#
characteristic handwriting
#
shaping incident of your life
#
takes place when you're
#
Buddhism being celebrated
#
at Diksha Bhoomi in Nagpur
#
and is these two things
#
happening simultaneously
#
how that really captured
#
I think the interest in
#
Buddhism came from there
#
one of the other things
#
when we first moved to Bangalore
#
which had actually two things
#
literally down the road
#
the prison in Bangalore
#
you know walking distance
#
it's shifted from there
#
and it's now been renamed
#
but which is quite crazy
#
and I've actually shot there
#
that there was a Mahabodhi Society
#
so I used to go and hang around
#
I was a great one for going and
#
going to the Mahabodhi Society
#
there was a sort of air of calm
#
it's such a contrast to
#
you know it has a certain
#
element of quietness about it
#
so I must have been drawn
#
to do the research work
#
it was almost like natural
#
for me to want to study Buddhism
#
and the study of social history
#
yeah it's one of the things
#
there was never any confusion
#
that I will do this topic
#
this is all I wanted to
#
or as whatever one could call it
#
not even quite a religion
#
thinking about the world
#
or did it merely seem like
#
an incredibly interesting thing
#
you know like you said earlier
#
almost a rebellion against
#
all that you discover later on
#
what drives you in the beginning
#
there's something intriguing
#
about that story itself
#
there's so much anxiety
#
the storyline of the Buddha
#
it's there in the early text also
#
or the emperor part of it
#
is so well demonstrated
#
and interprets the dream of Maya
#
and says he will either be this or that
#
and then the king tries
#
so that he doesn't go there
#
has a certain interest about it
#
so that was one of the elements
#
that there's something here
#
you know drew me to the
#
this sorrow is at the heart of it
#
emotion is at the heart of
#
what happens to the Buddha
#
more recently I've been
#
I went back to the theme
#
and I thought to myself
#
his mother dies at childbirth
#
only came to me more recently
#
in the last two three years
#
that his mother dies at birth
#
and we know from psychologists
#
birth trauma is very very
#
with a certain kind of way
#
so this philosophical person
#
who is in quest of something
#
in the storyline itself
#
the biographical storyline
#
is almost driven to be who he is
#
because there is something
#
in the nature of his engagement
#
which makes him respond to it
#
with a certain degree of
#
what's it called emotion
#
at a very emotional level
#
as I also thought to myself afterwards
#
even the compassion was
#
is built into this storyline
#
because then it's his aunt
#
who actually gives him life
#
the mother dies in childbirth
#
but the aunt gives him life
#
because the story tells us
#
she gave away her own child
#
to be nursed by the nursemaid
#
so she's his milk mother
#
and so the biological substance
#
between mother and child
#
through certain process
#
through other processes
#
I think are very important elements
#
and our history and so on
#
and you know even say for instance
#
Krishna being sent off to Yashoda
#
there's something very interesting
#
and she brings him up as his child
#
so this business of nurturing
#
and nurturing somebody else
#
is very powerfully put by Karna
#
when Kunti abandons him
#
and then he's taken over
#
found by the charioteer Adhiratha
#
and gives him to his wife
#
the mother who nurtures you
#
is a very important person
#
and so biology is not everything
#
blood is not everything
#
and these stories are very
#
moving to me at least you know
#
because especially in this case
#
because then he stands up
#
when Kunti comes to speak to Krishna
#
because this is where your brothers are
#
this is where your biological substance is
#
and his reaction to her is devastating
#
it's absolutely devastating
#
you know as and they will
#
they will get the rights
#
the son performs rights for his family
#
they are the ones who will get it from me
#
because I am bound to them by ties
#
is more than the biological ties
#
and is something that he says over there
#
so I think that thing is also very
#
very powerful and moving
#
and I've never been someone who believes
#
that the power of love is only biological
#
it's only you know sort of genetic
#
it's actually it's compassion
#
which is the basis of affection and love
#
so I think that somewhere
#
that story of the Buddha
#
it is more recent discoveries
#
because originally one has read the text
#
but the mythology around the Buddha
#
is very powerfully crafted
#
and finally it ends up as sculpture
#
so you see the richness
#
of that legend coming alive
#
you know I was not a great one
#
but I've become completely fixated
#
because there's such marvelous representations
#
and it's all in Gandhara
#
it's all coming out of the region of Gandhara
#
so it's actually very fascinating
#
I mean history, Buddhism, early India
#
they're all kind of mixed up in my head
#
and in my sense of being
#
which you constantly discover things
#
All of this is so fascinating
#
and our epics are so rich
#
you know that story about Kanna as well
#
and you mentioned mothers dying in childbirth
#
Mary Shelley's mother also died in childbirth
#
but I don't think she had a foster mother
#
so she ended up creating a monster
#
so given that her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft
#
I guess she had to fight monsters of her own
#
let's talk about you know
#
another aspect of Buddhism
#
that you've written about
#
which you know you earlier
#
during this conversation
#
and how caste doesn't matter
#
or whatever there was of caste
#
then didn't matter so much
#
and those hierarchies were cast aside
#
but you've also spoken about
#
how the real disappointment for you
#
in Buddhism was in the context of gender
#
that you know women just did not
#
were not considered as equals
#
they were considered as instrumental
#
you speak about how you know
#
they actually held a conclave
#
because you know after the Buddha had died
#
he allowed women to see the body
#
their teardrops fell on the body
#
and they were asking Ananda
#
like how could you do this
#
how could you let the space be defiled
#
and also what is telling that
#
they that one of the reasons
#
women were sort of looked down upon
#
is that they could distract their monks
#
from the path of celibacy
#
and so on that they had you know taken up
#
the male monk was you know
#
supposed to be celibate and pure
#
and women were viewed as a distraction
#
and not the problem of men
#
that they get distracted
#
but it's a problem of women
#
and like A this is of course
#
like for you as a scholar
#
how does one kind of reconcile this
#
and also you know especially that bit
#
about the women being a distraction
#
like at the core of it is the fact
#
that women throughout our history
#
have been seen as instrumental
#
right that the world is men
#
and women are performing roles
#
you are all of those things
#
even when you're exalted
#
you're exalted in the context
#
you're exalted in the context
#
and so I guess it's a question
#
equally about your disappointment
#
and how you came to terms with that
#
your big understanding yourself
#
and building those frames of reference
#
so take me through these processes
#
so well actually in the essay
#
I was describing to you
#
where the I made this discovery
#
in a certain kind of way
#
that how can he not actually
#
in a situation of that kind
#
I think I had come round to
#
I mean I was reading the text
#
and reading the under undercurrents
#
in certain kinds of ways
#
which were more complex
#
I think than the first round
#
and I've written in that essay saying
#
I was the leader of the pack
#
this is your 1983 essay
#
women in early Buddhism
#
yeah women in early Buddhism
#
and lots has been written there after
#
especially in the western
#
which actually shows him
#
as a terrible misogynist
#
actually I am in an early
#
and it's not that I will not
#
I do not hold on to the fact
#
as embedded in patriarchy
#
okay but I would now qualify this
#
I've been rethinking this position
#
so the text is actually
#
which is like can they can they not
#
and even the Buddha agrees
#
they will achieve the goal
#
okay so that it leads us to think
#
that there is a misogynism
#
but that misogynism is not
#
actually leading to reproducing
#
exactly the social relations
#
so that itself is now a new move
#
and after all Ananda is also
#
why is it that the more compassionate
#
so the texts are actually
#
but he's also castigated
#
for the fact that he lets the women
#
so here there is a compassion
#
which is allowed to be represented
#
the textual tradition is built
#
it is a patriarchal society
#
it is a misogynist society
#
where they are equal okay
#
the dynamism is coming from
#
an alternative argument
#
and then if you compare
#
if you look at the consistency
#
and then they enter the Sangha
#
Ananda's frame of argument
#
because he actually says
#
of great service to you
#
he's reminding him of his milk
#
milk obligation to the mother
#
therefore deserves her due
#
and there is a compassionate way
#
to the fact that they are
#
and they're whatever it is
#
and they're seeking entry
#
there is the feminist self
#
and there is the patriarchal self
#
in an argumentative position
#
so at the end of the day
#
the really offensive thing
#
the Buddha is supposed to have said
#
to last a thousand years
#
it'll only last 500 years now
#
and stuff like that's a very deeply
#
now so one way of thinking
#
perhaps this is the tradition
#
that is the dominant ideology
#
is put in the mouth of the Buddha
#
and the critical ideology
#
is put in the mouth of Ananda
#
but there is an internal debate
#
it isn't so easy to say
#
and then if you look at the Therigatha
#
and the hymns of the Therigatha
#
not only are they speaking
#
so soaked with compassion
#
in the mouth of the Buddha
#
you know so the famous story
#
of the woman who kiss her got to me
#
who's loses all the members
#
mother brother everyone dies
#
husband dies in-laws die
#
and she's left with only
#
the small baby this child
#
and then she's mad with grief
#
which is maddened with grief
#
and she's really running about
#
and asking for it to be revived
#
sees that she's not herself
#
that she's actually so crazed
#
you can't argue with her
#
you go and see the Buddha
#
and he's a bullseye on that
#
gives that famous story
#
of metaphor go and get me
#
talking to her rationally
#
so he sets something to her
#
and he says go and get me
#
a handful of mustard seeds
#
where death has not occurred
#
and she goes from one house
#
by the time she reaches
#
the other end of the village
#
she's entered the stream
#
she's already on the road
#
because the realization draws on her
#
this is what you should do
#
but he's he's shown her
#
a path by which she herself is
#
and it's very consistent
#
all the stories of death
#
and bemoaning death of children
#
is in the mouths of mothers
#
now it's like the fathers
#
never felt any grief for me
#
when families were fleeing
#
where the father would want
#
to leave the youngest kid behind
#
because it was a burden
#
and you point to one case
#
so actually it's very interesting
#
the manner in which this is saying
#
so there's a systematic way
#
where men go and join the sangha
#
but there's a very interesting way
#
in which women are joining the sangha
#
it is partly against the rules
#
there too it's against hard labor
#
sometimes it's this or that or the other
#
but the death ones are very moving
#
and then the teaching of
#
the inevitability of death
#
is also very powerfully rendered
#
you know there's another one
#
which I used in one of my films
#
where the mother's lost her child
#
and she's actually the queen
#
and she's calling out and saying
#
the child's name was jiva
#
so she's calling out oh jiva oh jiva
#
and the voice of the buddha comes from the
#
and says in this charnel field
#
everyone was a jiva once
#
which one are you mourning for
#
the inevitability of death or that
#
in a completely different way
#
so I think that there's something sensitive
#
and in the tradition has been
#
I'm not suggesting that these are
#
actually statements made by the buddha
#
but there is a consistency in which
#
with which the compassion is indicated
#
and the manner in which men are
#
women are seeking an exit
#
from the prison house of their
#
whatever they are trapped in
#
and that is interesting
#
so at the end of the day
#
even the texts have an internal dynamic
#
and internal logic by which they
#
acknowledge the distinctive elements
#
of the men and the women
#
in the way in which the narrative itself
#
I would now read the story
#
in more complex ways you know
#
and see and then the circuit gets completed
#
because when the buddha
#
he goes up to the tavatamsa heaven
#
and he teaches her the dhamma
#
so that she can also be liberated
#
you know it's very powerful
#
let his mother also achieve the
#
and the teri gatha is filled
#
and then I was crazed with this
#
and then the buddha calms you
#
in a certain kind of way
#
so there's something very interesting
#
the feminine self is acknowledged
#
as worthy of responding to
#
and then also setting off
#
on the path that will lead you
#
and I've been struck by the fact
#
that these women play such an important role
#
and allows him to the milk here
#
and it's sustained by that milk
#
so milk is a very interesting metaphor
#
you know it is that bias
#
that enables him to sit
#
and achieve the goal of
#
the self-realization comes
#
and he himself has acknowledged
#
and I will not have found the rasta
#
I'll give up this ascetic practice
#
and then it's this woman who feeds him
#
so it's very powerful in all of those
#
I think one has to reread
#
I think I responded like a
#
fairly strong feminist at that
#
I remain a very strong feminist
#
but I would look at compassion
#
very differently now you know
#
and I think that there's something
#
and those poems of the theories
#
see a very powerfully rendered
#
the buddhist teaching is the salvation
#
they fixed that women are worse than men
#
subtext and then there is ananda
#
you know just as the many versions
#
of the Hindu epics represented
#
the different times in which they were
#
it strikes me that even if
#
all of these stories about the buddha
#
aren't necessarily true
#
the fact that the stories exist
#
and are meant to represent something
#
itself tells you something
#
you were talking about the woman
#
the whole family has died
#
and you said she was not quite herself
#
and I just thought that maybe
#
that is when she was most herself
#
that's a fundamental truth of life
#
and then the buddha perhaps
#
helps her to come out of herself
#
and internalizing it in some ways
#
set her off on the path
#
yeah yeah no this is such a
#
I mean the world is so complex
#
and I'm very like these days
#
it's sort of become fashionable
#
especially with social media
#
that everybody's passing judgment
#
absolutely and that of course
#
because to pass judgment
#
on someone is to implicitly
#
call yourself more virtuous
#
and knowledgeable than them
#
and you've kind of had the rigor
#
reconsider what you felt
#
about a subject that you wrote
#
I mean that essay came out
#
so I really admire that so much
#
the most complex of those endeavors
#
you know and like you've pointed out
#
history is written by men
#
and men will always tell you
#
it's such a great line by you
#
they'll always tell you
#
the sort of indigenous expressions
#
of what we would now call feminism
#
from all over the place
#
including the Therigatha
#
you have that essay on Sita
#
the many versions of Sita
#
you wrote another essay
#
called whatever happened
#
where you know you wrote that essay
#
and the phrase that you used
#
was you're looking at history
#
tell me a little bit about this
#
I love reading history books
#
but I'm a non-historian
#
they have been listed out
#
in school you remember them
#
later on you read them as a story
#
interesting detail somewhere
#
there were 40 canons not 38
#
and your endeavor as a historian
#
every little bit of this
#
an imaginative exercise
#
and in a sense see the unseen
#
like how do you do this
#
how do you train yourself to do this
#
sometimes of going too far
#
there's a danger of going too far
#
it's enormously enriched
#
if you start from the point
#
where people are recording battles
#
to a point and you know
#
whether it's the Mahabharata
#
and Sanjay describing the battle
#
describing the Peloponnesian war
#
it is battles that somehow
#
occupied the minds of men
#
so in a sense if history is his story
#
that's a problem with the manner
#
in which that discipline
#
what came to be history
#
was drawn from this pool
#
and pillage or whatever
#
it is it never told the story
#
why do you valorize victory
#
why is victory so important
#
you know invest so much in this
#
in these damn cricket matches
#
I mean what are we trying to do
#
are the things that are important
#
and but who has given us that
#
you know if you look at a woman's life
#
as the successful moments
#
you know the Dasa Karmakara
#
as far as his life is concerned
#
the Dasa of Ajata Shatru
#
Ajata Shatru is a powerful man
#
he's put his father into jail
#
and he can't wait for him
#
gain political power for himself
#
then I will be the king
#
but he can't wait for the father to die
#
and him to succeed naturally
#
and then the stories are amazing
#
but whether true or not
#
capturing the sense of what
#
why political power is so central
#
is the description that
#
he's starving his father
#
and his mother comes to visit him
#
and she puts honey on her body
#
so that the father can lick that honey
#
you know and survive somehow
#
look at what it's telling you
#
you're not going to read it like that
#
you're just going to read it
#
but there's a structure to that story
#
in which the sons cannot wait
#
and political power is such
#
that's why I turned on and say
#
what is so great about decline
#
it's in the nature of political power
#
whoever is sitting in power
#
will always have to be worried
#
about who is going to raise him
#
so at the end of the day
#
why have we fixed political power
#
and the stability of political power
#
I mean it's equivalent to salvation
#
how can political power be stable
#
it can't be unimaginable
#
you have to get out of that frame
#
because they did widen the ambit of history
#
and they did bring in other sections
#
and they brought in revolution
#
and they brought in the popular classes
#
and they expanded the field
#
so that itself has been
#
but its relationship to politics
#
has been somehow difficult to unhinge
#
and to dislodge from its place
#
you're not going to reach that
#
you're not going to do that kind of history
#
in which one is cutting off the head of another
#
the whole of human experience
#
you know at the end of the day
#
I would turn around and say
#
or why do they think that
#
losing a battle is terrible
#
why is losing a battle so terrible
#
it's in the nature of power
#
to be as I said unstable
#
so actually you start to question
#
they are the inherited paradigms
#
and as you begin to see history
#
as the history of human experience
#
across I mean the whole of human experience
#
then you get a totally different framework
#
and you begin to see the complexities
#
of the way human beings have evolved
#
and created systems and structures
#
and in all of that process
#
you widen not only the framework of history
#
but the kinds of people
#
that you are now interested in
#
is no longer the anonymous man
#
and the anonymous woman is not
#
I mean they are protagonists in history
#
and I would use this silly example
#
they appreciate that immediately
#
I say everyone wants to be in history
#
we don't want to be in history
#
you know like whatever it is
#
why do we run off to all the monuments
#
or even on the tree you carve
#
Razia and Sultan were here
#
Uma and Ananda are here
#
and there is the arrow going through it
#
it's because everyone has a desire
#
to actually stay beyond the moment
#
the long human experience
#
and you want to be actually acknowledged
#
and recognized for yourself
#
so that is very powerful
#
that's a very powerful motivation in history
#
but and it's for everybody
#
it's not just like who wants to be anonymous
#
who wants to live your life
#
highly evolved philosopher
#
and that's why the recordings of everybody
#
you know oral history has its own fascination
#
precisely for that reason
#
because what is the story that we pass down
#
they are actually not about great things
#
but why is oral history so fascinating
#
why is storytelling so powerful
#
this happened to this grandmother
#
this happened to this child
#
even the history of illness and whatever
#
it is all rooted in the emotional
#
in the experiential of a wide range of people
#
that speaks to you much more than
#
when she was in class five or class six
#
which is Rajput policy of Akbar
#
revenue policy of Akbar
#
and religious policy of Akbar
#
three separate policies
#
that child has just begun to understand
#
you don't know the difference between
#
a owned house and a rented house
#
and now you're trying to tell us
#
look at the complexities of whatever it is
#
so I thought this is stupid
#
what a stupid history it is
#
and it was by our progressive history writers
#
had put that into for their children
#
and I started telling my daughter
#
the history of my family
#
this something else happened
#
and at the end of the day
#
she said why do you send me to school
#
you can teach me at home
#
it'll be a more interesting history
#
so at the end of the day
#
we are actually making this artificial divide
#
and we are trying to give
#
a certain degree of respectability to
#
and the rest is being regarded as
#
so I think that I have at least
#
and I'd like to talk about
#
the complexities of that
#
but I come to the conclusion
#
that I'm basically a storyteller
#
I just like telling stories
#
and history is full of that
#
and they're not mythology
#
they have a relationship to the mind
#
ways in which you record
#
pass it down in some way
#
I think that for that reason
#
history is very powerful
#
and there is no question
#
I mean that aspect of history
#
in the sense we mythologize it so much
#
you know I want to talk about
#
oral histories a bit because
#
you've done so many of them
#
and in my little experience
#
of doing these oral history
#
like conversations with people
#
I found them incredibly satisfying
#
and so have many of my listeners
#
the sense of why I get that is
#
that why people find these
#
is that they deepen our sense
#
to a story from someone else
#
or their frailties or whatever
#
it's in a sense it's about me
#
kind of widens my sense of
#
who I am and what this world is
#
because I am in someone's head
#
I'm listening to their story
#
seeing the world through their eyes
#
for decades longer than me
#
done so much more of this than me
#
must also have been difficult
#
because you did oral histories
#
where people spoke about
#
the partition experience
#
though as you've pointed out
#
their interesting little prisms
#
did an ethnographic narrative
#
and after the 1984 riots also
#
you spent a couple of years
#
and what their experiences were
#
tell me a little bit about this
#
what do you find fascinating
#
and what is the process like
#
and is it difficult for you
#
I know it must be rewarding
#
but is it difficult for you
#
Some are and some are not
#
see the partition story is now
#
being recounted after 73-70 years
#
is something that even his own
#
you know in that manner
#
there's a sort of dynamism
#
set up between the listener
#
and it has to do with the nature
#
and the nature of the moment
#
and the nature of the trigger question
#
you begin to speak or not
#
or you are able to speak more
#
Tell me more about the trigger question
#
what is the trigger question?
#
how do you frame that first question?
#
So the manner in which you do it
#
does it come as a kind of heavy
#
artful thing that you make
#
or is it something that you have
#
comes to you more naturally
#
in the way you frame it
#
so that the person at the other side
#
and it also depends a lot on
#
the nature of the relationship
#
if you knew each other before
#
it definitely has to do
#
with the nature of the relationship
#
when you go to see someone
#
you kind of move around a little bit
#
before you set up that comfort level
#
and then the question will begin to
#
reveal itself and speak
#
in a certain kind of way
#
but for the moment I'll
#
but you can actually share an example now
#
because I was going to ask you for one
#
it's about the prison work
#
which I'll come to it in a bit
#
it was very interesting
#
I have had an uneven relationship with him
#
because I'm a friend of his wife
#
and we got caught up in some situation
#
he's an interesting man
#
I had my own level of tensions with him
#
which escalated at one point
#
I was asking him a question about
#
which he's thought about a lot
#
because he's carried it
#
he's a few years older than I am
#
at the time that they do the migration
#
and extremely subjective
#
because it's tied up with his own
#
the politics of his own family
#
and the tensions that he has
#
with a very patriarchal family
#
so and this is not outside of him being patriarchal
#
so there's this really complex dynamic
#
at the time of partition
#
how does he tell that story
#
and in the most complex way
#
that I've heard the story ever being told
#
he and why did he do it
#
he knew he used to poke fun at
#
Jhanda flying against patriarchy
#
because he told the story of partition
#
entirely like a patriarchal family
#
I mean it's incredible the way he told it
#
and he used the metaphor himself
#
and gives them their shares
#
thinking of the partition like that
#
and then they expect that
#
and in reality actually
#
we carry it in for generations
#
the violence of the partition itself
#
within the violence of patriarchy
#
complex explanation he was doing
#
and I know he was doing it
#
because I'm the feminist
#
I understand patriarchy
#
or at least I position myself against
#
patriarchy in a certain kind of
#
if somebody else had asked him that question
#
he wouldn't have framed it like this
#
and then he's talking about
#
the breakdown of his own
#
as the nation is breaking down
#
customized memory for you
#
I mean what is he doing
#
is trying to dump his mother
#
and the patriarchal metaphor
#
remains in that interview
#
then you know there's this
#
in which he wants to go back
#
because he's trying to abandon
#
and I will retrieve your books
#
and then she goes with him
#
and the train steams off
#
and the girl begins to howl
#
and the sister begins to howl
#
that's the last we'll see of them
#
in other people's houses
#
means we will have to wash utensils
#
in someone else's house
#
because that's the only thing
#
and Mr. Jeet Singh Obariya
#
going back to that time
#
we have English education
#
what do you think of that
#
and this is the explanation
#
to this little girl of his
#
that the girl gets her share
#
and he's he's not a fan
#
but then as it accounts
#
that he talks about how
#
she could make her existence
#
the oral history project
#
is an extremely dynamic one
#
and what you would say yesterday
#
may change from what you say today
#
some things may remain the same
#
and the qualifying things
#
you know the emotionality of it
#
which could completely change
#
you know depending upon
#
and the particular nature
#
that you're going to tell
#
because I want to be the hero
#
in a certain kind of way
#
that I'm not investing in that
#
oral history has its limitations
#
I wouldn't call it a limitation
#
is part of the oral history
#
when I write a newspaper report
#
I'm not doing that filter
#
I'm also doing that filter
#
when I put the leader on
#
I'm doing a slate of hand
#
I'm organizing the reading
#
you're you're constantly doing
#
so I am not a great one
#
that what is in the archive
#
it becomes a sacrosanct
#
and what is said is not
#
now what is in the archive
#
it was once the same stuff
#
written at some point of time
#
and you are now treating it as
#
sacrosanct in a certain kind of way
#
I think that at the end of the day
#
you know it has all of those elements
#
and but it has also a capacity
#
which the written text may or may not
#
the emotionality in that
#
if it talked about some man
#
it doesn't have the same thing
#
of the subaltern school
#
that Ranjit Guha writes
#
which is an extraordinary piece
#
which is the description
#
and her sister and mother
#
organize an abortion for her
#
and then they are implicated
#
that's one of the finest pieces
#
that writing that you've done
#
in which people are caught
#
they suffer the consequences of that
#
there's so much in history
#
there's so much in the archive
#
it's actually full of people
#
which has its own emotional resonance
#
that at the end of the day
#
and I found oral history
#
in which you could reach
#
so at the end of the day
#
is a description of a boy
#
they more and more people
#
and then they come to a point
#
and they're struck by it
#
they put all of the women
#
and they set them on fire
#
and that's how they dealt
#
fact that there are no women
#
that this is what happened
#
yeah and when I read that
#
that's another such a striking example
#
the end in this case being honor
#
I mean you're just burning
#
yeah it boggles the mind
#
and they are how instrumental
#
and how you can actually
#
I'm often asking questions
#
and so I always get into
#
a conversation about 84
#
or sometimes of the partition
#
had killed one of the sisters
#
and the father were left
#
and when partition happened
#
and they kill the daughter
#
it's the very same Kirpan
#
and the very factual way
#
and it has multiple uses
#
they don't say all that
#
they cleaned the Kirpan
#
is such an incredible detail
#
the thing with oral history
#
also is you use the word
#
and that's exactly what it is
#
that story about myself
#
tells you something about me
#
like you watching that for
#
but I thought it is such
#
even though they forget
#
that there are sometimes
#
that they're projecting
#
they're telling the story
#
they want to tell the story
#
I really did my oral history
#
and why do I do oral history
#
let you forget partition
#
do their partition story
#
in a certain kind of way
#
and men that I talked to
#
we were not killed there
#
we were killed in our own country
#
we reach our own country
#
that's what the Sikhs felt
#
or the capturing of that
#
the quality of that emotion
#
that you won't get in a
#
it is coming out of the
#
the whatever it is being said
#
so this whole business of
#
our landlord was a Sardar
#
and they were lovely people
#
particularly if they came from
#
integrity and simplicity to them
#
so we are in their house
#
they lived in the front of the house
#
we lived in the back of the house
#
they were alone in the house
#
at that point of time was
#
I've never been able to forget it
#
politically we're all on the same side
#
we're often talking about
#
what's wrong with the country
#
and says self-protection
#
because here's this man
#
who doesn't really believe in the guy
#
it's for self-protection
#
so what does it do to the human being
#
faced with the kind of danger
#
so I never forgot his face
#
in some way or the other
#
about the train killings
#
the newspaper already mentioned
#
it was a complete recall of the
#
partition and the stories
#
all the stuff that one had heard
#
and then I slept for nine hours
#
so when what came out of it
#
who are the guilty was created
#
that was the moment of it
#
you're going to the camps
#
or whatever it is meeting
#
coming back with information
#
and imperative in our heads
#
and they'll only tell it
#
from the official point of view
#
so there'll be an official account
#
Indira Gandhi was assassinated
#
and we can't let that story stay
#
that the need for the oral history came
#
the need for fact-finding report
#
and also the need for the oral history
#
we need to collect the stories now
#
you know as they are happening
#
and they're fresh in the
#
and so that's how the project
#
that's the first authorial venture
#
interestingly the buddhism book
#
had been handed over to
#
he was the son-in-law of Khushwant Singh
#
he got completely caught up
#
he couldn't address the book
#
six months after this book came
#
we collected the stories
#
and we collected these narratives
#
such a diverse range of
#
people we went to talk to
#
survivors in the village
#
survivors in the colonies
#
important members of the community
#
who had their own sense of history
#
in fact it was so large
#
we couldn't even put everything
#
I mean so there's some unpublished stuff
#
which you should put online
#
along with any recordings you have
#
I want to archive my material on 84
#
you should certainly upload
#
any audio that you have
#
actually in a strange way
#
but I don't want to make a film on 84
#
I want to do an archival
#
how many people were killed
#
documenters of the movement
#
because we would go off into the
#
physically and otherwise
#
I'll give more power to you
#
you were going to give me
#
then I became a serious
#
and at that point of time
#
I didn't have equipment of
#
if one would be so exhausted
#
and you'd just go to sleep
#
but early in the morning
#
the notes of the previous day
#
so that was handwritten notes
#
the weaver kabasti jo hai
#
broken down to this height
#
it looks like Mohenjo-daro
#
everything has been taken off
#
and this is the same one
#
then they put them in the
#
then they put it in the pond
#
and finally even that gets
#
so then they take it out
#
and then they bury it in a field
#
for me Bhagalpur is that
#
that's part of my oral history now
#
which by the way you know
#
now they are using in this
#
the metaphor of the gobi
#
history that is circulating
#
every memory of mine is
#
but you're going to tell me
#
okay so then i begin to
#
and it's going to be on
#
for their political work
#
so the trigger situation
#
it's not trigger question
#
through a friend of mine
#
a very good friend of mine
#
she was active politically
#
i got to know her later on
#
she was in the newspaper world
#
a piece that she was writing
#
and we got to being friends
#
which i was going to be
#
is the decade that i was
#
because it was nakshal bari
#
talk to a number of women
#
the nakshal bari movement
#
so i go and i go through
#
i'll get everyone to come
#
you can shoot in my house
#
i'll assemble everything
#
but i will not come on screen
#
big paraphernalia is set up
#
and i assemble my two protagonists
#
they're sitting in front of me
#
and i'm going to ask them
#
i won't come on the screen
#
she comes and sits at the edge
#
and she sits in the chair
#
best part is the beginning part
#
but then she gets drawn
#
she can't hold herself back
#
because the nature of the
#
dialogue and discussion
#
but she also said to me
#
i'm not coming on screen
#
you know i'm not going to do this
#
something to do with the
#
i don't know what the question was
#
there's something to do
#
with the thana experience
#
that she's talking about it
#
impelled her to start sharing that
#
she never described chapter and verse
#
ka aise mara, aise kiya, wo kiya
#
she actually just stayed with this
#
question of how she survived
#
keeping her spirit going
#
and it is in incredible piece
#
narrating and describing so she
#
tells me she tells tells tells me this
#
it's whatever it is and it ends
#
i put it into the film and i put it into
#
it's very important it's very
#
it's not about unon ne aise mujhe mara
#
it is ke maa kaise survive ki and she
#
i said to myself she said they
#
this is what they want they want to
#
the spirit in you i will not let them
#
do that you know i mean
#
something along those lines that she
#
and then it's the compassion of the
#
other people in the thana that keeps
#
so there's one day somebody
#
sends a piece there's roti
#
her food has been kept she's been
#
tortured the day long and then she comes
#
back into the cell and there's
#
and they are telling her to eat and she
#
she says your food won't go down
#
because it's like you're so whatever it
#
is but they're saying khao khao
#
because kal tumhe you have to be
#
interrogated tomorrow you know
#
so they're forcing you to eat and then
#
she slightly opens it and she sees
#
usmena chini daki between two rotis
#
and she says quickly she closes it then
#
she doesn't want that person to be
#
because this is illegal you they've put
#
some somebody has reached out to her
#
and put that sugar between two rotis and
#
she she eats you know she's
#
so it's and then how she's beaten and
#
she comes back and there's a
#
young girl over there and she's been
#
chori of her mother's so of her maim
#
chain or whatever it is and so on and
#
every day she comes back you know
#
battered and whatever it is and this
#
girl cannot understand this so-called
#
person caught for chori
#
can't understand why they're beating up
#
privileged she's middle-class clearly
#
you know whatever it is
#
they can't understand what she's so
#
she's trying to say oh no but we are i'm
#
nakshal or whatever it is
#
you know she has never heard of nakshal
#
she said but then the way she held me
#
and lullabied me to sleep every night
#
that kept me going i said if this girl
#
they want to kill me and they want to
#
break my spirit it won't you know i i
#
so it's the human acts of compassion
#
around you that actually move you to
#
so now all this is she's she she shared
#
it voluntarily it came out of her
#
what love is it's like uh she couldn't
#
from coming out and so on so then then it
#
i had to send it back to her and show it
#
tell her is this okay and she let it
#
she she said she let let it be so there
#
what's it called trigger experience
#
trigger situation which can actually
#
bring out something which the maybe the
#
person protagonist doesn't want to tell
#
otherwise you know but it the
#
you're overwhelmed by the the moment
#
that kind of engulfs you and so you
#
share it in a certain kind of it so
#
what is critical in all of this is that
#
your protagonist or the person you're
#
and you must share a very important
#
bond and and and it has to be
#
politically and empathetically a strong
#
otherwise you can't get you are not
#
the story which is really closest to the
#
self and that i think is what one
#
multiple rounds of this some stories are
#
easy to tell others are very difficult
#
reveal and so it depends in a sense
#
and it's not to do with necessarily the
#
seeking the question it is to do with
#
the nature of the relationship that you
#
with the person that you're talking to
#
understanding that is also part of the
#
yes it is but then the point is that you
#
that understanding is built on
#
bond which allows you to whatever it is
#
and if i hadn't been a civil rights
#
if i hadn't been a woman's rights
#
activist i would not have got that
#
i would just not have got it you know
#
if i was parachuting from somewhere and
#
madame ji apne kya bola aur kaise kiya i
#
would never get anything
#
kaisa laga aapko jhel mein
#
you would never get anything out of it
#
very instructive in a very powerful
#
you know the one part of it which made
#
you know was a sugar in the roti
#
business because sugar is poison
#
but then who am i to say anything
#
maine bhi aapko samosa khilaya pe
#
so abhi uh let's take a quick break and
#
on the other side of the break i
#
you know we'll do the last leg of this
#
fantastic conversation i'm loving so
#
about sort of the the women's movement
#
in india in south asia and and so on
#
long before i was a podcaster i was a
#
in fact chances are that many of you
#
first heard of me because of my blog
#
india uncut which was active between
#
2003 and 2009 and became somewhat
#
i love the freedom the form gave me and
#
i feel i was shaped by it in many ways
#
i exercised my writing muscle every day
#
and was forced to think about many
#
different things because i wrote about
#
well that phase in my life ended for
#
and now it is time to revive it only
#
through a newsletter i have started the
#
at india uncut dot subtract dot com
#
where i will write regularly about
#
whatever catches my fancy
#
i'll write about some of the themes i
#
and about much else so please do head on
#
over to india uncut dot subtract dot com
#
and subscribe it is free once you sign
#
each new installment that i write will
#
inbox you don't need to go anywhere so
#
for free the india uncut newsletter at
#
india uncut dot subtract dot com thank
#
welcome back to the scene and the
#
unseen i'm still with umma chakravarthy
#
i have discovered in this break a new
#
umma chakravarthy before the break
#
you've heard i think around four hours
#
of us talking about very serious things
#
but in the break i discovered that she
#
acted in a film with dharmendra which
#
was her mindrous first film and
#
dharmendra kicked a football at her and
#
and she was asked not to give not to
#
kick the football back so she kicked it
#
and dharmendra ever since then has
#
sort of nurtured that resentment
#
so tell me about this the year is 1959
#
you're getting your big bollywood break
#
that's complete exaggeration and such
#
complete nonsense we went off to dance
#
in a in a film which had a crazy
#
we were meant to be the gopis dancing
#
in the background where krishna and
#
are are dialoguing with each other
#
going away and radha is feeling very
#
and so that's the sequence and um it
#
excuse me but it got cut from the film
#
so we didn't even see ourselves
#
in it but we enjoyed ourselves which we
#
two two weeks in the forests in bandipur
#
it was dharmendra's first film it was
#
romance of the kind that used to begin
#
and then they'd be separated and then
#
they'd come together and stuff like that
#
and so for entertainment people would
#
films take that by the time you take a
#
god knows how much time is spent and
#
we were the we were all sitting around
#
being entertained by cricket cricket or
#
something being played and
#
dharmendra was the fielder and the ball
#
was hit in his direction and he he missed
#
it and it came towards me and
#
i was my instinct was to throw it back
#
at him to throw it back to him
#
to help him but all my pals were
#
irreverent creatures said
#
don't give it to him throw it the other
#
direction so i threw it in the other
#
and he was so annoyed he picked up a
#
little bit of martian threw it in my
#
and went off but that's the extent of
#
the quote-unquote romance between
#
by the way it turned out to being an
#
interesting enough film
#
film hero so i won't say
#
much more on that that's that's it
#
yeah yeah you know bollywood's loss is
#
history is gained feminism's gain
#
tell me about the tell me about the
#
women's movement in india which
#
you know people typically dated to late
#
60s early 70s on through the 70s you've
#
mathura case and then the anti dowry
#
protests of the early 80s and all of
#
had episodes with urvashi botalia and
#
kind of spoken about that period of time
#
but even before that what i'm interested
#
is how does one gain the frames as a
#
the frames of feminism because at one
#
level it's just that i guess you see
#
clearly unjust things around you which
#
might have been normalized but
#
they might also spark something that hey
#
that's at one level and you know it can
#
happen for really obvious things like
#
atrocities committed on women or it can
#
things that are normalized like the way
#
women at home are treated which is you
#
part of the whole thing but how did you
#
know at a time where there is no
#
books are not necessarily easily
#
available you can't get a susan sontag
#
at the flick of a switch
#
you know where are those how are you
#
learning and how are you
#
you know figuring out how to interpret
#
all of this and of course you were by
#
this by the mid 60s you were teaching
#
at miranda house and all of that so
#
obviously much easier for you but give
#
me a sense of the mahal of the times
#
you know to begin with it's it's
#
in adolescent years that the whole
#
i would say that all women are intuitive
#
they begin to see the unfairness of
#
and who makes them realize that it's
#
some guy in your fraternity or sorority
#
it's it might be a brother it might be a
#
i remember an incident in which
#
see we were very irreverent creatures
#
generally must and having a good time
#
having a good time in the sense of you
#
my brother went into the air force
#
and he was down for one of the one of
#
one of the holidays or whatever it is
#
i don't know what got into him but one
#
and said to me my mother was
#
in the kitchen and she was trying to do
#
and whatever and he came around and he
#
get up and go and help amma
#
so i just looked at him i stared him in
#
the face and i said you go and help her
#
and he was infuriated the idea that i
#
should ask him to i was actually reading
#
or studying or something like that you
#
so i said you go and help her and he
#
was outraged at the idea that not only
#
was i the younger sister but i was
#
cheeky and now i'm saying to him you go
#
and work and of course he didn't see
#
something that he needs to do he had
#
sexual division of labor you know who
#
does what and whatever it is
#
we got into us he hit me then
#
because i was i was i had
#
been irreverent and cheeky with him
#
and you know in as families grow
#
brothers and sisters fight and
#
brothers can often do this kind of thing
#
who would have her own fights with me
#
was infuriated my elder sister and she
#
and fell upon him and she pummeled him
#
bashed him up and whatever it was tore
#
his shirt and whatever so
#
it was like the simple thing of the
#
that women should help in the kitchen
#
and men are free to come along and say
#
police you as it were and say
#
you do this and you do that that's
#
irreverently and absolutely
#
firmly refused as a categorization of
#
we were not going to be automatically in
#
pass on this kind of division that
#
existed so i think there are intuitive
#
for what is seen as unfairness and a
#
a neat gender divide that is that you
#
and which others are actually putting
#
so that i think that kind of thing had
#
already started we were quite
#
i was quite determined that i was not
#
conformed to authority of a brother
#
who's going to now tell you what you
#
should be doing and stuff
#
so perhaps it it may have started off
#
but i don't know how so years later i
#
think we did our own thing
#
you know and like for instance you might
#
you might we didn't treat eve teasing as
#
quote unquote it's called which is so
#
it's a harassment of girls on the street
#
you learn to fight it back you know and
#
and basically you spend all your time
#
trying to be who you are
#
and hanging on to that i mean not
#
change you as as a person so you are
#
what you are and you're going to do what
#
you're doing and you're
#
you're cycling around you're studying
#
you know you're not fitting any kind of a
#
pretty soon i think i and partly because
#
of the circumstances in the family we
#
uh scared of being traveled alone
#
for instance i had a job soon after my
#
gualier and i went off to teach over
#
there and i traveled on my own i went
#
um checked in did whatever i had to do
#
which is so different from you know
#
protective parents who carry their
#
take their daughters and safely and
#
constantly especially in those days
#
yeah yeah but you know you must remember
#
that i was cycling around
#
i was cycling around i was completely
#
you know whatever it is
#
confident of being able to deal with
#
on the street and and and i went to
#
so that that also was was an important
#
now the real sort of let's say
#
formed idea of formed ideas of
#
equality and inequality between the sex
#
between the genders between the sexes
#
really came as part of one's teaching
#
because in the 60s but 60s we must
#
as a volatile time and i joined
#
and very early on there were always
#
movements in delhi university you know
#
movement for uh introducing hindi was
#
very vigorously fought by by young men
#
uh who especially with the socialist
#
temperament you know so they would they
#
there was a big hindi movement uh my
#
a very sturdy bunch you know we were
#
the college was set up in 1948
#
and it all it had teachers that came
#
from across the country you know from
#
bengal from chennai from adas
#
from punjab from all over there were
#
people so this this was the first
#
and they did not automatically jump into
#
so that was actually quite extraordinary
#
they've come out they work
#
and sometimes they supported others
#
sometimes they didn't and they were
#
and they were free in the mind
#
you know they could actually be who they
#
the way they wanted so that was a very
#
powerful thing and one of my
#
colleagues in veranda house was a
#
socialist woman who had been
#
a partner of ramanoharlo here
#
and she lived with him in his in his
#
artful way we talked about feminism
#
but you could also see these strong
#
characters who were actually doing
#
whatever they felt like doing
#
so that was a good interest interesting
#
saw the world changing and you certainly
#
any sort of stereotypes about what women
#
can do and what men can do that
#
that kind of thing doesn't is not there
#
now veranda house also became the
#
the early discussions on feminism and so
#
were coming see in the late early 70s
#
we had this silly thing called the
#
i don't know if urvashi talked about it
#
but we had used to have this silly thing
#
in which the the newcomer the
#
the best-looking newcomer of the
#
college used to be voted miss miranda
#
and at some point early glimmerings of
#
women's movement had started off the
#
feminist thinking had started off
#
and there was a sink there was actually
#
a movement to abolish this
#
the contest miss miranda contest and the
#
arguments were very interesting it was
#
are you saying that my mother who's got
#
lines on her face is not beautiful are
#
you saying that the woman who breaks
#
on the footpath is not beautiful
#
what is the standard and canon of beauty
#
that you're trying to fix us with and so
#
and we will throw this thing out so
#
throughout this so-called tradition of
#
itself you know which had started off in
#
some for late 40s early 50s over there
#
so these stirrings were already there and
#
they're coming out they're actually
#
being in a world miranda house is one
#
was that it was a liberal democratic
#
at that stage and the girls were not
#
teachers were not taught to be we had
#
thrown out principles you know that that
#
was the tradition in miranda
#
so it was a bunch of people who were not
#
because of their gender in fact if
#
we were claiming our spaces and
#
it was the first college which in for
#
had sciences the sciences so
#
it was opening boundaries you know
#
stereotypes and stuff like that so it
#
and and then we had a very active
#
which was constantly involved with
#
interrogation of various kinds so in 73 i
#
indira gandhi came to miranda house and
#
our student president actually made a
#
speech about questions of unemployment
#
see what had happened is that there was
#
a young man a very bright young man
#
who max he wrote his ma in history
#
and he was hindi he wrote in hindi he
#
and he got the he maxed
#
he was the first class first he went
#
to collect his degree from indira gandhi
#
who'd come for the convocation that year
#
he took it and then he tore it in front
#
quite dramatically and saying this is
#
not worth the paper i'm not going to
#
get a job and he chucked it
#
now this is regarded as outrageous and
#
outrageous act you know how
#
how uncouth and loudish it was
#
what was his name do you remember um
#
yeah his name uh wait i'll tell you it'll
#
um jane i think his name was rk jane if
#
yeah he was quite he was so
#
now soon afterwards mrs gandhi came to
#
miranda house as the founder
#
as the chief guest in our founder's day
#
and in her speech she made a reference
#
the negative reference to that boy
#
and what he'd done saying that this was
#
not proper and whatever it is
#
now our student president said what's
#
wrong with that she she had to
#
respond to the chief guy and she was
#
closing person and she said what's wrong
#
with that it's absolutely the truth
#
so it was like you know they were
#
spirited women and they were not going
#
to shut up and listen to anything
#
simply because it's the voice of
#
so that was among the things that they
#
had already begun to speak about and so
#
on and i think during the emergency
#
or even before there were discussions
#
that were happening in the
#
in the ruth vanita was a teacher in
#
and her room was being used to actually
#
feminist texts and feminism and stuff
#
that was that was in the air
#
and then so in a sense we were kind of
#
doing our own journey into thinking
#
the stereotypes as well as the
#
inequality between men and women
#
which is something that we kind of
#
picked up as we went along it was
#
it was a i i attributed entirely to
#
the liberal democratic space and we were
#
part of students movement which was also
#
authority itself so you can't act i
#
don't think you can be an
#
feminist if you're not going to
#
actually be anti-authority
#
at the end of the day i mean anti the
#
line that you have expected to do and
#
so i think all that was there and
#
soon enough then you know the colleges
#
in which as the violence against women
#
the colleges were the space where we
#
doing experimental theater we were
#
calling streets gonna street theater
#
having having performances discussing it
#
i mean it would then become part of the
#
common sense it was part of the way in
#
uh sort of your everyday relationship to
#
questions of gender i and i remember you
#
there was an early play which was called
#
roshni it's about a girl who studies
#
and wants to study and so on and
#
there's this classic situation in which
#
the girl is told no you can't go to
#
then she's allowed to go to college then
#
she's told you have to come back
#
straight from as soon as the classes are
#
and all of this stuff there's a lot of
#
this policing that's going on
#
and then this girl one day she comes home
#
four o'clock instead of 2 30 when her
#
or whatever and and her brother is at the
#
the father is inside but the brother is
#
at the gate and he's policing the
#
gate and he's so as she steps in he says
#
where have you been i've been so we are
#
so worried about you and this and that
#
and don't you know what can happen to
#
on literally on the street
#
and this girl just looks him in the eye
#
you stay at home and we will go out you
#
so it's just amazing so so
#
the it's both intuitive it's thought out
#
everyday common sense it is politically
#
all of this thing is happening at the
#
so it's the it's in the air and then you
#
know you begin to it's like nuclear
#
it's just you absorb it it's there all
#
you are drawn into it and there's no way
#
you can't be drawn into it because it's
#
speaking to you and it's speaking to
#
and it's speaking to the experience of
#
your classroom and your students and so
#
my question is you know when we are
#
young we are naturally rebellious
#
in college all of this happens
#
I also remember that in my time there was a lot of idealism
#
but then people go away they do MBA
#
they get on with their lives and it kind
#
of changes so one question is partly
#
how much of this young energy actually
#
you know remains and becomes something
#
broader instead of dissipating as life
#
and my other question is that you know
#
from whatever I read about
#
say Delhi in the 1970s like I did an
#
episode with Ramchandra Guha and
#
he was in college in the early 70s and
#
and then he would name his classmates
#
and it would seem ki poora India ka
#
elite o zaman e ka ussi ek class se liya hai
#
in the sense that everyone who ran the
#
country was from a really small group of
#
if you were from St Stephen's college
#
correct but even you guys were in that
#
but my question really is ki matlab ki
#
grassroots mein kya ho raha tha matlab ki
#
beyond these elite enclaves where you
#
uh students who are you know doing
#
rebellion which students always do that
#
but beyond that is there a larger
#
movement gradually kind of forming
#
like you know different guests of mine
#
including Manjima Bhattacharya spoke
#
about how the Mathura movement of the
#
late 70s was something that really
#
and became like a focal point Urvashi
#
spoke about how the towards equality
#
that that galvanized a few of you know
#
her contemporaries but give me a sense
#
you know what's happening apart from
#
this what's happening around society me
#
see Urvashi may have spoken to you about
#
towards equality but she was in Miranda
#
she's a student of Miranda house and she
#
phenomenon that i'm describing that is
#
you're throwing out the Miss Miranda
#
your context you're actually changing
#
of thinking about women so i think that
#
we've entered the it's also an
#
irreverent moment from the point of view
#
student unrest so student unrest is
#
very high just before the emergency it's
#
and then emergency me usko davaya jata
#
so and you the student unrest which is
#
and the feminist engagement which is
#
beginning to open up is happening
#
roughly at the same time so there's a
#
there's a way in which you are
#
influencing each other i think
#
and then we must remember that there are
#
there's no this is not the moment of the
#
this is still the time where you will go
#
or to the civil service you actually do
#
across the you can do a
#
statistical analysis of what happens to
#
and from miranda house they are going
#
into civil service teaching
#
and of course then marriage and whatever
#
so we have a critical mass of people who
#
are actually looking for
#
professional fulfillment professional
#
existence and it is within the
#
broadly liberal democratic possibilities
#
okay so many people are being absorbed
#
the civil service we have some of our
#
some of the teachers of miranda house
#
actually go into civil service and they
#
do very good work there you know as
#
civil servants so and bring in questions
#
through this all dem democratic
#
impulse and the feminist trust
#
towards equality can't be disentangled
#
from each other there is some
#
way in which they can speak to each
#
other you know which is i think
#
i don't think anyone is i yeah i think
#
even i have not formulated it like this
#
but it is there it's happening at the
#
so you are changing the world and you're
#
changing the world and you're not doing
#
in fact the real challenge comes post
#
and post the time when you try and fix
#
bring big business big business into
#
through the sponsored festivals and
#
stuff like that but we don't have that
#
in the 60s and 70s you don't have that
#
you actually have a bunch of there are
#
very powerful strikes that you do
#
teacher strikes and they actually
#
capture the imagination of
#
the young quite interestingly so i
#
do this and at the end of the day in
#
every house there is a battle going on
#
there's no way you're going to turn
#
my brother is getting what i shouldn't
#
happening in and we there is a common
#
sense that is developing
#
around it so you may or may not be in the
#
movement but you are also
#
you're raising the issues which are
#
around gender and that's very powerful
#
so in your own classroom
#
it's the first time we begin to see that
#
sexual violence within the home that
#
fathers are doing i mean
#
the students will stop you on the
#
tell you what's happening and you have
#
to then advise them and
#
you know so so you know the meaning of
#
gender and gender exploitation it's part
#
shared experience of the of the
#
of you all collectively growing to
#
you know it's the time when you move
#
eve teasing i people used to say
#
evening is the most disgusting term
#
and it was very physical and very
#
at the end of the day so think even the
#
reconceptualize is coming and we are
#
the students and teachers of
#
the colleges in delhi are among the
#
inventors of the everyday common sense
#
gender you know everyday ways in which
#
to be brought in what is it doing
#
there's a famous play called which is
#
women experiencing the violence in the
#
and so on classroom home everywhere and
#
the continuity you see the
#
the classroom as a space and the home as
#
and whatever so i think one is actually
#
vitally well that's happening post the
#
the democratic rights movement has
#
started that is also forced to engage
#
questions of gender podr is one
#
excellent report that they did was
#
called inside the family and it was
#
the dowry violence you know it's a
#
very amazingly woven out account you
#
know we are also doing reports on
#
thana rapes in custody and stuff so
#
it's uh they're impacting each other you
#
movement it's just if the fax say you
#
may be in this movement or in that
#
moment or you may be in both movements
#
and there were lots of people like that
#
you know so they swear who was
#
teaching in ip college she's part of
#
that tradition we're all sort of
#
similar spaces and the woman's
#
college becomes quite central in
#
understanding so we have um i wrote
#
i wrote my paper on uh does it help that
#
it's a woman's college that men are not
#
there so you you you the girls can feel
#
you don't have to see yourself in the
#
which is a very critical phenomenon in
#
the college stages so i've all
#
been a great one for saying co-ed
#
but you know women's colleges you don't
#
you don't have to see yourself through
#
you at least while you're in the
#
classroom space in a classroom and
#
college space you can actually extract
#
for yourself ruth has a miranda house
#
50-year review of its in
#
of people contributed old students and
#
so on contributed a lot
#
to it it's a very interesting one it's
#
reliving miranda i think and i was one
#
it uh ruth talks about how
#
the female space is a place in which you
#
actually can grow into being who you are
#
well it is it is not something in which
#
you have to see yourself
#
so i think that may have also helped
#
because the most irreverent
#
of day taken on gender we came from uh
#
ip college and miranda house so there is
#
there is some connection as as you see
#
early feminist movement i mean if the
#
yes okay towards equality will trigger
#
something else might trigger it off but
#
there's it's like it's not
#
as if to say you're translating key sex
#
slave movement is a little bit here you
#
i i know that the feminists like to
#
i know that the veena majumdar's and all
#
will like to claim it that is
#
yes it's a shock it's a shock to
#
discover that your sex ratio has fallen
#
and that it's worse than it was in the
#
but that does not speak to moments
#
women's experiences women's experiences
#
are rough but of course
#
it then leads to all the discussion
#
around why is the sex ratio falling
#
what are you doing what's happening in
#
then the then the focus is on violence
#
the violence that women experience just
#
by being women you know
#
that becomes and that's a very powerful
#
when you can name the violence and you
#
and you can acknowledge it and you can
#
your closest relatives are implicated in
#
your husband your brothers your you
#
know are all implicated in it
#
so it's um it's a very powerful
#
revelatory moment you know in that sense
#
you you have to be able to i know i know
#
a part of the women's studies courses
#
second day want to go away and not want
#
to do women's studies because
#
it forces them to have to rethink their
#
own socialization and the and it's very
#
it's extremely painful so it's a it's a
#
tough job to be a feminist
#
because then you have to practice it in
#
and it's damn tough it's damn tough
#
everyone is not born to be
#
argumentative or critical
#
that begins to circulate helps but but
#
the experience is unique
#
and you have to actually then have to
#
say this is wrong this is wrong this is
#
that's very very it's a very painful
#
let's take a brief detour and i'll come
#
back to feminism but i want to take a
#
to what it was like for you to teach
#
because you become a teacher at miranda
#
in 66 when you're 25 years old you're
#
and i guess that there must be at this
#
moment two simultaneous things
#
happening and one is where
#
one is that process of figuring yourself
#
out you know solidifying your own sense
#
of self and what you are and all of that
#
and the other is guiding young people
#
and helping them with that same process
#
and i guess these two would feed into
#
each other that as you help them
#
it helps you you know solidify what you
#
you know sharpen your frames and so on
#
and so forth and you said it's tough to
#
be a feminist i mean it would have been
#
as tough for you because in a sense you
#
everybody who becomes a feminist in
#
india is essentially breaking
#
themselves down and building it up
#
again right because everything
#
that is at the core of the how we've
#
been socialized gender roles and all
#
see i think that one advantage that i
#
had was that we had this
#
irreverent family of seven children and
#
we were arguing and arguing and
#
holding our opinions and fighting back
#
very strongly and there was no question
#
the girls were being squashed by the
#
boys over there you know if anything we
#
you know in terms of the sharpness of
#
our positions because we could actually
#
intellectually and morally ethical
#
strong positions which the men the boys
#
because they were stuck in that they
#
the baggage that they had inherited so i
#
partly was one was armed with with that
#
partly it was a case of
#
so you but your your community of other
#
is more or less on the same journey as
#
you are because they're all independent
#
claiming their own space and then you
#
have these young students who are also
#
claiming their space and arguing and
#
all of this is tied up with the
#
democratic explosion that precedes the
#
and then follows the emergency okay so
#
as i said we are bolstered by many things
#
there's a very active teachers movement
#
and we have to but but we have to argue
#
we have to argue like mad even with our
#
friends because socializing can be very
#
case of a dowry victim of a woman
#
and she used to come home come back come
#
you know often bruises on her face and
#
stuff like that and she would always
#
fudge and say whatever it is and then
#
and then one day we one discovered that
#
she had died in a dowry murder case and
#
we didn't know whether she had killed
#
herself or whether she had been killed
#
but it was an issue and that even
#
did not have an out and did not go or
#
whatever so it is a very
#
powerful moment from from the point of
#
view of understanding schooling and
#
socializing of girls of women to play
#
so i remember we were doing a
#
demonstration and we were mobilizing and
#
i went to the english department of
#
the college which was somewhat
#
conservative department didn't actually
#
in our ventures much and some statement
#
one made that she used to be
#
beaten and she and nobody discovered and
#
she was fudging and she was not telling
#
us what it was and stuff like
#
so somebody from the department
#
immediately turned around and said i'm not
#
coming for this demonstration it's like
#
i don't have any sympathy for this
#
stupid woman who stayed in that rotten
#
was killed you know and i remember being
#
furious and saying she doesn't
#
the the first thing first principles or
#
whatever so you would have a bit of that
#
it doesn't happen to us it's happening
#
our houses don't do that and
#
kind of stuff but i think the whole
#
arguing the street theater that was
#
being performed the omswara traveled to
#
this roshni traveled to all the
#
uh it did create this but you had
#
mentioned what what is that
#
trigger point that you asked me this
#
question that led me off
#
uh the the question was about
#
the simultaneous process of learning who
#
you are forming who you are
#
and at the same time helping students
#
with that and yeah i think that is
#
happening simultaneously perhaps
#
perhaps the mentoring role that you play
#
helps you to go on that joint journey
#
you have to clarify for yourself also
#
and and proceed with with
#
arguing and developing a language by
#
and it's a shared experience so that's
#
something that i think happens in a
#
the students are often staying on the
#
there's a lot of uh and and women's
#
colleges actually have their own
#
logic rationale because you're going on
#
trips together you are going on
#
even your mountain climbing is
#
happening i mean like there's a lot of
#
with each other uh the one good thing
#
teaching career is there is an
#
incredible amount of space to interact
#
and so you know there's no way i would
#
say a person who did not bring back
#
the influences of outside to the
#
and we the previous generation had
#
so film society it would come back
#
celluloid would return to the
#
so we were actively engaged in whatever
#
students and teachers you know there
#
camaraderie between us and i think the
#
kind of argument or you know hierarchy
#
in which you can't speak to each other
#
i think women do communicate in a
#
which is powerful and is able to
#
dissolve the boundaries of teacher and
#
student quite effectively
#
so i think all of that was also
#
helping us and and of course there were
#
speak sessions where people would bring
#
i mean they had to go to special
#
sessions in which they could talk about
#
the violence that they were
#
experiencing at home and stuff like that
#
chal ratha but the bottom circulation of
#
many things is happening at the at the
#
and that helps from the point of view of
#
the ground swell for being able to turn
#
mount an onslaught something so this is
#
the time also where they have the
#
you know they put up this stupid thing
#
called the chick chart which the
#
quaid college with st. Stephen's college
#
my friend my friend and younger
#
what would you call it you know
#
feminist trend vinda mentions
#
that she learned the meaning of section
#
144 in st. Stephen's college after the
#
the the chick chart controversy that you
#
were not allowed to sit five people were
#
not allowed to sit together on this
#
on the lawns of the college because you
#
plotting some conspiracy against the
#
institution what was the chick chart
#
it was rating girls or something rating
#
girls so facebook started like that in
#
so yeah that's what boys do yeah yeah
#
okay another question i often think
#
the structure of the work that one does
#
can shape one you know so i could be a
#
quiet academic sitting in a room and
#
writing papers and not interacting much
#
or i could be a teacher all the time
#
mingling with students all around me
#
or i could be an activist doing ground
#
studies in the field and going to naxal
#
and in each case i can have the same
#
starting point but you have three
#
people right and you've been an
#
incredibly productive academy doing
#
deep work in the fields that you've done
#
in buddhism caste gender none of which
#
we've been able to do justice to in the
#
conversation but i hope listeners
#
buy all your books but at the same time
#
you taught for i think 32 years right 66
#
at miranda so you're actively in there
#
engaging with young people all the time
#
which automatically keeps you on your
#
toes and i'm guessing challenges you
#
because every year is a younger
#
so tell me a little bit about you know
#
how much you think that shaped you as a
#
person and that shaped your work and
#
that maybe shaped the way you look at
#
where you're constantly engaging with it
#
you are never at a remove from it like
#
some academics seem to be
#
yeah and the other thing that's that
#
women's college but in particular is
#
divide between the academic stuff that
#
and the personal lives and the and the
#
other things that you do you
#
maybe in the drama society you maybe
#
you you actually the collective life of
#
nurtures the capacity to actually
#
speak to each other and influence each
#
argue with each other maybe and so on
#
in particular ways and i think that that
#
was very powerful in shaping one's way
#
of being so when we actually
#
for instance when we experience when one
#
the emergency the thing that was most
#
offensive was that we were told that
#
don't speak in the class freely because
#
there are spies that may be there and
#
stuff like that you know so that this
#
repression which was like you know now
#
politically placed on you it's also the
#
it's also the situation from which we
#
i mean i didn't have to face that i
#
could speak my mind in my own home
#
but many people could not actually speak
#
the the family structure in india is
#
the university space might be actually
#
better because you can actually come out
#
say what you can i mean you know in in
#
you can't even argue with the older
#
people and they they'll turn around and
#
which is like you can't
#
hold your own opinion against anybody
#
now that kind of thing in a
#
female space now i'm not suggesting that
#
every teacher in miranda house was
#
you know democratic and so on but some
#
carried that that relationship
#
non-professional relationship also
#
we could put it so i think that there
#
was a lot that was going on it was
#
very active space as i said you know
#
some group of people is doing some play
#
which is called esas and it's
#
about a girl's experience of growing
#
understanding sexual harassment in the
#
campus and stuff like that
#
so all of this was stuff that
#
were around and were accessible to one
#
it was it was actually up to you to
#
grab it or leave it aside and i think as
#
a person i'm that kind of person which
#
you know respond to whatever is as a as
#
as happening around so to to that extent
#
i think one was able to
#
access the best in the campus and the
#
campus is a liberal democratic space if
#
it is meant to be but it's not always
#
and so you have to fight to do that
#
which is to the i mean that's why
#
the hostel rules you know say you have
#
to come back by a certain time and the
#
rules were different from the boys
#
rules one had to fight that and say that
#
at least the university space must be
#
liberally administered and you can't you
#
i remember writing a piece along with a
#
from fathers to husbands via the
#
because the college hostel was
#
functioning exactly like family
#
surveilling you you know and keeping
#
reigning you in as it were and then
#
safely handing you over to your husband
#
so you you were you were
#
reconceptualizing the world at every
#
whether it is the hostel rule whether it
#
whatever it is other kinds of
#
restrictions and so on so i think that
#
irreverent but very structured
#
response to the inequality deep
#
inequality between men and women
#
is something that we would naturally
#
generate in a female space in a female
#
what are the sort of changes you see
#
between the girls you taught in 1966 and
#
the girls you taught in 1998
#
and i know you're still you know still
#
enthusiastic you go out you talk to
#
people even if you're not formally
#
so you know what's your sense of how
#
that's kind of changed over time
#
because often what happens is that if
#
you look at a short span of time
#
it might seem that nothing is changing
#
things are going backwards also it might
#
but i feel you the longer back you go
#
you know and you've spoken of the arc
#
of history before as well
#
so what does the arc of history tell you
#
you know well you know it has been
#
through its own ups and downs
#
i never felt it in the classroom
#
because i continued to teach you know i
#
even though i took formal retirement in
#
carried on till 2006 i used to do free
#
you know i would go to mirandas and
#
level the kind of the kind of students
#
an unevenness in the kind of students
#
that you get depending upon
#
other kinds of social forces which is
#
which is a college regarded as
#
a premier college and stuff like that so
#
there were some changes and stuff like
#
but when you two things would
#
when you actually got to do the rub of
#
there would be all they they could
#
and they would come on the same page as
#
when you actually got to the critical
#
they would ultimately understand even if
#
intuitively do so for the beginning and i
#
remember sort of going on you know we
#
picnics and trips and whatever it is and
#
i found myself sort of in a slightly
#
disadvantaged position because i didn't
#
i think language had changed so
#
they had this expression called it's a
#
you know which means it's a sexy kind of
#
and i didn't understand what that was
#
you know i was still stuck in
#
some other whatever it is but the
#
they tell it to you and they tell it to
#
you understand where it's coming from and
#
so on and it does create its
#
its own bridge and one of the saddest
#
was this very lively and
#
incredibly irreverent creature
#
you know no no boundaries for her
#
and very openly wanting to have
#
with the boys i mean really quite
#
interested in the sexual you know
#
and i remember you know jokes and stuff
#
like that and then they say
#
don't tell her this this is a non-
#
vegetarian joke you know
#
so stuff like that and and then
#
some years later she came back and she'd
#
she came back completely beaten and you
#
turned into something like a zombie
#
and that too had happened so there's this
#
lively irreverent girl you know who's
#
breaking all boundaries and then she
#
comes back a broken down figure and you
#
understand the meaning of marriage and
#
society and whatever it is so that
#
continued to happen you
#
you always had students you would
#
engage with you and the most recent
#
crisis most interesting example i've had
#
now sometimes the students are tracking
#
internet as i'm speaking here or i'm
#
they may not otherwise know me but
#
because they're in miranda house now
#
they'll follow me because i used to be
#
in miranda house so they'll come
#
they'll come to the talks or they'll
#
because i've read my work in history
#
they'll they'll come to the talk
#
and they are actually open to what
#
you're saying i mean quite responding to
#
so recently we launched there was a
#
women who were incarcerated and there
#
was a discussion on it and so
#
and i thought the spandera beast logani
#
ic was jammed with that room was jammed
#
there wasn't room to stand they all
#
this is the young it was filled with the
#
young and we had devangana and natasha
#
so they were they they were all there
#
so there is an interest in what's going
#
campus is actually quite lively at the
#
moment and i don't think
#
that the agenda to control how people
#
is successfully being implemented you
#
know i don't think it's happening i
#
think people are making their peace
#
and finding their way into better
#
but they haven't been able to capture
#
the young in the way they have and then
#
this was followed up by a group of
#
girls wanting to have a discussion
#
on women in prison in their college
#
and as part of the women's development
#
has become the among the most archaic
#
most sanitized spaces you know you can
#
dowry violence but not anything else
#
they wanted to do it in as part of that
#
and their principal would not let them
#
do it you know so they are ready
#
actually the young are ready to
#
to build a world that is more in keeping
#
with that i think we've come full
#
circle as far as the neoliberal bubble
#
and it's given people a great deal by
#
way of market this that and the other
#
there has to be that that plus
#
something else and that that plus
#
is something that they haven't been able
#
that easily so actually they're ready
#
the i mean the young are always
#
idealistic it is we who killed it
#
it is the older generations that kill it
#
i i see that as so you can talk to the
#
wherever you go i mean i recently
#
i i took the students on a walk in the
#
in the national museum and number of
#
it was off the i mean it was just some
#
venture that was created by some young
#
and 30 people had signed up for it and i
#
we spent three hours you know
#
discussing buddha buddhist icons of
#
buddhism and stuff like that
#
and it was really lovely interaction
#
with these young people so they you
#
know they they have not
#
i mean they have not been fully put into
#
and perhaps it's time for them
#
time for people to understand that you
#
got to speak to the young
#
in ways in which you can they can retain
#
and their sense of idealism and
#
so that's something that people must
#
so before i get to my next rather dark
#
i'll first register a mild protest at
#
neoliberal because honestly i i think
#
that term is only used by academics it
#
has no relevance to the real world
#
because nobody self identifies as a
#
and markets and technology have
#
empowered women tremendously empowered
#
individuals tremendously
#
but leaving that aside my sort of
#
what you mentioned earlier about that
#
free-spirited woman who wanted to
#
experience a world and all of that
#
and you spoke about how marriage had
#
she was beaten by marriage as it were as
#
and i have been thinking more and more
#
recently and this should really not be a
#
you know once i've thought think about
#
it it seems like stating the obvious
#
which is that marriage is both an
#
outdated artifact of an institution and
#
right i mean i know there are happy
#
marriages and that's great and there are
#
couples who have been good for each
#
but in general marriage is an
#
killing women for just destroying them
#
destroying their spirit
#
destroying their life you know putting
#
them into that one straight jacket of a
#
role that they have to play
#
and you know so on and so forth and
#
you know and and we are sort of
#
socialized to think about marriage as a
#
natural thing to get into whether you're
#
at some point you get married at some
#
point you have kids at some point all of
#
and but you know once you think about it
#
you realize that my god you know
#
and like one illustration of what it can
#
do and it serves as a great metaphor for
#
is i'd done an episode with Chinmay Tumbe
#
on his great book India Moving
#
about internal migrations within India
#
and he pointed out that the biggest
#
internal migration within India happens
#
women get married and they move to their
#
and what this therefore means in a sense
#
always goes along whatever track it is
#
right but a woman's life at a certain
#
point in time is uprooted completely
#
and even if it's not physically moving
#
cities or moving villages or whatever
#
even if it is next door
#
you are basically in a different setup
#
you're a different person
#
what are your thoughts on this
#
first i'll begin with an anecdote i mean
#
stray thing one of the things that the
#
in his stuff is that at a very early age
#
girls have to go and live in another
#
and he's sensitive enough to recognize
#
and that's like in sixth century bc so
#
you know that this institution is
#
migration takes place into the husband's
#
but let me return and you made this
#
my fatta on the neoliberal thing
#
you look at the way in which marriage is
#
and and if you can tell me that you can
#
whatever is happening i i'd be happy to
#
what's it called learn a thing or two
#
i mean look at the way they're selling
#
it's like the grossest what
#
frenetically frenetically having to
#
and so now nobody the choice
#
you know there are other ways of being
#
there are other ways of
#
of being together there's no need for
#
no need to to make make a tie that's
#
forever and forever but the
#
manner in which you need to do this
#
tying it to a market economy seems to be
#
some some kind of is there a crisis in
#
the way people are thinking about it
#
let me quickly respond to that by if i
#
breaking it down into two things one is
#
i won't use the term neoliberal like i
#
said only academics use it no one
#
it has no relation to the real world it
#
is just a bogie term and i feel it's a
#
lazy but are you saying
#
the academics don't have an
#
of the real world many academics don't
#
and and certainly but are you saying
#
that the the term neoliberal
#
in and of itself cannot mean anything
#
i'm saying that the way it is used it is
#
a bogie man and a straw man if no one
#
self-identifies as one who are you
#
now i understand that a lot of people
#
who are using that term are railing
#
against markets and capitalism and i'm
#
it in those terms like to me the
#
paramount value of my life is consent
#
and i think that there is often a
#
some people who will consider consent
#
paramount in the personal domain
#
suddenly change their views when it
#
comes to markets because after all what
#
are markets markets are voluntary
#
interactions between consenting people
#
these are positive some games and in
#
if you're for consent you have to be for
#
markets and capitalism now
#
it's confused in india because people
#
confuse cronyism like we see with adani
#
and modi and they'll confuse that for
#
but actually market friendly and
#
business friendly are opposite terms
#
this is another mistake people make
#
where they think they mean the same
#
getting into the market thing okay
#
you can see but i'll respond to what
#
you're saying with the second part of
#
thing and and the second thing is that
#
by itself are a mechanism for fulfilling
#
the needs of individuals within society
#
by itself it's a moral now if society is
#
then you can't blame that on the
#
markets markets are just a mechanism for
#
how society is interacting with itself
#
now it can happen in non-consensual ways
#
where you have cronyism and the power of
#
the state being used to push an agenda
#
which also happens here or it can even
#
happen in a consensual way
#
where for example a company may feel
#
that promoting tradition in a diwali
#
will be will sell more of their products
#
because people are like that that's a
#
and you and i may protest and say oh my
#
god you're you know perpetuating
#
but that's not the fault of the the
#
mechanism itself which is markets it's a
#
problem with society which we have to
#
and the way to solve it is again by
#
using markets to either empower
#
individuals or to spread our own message
#
what you and i are doing is a
#
quintessential what you would call
#
i'm not i see neoliberal in
#
different way neoliberal to me is the
#
of the state from anything that
#
it needs to do to deliver a more
#
let's say even things like you know
#
education or medical facilities or
#
you retreat you take everything away
#
and put the market over there and you
#
left with saying i will now as the state
#
invite the capital and be whatever it is
#
and then i will use my army
#
in order to ensure that you complete the
#
economy so that's how i would use
#
yeah and i see that as a problem
#
it's not a case of choice it's not a
#
okay but there is an ideology that
#
you're also thrusting but if i might say
#
that is not the ideology of free
#
markets in the sense that number one
#
wherever the state has allowed the
#
market in india like we saw in the 90s
#
you know in the 80s you had to wait five
#
airline tickets were incredibly
#
expensive you let the markets in
#
now it's ubiquitous it's cheap kids and
#
you know getting broadband on their
#
phones the areas where you never let
#
never like in education and large parts
#
there has been a complete failure and
#
the state has also failed to deliver
#
and what people like me have argued and
#
i've done repeated episodes on
#
education for example is not that the
#
but that the state allow markets to
#
function naturally and at the same time
#
get its act together and do what it does
#
and what you are saying in terms of
#
letting companies get into a space and
#
build a monopoly and using an army which
#
is a phrase you use to protect that
#
that's cronyism that is in fact the
#
opposite of free markets
#
it's part of the see you're using free
#
market in a sort of what's it called in
#
no i'm sanitized way no no what what i
#
what i want to do is i want to
#
markets and business people often think
#
market friendly and business friendly
#
are the same thing they are the complete
#
you know a business friendly regime
#
would want you know to use the power of
#
the state to protect its hold on markets
#
to reduce competition so that there
#
you know there are higher entry
#
barriers and their position is
#
protected and that's what a crony would
#
adani may do just to take a random name
#
adani build the building i live in so i
#
don't want to be too harsh either
#
but you get what i'm saying that that's
#
whereas in a free market you have the
#
state doing only the rule of law and
#
nothing else not favoring anybody and
#
and we haven't really had that in india
#
and the more we've had of that the
#
better i don't i don't want to get into
#
socialism and the government controlled
#
or the monopoly over the government
#
monopoly license raj and all that kind
#
of stuff i mean there's a lot wrong with
#
the way in which our history has
#
but and we've always had markets it's
#
not understand market is a
#
development we haven't had markets we
#
still don't have free markets in most
#
areas if you look at the kind of
#
if you look at the kind of entry
#
restrictions if you look at
#
you know to it's easier to get a gun
#
license in delhi and then to start a
#
business that's how many licenses you
#
you know in in dubai you can start a
#
over here it it's just um like
#
the week there are barriers to entry and
#
all of that and it hurts common people
#
ultimately any restriction on markets
#
is a redistribution of wealth from the
#
there's nothing against markets there's
#
nothing against the yeah
#
but but i do have a problem with the way
#
sells a body of ideas to you okay
#
that's a reflection of society i mean
#
you want everyone all right
#
it's maybe a reflection is maybe
#
in a certain kind of way and it's
#
the desire in you to be fair and lovely
#
or this or that or the other
#
let me give you a concrete example of
#
or of which we are a part right now that
#
you could say that the market gives you
#
annab goswami and his terrible toxic
#
rhetoric and nationalism and all of
#
but at the same time it is a market
#
to do my show my deep dive conversations
#
with people like you and so many others
#
that are taking a different line and
#
that are fighting a battle in the
#
futile as it may seem sometime but i'm
#
i'm doing that so i give markets a
#
credit for that and similarly i think
#
markets empower people including
#
markets empower women in in
#
absolutely countless ways and and we
#
should not take that for granted but i
#
mean this is a diversion from it's a
#
in my opinion because it's not as if to
#
accessing the market more democratic
#
access to the market and whatever it is
#
you start with the the basic principle
#
of do you have access to money in the
#
absolutely which is a separate problem
#
yeah so and i was trying to tell you
#
i was bringing in this thing because if
#
you're saying that the market
#
is it's us and the market is reflecting
#
but the fact of the matter is that the
#
market is thriving on that ideology okay
#
because it knows that it's the basis i'll
#
give you an example of say for instance
#
caste and endogamy in the marriage system
#
being sold now through the
#
through the advertisements that you have
#
right agency being denied and on the
#
other hand this being done
#
no just now you listen to me okay
#
because you've had your say and and i'm
#
not convinced by what you're saying so
#
you listen to what i'm saying now
#
so so at the end of the day the market
#
going with a bloody regressive ideology
#
and telling me that you should marry
#
you know you should marry within your
#
whatever it is i mean there's this
#
famous ad two ads that and market is
#
markets ideology is selling in markets
#
ideology is not ideology
#
except selling right it's not concerned
#
are you giving agents to to women or are
#
you not so you have a situation where
#
the the two examples i'd like to give
#
one is the woman the young girl who's
#
by her father dragged into and shoved
#
down to the bed and said i'd say
#
bahar jana band and it dumps her on the
#
bed they lock her and they go away mother
#
and father lock her and they go away
#
now after a little while the she's stuck
#
inside that and she doesn't her
#
her revolt is to write obviously the
#
boyfriend's name is rahul what else i
#
every lover in the whole whole world is
#
rahul so she's written rahul rahul
#
with charcoal over with a piece of black
#
right and then okay cut to next scene
#
and mother comes and sees this the girl
#
has gone either to college or whatever
#
back and then she comes back the girl
#
gets a phone call the mobile is very
#
much there so she's got the mobile and
#
what is it the room has been repainted
#
with asian paints of gloss and it's now
#
and the problem has been solved so the
#
market has solved your problem by
#
this nonsense okay this now this is
#
love is bad finding your own man is bad
#
what is what is good is to spend money
#
now you may say this is a dumb down
#
can i respond to that though you're in
#
good company because i feel you're
#
making the same conceptual error as
#
gandhiji made in hints forage
#
wherein hints forage he railed against
#
railways he said railways are evil
#
why did he feel railways are evil
#
because railways are spreading disease
#
and let me finish ideology man i'm not
#
talking about structure
#
no no let me finish no sorry i'm talking
#
about ideology i'm talking about the
#
i'm talking about the ideology of saying
#
buying and selling in and of itself is
#
going to give you bloody happiness
#
no no that's not the ideology of the
#
market because even what we are talking
#
what we are discussing now is the
#
ideology of the market it's consent
#
let me finish so you know i the markets
#
are a vehicle just as the railways are
#
a vehicle you know the same way you're
#
saying that the market's ideology is
#
selling railways ideology is
#
you know so now the let me finish don't
#
compare me with gandhi please sorry
#
okay forget gandhi just to take this
#
make a rational argument to me
#
and convince me okay okay so let's take
#
you and gandhiji out of it
#
all i'm saying is that the same mistake
#
that you can make by saying that
#
railways are bad because they spread
#
and of course disease will spread
#
faster if there is railways
#
and therefore railways are evil is the
#
same mistake that just because markets
#
can spread a particular
#
toxic point of view that markets
#
they're a vehicle and they're a vehicle
#
for me and you as much as i didn't say
#
you may turn around and tell me that i
#
don't know my my terminology correctly
#
i was talking about neoliberalism i
#
understand neoliberalism as a certain
#
in which it's not market it's actually
#
notionally it's market uh it's yes it's
#
but it is the withdrawal of the state
#
and i'm not a person who's in for the
#
framework okay but the fact of the
#
matter is that the state is meant to do
#
certain kinds of things
#
and as far as i'm concerned when you
#
and you leave people out to so at the
#
end of the day i the only choice i have
#
there's no hospital but there is apollo
#
and i have to go to apollo
#
okay because they are the only one
#
service providers as far as i'm
#
concerned because the aims of
#
doesn't have enough people or whatever
#
it is now that phenomenon in which you
#
create a certain mode of development
#
in which you put certain i mean i'm not
#
i don't know i'm intuitively responding
#
around me as a phenomenon all right and
#
you and and then the state
#
withdraws but withdraws only for what
#
not from the point of view of coercive
#
of its course of coercive apparatus
#
which has the vicious power to crush
#
because jindal or adani or somebody else
#
has to come and exploit the resources
#
i see that as an integral part of the
#
you may turn around and say i'm wrong i
#
don't understand it correctly
#
i i'm willing to buy that but i
#
neoliberal the turn to the neoliberal
#
economy in which the congress
#
has well implicated as the withdrawal of
#
state from the university system and not
#
completely denying you i mean now it'll
#
only be ashoka university
#
and only ashoka university where are
#
people going to go where are they going
#
to study how are they going to study
#
the vast sections of our people cannot
#
ashoka university okay that's also part
#
new apparatus that you've created i'm
#
uh critique of that and that's what i'm
#
saying i think we're talking past each
#
other because i'm not talking i'm not
#
using the term neoliberal because
#
you know unless you define it really
#
precisely we can talk about it in those
#
but otherwise but i see it used only as
#
a bogie term i'm happy to discuss
#
markets there are no markets in
#
health care for example there are no
#
markets allowed in education
#
those have never been exposed to free
#
markets i've had very detailed
#
so therefore to me those are examples
#
where the state's overweening hand is
#
it is actually not getting out of the
#
way you know and it should both i think
#
provide health care but
#
as well as allow the private market to
#
do its thing which it is not especially
#
it is a scandal where india is today and
#
a lot of that is because the state
#
but it won't let anyone else do it
#
either you know so but that's that's a
#
kind of this thing but education is a
#
private enterprise i'll point you to my
#
education in higher education a lot of
#
it is scammy and cronyism and whatever
#
in primary education the market is not
#
allowed to function at all
#
it is horrendous how many millions of
#
children have been deprived of
#
the state won't do its job and it won't
#
let private the private sector
#
under the what would you call it a
#
skewed state which has gone off the
#
god knows long ago uh is not doing its
#
that's that's one thing but it isn't as
#
what's it called the school system of
#
the uh the saraswati shuddhi shishu
#
flourishing across the across the
#
what are they their private enterprise
#
no no but there are the kind of
#
on budget private schools for example
#
like people have the misconception
#
private schools are only expensive
#
schools like dps or whatever
#
actually there's a book by james
#
called i forget the name i'll link it
#
from the show notes plus there have been
#
studies in delhi chennai hyderabad
#
which have shown that the poorest of
#
poor people in the slums
#
prefer to send their kids to an illegal
#
budget private school where they are
#
spending 500 rupees a month or
#
significant part of the salary because
#
let me finish because rather than to
#
rather than because the public school
#
yeah exactly that we know that we know
#
let me finish yeah but the point is
#
that those schools are repeatedly shut
#
down again and again by the
#
government the sort of regulatory
#
restrictions and private school ki
#
playground asis ka hona chahiye ye hona chahiye
#
wo hona chahiye when you're providing a
#
basic service and what you're getting in
#
is voluntary action between consenting
#
adults that's what you're
#
really getting in the way of there and
#
therefore that is you know that is
#
always wrong just on those terms
#
but you know we should argue about it
#
yeah absolutely i will know i'm not
#
easily convinced by you
#
and you may not also be easily
#
but i intuitively have also watched the
#
i mean the education model of failing
#
and firstly the state where is the state
#
there i mean this you start with the
#
real problem where is the
#
energy of the state being directed at in
#
any case right from the beginning it's a
#
state it's not delivering anything at all
#
not i mean you may build your
#
see my position in the indian state
#
we should have a state which does a few
#
a strong state that does a few things
#
instead we have have a weak state that
#
and the few things it does well other
#
things we don't want it to do well
#
you mentioned the coercive power of the
#
state and how they you know
#
sort of crack down but that aside the
#
next time i'm in delhi maybe we can
#
do an episode and just bash this out
#
but to get back to to get back to the
#
other m moving away from markets to
#
you know i was actually making the
#
marriage is being sold by the market and
#
everything is being sold by markets you
#
and i are talking this is also in the
#
market is selling marriage
#
in the widest possible way i mean now
#
see the railway is transporting
#
criminals that's why you stop
#
now you listen to me now the way you are
#
getting married is also determined by
#
but you have to have 25 lakh ka joda
#
kitne tare ke khane you have to have
#
and happiness is that moment when you
#
expensive kapda and your man is wearing
#
the designer clothes and everyone is
#
i mean you are selling marriage which is
#
in these ways to romanticize the
#
mark producing it and putting it out
#
and i don't believe that people don't
#
understand ki yeh bakwas hai
#
but it is something that makes them
#
matlab shadi pe hi to kharchna hota hai
#
all our lives we only spent on shadi
#
whether fairly or unfairly okay so
#
i was making the the point that the
#
ideology of marriage is today being
#
upheld not only by family
#
but by this famous market of yours
#
which is selling may i say something you
#
can respond to that if you want but the
#
that saying the market is selling
#
marriage is like saying the railways
#
yes of course yeah but they're carrying
#
a lot else it is a vehicle
#
sorry you're arguing in a completely
#
tangential way markets are carrying
#
if there were no markets marriage would
#
be the default toxicity would be the
#
default at least other views are getting
#
of course they're selling everything
#
yeah but they're selling marriage in a
#
hysterical way why are they doing that
#
because they've got to actually make
#
make that damn institution prop it up
#
and keep it over there and seduce people
#
into feeling that this is the
#
summum bonum of my life is going to come
#
in that moment when i'm going to
#
actually be married and the gloss is
#
part of this great romance that you're
#
you're making it an institution which is
#
actually depriving it of its
#
rot and you are doing that consciously
#
you're doing that consciously it's part
#
of both the patriarchs as well as of the
#
everyone who's playing that game over
#
there okay and why do you pull off the
#
ad where a muslim man and a hindu woman
#
i mean the market is bloody savvy
#
don't tell me that it's not
#
it'll pull off whatever it is which is
#
progressive ideology of this kind at all
#
and so i'm not going to buy your
#
argument that it's some
#
sanitized institution which is there
#
no i'm not saying that i'm saying it is
#
as neutral as telephones or railways no
#
it doesn't you can't you don't you know
#
it's it's better to have everyone make a
#
telephone call than no one make a
#
telephone call let's agree to disagree
#
let's agree to disagree uh so the next
#
question i wanted to ask about
#
about the feminist movement is that
#
again spoken about eloquently is that
#
we we can't look at the feminist
#
movement only of india but there's a
#
which is important to look at there is
#
solidarity between feminists of
#
india pakistan etc etc and it's not
#
just a solidarity which is built by
#
geography but it's also a solidarity
#
that comes from the culture and it's
#
also a solidarity that perhaps comes
#
the stereotypes that in the past have
#
about women you know where you've spoken
#
in another speech about how you're so
#
irritated by these stereotypes that
#
oh you know western women are different
#
but eastern oriental women are more
#
mothering in this and that so here
#
it goes and all of that
#
and tell me more about this south asian
#
women's movement you know i i know that
#
you've interacted a lot with
#
uh feminists from pakistan you've you've
#
kind of what's happening in the region
#
well let me begin with the spillover
#
from the previous question
#
uh and that's the rub of it actually
#
south asian patriarchies are similar
#
south asian phenomenon of similar
#
questions of caste-based endogamous or
#
whatever just controlled marriage
#
are very similar and one of the things
#
powerful piece of writing that i uh
#
found particularly uh something that i
#
with an article by neelam hussein is
#
this question of consent
#
it has this and consent and
#
or actually the in a sense the market
#
you can buy everything you need to buy
#
uh choice so choice is celebrated
#
in everything and the market is always
#
200 million items from which you can
#
notionally we have this thing but when
#
then it's a no-no then it's absolutely a
#
no-no and then will the all our teeth
#
will come out and all our viciousness
#
and all the violence that we can think
#
of will come out so at the end of the
#
day this great choice this free market
#
which gives you this endless choice
#
has to finally also meld you
#
meld you and shape you so that you can
#
go into that institution of whatever it
#
marriage systems way of whatever it is
#
so in in fundamental ways the
#
manner in which feminism
#
has had to speak to its constituency
#
over here to women over here
#
is of a different order and i often say
#
the famous custodial rape case itself
#
why is it that in india custodial rape
#
became the issue that we had to pick up
#
why is it not ordinary rape in in the
#
nobody ever spoke of custodial rape it
#
it was always taking back the night
#
being safe outside it was actually date
#
the rape in the empire why in india did
#
peculiar form of the thana being the
#
that you had to resist because there is
#
happening in this region and it's i
#
across the region that gives it a
#
gives us a certain lens which we can
#
with each other and and i think that is
#
is the organic way in which the
#
and the feminist ideology here has had
#
shape itself and emerge so there is a
#
the masculinities are similar the the
#
patriarchal entitlement is similar the
#
violence against women against this
#
similar the structure of families
#
see that as actually one of the things
#
feminists were the first to actually
#
move to and find ways in which they
#
could not only speak together but work
#
so very early on much before this you
#
know indoor park bye-bye
#
and friendship society and so on
#
feminists had cross boundaries and they
#
meeting meeting in places
#
in different places going to similar
#
sort of learning their tools
#
of analysis as well as their
#
modes of resistance in a collective
#
kind of way so you'll find that the
#
songs that are sung over there and the
#
songs that are sung over here
#
are often similar i mean there and
#
they are what would you call it they are
#
trans not translations but they are
#
they are adaptations of
#
common songs that used to be said i in
#
the progressive singing all the songs
#
are sung right there you know so when
#
where i used to go and teach was first
#
they were all singing you know to
#
zinda hai tu zindagi ki jeet mein
#
yakin kar and it's the same songs that
#
we sang there and there
#
and i think that aazadi song the
#
aazadi slogan of kanhaiya kumar which
#
she got famous for wasn't originated in
#
whole series of things and of course
#
from there it travels to
#
it's the feminists who discover it and
#
it's gone to it went to kashmir it
#
in jnu or whatever it is its
#
amazing but i was thinking even of things
#
like the adaptation to the
#
songs itself the kabbalies and stuff
#
you know the the the feminist
#
take on the songs is part of the
#
innovation because they would be
#
in month-long workshops and they would
#
create the music together and so on and
#
so there was a kind of organic link and
#
it felt very different from going to
#
there is something like a cultural and
#
geographical relationship in this area
#
which means that i will not have it if i
#
and i will not have it also if i go to
#
certainly have it when i go to other
#
parts of the world so in a sense that
#
something so it makes sense that we
#
engaging and speaking to each other and
#
a lot of interesting work was done
#
theater specialists cross the borders
#
ratti bartholomew went to both
#
bangladesh and to pakistan to do street
#
theater workshops and stuff like that so
#
there was a lot of this
#
backing and forthing and creative
#
engagement that that was happening
#
it then led to two things one is a
#
famous statement and i think it was put
#
out in 83 it was called the
#
south asian feminist south asian
#
statement a common statement and
#
they were if i'm not mistaken looking at
#
transformed societies perhaps market and
#
liberal and whatever it is
#
there was a statement that was created
#
by feminists and it included
#
kumari jaya vardhana from srilanka
#
and it had the doans from here and it
#
from bangladesh and pakistan and stuff
#
like that so that was an early
#
engagement that they had by the 90s i
#
think the impulse to have
#
more of this interaction and also maybe
#
which could speak to our students and
#
more be more easily accessible came up
#
in lahore an institute was set up it was
#
called the institute of women's studies
#
and the good point about it was that it
#
they used the donor system the
#
let's say the direction in which
#
organizations had gone which is to say
#
you know they were funded organizations
#
it was a fully funded course so some
#
donors or the others had given the money
#
and it was an entirely free course you
#
you didn't have to pay for your travel
#
you didn't have to pay for your stay over
#
and you could go and you spent three
#
months and it was a compressed course
#
which would have been otherwise
#
spent over maybe six months or eight
#
months or whatever it is it was taught
#
in a three-month period intensive three
#
and I was drawn into it as
#
as the historian who could teach this
#
history component and whatever it is and
#
that's how I started to go in 98 and I
#
my introduction to South Asian
#
feminist thinking as well as to
#
my window into Pakistan and to
#
the women's movement in multiple parts
#
in Pakistan was very strong through the
#
the participation in this course so that
#
was a very very creative
#
venture and unlike many other you gave
#
the example somewhere else about
#
whatever it was but I first saw
#
Pakistani women and the Indian women
#
in the shared stories of the sexual
#
because they had the same stories that
#
they told that Urvashi Batalia was
#
telling over here so in a sense you know
#
you could also see that there was
#
borders boundaries kuch bhi ho at the
#
aur toki jo it was exactly the same
#
world so that was actually quite quite
#
you had to strip off this nationalist
#
and say only one one section suffered
#
or whatever it is you know
#
at the end of the day so I I think that
#
all that happened it was an
#
time as far as I was concerned because
#
I noted I had to be very creative
#
in my syllabus because it had to speak
#
the post-nation status of
#
all these countries in terms of
#
historical and social experience
#
through the kinds of issues that I put
#
into the course the kind of
#
take that I put into the course and I
#
found that that was a challenge and it
#
it was something that I enjoyed and I
#
learned an incredible amount from
#
those sessions that I went across to
#
apart from the fact that I was able to
#
Harappa to Mohenjo-Daro to Taxila
#
so I I could actually access the
#
divided histories of our of
#
of this region and it was it was an
#
incredible incredibly rich
#
not only understanding each other but in
#
seeing the practice of feminism
#
as it's translated in different cultural
#
in the region so that was something that
#
and it also gave me my occasion to
#
listen to Iqbal Banu sitting right in
#
you know who was told that he won't go
#
so she said okay she smiled and and then
#
I'm sitting right in front of her just
#
like you're sitting and I'm sitting
#
right there and she's singing
#
and then she comes to a line which is
#
it's a very lovely memory that I have it
#
and she thinks that I might feel
#
offended because I'm she's talking about
#
and then she points to me and she says
#
you know so I should not feel offended
#
the statement in the thing and I said to
#
her and it's all right you know I don't
#
not I make a gesture to her in whatever
#
way but it's very sweet of her
#
to draw me into the ethos of the song
#
and to understand it in its in its
#
proper context so I had
#
some really incredible experiences of
#
that kind over there and
#
it's something that also has
#
shaped I mean students are students
#
everywhere you know same kind of
#
same issues that they're all
#
struggling with and so on that all that
#
happening over there same family
#
structures that they actually have to
#
fight back same ways that they have
#
to grow to be who they are with the
#
struggles that they have to do
#
starting first with family you know
#
husband to buy me out there
#
so you realize what a great fall it is
#
that there was a time where you were
#
sitting opposite iqbal bano and now
#
you're sitting opposite me
#
who's insisting on market liberalism
#
okay so here's my next question and
#
and this is about a phrase that I've
#
a cultural mobilization I think I've
#
heard you use it in the context of
#
street plays like Roshni and like all
#
the stuff that was happening in the
#
and the thing is at one level a woman's
#
is just about protesting against a
#
state that everything that's going
#
wrong and going out there and
#
mobilizing and doing all of that
#
but at another level it is also about
#
sort of spreading that consciousness
#
reaching out to as many people as
#
possible and so on and so forth
#
and therefore that brings in a sort of
#
a strategic element that what resources
#
do we have how do we use these
#
resources resources how do we
#
mobilize how do we institutionalize
#
something good that is forming
#
because on the other side we know that
#
the state has unlimited power and
#
today so they can set their it cells
#
after you they can send ed after you or
#
but you know as a protest movement you
#
know what have your learnings been
#
through these decades about
#
how we can mobilize and how we can kind
#
build that ecosystem of protest
#
the women's movement in feminist
#
has not had to directly confront the
#
we've had to confront every other
#
institution but not the state
#
and the state has often presented itself
#
to be some kind of an ally
#
whom you can push to transform the laws
#
or i mean dowry violence
#
if it's custodial rape you'll create a
#
which will shift the onus of whatever
#
so those kinds of things were possible
#
because the state would not directly
#
confront the women's movement
#
uh the women's movement was regarded as
#
tk your rights manga and
#
it is not they have saw it as dangerous
#
ever at that so they work with you they
#
stall they may cheat they may turn
#
around and whatever it is and
#
they've always the the right right thing
#
to do is for them to say
#
yes yes we are there and we'll so for
#
the classic example i would give you is
#
2013 new laws that come that is
#
post-nirbhaya and the new laws and you
#
can see the trajectory very
#
it is our great moment the women's
#
achievement is that they are able to
#
influence the commission the varma
#
to listen to us and listen to us in all
#
our seriousness and by that time we have
#
huge amount of experience and we are in
#
commanding position to be able to speak
#
over there you know so we can actually i
#
it's an interesting thing but as an
#
commission members says says is told
#
because he's got a staff
#
of young people and these the staff of
#
young people are telling him
#
you know what what should be read and
#
what should be not be read
#
and they have told him to read gendering
#
goes back and he comes back prepared to
#
look at the relationship between caste
#
and gender and whatever it is
#
and that's all come from these young
#
lawyers who are advising them
#
so it's a moment where we can speak to
#
i made the opening statement and i said
#
to you know women are facing violence
#
from the home to the street to the
#
fields and to the border i mean and the
#
border was brought in particularly
#
in the in in those outlying regions you
#
have the afspa and whatever it is
#
so it was our great achievement that we
#
speak to them at the end of the day
#
what come what varma did was to give
#
a sort of progress reasonably
#
progressive i think the whole
#
that is leela leela leela seth
#
and and gopal varma gopal subramanian
#
they they created um what you might
#
consider to be a bill of rights
#
and we put in everything over there that
#
can that they should be you know there
#
sexual violence rape rapes should not
#
for you to go and get home ministry
#
sanction before you can file a
#
rape case in the border areas
#
or and of course we had also put in
#
marital rape and stuff like that so it
#
critical moment in which the women's
#
movement was speaking to the commission
#
that was going to give you the
#
new uh suggest the new body of laws
#
now of course at the end we lost out on
#
the two critical areas and neither the
#
nor the marital rape did we get but by
#
and large they tried to tinker with the
#
rest nothing has come out of it because
#
it was prior statements that were made
#
at that point of time and
#
we know that sexual violence has
#
continued and been pretty
#
whatever it is so our confrontation with
#
the state has not been strong
#
and not needed to be strong because they
#
say that they are allies whether they are
#
allies or not is another question
#
i think we hit a critical moment and
#
in a sense the ca protest is the class
#
is that turning point it's not nirbhaya
#
but unfortunately you know if the way
#
we write our feminist history
#
and our feminists will also join up with
#
that is that they'll tell it as if to
#
say that's a turning point
#
the turning point is actually to my mind
#
protests and the fact that women are out
#
and in large numbers and claiming
#
the constitution for itself and
#
actually the minority question
#
quote unquote the minority was the
#
comes to dominate the public sphere
#
in a way which it had not done before
#
and these girls who come out and it's a
#
new generation it's a new generation
#
of young women who are coming from
#
in in places jamia is filled with
#
have come from it's not only jnu that
#
they're coming in they're coming from
#
all over from from all the way from
#
kerala to the small towns of up to
#
the northeast or whatever everyone is
#
so it's a very vital space and then the
#
that protest of theirs you know
#
ferreting them out from the even from
#
entering the washrooms and pulling them
#
it's the grossest form of state violence
#
unleashed upon a student community
#
and then the Shaheen Bagh itself
#
is something that its potential
#
is massive its capacity to raise
#
is huge there's no doubt that they are
#
that this is this is the moment where
#
the feminist movement and the
#
democratic movement and the liberal
#
society and the secular society can all
#
come together but how is it then
#
how does it end and it ends in the
#
in the manipulator riots of delhi and
#
it ends then with the incarceration of
#
these young women who come out and stand
#
secular india and for citizenship rights
#
for the girl the girls and women who
#
have waived the constitution
#
and you know pair out the dhanda and
#
committed themselves to the
#
constitution you know the constitution
#
becomes a document that has come alive
#
a moment where you could actually see
#
the culmination of the women's movement
#
in a certain kind of way and then how is
#
it dealt with it is repressed with the
#
worst form of repression
#
and unfortunately the women's movement
#
has not been able to do anything about
#
so we have our young people who have
#
gone to jail and come out
#
some on bail some not on bail there are
#
others who are still out there
#
and they're rotting and what can the
#
what is the women's even trying to do
#
you know it's not sure so at the end of
#
the day what is this about i mean for me
#
i'm not a feminist who's feminist
#
but i'm a feminist and and
#
and is the key the key to
#
what kind of society do you want what
#
kind of people do you want what kind of
#
you know citizenship notion do you have
#
so you know from going from
#
kagas nahi dikhayenge to
#
to kya kiya tumne aur sara humara desh
#
jo hai wo baith karke dekh raha hai
#
taak raha hai everybody your market
#
economy is also doing it your my
#
notable world is also doing everyone is
#
everyone's state and society are the
#
problem markets ko mat lao
#
market soki dhool ke dhule main
#
state kharab hai society kharab hai
#
aur market kahan se aayega jo dhool kar thula hua
#
anyway you you keep your opinions
#
and i will not be convinced by it but
#
it's a it's a moment as why will i not
#
you tell me i can do nothing about
#
getting these girls out
#
aren't they out now what do you mean aren't
#
devangana and natasha were released
#
devangana and natasha released
#
safura comes out on the ground that
#
but there's gulfishan still in jail
#
and i think there's one other person i
#
i would have thought the cao protests
#
that at a time where i was pretty
#
hopeless fill me with a lot of hope
#
because you have young people
#
across the country spontaneously
#
marching on the streets
#
with the preambles now the state will
#
is that really a reason to be
#
hopeless i mean people are still
#
you and i are still talking you yeah
#
we're talking kids are still talking
#
in between i've had the
#
who knows how long the this thing and
#
way in which you have to squash the
#
what were the inquiries on you about
#
i'm not going to tell you that now
#
okay i've taken a lot of your time
#
kind of we'll start winding up with you
#
you know a two-part question really
#
like it is customary for for me to ask
#
my guests at the end of my show to
#
books films music that they absolutely
#
love for me and you never asked me
#
about my filmmaking career
#
anyway i didn't even get a chance to
#
talk about your work on cast and all of
#
would you like to talk about that i'm
#
happy to sit here for an hour no i
#
oh no i saw you looking at your watch
#
that's why i thought i should wind up
#
well done we i think we've we are both
#
let that uh get in the way uh and uh you
#
know all all relevant links to you will
#
be in the show notes so i'm sure
#
listeners are going to buy your books
#
and discover your work by themselves
#
but i'm going to break that last
#
question up into a two-part question
#
that the first part the second part
#
rather what you can end with is just
#
stuff that gives you joy and that you
#
really love as an individual
#
but the first part is for people who are
#
listening to this who are
#
interested in learning about any of
#
that you care about deeply you know
#
gender caste buddhism indian society
#
and you feel that there are uh
#
important texts that will help them
#
understand this and give them frames to
#
kind of figure it out besides your own
#
which i recommend strongly what would
#
you what would you recommend
#
on caste i think recent work around
#
ambetkar ambetkar and annihilation
#
of uh v gita's actually
#
with v gita's work on buddhism and
#
or ambetkar and marxism i think is an
#
it's an expensive book but it's i think
#
circulating i can't remember it there's
#
a new book on buddhism which i
#
personally like and i wish i had written
#
return of buddhism into india in the
#
from the starting off from the 19th
#
century it's by a chap called douglas
#
douglas uber uber it's a marvelous
#
plotting of the revival of buddhism
#
step by step by step by step and it's
#
well written so you can actually begin
#
the the suppressed histories of the
#
and of you know a sort of more insular
#
phase that we may have gone through
#
is broken in the late 19th century
#
and into the 20th century and there are
#
very important people who are involved
#
in that in that enterprise i mean there
#
towering figures there are all
#
acharya narendra dev there is there is
#
so you dharmanand kosambi that is the
#
dd kosambi there are a number of these
#
people who actually then
#
begin to do the slow work of travel
#
dissemination interaction with others
#
and sort of slowly reviving an
#
so that i don't think that you know the
#
ambedkar comes to buddhism like
#
hey press like a flash in the head
#
there is some work that we say and
#
there's also a history of
#
anticastist engagements in maharashtra
#
which are powerful you know so so they
#
all this is assembled as material that
#
i think finally ends with ambedkar's
#
conversion which i find very powerful
#
the tendency has been for the for
#
the liberal intelligence quote-unquote
#
hindu intelligentsia to pretend that
#
buddhism and hinduism are the same
#
given the fact that he was made into the
#
it's like as if to say and the worst
#
person in this scheme is radhakrishnan
#
who in the 1956 when the
#
you're celebrating the 2500th year
#
of the cell of buddhism he writes the
#
and he says the buddha was born a hindu
#
he lived as a hindu and he died as a
#
so there's no originality in the
#
man at all he is just whatever
#
but that's coming from the highest
#
quota he's the president of india at
#
that point of time you know
#
so i think from that point of view it's
#
collection and i i think that's
#
something very powerful and available
#
and if you are in search of a
#
humane it's actually almost equivalent
#
because there is no there's no god in
#
this so at the end of the day you can
#
agnostic atheist and you can be a
#
buddhist because at the end of the day
#
that's not critical you don't have to
#
in the discovery i mean there is a
#
the emergence of the world and stuff
#
like that but it's not there's no
#
godhead that you're supposed to think
#
if people have turned buddha into a god
#
that's the work of the the followers it
#
has nothing to do with the way the
#
so it allows you actually to be retain
#
your openness from the point of view of
#
understanding the world
#
and yet to be moved by a body of ideas
#
which you can actually internalize and
#
use for yourself so i can see the
#
logic of why the buddha
#
why ambedkar chooses buddhism over
#
else and even on the question of
#
i i myself had some ambivalence scale
#
do you need to be converted and gay
#
lombard pointed out very succinctly to
#
you know you you can't exit one culture
#
religious ideology without actually
#
antidote to it you can't go you can't go
#
nothing so you have to create a body of
#
ethical or cultural modes of being
#
which allow you to transplant and give
#
being in that space so that i
#
understand so and i now
#
see that there is a complete rationale
#
to choosing to saying that i
#
was born a hindu but i will not die a
#
and i take the diksha and from whatever
#
accounts that i have from people
#
this was a powerful moment it's just a
#
few months before he dies
#
but it is a powerful moment he goes to
#
he goes to nepal his last speech in
#
quite powerful so in a sense there has
#
values the broader values of which we
#
try to put in some form into the
#
but by which one can actually bring
#
ethics and compassion and
#
humanity together in a way of being
#
in a political society and so to that
#
something that's creative time creative
#
a any other books that you think are
#
you know just giving people new frames
#
to look at the world with
#
or that any books that change the way
#
you think about the world
#
or we can simply skip on to the second
#
part of the question which is stuff that
#
you just love and which give you joy
#
stuff that gives me joy that
#
i'm not sure that i can point to i
#
evolution of things so multiple things
#
you grow to to internalize them and to
#
make them part of yourself and
#
your own way of thinking and it's such a
#
slow process that you are not very sure
#
how does it come and it can come from
#
any source you know it can come from
#
reading about somebody's life it can
#
it can come from a body of ideas
#
it can come simply out of experience
#
some kind of experience and i'm not a
#
mystical person i'm not into
#
that kind of stuff i do not meditate i
#
i do not do any of that so maybe it'll
#
help me but i i don't do any of that i
#
don't do the pasana which is very
#
with people and stuff but
#
i think that i would still say that what
#
is it that makes me feel
#
somewhere that i can go beyond the world
#
as you see see it i think music has that
#
power as far as i'm concerned
#
and devotional music has that power
#
regular music so i can any specific
#
favorite i can i can actually feel
#
moved even by the gregorian chant and i
#
can feel moved definitely by
#
bheem sanjoshi singing his devranamas or
#
jo bhaje hari kosada or whatever it is i
#
can i can feel moved by
#
all of that i can feel very moved
#
by the cross cutting frames you know of
#
people who bring different traditions
#
when vaishnav ajanto is sung by a kawal
#
now that's something that can give me a
#
kick is there a specific rendition you
#
i can't uh name the thing but there's a
#
singer from it's a it's a local kawali
#
it is a gujarat based one which sings
#
vaishnav ajanto in kawali style and it's
#
well i can send you a link send me the
#
link later i'll put it in the show
#
so that's that's definitely one there's
#
i was just thinking uh i mean there's
#
different ways and and which even
#
ordinary beautiful music uh which is not
#
can give me that uh that sense of okay
#
i can feel that the world of this
#
can somewhere be left behind and there's
#
this sheer beauty that you can
#
engage with and uh that is quite
#
powerful i will send you
#
whatever links i i i can you know uh
#
there's there's an air rehmann one which
#
a lot i mean his composition in which a
#
and i think it's a turkish singer or a
#
together sing something and there's a
#
chorus around and there's fantastic
#
instrumental accompanish accompaniments
#
very very very beautiful so that that's
#
can and in the middle of the covid when i
#
which was my birthday i simply
#
putting on on the youtube whatever you
#
by way of the music that i liked and so i
#
created a concert for myself
#
for two hours and i felt very pleased
#
i could plug in it was like a jukebox
#
that you could do and i really enjoyed
#
is it a playlist you have the link to i'd
#
love that link if you have i'm not sure
#
assemble it but i did that i did that
#
and i really enjoyed myself
#
so it was very good you know to listen
#
so i i can send you uh bits of it
#
music has that capacity i can't sing
#
and my dying statement will be that if
#
reborn i'm not sure that i believe in
#
but if i am born again i want to be born
#
i will only study history and practice
#
i only want one other thing which is i
#
want to be able to sing
#
and i want to live in better times than
#
well if you're born again you will live
#
in better times and now because how much
#
hopefully you will come on the show
#
again in your next avatar
#
but you know thank you so much for these
#
recommendations thanks to the
#
benevolent power of markets me and all
#
my listeners can access them and indeed
#
i must thank markets for bringing you
#
and i together at this very moment
#
so no but seriously thank you for your
#
time and insights i've really i mean
#
it's the first time we've met but
#
you've been so generous with your
#
thoughts in your time that i've learned
#
a lot from you thank you
#
if you enjoyed listening to this
#
episode check out the show notes
#
enter rabbit holes at will share it with
#
anyone you think might be interested
#
umar doesn't seem to be on twitter or
#
at least she's not active
#
but you can follow me on twitter at
#
amit varma a m i t b a r m a you can
#
browse past episodes of the scene and
#
the unseen at scene unseen
#
thank you for listening
#
did you enjoy this episode of the scene
#
and the unseen if so would you like to
#
support the production of the show
#
you can go over to scene unseen dot i n
#
slash support and contribute any amount
#
you like to keep this podcast alive and
