Thrissur, New York, and a few besides

For Jashn-e-Azadi, this week begins with a screening on Feb 24th at Thrissur in Kerala, where it will show at the Vibgyor International Film Festival.

This will be followed by a screening at on Feb 27th at New York University, part of the South Asia Documentary Screening Series curated by NYU Libraries.

This has been a busy month: the last screening, organised by the student group AISA at the Delhi School of Economics, Dept of Sociology turned into an event far outside of itself. From the day it was announced, the screening was under scrutiny by the usual stalwarts of the Right Wing. (And the Deccan Herald began to describe the film as “Symbiosis banned”, whatever that means.) Although the usual suspects showed up to ‘protest’ the event, the picture accompanying the report in The Hindu makes clear that the ABVP (and the unfortunately named Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena) are not yet a major force on the Delhi University campus. (Estimates for that day varied from 15 to 20 youths)

But the reports in the Indian Express and particularly in The Times of India, draw attention to something remarkable that happened that afternoon on campus. Simply put, the Dept of Sociology stood its ground, and insisted upon its right to show such material as was thought appropriate for the students. Dr Nandini Sundar, Head of the department, read out to the students the letter written to the Proctor, which said that

“the film screening in question is a routine matter in our department, and it has never been the practice to take permission for such screenings which pertain to our academic program.”

In the face of this clear and unambiguous position, both the University authorities, and the Delhi Police were forced to support that stance. The Times of India quotes the Dy Commissioner Police (North), I B Rani’s quite significant response:

“Since it was a private screening, there was no need for students to seek permission from us. The film was shown inside the classroom. We had, however, decided to station our officers at the spot after getting intelligence inputs that certain groups might protest in the area.Though some protested outside the venue, we did not need to arrest or detain anyone”.

Later  AISA issued a statement which can be read here on kafila.org

(Not many noticed that the same day as the Dept of Sociology screening, a smaller, more quiet screening was held by the Informal Discussion Group at St Stephen’s College. An excellent discussion followed… Different strokes work for different folks)

Perhaps there is a lesson in this for those at the Symbiosis College in Pune (and the Pune Police) whose reaction was to crawl when they were simply asked to bend. Our previous post has some of the links to that story, but in case you missed those you could start with the excellent coverage in The Hindu. If you want to draw cheer from the sad goings on in Pune, there is an excellent post by a student of Symbiosis, Akshat Jitendranath. We like to think that Akshat had been provoked by a commentary a few days earlier on the same site by the redoubtable Shuddhabrata Sengupta.

Kafila.org also carries an excellent account of a more samizdat screening held last week at Presidency College, Kolkata, posted by one its organisers, Waled Adnan. Apart from an ‘alert’ that appeared in the Indian Express, the coverage in the Kolkata editions of The Hindu, The Hindustan Times, The Telegraph, and the Indian Express do give a sense of the possibilities of student action! All power to students!

Finally, for perspective you could also read Shanta Gokhale’s excellent commentary in Mumbai Mirror, Mayank Shekhar blogging in The Hindustan Times, and Shivam Vij on First Post.

As you can see, a busy week for a 5 year old film!

‘Cinema of Resistance’: Katiyan, Uttar Pradesh

This week Jashn-e-Azadi was the closing film at the 2nd Nainital Film Festival, part of the ‘Pratirodh ka Cinema‘ (Cinema of Resistance) circuit of film festivals that have been so patiently (and brilliantly) put together by film-activists of Jan Sanskriti Manch. Fast growing into a legend on the alternative cinema circuit, the Gorakhpur Film Festival (already headed for its 6th edition) has spawned a series of clones all over Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Marked by a sharp curatorial sense, and a remarkable insistence on remaining unfunded (despite many offers of funding and sponshorship) the Cinema of Resistance festivals – and the many one-off screenings and workshops that they have encouraged –  are a truly unique initiative in the democratisation of screening culture in India. (And perhaps in the world)

Jashn-e-Azadi has been shown–and allow us this little list–at the following ‘Pratirodh ka Cinema‘ events:

• 3rd Gorakhpur Film Festival , Feb 26, 2008
• 1st Bareilly Film Festival , Jun 8, 2008
• 1st Patna Film Festival, Dec 27, 2009
• 3rd Lucknow Film Festival, Oct 10, 2010
• 1st Jabalpur Saarthak Cinema Karyashala (Meaningful Cinema Workshop) jointly organized with Pahal parivaar, Sept 4, 2010
• 2nd Nainital Film Festival, Oct 31, 2010
  (for those who can read devanagari, a brief report on the screening from the DewalthalPost)

Quietly upstaging all these remarkable screenings though, is one that we were not witness to. I’ve received a heart-warming report about it though, from Baijnathji, who mans the sales desk at all the ‘Pratirodh ka Cinema‘ events. Here is his account, in a quick translation:

27 April. Since 1995, every year 27 April refreshes the memories of a special day for my family, because that is the day our father died an untimely death. My father was simple by temperament, but in his personality there was a commitment to struggle. From the ordinary position as a laborer, he spent his life fighting against exploitation, injustice, and atrocities, and was always seen on the side of the oppressed.

After his death, a tradition has come about of organizing something in his memory on 27 April every year. Sometimes its a story reading, sometimes a discussion on the problems of farmers. But this year our doorway saw something quite different. We remembered him as we do every year, but in a different way. In the evening about 40-50 children, some young people and some old men and women were sitting there. On a table was a television. The children were thinking that a Bollywood film will start. The older people were hopeful that it would be the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. But when my brother set up the system, and ran it, what  they began to see was Majid Majidi’s Iranian film “The Children of Heaven”. In just a little while the whispering amongst the crowd turned into silence. When it ended, there was a demand to run the same film again. But the fear of a power cut made it necessary for us to begin the second film.

Sanjay Kak’s “Jashn-e-Azadi” began. As the film went on, the silence began to break. Watching the scenes from the film people began to whisper amongst each other. After the film it was tea time. But the electricity turned it all dark. But despite this people sat on the matting outside at our doorstep till late at night talking about this film about Kashmir.

In this large village situated on the borders of Bihar, the little doorstep of our house saw a few educated young people, some children, lawyers and teachers engrossed in arguments and counter-arguments of the reality of Kashmir, and the women were even abusing the army. People were saying that such films should be shown all over the place.

Baijnath Mishra
son of late Virendra (“Vaikunth”) Mishra
Village Katiyan, Post Office Katkuiyan
Dist Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh

For those who can read Devanagari, here is the original report too: Enjoy!

२७ अप्रैल – प्रत्येक वर्ष १९९५ की २७ अप्रैल की यादें ताज़ा कर जाता है . यह दिन मेरे परिवार के लिए एक खास दिन होता है. क्योंकि इसी दिन हमारे पिताजी की असमय मृत्यु हो गयी थी . मेरे पिताजी का स्वभाव सरल एवं व्यक्तित्व संघर्षशील था . अपनी छोटी सी औकात में श्रमिक जीवन व्यतीत करते हुए, शोषण, अन्याय, व अत्याचार के खिलाफ हमेशा पीड़ितों के पक्ष में खड़े दिखाई देते थे .

उनके निधन के बाद प्रत्येक वर्ष २७ अप्रैल को उनकी याद में मेरे घर कुछ न कुछ आयोजन करने की परंपरा विकसित हो चुकी है . कभी कहानी पाठ, कभी कृषक समस्याओं पर विचार विमर्श हुआ करता था . लेकिन इस वर्ष मेरे दरवाज़े पर कुछ अलग ही दृश्य दिखाई दिया . प्रत्येक वर्ष की भांति इस वर्ष भी उन्हें याद किया गया लेकिन तरीका बदला हुआ था . शाम को कुछ ४०-५० बच्चे, कुछ युवक  व कुछ वृद्ध पुरुष और  महिलाएं बैठे हुए थे . सामने एक मेज़ पर टेलीविजन  रखा हुआ था . बच्चे यह सोच रहे थे कि कोई बॉलीवुड कि फिल्म चलेगी . वहीँ   उम्रदराज़ लोग रामायण या महाभारत देखने कि आस लगाये हुए थे . लेकिन मेरे भाई ने टेलीविजन का सिस्टम ठीक करके उसे चलाया तो माजिद मजीदी की  ईरानी फिल्म “द  चिल्ड्रेन ऑफ़ हेवन” का नज़ारा दिखाई देने लगा . कुछ ही समय बाद आपस की फुसफुसाहट मौन रूप में बदल गई . फिल्म के समाप्त होने पर उसी फिल्म को दोबारा चलाने की मांग उठाने लगे . लेकिन बिजली काट जाने की आशंका को देखते हुए दूसरी फिल्म दिखाया जाना आवश्यक था .

संजय काक द्वारा निर्देशित डॉकुमेंटरी “जश्न-ए-आज़ादी” आरम्भ हुई . और फिल्म ज्यूँ- ज्यूँ आगे बढती गयी लोगों की ख़ामोशी भी टूटती गयी . फिल्म के दृश्यों को देखकर लोग आपस में एक दूसरे से काना फूसी करना आरंभ कर दिए . फिल्म के समाप्त होने के पश्चात चाय का दौर प्रारंभ हुआ . लेकिन बिजली नें अँधेरा कर दिया. बावजूद इसके लोग देर रात तक मेरे दरवाज़े पर चटाई पर बैठे-बैठे देर रात तक कश्मीर  पर बनाई इस फिल्म के बारे में चर्चा करते रहे .

बिहार सीमा पर स्थित मेरे बड़े से गाँव के मेरे छोटे से दरवाज़े पर कुछ किसान, कुछ पढ़े-लिखे युवक, बच्चे, वकील और अध्यापक जमकर कश्मीरी हकीकत पर आपस में तर्क वितर्क करते रहे और महिलाएं तो सेना को गलियां भी दे रही थी . ऐसी फिल्म को लोग कह रहे थे कि  जगह-जगह दिखाया जाना चाहिए.

बैजनाथ मिश्र
पुत्र स्व: वीरेन्द्र (उर्फ़ वैकुण्ठ) मिश्र
ग्राम: कटियाँ , पोस्ट: काटकुइयां
जिला: कुशीनगर  (उ.प्र)

 

blogflash: report on the San Jose screening

We’re happy to post a ‘report’ on the screening of Jashn-e-azadi on August 6, 2010, at the San Jose Peace and Justice Center, San Jose , CA. The event was sponsored by Culture & Conflict Forum and co-sponsored by San Jose Peace and Justice Center. The discussion was moderated by Yasmin Qureshi, whose account of her trip to Kashmir in August 2009, The fate of Kashmir, some of you may already have read on Counterpunch.

Yasmin has forwarded three email responses she received after the screening, and below that, the Q&A she conducted with the audience:

I.

Jashn-e-Azadi was released in 2007 and it has taken me until now to finally watch it, thanks to a screening organized by the Culture and Conflict Forum at the San Jose Peace Center on Friday, August 3rd, 2010. It’s difficult to remember the details, the names and the incidents from the documentary, but the extraordinary impression one leaves with, an impression that continue to haunt long after the screening, is the pervasiveness of the Indian military and paramilitary presence in Kashmir and the universal opposition to it. It’s one thing to have heard that there are 700,000 troops deployed there, one soldier for every 15 Kashmiris; it’s quite another to see them everywhere, in the city square, the streets and alleys, the countryside. It’s also one thing to have heard about the opposition to this military presence, and quite another to witness, through this documentary, the manifestation of this universal opposition from women, men and children of all ages, with huge turn outs at protests, funerals and marches, and even a street play. And, in striking contrast, was the observance of Indian Independence Day by the military forces under conditions of curfew with deserted streets.
Whatever be one’s position on the question of Kashmir, one thing is for clear from watching this documentary, that this situation cannot continue. Not for long. That inevitably raises the question where to from here. That indeed must have been what prompted some of the lively discussion that followed the screening, even though the question itself is not raised in the documentary, let alone addressed in it. To have raised this question is perhaps the most important service that this documentary has done.
It is easy to frame the question in religious terms, Kashmiri Muslims versus Kashmiri Hindus, facile terms made to appear justified on account of the tragic displacement of Pandits from the Valleys and the roles played by Pakistan and the Afghan mujahedeen in promoting violence. But to do so would also be to ignore that to most Kashmiris, it is a struggle for freedom and national self-determination, a struggle in the making for over 500 years that gave rise to Kashmiriyat, the unity of Kashmiris of all religions, a struggle in which religion has not been the divisive factor that it is portrayed to be in India.

II.

The first half of the film was like watching a thriller and left me spellbound! It moved so fast. There were 4 parallel tracks or stories – one of the old man searching for his son’s grave which was very touching, covering the militant resistance and what it did. Second the man surveying and documenting number of deaths. Third the arrogant attitude of Indians, as if they own and control Kashmir through the tourists and later through the pilgrims. Lastly the play which is very important as it explains the 100s of years of colonization and how Kashmiris were docile then but are now determined to fight for self determination. The history is important to understand why kashmiris want freedom.
The scene of the women walking in the mosque followed by prayers in the snow was very surreal. The first half was complete in itself and maybe the Q&A session should have been then instead of in the end. It would have given more time for discussion. The scenes were going back and forth which may have been confusing for someone who doesn’t know much about the history and sequence of events.

III.

The film is not a comprehensive analysis of the Kashmir situation.. And it is not a straightforward narrative; (often, there wasn’t much narrative.. and in that regard it reminded me of Amar Kanwar’s Night of Prophecy). there are no easy answers, or clear sides that one can easily take. The film touched a nerve in me on many levels. In parts I wasn’t sure what the director was getting at. For example he hints at the plight of the pandits, and the religious dimension of the resistance; but doesn’t make any further comment on it. One thing came through loud and clear, though – it showed what an occupation by the Indian army looks like (and it does not look pretty).
The shots of Srinagar during Indian independence day were especially telling. If you have to put the entire city under lockdown in order to “celebrate” your independence, you aren’t having much “independence”, are you? And this is why it is probably an important movie to watch.

IV.

I think that the film – or the half of it that I saw- did not have much focus. Not because of any fault of the director but because of the need to show the film to a larger audience in India, the director perhaps was constrained to come out and show what he truly belivies to be the issue at stake. This lack of focus, in my view, is a direct measure of the sorry state of affairs vis a vis Kashmir in India. There is a dire need to keep the focus on Kashmir issue in and out of India by people like the director of this film who care for the people of Kashmir.

V.

It showed very well the beautiful people and the beauty of the region but also the poverty and violence. But the film was very long and confusing — it kept switching back and forth between different incidents of violence, interviews with people.

Question and Answer session
(Questions were answered by Yasmin Qureshi, member of Culture and Conflict Forum. She had visited the Kashmir valley in August 2009.)

Q: What was the message of the film?

A: Well, the director Sanjay Kak leaves it to the audience really. His objective was to bring out the voices of the people of Kashmir since we rarely read about them in the media and open an avenue for discussion on the issues and aspirations of the Kashmiris. Back in 2007 the word azadi for Kashmir was shocking for Indians. As a Kashmiri Sanjay wanted to make a film about the people there and what they feel.

Q: It is true the media doesn’t cover the Kashmiri Muslims but it also doesn’t cover
the pundits either. How do you justify the killing and migration of 100,000 pandits?

A: I disagree the media doesn’t cover the pundits. In fact most articles published in India on Kashmir address this issue. What they don’t cover is what the army is doing there, the murders, missing people, rapes and what the people there want and why. Recently Shivam Vij had a detailed article on the pundits living in Delhi area in kafila.org.
Yes, what happened to the pundits is unjustifiable. And certainly Pakistan and the Afghan mujahedeen had a role to play as Kashmiris started crossing borders to get training in the 90s. The people I spoke to in the valley last year wanted them to come back. People there at this point are not in favor of a militant resistance.

Q: You mentioned the media and I am comparing to the media coverage of Palestine in Israel.
How is the Indian media coverage?

A: As I mentioned earlier, Kashmir is not covered well in the Indian media. Discussing aspirations of Kashmiris is taboo. For example, no one wanted to publish my article, Democracy Under the Barrel of a Gun in India. The media does write about the presence of army and that the Indian govt needs to deal with it but what they don’t cover is what the militarization has done to the society. Or the root causes such as the annexation, as Kashmiris say, The Brahminical rule of India’. Mass graves were found, many women have been raped. This is not covered very well not just by Indian media but also the international media. There isn’t a discussion on what and why Kashmiris want azadi and what it means.
Siddharth Varadhrajan wrote an article recently on the protests in Hindu. He mentioned the elections of 2008. What he didn’t mention is that Kashmiris participated in them more to vote for local governance issues and not anything to do with future of Kashmir or rule of Indian state. However, the media presented the 60% turnout as a vote of endorsement of the rule of Indian state and the Kashmiris felt betrayed. Partly why we see the kind of massive protests since 2008 is this.

Q: But what about the militant movement in Kashmir? If it got independent they would take
over.

A: The argument that Indian army shouldn’t leave or Kashmiris shouldn’t be independent because the militants will take over to me is similar to the argument that US shouldn’t leave Iraq or Afghanistan. Isn’t that what was said even during the Vietnam war?
At this point it is really a people’s movement – students, youth, women, ciivilans. The people saw what the militant movement did to them and how the Indian army dealt with it. Almost every family was impacted by it, killed, tortured or in custody. Also they see the power of the protests. I had asked the same when I went to the valley last year. What people said was the militant groups are not that prominent now and they don’t need a militant resistance anymore. I spoke a friend just two days ago to ask the same question since I knew someone would ask. He narrated an incidence. Two militants came to join a protest in a village but the people pushed them out!

Q: Why is the Indian govt’s attitude so belligerent? Is it because of the vote bank they may lose?

A: There are many reasons. Yes, the vote bank is certainly an important one. Kashmir is the only state with a majority Muslim population and they want freedom from India! So they want another partition?
Kashmir is considered ‘Bharat ka atoot ang’ and to discuss anything about autonomy or
independence leads to the question about further disintegration of India in the east for example or how it would impact other insurgencies such as in central tribal areas. Also the fact that it borders with Pakistan. The argument is ‘if we reduce troops Pakistan will invade’. But then have troops on the border. What is the justification for troops or police in a crowded city like Srinagar? If the argument is to protect pundits, most of them are no longer in the valley. So who is it protecting?
There isn’t a great willingness on either sides to deal with this issue even though it is the most important from a geo-political angle. Also, Kashmir is rich in natural resources, source of water and India wouldn’t want to give those up.

[ Someone from the audience expanded on the ‘only muslim majority state’ by giving the history of the Dogra rule and how Maharaja Hari Singh annexed Kashmir(and that it was conditional) without taking the opinion of the Muslim majority and how that was the opposite of what happened in other princely states like Junagarh or Hyderabad where the majority was Hindu and the ruler was Muslim and the vote went the will of the majority population.]

MTV’s Change: Kashmir

For some weeks now, the website of the US based youth channel MTV Iggy, has been hosting an interesting set of conversations on Kashmir, with the tagline “let’s raise awareness to bring peace to paradise”.

The site hosts some basic information resources on Kashmir, as well as a pretty broad range of people speaking about the conflict. Apart from the well-known—like Arundhati Roy, Fareed Zakaria and William Dalrymple—they have also featured some very articulate young men and women both from Srinagar and Jammu.The diversity of positions represented on the clips is useful, and sometimes also disturbing. (Watch, for example, the Indian journalist Tarun Tejpal for a viewpoint that is uncomfortably close to the status-quo rigidities of the Indian State).

Those who follow the strange meanderings of Jashn-e-Azadi will be happy to see several clips from the film show up on the MTV Iggy space as well: you could click on the clip “What frenzy is this?” and then look around the other videos. I would particularly recommend a peek at the Kashmiri American band “Zerobridge”…

There is an interview with Sanjay Kak there too, predictably speaking in favour of taking “contrary positions” and a few other things besides. Enjoy!

A Collaborator in Kashmir

Amitava Kumar, writer and academic, has a new story out in PEN America, described as “a journal for writers and readers”. A Collaborator in Kashmir is a troubling account of a journey that Amitava makes to Sopore in north Kashmir to meet with Tabassum Guru, wife of Afzal Guru, the man sentenced to death for his part in the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. It makes a welcome addition to the unmasking of the terrible apparatus of oppression that has been spawned in the last two decades of military occupation in Kashmir.

I quote a passage from the piece here, because it connects Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul with our own Srinagar:

Reading those words I thought again of Srinagar. I had flown in from “a rich Western city,” and everything there looked drab to me, draped in a dirty military green. Every house that was new looked gaudy and vulgar or curiously incomplete. Many structures were shuttered, or burnt black, or simply falling down due to disrepair. Pamuk writes that those who live in Istanbul shun color because they are grieving for a city whose past aura has been tarnished by more than a hundred and fifty years of decline. I believe Pamuk was also describing plain poverty.

Jashn-e-Azadi had shown me another Srinagar. The film’s richness lay in the space it created, in the viewers mind, despite the violence, for thought and for color. The filmmaker had discovered again and again in the drabness of the melancholy the gleam of memory: the memory of blood on the ground, of the beauty of the hills and red poppies, of the keening voices of mothers, and painted voices of village performers. Also the memory of the dead, of falling snow, of new graves everywhere, and the shining faces crying for freedom.

Others have spoken to me of a sense of connection between Pamuk’s evocations of Istanbul and Kashmir, but Amitava Kumar evokes that synapse with grace and unusual intelligence.

A Practical Nomad and Kashmir

Writing in The Practical Nomad blog, Edward Hasbrouck writes:

It angers me when Kashmir is depicted in the news as the cause or site of a conflict “between India and Pakistan”, as though it weren’t a place and a people with their own culture(s), their own traditions, their own past and present, and their own desires for the future. If there is one precondition for peace in Kashmir, it is that Kashmiris themselves must not be pawns in a geostrategic game, but must have a central role in making the decisions about their homeland.

Then going on to write about Jashn-e-Azadi, he says:

Kak’s film is an important contribution towards a wider understanding of that imperative.

But that’s not the only reason why I quote Edward’s post. It’s to draw attention to another part of his Practical Nomad blog where he writes on “Why do I care about Kashmir?”. Because his interests and activism on issues of peace and human rights, and his work as a travel consultant and travel writer, first intersected for him, he says, on a 1989 trip to Kashmir. As a valuable account of a critical moment in Kashmir’s recent history, I would warmly recommend it.