On Topic: War and Pieces

It’s nearly time to bring out your boots as October marks the beginning of autumn, with a slight chance of war on the horizon. Delhi is in high alert as a result of alleged surgical strikes on terrorist camps conducted by the Indian army across the Line of Control, while Pakistan’s government and media continue to deny that these surgical strikes even occurred.

Surprisingly, Indian political parties and media outlets have been united on the issue, nearly unanimously taking pro military-action stances – so much so that it appears that the country is in favour of an impending war against Pakistan. Some voices of reason, thankfully, still exist: prominent South Asian women journalists as well as people from both nations have spoken out against an outright war.

The threat of war has taken up so much screen time that it’s easy to forget that something is still rotten in the state of Kashmir. Parts of Kashmir are still under curfew, and the Kashmir Reader was forced to stop publication for disturbing the ‘public tranquility’. Kashmiri journalists are protesting this #mediagag.

The unlawful arrest and the subsequent detention of the human rights defender Khurram Parvez of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS) has raised many concerns on the human rights narrative in Kashmir.

Meanwhile at Central University in Haryana, two teachers – Snehsata and Manoj Kumar – put together a play on ‘Draupadi’, the iconic short story by Bengali writer and activist Mahasweta Devi, which portrayed the injustices faced by Adivasi women. The two teachers are now facing backlash from the ABVP, who protested the performance, claiming that the play insulted the Indian Army.

In the national capital, the Delhi police are branching out and attempting to set up a proper cyber crime unit to help solve cases faster. Earlier this year, over 150 personnel from police stations across the city received a week long training on cybercrime and currently the cyber cell team of Delhi Police has 40 personnels.

The #PinjraTod (‘Break The Cage’) movement escalates in Delhi as LSR women recently face repeated instances of sexual harassment outside college gates and paying guest accommodations. In response to complaints made by the students at hostels and paying guest accommodations, PG owners and landlords have, rather than increasing security, resorted to imposing restrictions on women.

This is no recent phenomenon but merely the continuation of a long-standing tradition of victim blaming. In fact the call of ‘Pinjra Tod’ began in 2015 by a student’s collective (under the same name). Pinjra Tod have organised several marches for safety of women and the right to public space, demanded accountability from concerned universities, as well as safe, affordable and non gender discriminatory accommodation for women. The campaign has received support and sympathy from those across the border despite the turbulent times of the current political scenario.

Meanwhile, issues of gender inequality concerning college campuses persist across the country and the world. College-going girls in Tamil Nadu face regressive college rules that pose a threat to their mental health and career, while many universities in the US still fail to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue of campus safety and gender based violence. Emma Watson, the UN Women Ambassador, addressed the issue in her speech at the UN.

Nearly 6 million women all over Poland gathered to protest the Polish government’s plans to ban abortion and succeeded, a huge relief for women everywhere because you should never have to apologise for getting an abortion.

On the other side of the planet, Japanese politicians are heading in the right direction with the Kyushu Yamaguchi Work Life Promotion Campaign, where male governors wear ‘pregnancy’ vests to simulate the experience of a woman in the seventh month of her pregnancy. The campaign hopes to encourage Japanese men to help out at home (Japanese women do five times the housework that their husbands do) and engage men in the equal pay conversation.

During the PBST festival, Uma Tanuku and Anupama Chandra released their documentary The Books We Made, which attempts to trace the legacy of Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon’s work in feminist publishing. You can watch the trailer here.

This month’s On Topic would not be complete without mentioning the much talked about film Pink. Despite its relatively optimistic ending and Amitabh Bachchan’s male saviour complex (which is hard to ignore), Pink does an excellent job of portraying the modern working woman and nails the message that ‘No means No’. However, as a review on The Wire has mentioned, the film does not explore all the nuances of consent and the fact that while “men have to learn to take No”, “women also have to learn to say No.”

Parched arrived in Indian theatres a week after Pink, and has a similar focus on women. Yet unlike Pink, which was a courtroom drama, Parched is a female buddy film (that is reminiscent of Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses) and received mixed reviews.

In spite of the progress made on the big screen, behind the scenes the film and television industry holds some ugly truths. Sonam Kapoor, in a rather candid essay, opens up about her experiences with body shaming and unrealistic beauty standards in the Bollywood industry.

Meanwhile, Tannishtha Chatterjee, the star of Parched, spoke out against her experience of bullying based on her dark skin on prime time television. The repeated jokes at the cost of her skin is very telling of the pervasive reality of class and caste discrimination and marginalisation. Not only are they ridiculed for their status, they are routinely ignored. Read this interesting piece of on the erasure of Dalit wisdom and this piece on what it means to be a Dalit woman.

In the world of books, the much coveted identity of the Italian author Elena Ferrante (pen name) has been outed by Claudio Gatti on New York Review of Books’ website. The disclosure of her identity has been cause for much discussion, her anonymity some argue is part and parcel of her artistic endeavours, and fans of the author fear she may never write again. As Dayna Tortorici writes in n+1: “It’s difficult to read a man’s attempt to “out” a writer who has said she would stop writing if she were ever identified as anything but an attempt to make her stop writing.”