South Asia Citizens Web

Gurmehar is the 19-year-old daughter of an Indian soldier who died fighting Pakistanis in the Kargil war. She was only two years old at the time. Growing up required grappling with terrible demons. And so the young girl arrived at her anti-war worldview through a tortuous maze of hatred and distrust, primarily of Muslims and Pakistanis who she blamed for her father’s loss. It was her mother who pulled her back from the destructive journey.

Think about the depth of vulnerability that a great majority of Bangladeshis are in right now. For them, fear and compliance to the wishes of the fascists from the below is an understandable strategy. And this survival strategy may snowball into the dominant norms of a society.

Afghan women’s rights activists as well as activists outside Afghanistan known as intersectional feminists, who by definition understand how complex the oppression of women can be, often say that Western feminists have willfully misrepresented the plight of Afghan women; Spogmai Akseer has even written that a portrayal of them as “silent and passive victims of their culture, their men and their politics” has served only to justify an imperialist invasion disguised as a humanitarian rescue mission.

Women in India do not appear to be active participants in the debate around the chanting of the slogan ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. Even the debate in the media is dominated through discourse by men. The chanting of this slogan – necessary to prove ‘patriotism’ – is an obsession only of the so called ‘patriotic’ men.

This year, the May Day rally in JNU ended at the administrative block, where nineteen students are on hunger strike against the report of the HLEC, which led to harsh fines and rustications. Photos by Mukul Dube on 1 May 2016