South Asia Citizens Web

Part of a 5-part 1996 BBC documentary series entitled Stories My Country Told Me.

All four pieces of writing are lively; they are well-intentioned too. So why couldn’t their authors resist concocting ‘facts’ when there was actually no need to do so? Why couldn’t they resist making a rhetorical flourish even at the cost of truth? Is it because they believe an anecdote, even an invented one, will be more convincing to their readers than a stark statement based on rationality and logic? Or is it simply because they know they can do it — that they can get away with anything in Pakistan, so long it is in Urdu?

Shiv Sena workers protest against Pak band at Mumbai press club CNN-IBN Feb 04, 2014 at 04:11pm IST Mumbai: Nearly 50-70 workers of the Shiv Sena barged inside the Mumbai Press Club on Tuesday where a Pakistani band was holding a press conference and shouted slogans against them.
The sloganeering Shiv Sena activists demanded that Pakistani Sufi band Mekaal Hasan be sent back. "No Pakistani individual or group will be allowed in Mumbai," the protesters shouted.
The police were immediately (…)

In early December 2013 I received a call from Swaraj, a Karnataka wide network of women’s groups, fighting against violence and all forms of discrimination against women, to invite me for a function to felicitate six rural women who have challenged the oppression of widows in their families and villages. They asked me to speak on Patriarchy as a Superstition. I was amused by this formulation and asked them why this topic. They said the government of Karnataka was planning to bring a new law against superstition and they want patriarchy to be declared a superstition and outlawed. I smiled whole heartedly and said, WOW. What a great idea!! Once again I marveled at the wisdom of working class rural women. I wondered why in spite of such wisdom of rural working class women, so many media people think feminism is an urban phenomenon.

No serious questioning is allowed. All parties keep the status quo by foreclosing meaningful discussion. No serious questioning is allowed. All parties keep the status quo by foreclosing meaningful discussion.