Indian Winters of Discontent
A Series of Collaborative Reflections by Artists, Activists, and Academics
Like the Arab Spring and the American Autumn, the last two winters in India have seen massive popular uprisings with unforeseen groups of protestors and political actors reclaiming public spaces and redefining the grammar of political dissent. One of the salient features of these protests have been the presence of ordinary women and children in occupied public spaces. As we saw in Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi in the winter of 2019, and subsequently many “Shaheen Baghs” in other cities and towns, ordinary Muslim women occupied public spaces and protested the proposed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Temporary kitchens were set up in some locations, whereas food, tents, warm clothes, and blankets were sent by their neighbors to the occupied site. As their children finished their homework or played around them, they sang songs and chanted slogans of the anti-CAA protest. Ordinary Indian Muslim women redefined the notion of care and camaraderie in the history of political dissent in the country in the winter of 2019. The protests were interrupted and the sit-ins disbanded due the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic.
Even as the legal appeals against the implementation of the CAA remains pending in the Indian Supreme Court, a massive farmers’ protest erupted in India in the winter of 2020. Ordinary farmers from the Punjab and Haryana region have been protesting by setting up tents and occupying highways at the borders of New Delhi for two months in the freezing winter months. Almost 200 farmers have lost their lives in this protest as the government refused to meet their demands. In the face of a harsh winter and a harsher government, the farmers continue their well-organized movement as their community showers them with fresh produce, dairy, langar (offering of food), woolens, and all kinds of amenities. Men, women and children are cooking together in the protest sites, reading together in the travelling libraries, boycotting the biased media together, sharing the organizational labour of such a massive protest, singing-sloganeering together, and taking care of each other.
These Indian winters of discontent have reverberated with unforeseen ludic energies—with protestors singing and dancing to calls for azadi. Azadi means freedom. The call for azadi has been raised in popular protests in India from ordinary citizens to those seeking a free country, and from students to labourers to farmers.
Azadi or freedom from what? Freedom from poverty, from casteism, from the patriarchy, from tyranny, from exploitation, from discrimination, and concomitant practices of inequality. ‘Azadi’ has found its way from Kashmiris protesting police and army brutality and the occupation of their territory, to students pretesting against different forms of political oppression, to citizens protesting against the impending implementation of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), to farmers protesting against the privatization of agriculture. From street protests, it even made it to every household through popular Bombay cinema! The winters of discontent saw the emergence of the concept of ‘azadi’ as a powerful political emic term.
Project Mythopolitics will invite activists, politicians, artists, and researchers to reflection sessions in this series called Indian Winters of Discontent. Our goal is to understand the evolving rhetoric, intensity, and strategies of political dissent in India.
The first talk in our series is a panel debate with academic experts on agriculture, politics, and religiosity in the movement, Norwegian civil society members, politicians, and the India Resistance Network:
Debate 1: Farmer Uprising in India
(Text in English follows)
Velkommen til en panelsamtale om jordbrukspolitikk, den bekymringsverdige utviklingen i verdens største demokrati, og solidaritet og motstand.
Med utgangspunkt i de pågående masseprotestene i India inviterer Mythopolitics in South Asia eksperter, aktivister og representanter fra politikken og bøndenes interesseorganisasjoner til en panelsamtale om jordbrukspolitikk, balansen mellom private interesser og offentlig regulering, og hvorvidt vi kan forestille oss en transnasjonal solidaritet mellom bønder i ulike deler av verden.
Lenke til panelsamtalen: https://mf-no.zoom.us/j/68635543400?pwd=Mzl2VTFmaURBTTViOEY1Mno5Zy9wdz09
Innledere
Kenneth Bo Nielsen, førsteamanuensis ved Institutt for Sosialantropologi, UiO
Bikramdeep Singh Pannu, støttespiller i protestene
Indian Resistance Network
Silje L. Einarsen, postdoktor i religionsvitenskap, MF vitenskapelig høyskole
Aled Dilwyn-Fisher, Rødt
Oda Sofie Heien Larsen, SV
Bjørn Gimming, Norges Bondelag
Jens Erik Furulund, Norges Bonde- og Småbrukarlag
Samtalen ledes av Guro W. Samuelsen, postdoktor, MF vitenskapelig høyskole
Bakgrunn
Siden november i fjor har indiske bønder fra delstatene Punjab og Haryana protestert mot tre nye lover som tar mål av seg å reformere den indiske jordbrukssektoren. Statsminister Narendra Modi utstedte lovene sommeren 2020 mens det indiske parlamentet var stengt på grunn av koronapandemien, og de ble vedtatt uten grundig behandling i parlamentet og konsultasjon med bøndenes interesseorganisasjoner. Bøndene hevder at BJP-regjeringens siste lovendringer er første skritt i retning av å avvikle statlige subsidier og innføre en gradvis privatisering av sektoren, noe som har potensiale til å påvirke livene til opp mot to tredjedeler av den indiske befolkningen.
I protest gjennomførte bøndene sammen med arbeiderbevegelsen en av verdenshistoriens største generalstreiker i november 2020. Etter at vedvarende protester i delstatene ikke førte frem ønsket demonstrantene å flytte seg til hovedstaden New Delhi. Da de ikke fikk tillatelse til dette etablerte de midlertidige protestcamper og begynte en sittnedaksjon nær byens grenser. Kulden og de tøffe omstendighetene i vintermånedene har ført til at opp mot to hundre bønder har mistet livet, men på tross av myndighetenes harde linje viser de ikke tegn til å ville gi seg.
Konflikten eskalerte på Indias Republic Day 26. januar da bøndene fikk tillatelse til å gjennomføre en demonstrasjon med traktorer innenfor byens grenser, og det kom til voldelige trefninger mellom demonstranter og politiet. En gruppe med uavklart tilknytning til bondeopprøret klatret opp på det røde fortet i hjertet av Delhi, det fremste symbolet på politisk suverenitet i landet, og plantet det hellige Sikh-flagget Nishan sahib på fortets høyeste tårn. Samtidig holdt bønder og arbeidere protester og demonstrasjoner i bortimot alle Indias delstater til støtte for bøndene i Delhi.
Grunnet den symbolske likheten til opptøyene i Washington DC 6. januar fikk hendelsen raskt merkelappen «India’s Capitol Hill Moment», og i etterkant har situasjonen tilspisset seg videre. Styresmaktene har i dagevis stengt ned internett i områdene hvor protestene finner sted og arrestert og siktet en rekke journalisterfor ‘oppvigleri’. De bygger også voldsomme barrikader rundt Delhi for å holde demonstrantene ute. De siste dagene har konflikten fått økt internasjonal oppmerksomhet, med støtte fra blant andre popstjernen Rihanna og klimaaktivist Gretha Tunberg. Den indiske regjeringen har kalt kommentarene ‘sensasjonalistiske og uansvarlige’ og iverksatt en storstilt motkampanje i nasjonale og internasjonale medier.
English text:
Click here to join the meeting: Farmer Uprising in India (Feb 16, 2021 02:30 PM CET)
Welcome to a panel discussion on agricultural policy, threats to the world’s largest democracy, and political solidarity.
Based on the ongoing mass protests in India, Mythopolitics in South Asia invites experts, activists, and representatives from politics and farmers’ interest groups to a panel discussion on agricultural policy, the balance between private interests and public regulation, and whether we can imagine a transnational solidarity between farmers in different parts of the world.
Panelists
Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, UiO
Bikramdeep Singh Pannu, supporter of the protests
Indian Resistance Network
Silje L. Einarsen, postdoctoral fellow in religious studies, MF University College of Science
Aled Dilwyn-Fisher, Rødt
Oda Sofie Heien Larsen, SV
Bjørn Gimming, Norges Bondelag
Jens Erik Furulund, Norges Bonde- og Småbrukarlag
The conversation is led by Guro W. Samuelsen, postdoctoral fellow, MF University College
Background
Since November last year, Indian farmers from the states of Punjab and Haryana have been protesting against three new laws aimed at reforming the Indian agricultural sector. Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued the laws in the summer of 2020 while the Indian parliament was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The laws were passed without due procedural consideration in parliament and without consultation with farmers’ interest groups. The farmers claim that the BJP government’s latest legislative changes are the first step towards phasing out government subsidies and introducing a gradual privatization of the sector, which has the potential to affect the lives of up to two thirds of the Indian population.
In protest, the farmers, along with the labor movement, carried out one of the largest general strikes in world history in November 2020. After persistent protests in the states failed, the protesters wanted to move to the capital New Delhi. When they did not get permission for this, they established temporary protest camps and began a sit-down operation near the city limits. The cold and the harsh conditions during the winter months have led to up to two hundred farmers losing their lives, but despite the authorities’ harsh line, they show no signs of wanting to give up.
The conflict escalated on India’s Republic Day on January 26, when farmers were allowed to carry out a demonstration with tractors within the city limits, and there were violent clashes between protesters and police. A fringe group with unclear ties to the farmers’ movement climbed the Red Fort in the heart of Delhi, a symbol of political sovereignty in the country, and planted the sacred Sikh flag Nishan sahib on the fort’s tallest tower. At the same time, farmers and workers held protests and demonstrations in almost all Indian states in support of the farmers in Delhi.
Due to the symbolic resemblance to the riots in Washington DC on January 6, the incident quickly received the label “India’s Capitol Hill Moment”, and over the next days the situation has worsened. The government shut down the internet in the areas where the protests are taking place and arrested and charged a number of journalists for ‘incitement’ of violence. They are also building fierce barricades around Delhi to keep protesters out. In recent days, the conflict has received increased international attention, with support from, among others, pop star Rihanna and climate activist Gretha Tunberg . The Indian government has called the comments ‘sensationalist and irresponsible’ and launched a large-scale counter-campaign in national and international media.