India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 16 :: No. 02 :: Jan. 16 - 29, 1999

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MOVEMENTS

Solidarity for secularism

On the occasion of Safdar Hashmi's tenth death anniversary, scholars, artists, activists and workers come together at two venues in Delhi to reaffirm their faith in secular cultural action and move forward.

VIJAY PRASHAD
in New Delhi

Laal Jhanda le kar comrade...
(Red flag in hand, comrade...)

SO sang the Jan Natya Manch (Janam) troupe on January 1, 1999 at Sahibabad on the outskirts of Delhi. This was the working class locality where Safdar Hashmi (April 12, 1954 - January 2, 1989) was killed 10 years ago during a street theatre performance organised by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) in solidarity with the workers of nearby industrial units. A decade later, the CITU and Janam organised a commemorative event, which included Janam's latest play (Gadhaa Puraan), political speeches, singing and poetry sessions by cultural activists and workers, witnessed by thousands. Tum nahi rahe, iska gum hai par, phir bhi badte jayenge...You are sadly not with us, still we continue to advance. The memory of Safdar Hashmi, Communist Party of India (Marxist) member and Janam performer, rekindled the spirit of the workers of Sahibabad, whose daily lives and struggles are a tribute to Hashmi's martyrdom.

In another part of Delhi, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) organised a gathering of intellectuals and activists as part of a five-day-long convention and festival on secular cultural action (called Dastak). Despite the heavy fog, over 300 delegates from across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and countries in Europe and North America gathered on December 28 to discuss their ongoing work on secularism as well as to plan for the future.

In the first session, chaired by Shyam Benegal (among others were present Bhisham Sahni and Vivan Sundaram), the historian K.N. Panikkar provided the framework for the convention. "It is a paradox that the majority is secular and yet the communal threatens to conquer," he said. In a wide-ranging critical statement, Panikkar noted that secular action tended to be "hidebound and repetitive". He said: "Secular cultural action is predictable and hence fails to arouse curiosity and interest. Most of the secular cultural work is either too simplistic or too abstract. While the former tends to sermonise, the latter is inaccessible." To counter this situation, he called for the creation of an organic link between secular action and democratic struggles, since the latter are "inherently secular in character and help advance the process of secularisation in civil society." Rather than remain at the level of anti-communal work, he asked the delegates to consider the agenda of secular mobilisation, "to invoke culture, in all its forms and practices, to recover the currently muted articulations of the secular."

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Theatre personality Habib Tanvir.

AT Sahibabad, Sudhanva Deshpande of Janam also invoked this broadbased notion of culture as "the range of practices, beliefs and value systems" that form the daily lives of the working people. Deshpande said that Janam's commitment went beyond art and artefact. It looked into those 16 hours of the worker's day which were not spent on the shift as well as to the culture of work itself. If Panikkar and Deshpande called on the delegates at Dastak to rethink strategy, eminent Pakistani intellectual Eqbal Ahmed offered a sense of unbridled hope. Intolerance, he said, could not last for long, since it would expose itself in power and thus allow organised secular forces to take back history. If these are "dark times" (in the words of Bertolt Brecht), the "darkness" is not here for good. These presentations set the terms for those that followed.

On the days that followed, the delegates heard from an impressive set of scholars, artists and activists. There were impassioned speeches on "the right to perform" (a theme made famous by Safdar Hashmi) by artists such as Habib Tanvir and Shabana Azmi, Urdu writer Kishwar Naheed and film-maker Anand Patwardhan, among others. In the context of Fire, Shabana Azmi addressed the issue of freedom of expression, which she said must not be treated selectively. Communal forces, she argued, should be allowed to speak, but those who trusted in the secular must argue against them (rather than call upon the state to silence them). Shabana Azmi defended Fire as a film about empathy and compassion, themes that are close to the heart of engaged secular cultural activists (and not of their detractors). But "the right to perform" also impinged upon the choices made by the artist, a theme that Shabana Azmi elaborated with poignant effect. The cultural activist is responsible towards fellow workers and his or her own family. When confronted with threats to one's life and against one's family, the artist has to be scrupulous in the choice of work.

In a panel on the media, Frontline Editor N. Ram said that journalism demanded adherence to secular values. "How much can one support communal themes in the name of freedom of expression?" he asked. The burden of the media is to explore the trials of human life, not to render one set of people against another.

The panel on history was well-served by Mushirul Hasan and Sumit Sarkar, both of whom spoke against governmental interference in scholarly work (with reference to the Indian Council of Historical Research). Mushirul Hasan pointed to the importance of forums such as the Indian History Congress and SAHMAT, since both give allowance to myriad views on the past and the present. Facing questions from the floor on the issue of pluralism of views on the past, Sumit Sarkar defended the importance of the technical aspects of history, notably of evidence, but he also spoke of the necessity for the historian's self-conscious disclosure of moral choices made in the presentation of the past. R.S. Sharma and S. Jaiswal's detailed rebuttal of the communal interpretation of the past provided examples of the kind of ethical and technical standards insisted upon by Sumit Sarkar.

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Ekbal Ahmed, social scientist from Pakistan, addressing the Dastak convention in New Delhi.

IN the shadow of Pokhran-II, SAHMAT organised a panel on the nuclear question. Theoretical physicist T. Jayaraman and Admiral L. Ramdas provided valuable empirical material on the idea of minimal deterrence. They questioned the technical ability of the Indian defence forces and of its strategy managers to monitor missile threats, a basic requirement for deterrence. Nuclear scientist Zia Mian and economist Jayati Ghosh provided startling figures on the economic costs of nuclearisation, in terms of both the infrastructure needed to provide the umbrella of deterrence and to manage the vast nuclear waste generated by the entire enterprise. Praful Bidwai and N. Ram shared their views on the political dimensions of the nuclear tests and both reiterated the call for a people's movement against nuclear weaponisation. Instead of deterrence, the panel showed how the nuclear tests created a crisis of confidence among South Asian countries. Despite being a secular leveller, the nuclear bomb was shown to be a communal device (an Om-Made Bomb). From the floor, CITU activist Vivek Monteiro asked the panel to consider the question of 'national security', otherwise the important theme would be squandered to the nuclear hawks. He stressed the import of a non-military notion of 'security,' in terms of people's well-being and of safety.

While the convention did not address the question of imperialism explicitly, the panel on communalism in the diaspora and in South Asia, chaired by economist Prabhat Patnaik, expanded the scope of the discussion outside the confines of India. Beena Sarwar of Pakistan and Khushi Kabeer of Bangladesh provided analyses of the narrow framework allowed for secular cultural action in these two nations.

In the light of the money that pours into India from abroad for communal activities, Dorothy Chew of South Asian Research and Resource Centre (CERAS), Montreal, and in another session Amrita Basu from the U.S. showed how immigrants from India live with a nostalgic idea of culture, one that they share (in certain ways) with the hidebound culture of communalism. The work of CERAS and of the Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL) was shared with the delegates who had heard of the New York taxi strike and of the women's movement, both of which were key secular cultural actions involving Indians in North America. Lawrence Surendra warned the delegates to keep in mind the centrality of democratic accountability that is afforded by citizenship, something that gets circumvented when Indians overseas send funds for political work in an arena in which they cannot be held accountable.

AS news of the arson of Christian churches in Gujarat reached Dastak, the delegates issued a statement condemning the attacks. Dastak called upon the Government to "fulfil the constitutional duty of providing security to the Christian minority." On New Year's Eve, SAHMAT organised a candlelight march down Rajpath to Rashtrapati Bhavan, where the statement of protest was handed over to the President. On the last day of Dastak, the delegates released a statement pledging to: (1) defend and strengthen the gains of the freedom struggle; (2) fight against all communal tendencies; (3) work for a non-nuclear world; (4) oppose the machination of imperialism and (5) stand by the people in their fight for freedom, empowerment and social justice. These five pillars of secular cultural action, the statement stressed, not only countered communalism, but upheld the principles of secular democracy. The hallmark of Hindutva, the statement noted, was an attack on all people's ability to fashion complex cultures. Hindutva's emphasis on militarism (and nuclear jingoism) effected "a transition to such a world which represents the complete negation of the achievements of the freedom struggle. It facilitates the imposition of imperialist dictates on our economy: the Hindutva elements themselves act as instruments of imperialism while the scope for popular resistance is snuffed out through social divisiveness and political authoritarianism." SAHMAT pledged to coordinate activities to promote the five pillars of Dastak. Several participants at the last session (notably Sukumar Muralidharan of Frontline, Harsh Kapoor of Women Living Under Muslim Laws and S.P. Udayakumar of BJP Government Watch) elaborated on the five pillars.

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A section of the participants at the convention.

In the interstices of the heady discussions, the delegates enjoyed several cultural programmes, including performances outside the SAHMAT office. During Dastak, Habib Tanvir offered his fine play, Jis Lahore Nahin Wekhya Woh Jammya Hai Nahin (written by Ashgar Wajahat). His troupe crossed the Yamuna to perform before a few thousand workers at the annual Janam-CITU cultural show on January 2. The workers gave an astounding reception to the performers, and they sat in rapture even during a rather difficult Amrita Pritam piece. Sudhanva Deshpande noted that as workers were starved of "good, robust, healthy entertainment that gives them food for thought", they appreciated the opportunity afforded by these events. When Janam screened Anand Patwardhan's Ram Ke Naam without any advance warning, about 200 people (who spent the night at the performance site) drifted to watch the documentary. "I never thought that a documentary can be taken that seriously," said Janam member Brijesh Sharma. On January 2, Sahibabad's workers sang raginis and berhas (songs of separation) while Dhruv Bhanu regaled them with qawaalis (Amir Khushro and Bulle Shah) and Anant sang some of Safdar Hashmi's songs. The songs of separation were about the loss of Bhagat Singh and of separation from beloved ones - those such as Safdar.

Ten years after his murder, Safdar Hashmi is still alive through secular cultural action and the Communist movement. Over the years, these movements have grown, and January is a time to renew the vows to their values and to reconstitute solidarity. This year was no exception. In Sahibabad, the CITU has given Janam land for a Safdar Hashmi Smarak Sthal. Instead of erecting a statue, Janam and the CITU plan to create a cultural and intellectual home for the working people of the area. "Safdar's death was a tremendous blow," says Moloyshree Hashmi, "but it was also a source of inspiration. He is part of our strength and convictions for the future." And, if these few days were any indication, the future seems full of hope.