Mallika Sarabhai

‘No Modi Critics’: Mallika Sarabhai’s Performance Cancelled After Culture Minister’s Diktat

After G. Kishan Reddy scuppered the performance that was supposed to happen at the Ramappa temple – a UNESCO World Heritage Monument in Warangal district of Telangana, it was instead held in an open ground.

New Delhi: On January 16, the trustees at the Kakatiya Heritage Trust received a call from the Union culture minister G. Kishan Reddy’s office denying permission for eminent Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi danseuse Mallika Sarabhai’s performance at the Ramappa temple – a UNESCO World Heritage Monument – in Warangal district of Telangana. The demand, Sarabhai says, was very clear. “Either drop Mallika Sarabhai from the list of performers at the Ramappa temple in Warangal or simply cancel the festival.”

The organisers, defying the minister’s “oral denial” of permission, went ahead with the event on January 21. But instead of holding the event inside the temple, it was moved to an open venue close by, KUDA Open Grounds. And the 68-year-old danseuse says over 4,000 people gathered to see her and her troupe perform.

Photo: Mallika Sarabhai/Facebook

Sarabhai, a vociferous critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat, says Reddy in his call had made it evident that he didn’t want any “Modi critic” to perform at such a prominent event. The Ramappa Festival was organised to celebrate one year of getting UNESCO’s recognition. “The minister simply ordered that I should not be allowed to dance. I was denied the space only because of my political stand against the BJP and its Hindutva politics,” she said.

Reddy had reportedly called up the trustees of the organisation soon after her public speech at Kolkata, where the 68-year-old classical dancer had voiced disappointment over the “complete destruction of ideals” in the country. She had criticised the current regime for “shoving Hindutva down the throat of people in the name of Hinduism”.

This is not the first time that Sarabhai had faced such disruption. In 2020, Sarabhai was invited to be the chief guest at the National Institute of Design convocation. But the convocation itself was called off and the institute simply said it was due to “unforeseen circumstances”. Sarabhai says she was going to speak of the designs and the Indian heritage at the convocation ceremony. “In the past two decades, I have faced many such interruptions from the government. But it is becoming more and more brazen,” she says.

Also Read: ‘I Turn to You as Our Only Hope’: The Speech Mallika Sarabhai Planned to Make at NID

The event at Warangal was well organised, Sarabhai said. “The Telangana government and the local administration made all arrangements within a short notice of 48 hours and managed a crowd of over 4,000 people. They also ensured the show went off peacefully,” she said.

Sarabhai says these arm-twisting tactics of the BJP-led government only amuse her. “It is similar to a book ban. When the state bans a book, everyone is rushing to get a copy of the book. If you ban my performance, more and more people will turn up in my support and to watch my art,” she said.

Peter Brook Brought the ‘Mahabharata’ to the World

His Padma Shri is fully deserved but comes too late in his life.

This article was published first on January 27, 2021, when Peter Brook was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India. Peter Brook died on July 2, 2022 at the age of 97.

It was April of 1984. I was in bed with bad jaundice. In the newspapers, I had been following the search for a Krishna or Draupadi, for the international production of Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata.

I knew of him only via theatre friends. They always spoke of him with reverence, as the master magician of 20th-century theatre. The papers reported that he was here for only one of these two characters, and that would be the only Indian in the cast. He was to travel to the usual cities, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Calcutta and Bangalore. The then Czarina of culture, Pupul Jayakar, had a list of close to 200 ‘suitable’ actors for auditions. And that script was followed.

One morning, about fifteen days after the news report, I received a telegram from the French cultural attache in Delhi: “Peter Brook and group flying to Ahmedabad tomorrow to see you”. Nothing else! Why, I wondered.

Barely out of bed, yellow and skinny, I met the formidable group the next morning in my apartment. The blue-eyed, balding Peter was accompanied by the scriptwriter, the dashing Jean Claude Carrier, Chloe Obelansky, the designer of the show, and Peter’s assistant Marie Helene. I was shy and had no idea what they wanted to meet me for. Perhaps some small role? In any case, I spoke no French. After chatting for about fifteen minutes, Peter said, “I want you to audition for Draupadi”. I nearly fell off the chair. Draupadi is about the only mythological character I had always admired.

Over the next few weeks, I auditioned, got the part, and in October found myself and my five-week-old son in Paris’ coldest winter that century. Fourteen hour rehearsals, in a cold, old building with no elevator to the eighth floor where we were practising. Improvisations. Playing Draupadi as a comic character. Playing Duryodhana. Doing bizarre acting and voice exercises. And being looked at askance by all the professional actors from around the world.

Also read: Different Strokes: Women in the Tamil Mahabharatas

Peter is a follower of Gurdjieff, the Russian thinker who believed that a master must destroy the self of the pupil, and recreate it. I am a believer in the philosophy that all work must be ananda, bliss. There was a clash of wills. I hated the process. Every rehearsal was unhappiness. Peter did not like the fact that I disappeared as soon as rehearsals were over, taking my child with me, rather than hang around for a glass of wine and his gyan (knowledge).

I felt there were misrepresentations of women characters in the script, that the worldview was Anglo Saxon. I was told, “Don’t raise your voice, you sound like a shrew”, to which my response was, “We don’t have shrews in India, we have Shaktis”. He found the episode of Draupadi washing her hair in Dushasana’s blood, and tying it up after years, gruesome and not to be included. I felt it would be a travesty not to have it in. We argued for eight months. On the eve of the grand opening, it was included. The others saw Peter as a guru. I didn’t.

Mallika Sarabhai as Draupadi in Peter Brook’s ‘The Mahabharata’. Photo: YouTube screengrab

It was a tumultuous relationship. It started changing once it became evident that I brought some special quality to the performance. We became friends. At press conferences, he would insist that I talk about the awful time he gave me, about all the disagreements. We would laugh at all our disagreements.

When the five years of performances and the filming came to an end, I realised he had been a catalyst to a new me. That he taught me how to peel a character like an onion, till one came to the essence, which was shunyata (void). That by having me cogently argue every point of the character and the Mahabharata, of having to defend every thought and comment, he had honed my capacity to defend my position on issues. That the accolade I got playing Draupadi gave me the belief that I could reinterpret mythology from a feminist and humanist point of view and be able to reach people. These five years gave me the confidence to bring forth work that might bring derision and ridicule from the press or public.

In retrospect, those were five years that have formed the performer and creator I am today.

Also read: With ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’, Kundan Shah Secured a Place for Himself in Film History

And I salute the master. Perhaps no one has done for The Mahabharata and a true understanding of its philosophy than he, for he brought the work not to Indophiles, but to the world. He brought it to those who thought India was little more than rope tricks and starving cows, and made them into Indophiles who went home to study and understand the true meaning of our composite cultures. This Padma Shri is deserved but should have been given thirty years ago.

Mallika Sarabhai is a dancer, actor and activist who played Draupadi in Brook’s The Mahabharata.

For These Bharatanatyam Dancers, Age Has Nothing to Do With Following Your Heart – and Feet

In Bharatanatyam, like other dance forms, ageist perceptions still dominate, forcing women to give up their passion for learning and practicing the art form as they take over other roles as adults.

“When I had my daughter, I did wish that she would be able to fulfil the dreams I could not. But, I didn’t want to put that kind of burden on her. I wanted to do it myself, and in the process, be an inspiration for my daughter, so that she would, in turn, do whatever she wanted to do in life,” says Krina Calla, a lawyer practicing at Gujarat high court.

For the past five years, Krina has been learning Bharatanatyam at Ahmedabad’s Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, a pursuit she took up at the age of 43. In mentioning her concern that her daughter should feel free to make her own decisions in life, Krina sums up the anxieties of millions of women negotiating their ways in a world that is fast-changing, yet rigid when it comes to certain social mores.

Over the 20th century, as Bharatanatyam was taken away from the hereditary practitioners and installed in the realm of socially advantaged communities of ‘upper’ caste and economically advantaged classes, it became a hobby rather than a profession for millions.

Though the damage caused by that process is finally being debated, today the art is an inalienable part of the national vocabulary, draped in layers of social acceptance — and etiquette. These layers have ensured that Bharatanatyam is associated with limited definitions of feminine beauty as well as expectations of coyness in the depiction of a woman’s emotions, along with youthful looks and the assumption that marriage signals a stop to a dancer’s performance ambitions.

Consequently, even as a hobby, it is weighed down by ageist perceptions. Across the world, though, teachers and students are countering this trend.

Reliving the passion

Darpana Academy, the institute founded by the late Mrinalini Sarabhai and now headed by her daughter, renowned dancer and activist Mallika Sarabhai, is one of India’s few major institutions for dance instruction where age is no bar.

In this process, other debates around ageism in general, the value of art for every individual, the meaning of roles such as wife and mother, body shaming, and why we dance at all, get tossed up and resolved in everyday interactions.

It was some 10 years ago that Mallika decided to motivate a group of women to join Darpana’s Bharatanatyam course. “I would see all these mothers sitting outside waiting for their daughters, chatting, gossiping, cutting vegetables, really whiling away their time. And one day I just stopped and said, ‘Would you like to dance?’ And they laughed ruefully and said, ‘At this age! We would have loved to have learnt, but…’ I said I’m not asking you to dance professionally. All I’m asking is if you’ve longed to learn how to dance all your life, what is stopping you doing it? And that’s how they started.”

Mallika Sarabhai. Photo: By arrangement.

Today there are about 12 such women on the student rolls, and this academic year, the first batch will be graduating from the seven-year course. “The average age is 50. The oldest one is 65. And the greatest joy has been that these women seem to have finally found themselves,” Mallika underlines, “not as wives, or mothers or daughters.”

Take Hema Patel, who joined Darpana when her son was about to leave home for the US. “I started when I was almost 49. I wanted to do something for myself,” she relates. It was her son who motivated her to join the Bharatanatyam course, knowing the desire that had been in her heart for years.

“Now I am 54, and on December 10, I will be performing my arangetram (debut performance) at Natarani (Darpana’s amphitheatre),” says Hema. Hema’s US-based son Rudra Patel adds that seeing his mother about to fulfil her childhood dream gives him “immense joy and also hope, that a lot of people who sacrifice their dreams growing up achieve that at any age and serve as motivation for others”.

The students at Darpana are grouped by their progress in the prescribed syllabus and not according to age. Often, mothers and daughters are classmates.

Krina says, “I did initially ask as to how can I match up to the stamina and enthusiasm of kids? What if I hold up the whole class, or what if I get depressed watching them? Then I was told that their energy will give you more energy. When we are with kids, we become like them. I did experience this. Neither the teacher nor the children took any notice of the difference in our ages. All the students have to work just as hard. So I think the best part (of Darpana’s teaching policies) is keeping the age groups together.”

Hema, on the other hand, felt no hesitation dancing with the little ones, saying, “I get inspiration from them and try to do better than everyone else.”

Stamina was not the problem for Suman Nehra, a half-marathon runner. At 41 when she joined Darpana, having earlier learnt Bharatanatyam at Baroda University’s Faculty of Performing Arts (even then she was a mother of two), Suman and her fellow adult students had to stop the youngsters from addressing them as ‘Auntie’. If a child used that honorific, the women would in turn address that child as ‘Auntie’. Now every older classmate is simply didi (elder sister) to young learners.

Suman Nehra

“Since we got this chance late in life, we are a little more sincere,” points out Suman. “Sometimes young children only join the class because their parents want them to.” The teachers often hold the older women up as examples. “They say, ‘See how they value the art which they couldn’t learn at your age’,” says Suman.

Besides, “When we play with children, don’t we become children ourselves? You just have to adjust your attitude a bit,” remarks Dr. Parul N. Purohit, principal of a municipal corporation school. It was once when she was appointed convenor of the youth festival as part of her official duties that Parul, watching the students, was inspired to learn dance. The 53-year-old educator, learning Bharatanatyam now for the past six years, is determined to perform her solo debut.

“It is my dream, and I will fulfil it no matter how many years it takes.”

Sandeep Kaur has a different angle. She joined Darpana as a way of supporting her child who was shy, and “to see how they teach here, how kind the teachers are with the children, to ensure she is getting the right kind of learning — all the anxieties of parents!” as well as to get some exercise. There were two other adults in the class besides Sandeep.

“The rest were all kids, some as young as six. I was the oldest one in the group. Definitely, it is a very difficult dance form. I am not very flexible, and dancing wasn’t my passion, so it was very, very difficult for me.”

By the third year, Sandeep found it hard to keep up. “I had begun to feel everyone was doing better than me and that was a demotivating factor. The children were grasping the material so fast. They had grace in their body. I felt I couldn’t acquire the required grace. So I quit,” she says, but adds that her motive as a parent was achieved. “I was sure that the institute was the perfect place for her. She is in good hands.”

Sandeep’s daughter has reached year seventh now, and while Sandeep doesn’t practice anymore, she is now “very good friends” with her former teacher.

Friendship, peace and fulfilment are recurring themes in these conversations about what women get by embarking on this arduous course of practice at a time when some of them have their hands full raising families and balancing demanding professional lives, and others have earned their retirement as grown-up kids leave home for work and marriage.

Singular interest for dance artform

Sonal Solanki

Says Sonal Solanki, Bharatanatyam teacher at Darpana, “Often women do not share their innermost thoughts verbally. Dance is the way to express their feelings. This is very, very important.” The thing is, notes Sonal, “For these women, dance is a dream. They neither have to give any exams nor do they aspire to be big professionals. It is for their happiness.”

Sonal adds, “Mallika didi is a woman who understands how important this is for a woman.”

As a teacher, Sonal realises that adults grasp movements intellectually faster than children but cannot execute them as easily. “Bharatanatyam requires dedication,” says Sonal. “At every stage it is tough – to teach, to explain and to grasp it. So I give them special time, and sometimes, I allow them to video record the class and ask them to practice at home. They do this, happily and diligently, to master the steps. Whenever they need my help, I am ready to give them time.”

Wherever necessary in teaching or choreographing, Sonal looks for alternatives, moulding the movements to suit the capacity of each student while remaining within the Bharatanatyam framework.

“Our teachers too have been mostly brought up in Darpana, where there has never been an age or religion or a gender bias,” adds Mallika. “And I think all of this is ingrained in the teachers so that they teach the older ones with as much enthusiasm.”

As for the health benefits of dancing into one’s old age, Florida-based Dr. Sindhu Jacob, whose love for Bharatanatyam was reignited after a hiatus of 30 years, says, “Many adults stay away from dancing due to fear of sustaining an injury, causing a flareup of arthritis, etc. Improper posture, dancing too long on hard floors, not stretching before and after dancing, etc., could cause problems. If done the right way, dance, irrespective of its style, improves cardiovascular endurance and improves muscle strength and flexibility. It helps in alleviating many age-related illnesses, improves bone density as well as mental health.”

It’s lucky, then, that individual teachers frequently do not impose an age limit as some institutions do. In the US, a country where the elderly remain independent well into their 90s, teachers of Bharatanatyam relate experiences with expatriate Indian women who find the leisure and courage to pursue dance in a way they may not have believed possible in India. It may be to fill the vacuum caused by an empty nest, or grief from a loss. After all, as Suman says, learning dance is a meditative activity, and any such pursuit is healing beyond words.

For Dr. Sindhu Jacob, dance was a distant memory, something she had excelled at while being a schoolgirl in India before dropping it completely at the age of 15. Then, in 2017, she lost her mother. By that time she was 45 and an endocrinologist in the US.

“My mother loved all forms of art. Some of my fondest memories included her cheering for me with tears as I performed on various stages. It was my best friend who asked me to keep her alive in me by restarting my dance. My first thoughts were, ‘Am I too old to dance? Will I be able to? Will I be judged?’”

Orlando-based Bharatanatyam exponent Anjali Fluker gave Sindhu the confidence to dance again. “A few years ago she started with me,” says Anjali. “She said, ‘Start at the very beginning, as if I’ve never learnt before,’ so she began with taiyya tai.” Anjali adds that Sindhu got into the groove so quickly that she completed the preliminary compositions of the repertoire within two years and is now learning complex abhinaya pieces.

Teaching adults runs in Anjali’s family. Her mother, veteran Bharatanatyam guru Sudha Doraiswamy has had a “mom’s group” parallel to her flourishing school for children in Michigan for decades. “I enjoy teaching my adult students,” says Guru Sudha.

Guru Katherine Kunhiraman

Guru Katherine Kunhiraman, another veteran exponent who runs Kalanjali Dances of India in California’s Bay Area, says, “I love having these adults who always wanted to dance and never got the opportunity. And I feel like I’m giving them the most auspicious gift.”

Paulomi Pandit in Los Angeles has also taken students above 45. “They don’t necessarily want to perform, but only to learn,” she remarks. On the other hand, Katherine says, there are those “hellbent” on performing, who intimidate their teachers if they hesitate to include them in performances due to the student’s inability to pick up the basics of tala, bodyline and hand gestures.

On a positive note, Katherine has been teaching a 73-year-old student, one of those who “get it.” The reason she wanted to dance was “she loves Krishna”, explains Katherine. “So I’m teaching her ‘Haririha’ (a song from Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda describing Krishna’s dance with the gopis).” Guru emphasises that this student “can actually put one mudra after another,” whereas “there are some people who start at five and by the time they’re 50 they still haven’t got it. So it’s anyone guess who’s going to get it, and what they get out of it. It’s more than just being able to do it. Where do we draw the line, and what right have we to draw lines?”

Highlighting the current situation of Bharatanatyam teaching and learning across the world, particularly among elite and middle-class Indians among whom it is a popular hobby, she notes, “None of our students are going to be [professional] dancers. They are all going to be scientists and engineers and lawyers. So we should try to bring in as many people [as possible] to love this art and to know more about it, so they’ll be better audiences for it.”

Indeed, it seems society still has things to learn about why women dance, which is why one student gives a variety of reasons to cloak her passion with an acceptable conservatism.

“I have told my parents I am learning this to stay in good health. My in-laws know only that I take my daughter to class.” As for her husband, “He was not negative, never said to stop, but he wouldn’t mind if I did. He cannot realise its value the way I realise it. None of his colleagues’ wives do this.”

Back at Darpana, with Mallika’s mentoring, Sonal is helping her wards prepare for their solo debuts. “One of them is going to be doing her graduation [performance], on the night before her son’s wedding,” says Mallika. “And she came to me and said, instead of a regular padam can I do this lullaby that I used to sing to him as a child? So we are composing a Gujarati lullaby as a Bharatanatyam padam.”

Take that, naysayers! A mother’s role can be played in many ways.

Anjana Rajan has been writing on the arts, literature and society for nearly twenty years. She is a former deputy editor of The Hindu, a dance exponent and theatre practitioner.

Dear Judge Sahab & Other Cries for Justice From Artists in India

Mallika Sarabhai explains the thinking behind an exciting new international collaboration, Theatre from the Streets.

It started with an email. The International League of Theatre Women had short-listed me for the Gilder Coigny Award for theatre women using theatre for societal change. Then another saying I was a finalist. I didn’t win. Something much better happened. A new alliance of ‘committed to change’ theatre women from across the world was born. A comradeship came into being, through a series of exciting webinars. A wish to do something to highlight – through performance – the many unspoken horrors in the world.

The last horrific bombing of Gaza spurred us to action. And Theatre From the Streets was born, a pilot series of webinars launching new performance work on issues in various countries. Three countries were chosen, Palestine, Venezuela, and India. A curator in each, to produce the work, choose the moderators, select the artists. I took on the mantle for India.

The circumstances in each country are very different. From Palestine, even getting an internet connection is a hassle. We decided that if necessary the three five-minute works that would be produced and shown in each 90-minute session would be recorded to avoid internet issues. Each session was to showcase the new work and then hold a discussion and Q and A with the artists. A moderator would help put the issues in perspective for the international, invited audience. The entire series would be hosted by New Perspectives Theatre Company based in New York, and later be put on YouTube.

Theatre From The Streets was launched on August 1, 2021. Four Sunday sessions were filled with many glimpses into the horrors of the oppression, the might of Israel, and constant fear. The four sessions from Venezuela followed with work highlighting daily traumas – the lack of oxygen during Covid, the corruption at every corner and for every service, the interminable queues, the traffic hazards.

From the beginning, I had wanted to do something more. While we live in a country where free speech is curtailed every day, and where anything you say or do not say can invite the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or charges of sedition or an income tax raid, I wanted work to be artistic and bold. I was looking for artists who had the courage to speak up and do so with artistry. I wanted artists who felt passionately about a cause and wanted to scream. And I wanted the idea of theatre to be expanded to what it is, classically in India – all-encompassing, including all forms of performance and art.

I approached about fifty artists across the country, inviting them to be part of this international effort to use the arts to highlight issues, to give voice to issues or people who were unheard or throttled. It was difficult getting even the twelve I needed, whose artistry and courage I could depend upon. But in the end, the lineup is exciting, the issues varied and the styles invigorating. The issues range from many aspects of the ‘woman’ problem to the imprisonment of civil society voices and journalists, to the assault on tribal lands to climate change and more, the pandemic, the struggle of the labourers returning home during the lockdown, and the inhuman treatment meted to them amongst others.

In this series, we will present the work of Quasar Thakore Padamsee; Pinty Padmavati Rao; V. Balakrishnan; Pratishtha Pandya, Laboni, and Yadavan Chandran; Anju Uppal and Prabir Bose; Bharati Kapadia and Abeer Khan; Sohini Ray; Sanjukta Wagh; Shakthi Ramani; Tritha Sinha and Danish Husain.

I have also created a piece with Yadavan Chandran, with which we are kicking off this series in The Wire. The four moderators are Madhavi Menon, Githa Hariharan, Sumangala Damodaran and Sudhavna Deshpande.

Each individual work is a cry for drawing attention to something that has not received justice, is unjust, exploited, violated. Each is a cry from a group of artists. We hope it is a cry that will take us closer to an anthem that brings change, and inspires, and gives courage to artists to use their arts to bring about a better world.

Mallika Sarabhai lives in Ahmedabad and is one of India’s leading choreographers and dancers, performing both classical and contemporary works. She has been the co-director of the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts for nearly 30 years.

Watch: Mallika Sarabhai on Losses the Performing Arts Industry Is Facing Due to COVID-19

In conversation with actress, classical dancer, publisher and activist Mallika Sarabhai.

Watch | In a Locked World, Eminent Dancers Perform ‘Dance Unlocked’ From Their Homes

Darpana and Natarani bring a dance of togetherness, in the hope that the spirit of dance will liberate people in a world that remain locked with looming uncertainty.

As the world-order reshapes, Darpana and Natarani bring a dance of togetherness, in the hope that the spirit of dance will liberate people in a world that remain locked with looming uncertainty. Renowned artists from across the world are part of this initiative. Aditi Mangaldas, Mallika Sarabhai, Priti Patel, Vaibhav Arekar, Geeta Chandran, Astad Deboo are some of the well-known artists who feature in this short video

The concept for the video was created by Mallika Sarabhai. Yadanavn Chandran directed,
editing and produced the graphics for the video. The music used in the video is ‘Rivulets of Innocence’ by Tanmoy Bose.

‘I Turn to You as Our Only Hope’: The Speech Mallika Sarabhai Planned to Make at NID

“Together we must counter the darkness that envelopes our nation and our soul today, the hatred that is being passed to us as nationalism.”

On February 7, the prestigious National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad was supposed to host the convocation ceremony for its graduating class of 2020. Well-known dancer Mallika Sarabhai, who is also on the institute’s board, was supposed to be the chief guest. Just three days before the event, though, the administration announced that the event was postponed due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

Sarabhai has been a vocal critic of the Narendra Modi government and has opposed his government’s decision to bring in the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Six top bureaucrats from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry are on NID’s management committee.

Below is the full text of the speech Sarabhai was going to make at NID.

Dear Graduating Students,

When I received the invitation to be here today, and to have the honour of sharing thoughts and ideas with you, I was thrilled. And surprised. I have worked closely with NID over the years, although sporadically. I have also served on your Governing Council. But to have this opportunity? I accepted with alacrity.

A few days later I was sent a book with the convocation addresses of all the luminaries who have been guests here. Glancing through it I was surprised and dismayed to see that in the 38 years of addresses included in the book, only one was by a woman, Dr Kapila Vatsyayan, in the early years. Wow, I thought to myself. Let us hope I break this glass ceiling.

I can’t remember a time when I was not fascinated with design and textures and textiles. I went to a school where we were made to use our hands – we learned weaving on back strap looms, played with mud pretending to create pots, and made lop sided tables in carpentry class. At home, my mother Mrinalini, Amma to most of us, had a sense of aesthetic that pervaded everything. Even meals had to be colour co-ordinated, textured right. If one dish was crisp, another had to be soft and a third, crunchy. Our home was filled with beautiful folk and adivasi art, brass statues from across the globe, and hand made things in actual use. Khadi, cotton, beads, brass grass, natural.

Since I was 13 I had been putting together my own clothes with a tailor, making bead and feather jewellery with our Kathakali makeup artist’s help, collecting stones and silver beads to make buttons, putting patches of left-over dance costumes onto bits of leather and making holdalls. When I got to college, I realised that people my age did not want expensive and permanent clothes and accessories, they wanted new, different, varied, funky.

I was always asked where I got my clothes and costume jewellery from. This lead to an entrepreneurial idea. Why not start a boutique providing my kind of stuff to others and keeping an upper price limit of Rs 50 for any item? Then anyone could afford it, and afford to wear it only a few times. My first and only successful business venture was born. It was a week-end boutique called Tamasha and ran out of a spare room in our academy, Darpana. A year later I closed it down because its success meant I was doing nothing but designing all week, all day. Friends started persuading me to open the shop for peak previews earlier in the week so that they could reserve clothes! I was supposed to be studying. Enough, I thought.

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In the early 70’s Amma took over as Chair of Gurjari and now our home turned into a veritable studio for the crafts of Gujarat. Toofan Rafai, then on a Quixotic mission to have people understand the value of organic dyes, would come in a rickshaw with a huge bundle of saris that Amma would buy to sell in Gurjari. Bandhni, ajrakh, namdah, mochi bharat – these words became part of my vocabulary, and when on vacation, I started taking trips with her into the deepest villages of Kutchh and Saurashtra. Amma took it upon herself to wean young people away from polyester bell bottoms and T shirts, and to make Indian and cotton trendy. She birthed the idea of taking the embroidered yokes of backless rural cholis and making kurtas with them.

Shabana Azmi, Parveen Babi and I were all starting up in films then and she persuaded us to do photo shoots only wearing crafts based kurta pyjamas – they were called Punjabi suits then and were actually worn only by North Indians. It took her efforts and some years for them to become the most worn of Indian garments, as they are today in their myriad manifestations. I started informally designing for Gurjari, mixing block printing with bead work, and embroidery with bandhini.

The NID Ahmedabad campus. Photo: University website

In 1979 the one-issue-old Inside Outside magazine, India’s first attempt at a platform for serious discussion amongst design professionals, was about to die a premature death. A publisher friend was offered it but had no interest in design or architecture or craft. He in turn offered it to me. Me, publish a magazine? I knew nothing about publishing or magazines and the magazine offices and all advertisers were in Bombay and I, in Ahmedabad. It seemed daunting and deliciously adventurous. I said yes. This started three years of a wild and exciting journey where, for the first time, I was thrown amongst professionals in the fields of design, architecture, craft, textile, planning, urban design and more. I was in world that I found I cared passionately about.

On a trip to New York to find distribution for Inside Outside in the US, I changed course and ended up in 1984 launching Mapin Publishing, founded with the single purpose of making world class books on our arts, crafts and heritage, written and photographed by Indian experts, for the world. Today Mapin is India’s leading publisher of culture, craft, architecture, photography and design with close to 400 books on its list, including NID’s Handmade In India.

While my direct day-to-day work as Mapin’s Chief Editor came to an end in 2001 because of my commitments with performance and lecturing, my involvement with design for a better, healthier India has continued. Be it the first entirely solar run home in Gujarat at my organic farm in 1996, or Natarani, our state of the art, green theatre inaugurated last year, my concern for and mainstreaming of hand made, cleaner and kinder technologies has continued and deepened.

We live in troubling times. Over the last few hundred years humans have come to believe that we are the centre of the Universe and the Universe exists to serve us. This has lead to our using nature and all non human elements of the Universe greedily and exploitatively. This system values the biggest as the best. It values brute force over compassion. It values the show of power more than humaneness. It values having and hoarding more than giving and sharing. It is a system that is patriarchal and muscular. It is a system without humanity, one that treats us as consumers rather than as persons. It celebrates quantity over quality., might over right. And it lives on fear and insecurity. It is a system where ones’ worth is judged by what one has and not what one is. And in doing this, it is destroying the soul of our unique country.

Also read: ‘Yeh Gulab Nahin, Inquilab Hai’: The Tradition of Protest Music in Contemporary India

India’s uniqueness in the world lies in one thing and one alone. Our culture. Our languages, our diversity, our crafts, foods, habitats, arts, beliefs and their manifestations. In all their contrariness, contradictions and chaos. If we believe that our splendour lies in bigger, faster, taller, we will always be also-rans, just another nation trying to catch up. If our sense of self worth lies with the rules of successful capitalism, with the homogeneity of taste that leads to everyone wearing denim or eating hamburgers, then we have lost our paths, because we are reducing ourselves to sameness and lack of diversity. Does our special place in the world of nations lie in building the fastest air craft? No. It lies in our 900 languages. It lies in the dal tasting different in each home and in each community and village. It lies in the nath, the nose ring adapted from Cleopatra’s cat, that signifies suhaag, having a million variations from the pin to the bulaku, to those attached to the hair and those that cover most of the face.

The powers that rule us, that make policy, look outward, to other “more successful” nations to assess our own worth. They do not look at our wealth, our crafts and design, our building technologies suited to our many different climates, and develop those into technologies that the world will follow. No, our policies try to iron out our individualities, our quirks, our diversities, to enforce a oneness, a single approved truth or way of life. And in doing so shows the deep lack of self worth that has become our corner stone.

Today most architects build in cement concrete – a material that uses up far too much water in its making, and that crumbles in fifty years, never merging with nature. But our lime forts stand tall and strong after hundreds of years. Should we be teaching our young the destructive technologies of the First World because we feel insecure and have inferiority complexes, or should we be propagating our kinder and more nature friendly technologies and lead the world into sanity and away from the self destructive path on which we are running?

Today we face unemployment as never before, with more and more young people like you pouring into the job market. 70 million people in India are involved in handicrafts, 70 million who are working as entrepreneurs, using little of the earth’s resources other than their own strength and skills. Yet these are 70 million who are not encouraged, not valued, not sheltered, not nurtured. In their death and in the death of their work, lies the death of the greatness of humanity, for what they produce is the heritage of all humanity.

I turn to you as our only hope. Already, by choosing careers in design, you have showed a tendency towards the right brain, towards self fulfilment over high earnings. As designers of products and textiles, exhibitions and garments and much more, you have the capacity of changing the way we view development, success and happiness. Adopt a single village. Go and study every craft and technology that can be reinterpreted for a world that is self destructing. Use your imagination and skill in giving a new, kind, relevant life to them. Give our craftspeople, traditional builders, water diviners the vision of your world view. Take their skills and make them yours, to share with them and the world. Learn the thrift and the individuality of our varied traditions.

We are in need, as a nation and as a people of re-finding our true selves. Not a sense of self sold to us by brand ambassadors and peddlers of fear, but the self that will once again make India a nation to lead to a clearer light, of reason, compassion and humaneness, of inclusivity, of acceptance of difference. Together we must counter the darkness that envelopes our nation and our soul today, the hatred that is being passed to us as nationalism.

I wish you well. We depend on you.

Let us be the finders of light, for India and for a saner world.

NID Postpones Convocation Event Where Mallika Sarabhai Was to Be Chief Guest

Sarabhai, who has been a vocal critic of the Modi regime, was told that the event was cancelled but not given a reason.

New Delhi: The National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, one of the country’s top design schools, has postponed its annual convocation day – scheduled for February 7 – due to “unforeseen circumstances”. This is the first time in the institute’s history that the convocation has been postponed.

Reports pointed out that the chief guest for the convocation was supposed to be well-known dancer Mallika Sarabhai, and that could be why the scheduled event was suddenly postponed. Sarabhai has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has opposed his government’s decision to bring in the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Six top bureaucrats from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry are on NID’s management committee.

Set up in 1961 under an Act of parliament, NID is an autonomous institution under the ministry.

The Sarabhai family has been closely associated with NID since its inception. It was initially set up with the help of the Ford Foundation and Mallika’s parents, dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai and scientist Vikram Sarabhai. Mallika Sarabhai was also on the board of the prestigious institute.

Speaking to The Wire, Sarabhai said, “I received the invitation to be the chief guest four months ago.” The letter was sent to her by the NID board chairman, Jamshyd Godrej. She readily agreed.

However, on February 3, she received a mail saying the event was cancelled. She was not given any reason. She said, “I didn’t ask why.”

Also read: How Music Has Long Offered Voice to the Voiceless

An official announcement made to the students, however, said the 40th convocation is not cancelled but postponed for “unforeseen circumstances”.

The Wire has sent a set of questions to NID director Praveen Nahar, seeking information on why such a sudden step was taken and whether it was due to the invitation sent to Sarabhai to be the chief guest. We also asked whether there was any pressure from the ministry. This report will be updated if Nahar responds.

The NID spokesperson has also reportedly said that the administration is trying to hold the event as per schedule and will likely issue a statement on the matter on February 5.

Last checked on February 5 evening, the NID website still flashed the convocation date as February 7.

The Uncertainty and Obsolescence Vikram Sarabhai Saw in India’s Future

“I believe that the present is particularly threatening to those like you who embark on a professional career for the first time,” Sarabhai said in a talk to the students of IIT Madras in 1965.

Today marks the birth centenary of Vikram Sarabhai, the celebrated industrialist and innovator popularly considered to be the father of the Indian space programme.

Sarabhai founded the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad in 1947. Three years later, the Government of India set up the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) under the aegis of Homi J. Bhabha. The two organisations subsequently undertook research on atmospheric and space science and spaceflight as well as supported similar efforts around the country. In 1962, Sarabhai set up the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) with Bhabha’s support. INCOSPAR assumed responsibility for space-related studies and activities that the DAE had until then overseen. Seven years later, it was supplanted by a larger institution called the Indian Space Research Organisation, marking the start of India’s formalised spaceflight programme.

Apart from shaping ISRO in its formative years, he also established the Indian Institute of Management, a community science centre and, with his wife Mrinalini, the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, all in Ahmedabad. Sarabhai was famously committed to pressing the applications of science and technology to the needs of the nation, and contributed to national efforts in nuclear power generation, industrial organisation, market research and physical science research as well. He passed away on December 30, 1971.

By way of commemoration, the text of Sarabhai’s convocation address delivered at IIT Madras on August 1, 1965, is presented in full below.

Things have changed a great deal during the last five years. Jawaharlal Nehru, Kennedy and Khrushchev are gone from the international scene. Nations already armed to the teeth have continued to engage in a spiralling arm s race and bombs rain every day from the skies over North and South Vietnam. Violence is rampant the world over. There is disenchantment with aid and with military alliances. Manned exploration of the moon and, in this country, the pursuit of engineering studies do not have the same glamour as before. Political life in Red China, in the United States and in India is chaotic and social goals perceived with cynicism. What is happening around us? Has the uncertain world come to stay with us?

The affliction is not peculiar to us; rich nations and poor ones, large and small, powerful and weak, those in military alliances, the nonaligned and the neutral, all manifest the same symptoms. The scenario is different, in France, in the United States, in Poland, in Japan and in India. And so are the methods by which societies try to deal with these problems. But a common thread runs through all these. I wish today to share with you some of my thinking, for, I believe that the present is particularly threatening to those like you who embark on a professional career for the first time.

Everyone here is undoubtedly familiar with the expression ‘three raised to the power of eighteen’. It is a large number: 38,74,20,489, thirty-eight crore, seventy-four lakh, twenty thousand, four hundred and eighty-nine. What it means in dynamic terms is quite dramatic. If a person spreads gossip to just three others and the same is passed on by each of them to three others, and so on in succession, in just eighteen steps almost the entire population of India would share the spicy story. Note that if each step takes one hour, 90% of the people hear the gossip for the first time only during the seventeenth and the eighteenth hours. Indeed, during the whole of the first 80% of the time, the process affects merely 11% of the population. Even though each individual is partaking in the chain reaction exactly like all the others, who preceded him, that is, he receives information from one person and passes it on to three others, the social impact at a late stage of development hits like an avalanche.

Villa Sarabhai in Ahmedabad, 1951-1955

When we have a new infection, initially it is barely perceptible, but as a biological organism multiplies through successive generations, at a certain moment it suddenly permeates through the whole system. You can observe this fascinating phenomenon in making dahi or yoghurt, or thayir as you call it here. In the same way, information, knowledge, innovation, people and things diverge rapidly and their collective effects appear suddenly even though the basic process in each case has proceeded over a long time span.

When considering the social implications of technological change, one usually mentions the effects of the machine age on society through automation and imposed conformity. But these are trivial compared to the wider social implications of innovative man, who with curiosity, ingenuity and ambition, tries to reach out from his natural environment, and starts divergent processes. In nature, left to itself, control is maintained through an ecological balance. Order is not imposed from above, but arises through the interaction of each unit with its environment in a dynamic equilibrium. On the other hand, inherent in a programme of accelerated development, there is a suppression of some of the natural constraints which prevent divergence. And as the rate of innovation, of discovery and of everything else in the world gets faster and faster, so does the obsolescence of people and things become ever more acute. In contrast, biological development continues at its own pace. The child still requires nine months to develop in the womb. His life cycle of learning, of adolescence, as a house-holder and as an elder, who lays down the law, remains essentially unchanged.

Also read: A Wreath of White Roses Over the Ruins of Mehrangir, Homi Bhabha’s Home

The situation is aggravated because of the increase in the life span of the human being. The contradiction between desired longevity and a world of increasing change is obvious. An inevitable result of all this is the disillusionment of the young concerning the understanding and behaviour of the middle aged and the old. Equally serious is the inability of those who wield power and influence over world affairs to adopt values and behaviour, inherent in an order where accelerating change, rather than stability, is dominant. I suggest that today we witness a crisis of obsolescence.

An undated photograph of Vikram and Mrinalini Sarabhai with their son Karthikeya. Credit: Mid-Day

The qualitative change which has occurred in the last decade with the development of atomic energy, with the exploration and use of space, with the advent of electronics and computer sciences, is a manifestation of the divergent human function which has suddenly overtaken the world. What we have witnessed so far, dramatic as it is, is probably pedestrian compared to what we can expect in the future.

We have heard of the feasibility of areas of Earth’s surface illuminated during the night with sunlight through giant reflectors attached to satellites. We have also heard of weather modification, by increasing precipitation of rain in certain regions through artificially seeding clouds. There has been a suggestion of putting into orbit a belt of dust particles over the equator such that it would change the distribution of solar energy penetrating to different regions of the earth. It is claimed that such a belt could reduce the heat in the tropics and scatter more to high latitudes, providing a temperate climate even in the polar regions. This has many frightening possibilities because the level of the oceans would rise and submerge many inhabited areas.

New leads in biology and genetics pursued relentlessly are creating situations with implications few have thought through. Population control using the pill has tied up into knots theologists, wishing to interpret the sayings of the holy books in terms of current needs of society and new concepts of life. Just as doctors are faced with the problem of determining what death is before spare parts surgery would be justified, international lawyers rack their brains to determine an objective criterion for identifying where air space ends and outer space begins in which national sovereignty does not exist.

Affairs in the 1960s are largely in the hands of those who were already grown up when the Second World War broke out. Their learning experience and their theoretical knowledge relates principally to a period when the world was qualitatively different. The concepts of national sovereignty, of international spheres of influence, and power politics of the classical type have hardly changed even though we are constantly watched from satellites in outer space above us, and our security is threatened not merely by hostile neighbours, but by the actions and indiscretions of distant powers. What is the relevance of foreign bases in the context of long range missiles and nuclear submarines lurking unseen and silent on ocean floors? Is the Indian Ocean Indian any longer? How shall we preserve democratic states where the media of mass communications provide means of instantly reaching downwards from centres of authority, but, short of public agitation, there is no authorised channel for the reverse feedback for controlling the political system between elections?

ISRO chief K. Sivan during an event to mark Vikram Sarabhai’s birth centenary. Credit: PTI

What should be the goals of education in a world of obsolescence? We find ourselves largely unprepared to meet the new situation. In real life, it makes a lot of difference how we view these occurrences. We have the situation in India, in comm on with many other countries, of students challenging the authority of universities and of the establishment. Those who assume that the students are indisciplined and wayward suggest that getting them involved in some activity such as the NCC would set matters right. On the other hand, if one regards protests of students at Columbia, at the Sorbonne and at Banaras as manifestations of a deeper malaise of society, the powers that be would introspect rather than preach. There is no easy solution.

Also read: Are ISRO and India Willing to Do What It Takes to Make It in Space?

But there is, I believe, much that we can learn from an analogue that we find in the peaceful applications of atomic energy more precisely, in the technique of extracting energy liberated in the fission of uranium. As is well-known, when an atom of the [uranium-235 isotope] is hit by neutrons, it has a tendency to split into two lighter atoms, the combined weight of the splinters being less than the weight of the original atom. In the process of fission, not only is the difference of m ass liberated as energy, but additional neutrons are released. When these neutrons hit other fissile atoms, a chain reaction occurs and the process can continue like the divergent spread of gossip.

We require a critical mass of uranium before the chain can be self-sustaining and indeed, when there is no other control device, the mass explodes through the sudden liberation of a large amount of energy on reaching criticality. This is what constitutes an atom bomb based on fission. When we wish to extract useful power out of the self-sustaining chain reaction of fission, we have to prevent the divergent release of neutrons, and of energy in the mass of the system.

This needs the establishment of a large number of control loops which constantly and simultaneously sample the level of the reaction at various points of the reacting volume and sensitively adjust the position of neutron absorbers, strategically placed at various positions in the core of the reactor. Divergent trends are almost instantly compensated. An operator can shut down the reactor by pushing neutron absorbers into the core. But no reactor can be maintained in a steady state of self-sustained activity, necessary for providing useful energy, on the basis of exclusive reliance on gross controls operated with imperfect feedback loops. Indeed, the control of potentially divergent systems relies on sensitive information loops which operate quickly in response to minute changes of activity.

Vikram Sarabhai was featured on a commemorative stamp the Government of India issued in 1972. Credit: India Post

What can we learn from this analogue in the social context? That control of the divergent human function cannot be maintained through the macro system of a super government. We need a system which perm its an infinite number of micro control loops spread through the fabric of society. An authoritative regime can inhibit the divergent human function, but only at the cost of inhibiting development itself. Ironically, free societies are the ones which are most prone to the social impact of run away divergencies. It is in such free societies that the power of the super state, the super authority in education and for developmental tasks, is most difficult to sustain.

I am intrigued by how closely this line of thinking brings us to Vinaobaji’s and Jayaprakash’s ideas on social and political organisation. We are faced with the problem of the divergent human function manifesting itself on the world scene, while in India we are still trying to shake ourselves free from poverty. We have, I believe, to create a social system and a pattern of development which is based not on monolithic organisations operating impersonally at an all-India level or even at the level of the states but in units where the feedback loop has high fidelity communication and a quick response.

Also read: U.R. Rao, ISRO Chairman Who Helped India’s Space Programme Settle Down

I am convinced, for instance, that our education system would immeasurably benefit if it were liberated from the monopolistic privileges under which universities take hold of all educational matters at a certain level in allotted territories. There is no way in which a University Grants Commission or an affiliating university can ensure educational standards. In the ultimate analysis, it is only the teacher in the classroom that can do anything in the matter. He has to be provided the freedom to innovate in education in a changing world and, for this innovation, he has to receive the trust of those who back him up. I would suggest that the most effective development of education can take place only when the teacher, the student, his parents and the outside environment can interact with one another, in a series of feedback loops, free from regimentation and irrelevant theories and principles preached from the top.

U.R. Rao inaugurates a bust of Vikram Sarabhai at Antariksh Bhavan, the ISRO HQ, New Delhi, 2004. Credit: ISRO

Engineers look forward to play a meaningful role in society. We are nationally poised to formulate a new Five Year Plan for development. Economists in the past have been prone to equate investments in hard facilities as necessary for economic growth. This is often true, but in the present context, it is largely fallacious. Twenty years after independence, w e find ourselves with a broad infra-structure of plants and facilities in the engineering industries which are largely under-utilised. We also find a number of well-established laboratories, without clear-cut developmental tasks which are meaningful in terms of national priorities. What is needed now is a major investment in design and developmental effort directed at indigenous capability for carefully chosen tasks, which are important to us.

As an example, I might cite a good transportation system: providing an inexpensive scooter or a cheap car; a mass communication system which brings television to every village in a decade; inexpensive power through the countryside based on optimisation of grids, with a combination of hydroelectric, atomic and thermal units; a defence system based largely on hardware related to our own strategic needs rather than one which is reliant on what our friends overseas choose to sell us, gift to us or help produce under their know-how. We can identify subsystems under each of these major tasks and we can create design and development groups which can operate with a wide measure of autonomy. They will require trust to be able to innovate.

All this is not a pipe dream. I hope we have the good fortune of realising these programmes before divergent functions in our society blow asunder all that we cherish.

Freedom Under Fire: C’Garh Judge Sacked after Tussle with MLA; 4 Gujarat Schools Make ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ a Rule

A round-up of news, both bad and good, on the rights front from India.

Police detain Hindu Sena members on Monday. Credit: PTI

Chhattisgarh government dismisses CJM who accused BJP MLA of threatening him

The Chhattisgarh government has dismissed Sukma’s Chief Judicial Magistrate Prabhakar Gwal from “service in public interest with immediate effect”, Indian Express reported. Senior government officials have refused to reveal the nature of the allegations against him, and have said the decision was taken after a recommendation from the Bilaspur High Court that could not be ignored.

Gwal had earlier alleged that BJP legislator Ramlal Chauhan had threatened him after he convicted 5 people in connection with the 2011 PMT papers leak. His wife had written to the President alleging harassment, saying that her husband had been transferred to Sukma because of this judgment.

Four Gujarat educational institutes make ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ a rule for admission

According to a Hindustan Times report, four educational institutions in the the state of Gujarat have made it mandatory for students to write ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ in their application forms if they want admission. All 4 institutions are run by a trust headed by BJP leader Dilip Sanghani. “The decision has been taken to instill nationalism in students at a young age at a time when we are witnessing anti-national sloganeering in campuses,” said Sanghani.

The four institutes – MV Patel Kanya Vidhyalay, TP Mehta and MT Gandhi Girls’ High School, Patel Vidhyarthi Ashram, and DM Patel Physiotherapy College –have 5,000 students altogether.

‘Harassed’ Dalit clerk hangs himself

31-year old Ketan Koradia, a clerk in an Ahmedabad court, committed suicide on Sunday alleging discrimination and harassment for being a Dalit in his workplace, Indian Express reported. His father filed a complaint with the police after his death, saying he was discriminated against for his caste ever since he joined the workplace two years ago. The FIR names five of Koradia’s colleagues.

Ghulam Ali event cancelled after threat, Hindu Sena men detained

According to an Indian Express report, Delhi Police detained several Hindu Sena members and Sena chief Vishnu Gupta on Monday, when they were allegedly on their way to disrupt the music launch of Pakistani ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali-starrer ‘Ghar Wapsi’. Gupta had allegedly threatened the film’s director Suhaib Ilyasi, who filed a complaint with the police.

The music launch was cancelled by the hotel where it was to be held, following threats of disruption.

Pilibhit fake encounter: 47 cops get life sentence

All 47 policemen convicted of killing 11 Sikhs at 3 different fake encounters on the same night night in July 1991 were sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court on Tuesday, India Today reported. The case took almost 25 years, and ten of the 57 policemen originally accused died during the period.

500 artists, activists and writers demand filmmaker Sarangi’s release

According to a report in The Citizen, 500 artists, activist and writers have signed a petition demanding filmmaker Deba Ranjan Sarangi’s release. Sarangi was arrested on March 18 from the Kucheipadar village of Rayagada District, Odisha. He has been arrested under sections 147(rioting), 148 (rioting with a deadly weapon) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. Supporters claim that these charges are false and he is being targeted for his work as an activist where he has highlighted and critiqued “policies of destructive development, unbridled mining practices, displacement, police impunity, atrocities on Dalits, Adivasi issues, growth of communal fascism in Odisha, violence on women and farmers’ suicide in the context of acute agrarian crisis”. Signatories of the petition include Nayantara Sahgal, Arundhati Roy, Nandita Das, Mallika Sarabhai and Teesta Setalvad.

BJP expels UP Mahila Morcha chief for anti-Dalit comments

The BJP state Mahila Morcha chief for Uttar Pradesh, Madhu Mishra, was expelled from the party for six years after she made controversial ‘anti-Dalit’ statements at an Aligarh rally, an Economic Times report states. “Making use of the constitution, people who are ruling over you used to once polish your boots, remember that. This happened because we were divided,” Madhu had said.

Do you know of any other incident we should highlight in this column? Write to me at jahnavi@cms.thewire.in.