Some months ago, a young woman I know posted a query on the intranet of her media college looking for a copy of Govind Nihalani's Hazaar Chauraasi Ki Ma
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When asked what it was about she referred to Naxalbari and Lalbagh in her explanation. Soon afterwards, the administration communicated to her that rules forbade expressing any political opinions -- which means online activity is monitored. It's another matter that the college had called the Chief Minister of a certain state to address the students. As far as we know, said CM is only a politician, not a filmmaker, journalist or even a saucy cartoonist. But perhaps, it's only ideology if it's somebody else's. One's own views are just... normal.
The fact that certain -- call them majoritarian, staus quo-ist or mainstream -- ideas get cast as normal, while whatever challenges these viewpoints is dismissed as "political" implies that politics is a deviant, maybe fiendish, but definitely killjoy activity rather than something which underlies public and private decision making and is a prejudice based on ignorance or vagueness about what the politics means.
That educational spaces where angst, anger and questioning -- however youthfully facile -- are usually the fashion, should now systematise themselves along these lines is probably good training for the students' well-adjusted existence in a middle-class environment increasingly uncomfortable with any protest or disagreement.
Consider that the government has recently announced that those who speak in favour of Maoist guerrillas will face legal action and 10 years imprisonment. No, I didn't say censorship! Or Emergency! What do you think --I'm some anti-national type or what? But how can it be unlawful in a democracy to express any opinion if it's not a defamatory one?
The home ministry cautioned that Maoists are contacting people to spread their viewpoints and so "general public are informed to be extremely vigilant...and not unwittingly become a victim of such propaganda."
So, should the general public be vigilant about a story that was all over the press last month? A national daily outlined the modus operandi of extortion, looting and ransom that raised Rs1,500 crore for the "Maoist empire" along with state-wise figures of income and expenditure. Reading it my first thought was -- at last, the mainstream media is doing solid investigative journalism. Imagine then, discovering through a political list-serve that the same story had appeared, almost verbatim, in other national dailies and local papers in Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh and Bengal, attributed to specific staff reporters each time but eventually traced to an allegedly intelligence agency run blog, Naxal Terror Watch. Only the opponent's information is propaganda perhaps.
Even if one is not pro-Maoist, all discussions which ask questions about the State -- whether it abides by the Constitution, whether it is using violence against its people in countless tribal areas, sometimes abetting private mining companies --u00a0 get squeezed into the narrow pro or anti-Maoist paradigm.u00a0 To end a heated argument my friends will joke: come on Comrade Paromita, Mahakali Dalam. To keep the friendship, I will laugh and let the discussion go, without even agreeing to disagree. It's as if the state is our mummy-daddy and we are uncomfortable admitting they gave dowry in our marriage. After all saas bhi kabhi bahuthi and that's that.
But whether you read about Binayak Sen, the case against Arundhati Roy, the police notices to a Kannada reporter, who interviewed a local CPI (M-L) leader, the arrest of the trade unionist Gopal Mishra or the college administration's paternal warning to the student, none of this is that humorous -- or normal. Maybe it's important right now to not be so normal, and while we're at it, check the definition of political.
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Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer, teacher and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at www.parodevi.com
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