Meditations on Ganpati: Criteria of ‘freeedom of expression’ and its limits

(The incident that happened on 1st May concert invited a spirited debate. Many arguments and counterarguments came forward which enriched and enlarged the spectrum of debate. A good number of readers actively followed them. The debates examined in the process important issues and concepts related to culture, art, freedom, history, and politics. Interesting formulations and lines of reasoning were offered. This episode has provided us a good opportunity to revisit and reformulate our position on the relationship between culture and politics. In this series, Ravish has added a new dimension by inquiring the criteria of freedom of expression, possibility for artistic creativity, plurality of space and possibility to share our space with ‘Others’. )

BY Ravish Kumar Chaudhary

The event and the aftermath of MAY Day celebration in JNU has raised an intense and meaningful debate among comrades concerning basic notions of categories like “freedom of expression” vis-a-vis rights and responsibility of audience, the interrelation between Art, culture and politics and our approach towards them, the notion of “Our Space” and the possibility, extent and limit to share it with Others and lastly, the code of conduct on occasions of radical importance.

Though the debate has been initiated by someone called Apoorvanand for whom the act of stopping a performer in-between her performance with the larger consent of audience was indeed “Murder of Artistic Expression”, I am primarily concerned with the arguments and positions of my comrades in JNU who, I believe, are raising the debate to explore and understand these categories on an reasonable and realistic ground which is hitherto loaded with fiction and fantasies of idealist philosophers and are evaluated at the standard established  by Bourgeoisies thinkers.

  Since I was not among the audience to have a firsthand account of the event, I have no option but to rely upon the facts that emerged from the writings of comrades namely Meera, Kavitendra, and Martand who are not in disagreement as far as the facticity of the event is concerned. That, after a jubilant performance of Hirawal from patna, Tritha (a young singer and the local partner of LAAL Band) came to sing three compositions. The first two were classically inspired and received mixed response from the audience. The third composition again classically inspired had one thing in addition to its ‘sur’ and ‘taal’-the lyric was in Sanskrit and that too in praise of a hindu deity (Ganesha). The song was considered inappropriate for May Day celebration and Tirtha was stopped in-between her performance. Meera lamented in her first writing that no explanation was given for stopping the performance in-between. Sensing her pain and anguish, comrades appeared to give post-facto explanation and justification.

Before we venture to explore the notion of “freedom of expression” and its limitation let me point out a fact that all our comrades are in agreement that what was sung by Tirtha was indeed a Hymn on Ganpati. How do we conclude that it was a Hymn (stuti) and not a song (geet)? Only because the language of composition was Sanskrit or the Character/Hero of the poetry in popular conception is perceived as hindu deity? If yes, what space do we give to artistic creativity? How much we allow the artists to do experiments with ideas, concepts and images already available and to modify and alter them in new context and give it new meaning/sensibility/aesthetical expression? If no, on what ground our comrades concluded that although the first two classically inspired songs were bearable but the third one was not? Many of us having a firsthand reading of Indian Poetics (Kavya Shastra) know that ‘mangalacharan’ (prayer to deity and of-course a religious act) is performed at the start of event and not in the last. Tritha had not started her performance with Ganpati chant but was merely performing her last (and latest one, as informed by her crew member) composition expecting a proper evaluation of the musical experiments from the audience famous for having higher taste and sensibility towards various forms of arts. I really fail to understand the difference cognized between the first two and the last composition of Thritha by our intellectual comrades.

Some comrades have tried to understand the whole event in the binary of ‘matter and form’. They assert that our approaches towards rights of expression shall and must be determined by the matter and form of the expression. How appropriate the assertion may sound under the frame work of “dialectical materialism”, it is a void one for the simple reason that it arbitrarily pre-suppose the nature of so called ‘matter’ on its own (say free) will. It gives no rational explanation for describing the nature of the matter in question. In addition, It also reduces the ‘objective condition’ to ‘material condition’. The point is the ‘matter’ (here the hindu deity who was in the centre of the lyric) cannot be perceived as objective fact in isolation, it is the matter infused with form ( of expression) which gives it its objectivity. And if some decision is taken on objective conditions it has to do justice with the synthesis of matter and form and not matter or form in isolation. For example, The cry for having a democratic space for paintings of Hussain( he has also painted Ganesha) is not because his absolute right of expression but for the synthesis he has done in his art. Whether this synthesis suits to our taste or not, it gives it the objectivity as a modern form of artistic expression and validity to be in our social-cultural domain. Right wing politics miss this objective validity and therefore reject this expression of art in toto. The argument also holds for composition of Tritha. Therefore can it be suggested that it is not the arbitrary ‘right to sing’ of Tritha or the arbitrary right of audience and organisers to ‘reject and boo’ that resolves our understanding of rights and limits of expression in a given objective condition.

Some of the comrades think that the  song is not that much culprit than its  presentation on a particular occasion, for  it was a celebration of MAY Day and the  audience was expecting songs being  capable to arose revolutionary  sentiments. The innocent pain of one of  the audience appeared in an article  when it is being asked “Is singing ‘sohar’ also acceptable in-between some one’s  ‘terhi’( rituals performed after death) ?” Clearly there is no analogy between the event in question and the hypothetical condition forwarded. However, this  indicates the anguish of encroachment of  some one’s space by others. The artistic space that was crafted to revolutionise the sentiments of audience, was unexpectedly occupied to demonstrate artistic expertise! What was meant to recall the saga of prolonged struggles against various forms of oppression was deviated to reach sublime! Should this trespassing not be intervened? Was it not justified to re-occupy “Our Space” and use it as per our design? How convincing may it sound in the first instant, it forced us to revisit the conception of “Our/My Space” and reflect upon the possibility, extent and limit of sharing this space with “Others”. More than the question of encroachment, it is a problematic of ‘limits of tolerance’ in a democratic society. What is our criteria to share our space (or reject it) with someone who do not share our world-view or do not uphold or remains neutral to the historical positions we think of greater importance? Surely no one with democratic and egalitarian sense will like a situation where only people with similar perception, idea, taste etc engage with each other repeating what we already know, celebrate and uphold. The prerequisite of any social engagement is that people with different positions come together and participate in order to synthesize and elevate what already exists. To say that an event must be performed in such a way that it gratifies our already existing ideas makes us a closed society. If something unexpected suddenly appears in our space we cannot prevent it to happen merely because it was ‘unexpected’. Kavitendra’s story of “Nose and Stick” is valid but what if the nose of the gentleman in the story is so long that it occupies all the space and left nothing for others. Given the situation should we cut the nose short or advice the man with stick to discover some other place (read some other gathering/society)? Is the encroachment of our space by Tirtha and her song more dangerous than our demand for an exclusive space pervaded with our ideas, our colors, our sentiments etc (even if it is a celebration of MAY Day)? To look for a possibility of sharing of space is not to say that all space is available for all. The point is we have to be very cautious and responsible while deciding the limits and grounds of sharing our space.

So the question is whether the decision to stop Tritha in-between her performance was politically correct? Does it expose our attitude of right wing kind Censorship having a difference only of degree? Comrade Sandeep humbly agreed that it would have been more democratic, effective and healthy if the organizers have expressed their discontent after the performance and had educated the singer regarding the context and aims of the event. More democratic would have been to give the singer an equal chance to put her position to audience. However what are being said is all about rules of conduct (civic) and not an explanation of a (political) act. On the larger question of the understanding behind this political act Sandeep and others propagate similar propositions. However the question is whether it was an act of hastiness based on ambiguity, confusion and not well perceived notions or an act of Censorship? Whether an act of stopping someone from expressing her/his views is Censorship or not has to be evaluated on the consciousness and politics behind the act which in turn has to do with our notions of operational categories. Right wing Censorship acts under the compulsion of its political framework which categorically deny all possibilities of existence of what does not fits in its structure, negates all that is not the component of its design, see everything ‘Other’ as unpleasant, a burden, a threat to its existence and purpose and treat them as enemy. On the other hand the politics that propagate democratic and egalitarian values limits/negates only those ideas which are subversive and oppressive in its inherent character and structure. The philosophy that guides acts of progressive politics suggests more assimilation and elevation than negation. Thus while religion as a structure of oppression must be negated, some of the images and icons that is till date a part this structure can be used as artistic expression under our democratic, secular and progressive domain.

What appears more discouraging than the act of stopping the performer that some comrades have post-facto tried to understand and justify the episode on empirical grounds and simplistic reason than with arguments of rigor for which they are known. The methodology adopted to evaluate an event on likes and dislikes; its inappropriateness on grounds of ‘demand’ and taste of audience, on the ground of incompatibility with occasion etc. operates in a structure having resemblance with right wing politics and must be discarded. This will ensure a clear distinction between what is right wing Censorship and reasonable limits to the ‘freedom of expression’.

Caution: The note is an attempt of self-clarification on the issue, the concepts it involves and on the methodology adopted by esteemed comrades in the analysis of the event.

Ravish is an engineering graduate and master in Sanskrith from  JNU. He briefly pursued philosophy at JNU, and is now an engineering personnel with the ONGC, Mehasana. He has also been involved in the cultural politics.

THE LOST ART OF REASON: WHY SMALL ACTS OF INTOLERANCE ARE LINKED TO LARGER ONES

(Meera’s article discussing May Day and the debate on Ganapati led many people to revisit not only the events of that day but also our approaches to politics and culture. Along with this, it was also a call for the debate to be conducted on a larger canvas. Through Facebook, blogs and pamphlets, people responded to issues ranging from the absence of civility in our political culture to the nature of ‘Freedom of Expression’. Both agreements and disagreements with Meera’s position were expressed. Keeping in mind these many reactions, here is Meera’s second response.)

By Meera Vishvanathan

 Out of a single event, many webs of interpretation can be spun. Many issues were raised in the discussion following my article on the May Day concert in JNU. I can only try and address some of them. The intention here is not to provoke a new debate, but to provide a response that may help tie things together.

Unfortunately, in most instances, the debate was reduced to defining ‘freedom of expression’. Whereas, I meant to raise a larger set of questions about cultural politics. For this reason, I think it is important to address three issues we must consider in the long-term: the first relates to platforms and contexts; the second, to cultural symbols and forms of appropriation; and the third to censorship and freedom of expression.

If the argument seems to have become limited to JNU, then this has to do with the nature of the responses. But I write this in the hope that understanding one particular situation may help us understand these questions as a whole.

Of Platforms and  Contexts

Let us begin with the event so as to put it behind us. I have been asked, ‘Does not JNUSU (or any organization or group) have a right to decide what is conveyed from their platform?’ Of course they do. Platforms have their significance and organizations have the right to determine their political and cultural orientation. Debates can happen only if differences in positions and distinctions in ideology are understood. I was not saying that anything can be said anywhere or that we must create some kind of intellectual free-for-all.

Nor is the crowd forced to accept what is  thrust upon it. I will not argue for enforced decorum. For, from the intervention of crowds there often arises great and lasting political change. But the nature of this change depends on the political understanding of the crowd: it is what separates a riot from a revolution. And it is this political understanding (or the lack of it) that I was querying.

Nor should my arguments be read to infer that a  GaneshVandana or any kind of vandana should  be sung as a matter of practice every May Day.  But supposing, as happened that day, on a  platform that you have carefully constructed, on  an occasion that means a great deal to you,  someone comes and says or sings something  that you not only find uncomfortable but also  hate. How do you deal with this intrusion? Is  your primary response, in fact your only  response, to shut her up and forget about it? Is  your understanding of May Day so brittle that a  single wrong note must be silenced  immediately?  Is silencing something our only  form of resistance? Whatever happened to  disputation, argument, sarcasm, irony or  debate?

Let me thank the person who put up Nagarjun’s poem entitled ‘Pita-putrasamvaad’ because it makes many points with a subtlety I am not capable of. But since we hold that Ganapati belongs to the Hindu right and is a brahmanical figure, Nagarjun made a grave error when he composed this poem! Should we not remove this poem or this poet from our tradition so we can have a truly ‘progressive’ politics? And further, since anything touched by the right-wing is reprehensible and our identities as an audience are so brittle, shall we also stop reading Namdeo Dhasal entirely and never cite him from a public forum?

If, instead of singing a Ganeshavandana, Tritha had sung the Purushasukta, my response would have been different. But the point is she sang what she sang, and responses are based on events and not on hypothetical situations. I have a problem when we begin to respond to every situation in the same way, and when for a whole variety of situations we begin to propose a set of standardized and even ‘final’ solutions.

Cultural Symbols and Forms of Appropriation

Frankly, I am baffled by how my arguments can be read as ‘romanticizing’ Ganapati because he was once a tribal god. Instead, what I was trying to point out was the complex process by which he was absorbed by brahmanism. If we understand this process, perhaps we will understand that the appropriation of Ganapati by the Hindu right in itself is not enough cause to silence a hymn devoted to him. This does not mean that we must glorify Ganapati, worship him or appropriate him for ourselves. But the process must be understood because figures whom we hold dear, such as Bhagat Singh, are similarly appropriated by the Hindutva right. This is not to equate Ganapati and Bhagat Singh because that would be ahistorical. But if you can’t tell the difference between a simile and an analogy, then I would suggest that you first check a dictionary.

A certain kind of cultural politics, espoused by anti-caste movements, has tried to reclaim icons appropriated by Brahmanism. Thus, Phule brilliantly read the Puranas to indicate a non-brahmanical substratum to Indian history. Attempts to reclaim Mahabali or Mahishasura draw from such an understanding. Ganapati also fits this paradigm, but since he was appropriated slightly earlier, he appears not as a vanquished symbol but a deity in his own right. So, when we oppose Ganapati but celebrate Mahishasura, we exhibit not only the poverty of our political imagination but also distort the innovativeness with which someone like Phule could reach out to the past.

In comparison, the left wants to uphold a definition of secularism where all religious symbols must be removed from public platforms. Fair enough. But the problem is, in India, if you reject everything touched by the taint of religion, what will be left is not a secular space but a sanitized one. So, in keeping with this argument, we removed the Ganapati hymn from our platform. Then surely we should also have stopped Laal’s rendition of Baba Farid? But have not many adivasis deified Birsa Munda? Is not Ambedkar a deity for many Dalits? Shall we remove all references to them as well? And is it just me or is this argument getting increasingly stupid?

No one studying ancient Indian history or Sanskrit texts can ignore the tremendous brutality of the varna–jati system. Granted, but at the same time you cannot attribute to entire periods of history only one text and only one character. To equate all Sanskrit texts with the Manusmriti is similar to saying that Golwalkar’s ‘We or Our Nationhood Defined’ is the defining text written in English in the 20^th century. A critical attitude to history requires that we engage both with the brahmanical past and those who dispute it. But the ‘critical attitude’ on display in our campus labels even a student who studies Sanskrit but does not vote for the ABVP and eats beef a ‘communal fascist’. Frankly, there are traditions of debate and disputation in Sanskrit that could teach the organized (and disorganized) left a great deal — if only they were prepared to listen.

 When Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti at Mahad, I see it as a symbolic act of great force, a necessary act of violence if you will. But Ambedkar also sat and read the Manusmriti with a brahmana, and if I remember Eleanor Zelliot’s account correctly what were burnt were sections of the Manusmriti dealing with the oppression of the shudras. I don’t remember Ambedkar saying that we should not read the Manusmriti or burn the brahmana. This is why the act of burning the Manusmriti at Mahad is different, so fundamentally different, from the burning of books in Nazi Germany.

Censorship and Freedom of Expression

What I saw in JNU on the night of 1^st May was an act of censorship. On this, I will stand my ground. If the audience had booed and the singer had stopped, that would be one thing. But the moment someone, anyone, leader or crowd gets up on stage and enforces silence, then it constitutes an act of censorship. The choices made and subsequently defended were made by one vocal minority that decided it could determine what could be heard and what could not without even the semblance of  reasonable debate.

I have been told that  since we  were   celebrating May Day   whatever was sung    should have been ‘appropriate’ for the   occasion. Since it was a  platform  for  progressive  culture , Faiz and Habib   Jalib were  fine. But  Ganapati was not   part  of  ‘our’ culture, so Tritha  had to  go.  Explain to me  how this is  different from   a logic that says  ‘Valentines day is not a    part of our culture, so it  must go’,  ‘wearing jeans is not a part of our  culture, so it must go’, ‘women visiting  pubs is not part of our culture, so it must  go’?

This is not to say that everyone has to  adopt the same cultural symbols.  Monocultures are undemocratic and  dangerous. But if you think that in  rejecting these symbols you can say “So-and-so offends me, so I have a right to silence her,” then I will say you have no such right. If you think you think you have this right, then the ABVP similarly has the right to force a ban on Ramanujan’s essay, certain Muslim clerics have a right to silence The Satanic Verses, and the Maharashtra police has the right to ban the Kabir Kala Manch and hound its activists. Fundamentally, if there is any difference between these positions it is only one of degree. The right to oppose something is not the right to silence it without any debate.

It also worries me when we begin to parrot the language of offense and blasphemy. Because these are not ‘new’ or ‘materialist’ or ‘secular’ or ‘Marxist’ categories. They do not constitute the ‘freedom of expression of the audience’ or the ‘right to dissent’. Rather, they are ideas rooted in hegemonic religions and replicate their structures of silencing dissent. Of late, in India what we have begun to see is the fragility of both secularism and freedom of expression as concepts because we have all begun to take and legitimize offense so easily.

The questions I raised were addressed to the university precisely because intolerance has been rising in campus spaces. To say that one should have the same expectations of a crowd at JNU as a crowd at a Bon Jovi concert or a bhajanmandli does great disservice to the university. Because I expect a university to be open to reflection and criticism and to have the generosity to at least consider different points of view.

There is a vitality to debates that is dying because we have steadily reduced ourselves to a series of assertions and positions. We have bracketed ourselves such that we only wish to hear people who say exactly what we want them to say. And above all, we have taken to bowing down to a culture of political correctness.

If someone says, ‘What you have said offends me’, we never say, ‘Let us discuss the basis for this offense and what has gone wrong.’ Instead, we take out an apology and say ‘Oh, forgive us, for we had no intention of offending you’. We silence the debate, brush it aside, and move forward. But the debate has not been addressed or resolved.

Perhaps what happened in JNU on the night of May Day was not as serious as ABVP’S enforced removal of the Ramanujan essay. But it was just one step away and that distresses me. Nothing I can say should or will stop JNU from raising its voice against the repression of struggles across this country. But I maintain that such acts reduce our moral authority to be the voice of such struggles. To say ‘Our language of politics is different from others’ is no defense. Small acts of intolerance are linked to larger ones.

As a historian, what the night of 1^st May reaffirmed for me was the fact that the silences of our sources are as important as what they tell us. For, it is from the present that we reach out to the past. The past is not separate from us. The past is our contemporary. It lives among us, even the most ancient past. And though we find certain ideas inconvenient, though we might wish to oppose them, we cannot block them and neatly stash them away.

And so, I will sing the praise of inconvenient ideas, even if they have an elephant head and a large body. Not because I vest my faith in them. But because doubt is the first step towards querying false certainties.

 (Meera Visvanathan is a former member of JNU students’ Union and a student of the Ph.D programme at the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University)

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लोकप्रियतावाद और सेंसरशिप बनाम कलाभिव्यक्ति और सहिष्णुता. वक्रतुंड महाकाय…

By मार्तंड प्रगल्भ

बहस-मुहाबसों और वाम-राजनीति के लिए जाने जाने वाले जे.एन.यु  परिसर की एक सांस्कृतिक-संध्या आज-कल चर्चा का विषय बनी हुई है. इस चर्चा ने कुछ महत्वपूर्ण और मौजूं सवालों को केंद्र में लाया है. उन सवालों से उलझने के पहले हम उस खास सांस्कृतिक-संध्या और और उस खास घटना का ज़िक्र करना चाहेंगे जिसने मौजूदा विवाद को जन्म दिया है.

          बात पहली मई की है. पहली मई यानी मजदूर-दिवस की है. इस मजदूर दिवस के दिन जवाहरलाल नेहरु विश्वविद्यालय छात्र-संघ की ओर से पाकिस्तान के वामपंथी सांस्कृतिक संगठन ‘लाल बैंड’ को आमंत्रित किया गया था, जिसने इस खास कार्यक्रम के लिए ही अपनी भारत-यात्रा को मई की दूसरी तारीख तक बढ़ा दिया था.वरना वो तो पहले ही पाकिस्तान लौट गए होते. साथ में जनसंस्कृति मंच के सांस्कृतिक संगठन ‘हिरावल’ को भी पटना से खास तौर पर बुलाया गया था और जिसने फैज़ अहमद फैज़ की मशहूर नज़्म ‘इन्तिसाब’ से इस शाम का आगाज़ करना था.  तयशुदा ढंग से ही कार्यक्रम शुरू हुआ. और इन्तिसाब के बाद मुक्तिबोध की ‘अँधेरे में’ का एक हिस्सा ‘ओ मेरे आदर्शवादी मन’ ,वीरेन डंगवाल की ‘हमारा समाज’ और ‘विश्व के बाज़ार की खिल्ली उडाता’ ,गोरख के नवगीत को समर्पित दिनेश कुमार शुक्ल की ‘जाग मेरे मनमछंदर’ तक आते आते ‘हिरावल’ ने संगीत की एक प्रतिसंस्कृति में श्रोताओं को गहरे उतार दिया. और ऎसी स्थिति में यह एकदम स्वाभाविक था कि श्रोताओं की मांग पर  छात्र-संघ को ‘हिरावल’ से गोरख के गीत ‘जनता की आवे पलटनिया’ गाने की अपील करनी पडी. जिन लोगों को जे.एन.यु. की छात्र राजनीति से थोडा भी साबका है वो जानते हैं कि यह गीत जे.एन.यु में कितना ‘लोकप्रिय’ है और इसकी लोकप्रियता में आन्दोलनों के दौरान गीत के सामूहिक गायन और ‘हिरावल’ का उस गायन की प्रेरणा में कितना योगदान है.  ‘जनता की आवे पलटनिया’ के साथ ‘हिरावल’ मंच से विदा लेता है और ‘लाल’ के तैमूर रहमान एक छोटे से परिचय के बाद त्रिथा को मंच पर आमंत्रित करते हैं. कोई नहीं जानता था ये त्रिथा कौन है और न ही कार्यक्रम के पहले लाल ने ‘छात्र-संघ’ को इसके बारे में कोई सूचना ही दी थी. जबकी खुद तैमूर शाम के दो घंटे उस मुक्ताकाशी मंच पर पहले ही साउंड वैगेरह की जांच कर के गए थे. इस औचक आमंत्रण से दर्शकों को एक झटका तो लगा ही था. उस गायिका के बारे में खुद तैमूर भी कुछ नहीं जानते थे सिवाय इसके कि उसके बैंड ने उन्हें दिल्ली में हुए इस शो के लिए साजो सामान मुहैय्या किया था. बहरहाल ये जे.एन.यु था जिसने इस अचकचाहट से निकल कर उस गायिका की सधी आवाज़ और रागों के उसके प्रयोग को सुना. शुद्ध रागों के प्रयोग तक श्रोताओं ने उसकी तालियाँ बजा कर सराहना भी की. लेकिन बात तब बिगड गयी जब अपने तीसरे नम्बर के रूप में उसने ‘गणेश वन्दना’ आरम्भ किया. इस गाने के साथ श्रोताओं की ओर से इसे न सुनाने और लाल को आने की  मांग शुरू हो गयी. तत्काल छात्र-संघ ने तैमूर से संपर्क किया और बताया कि यह एक धार्मिक वन्दना है और इस मंच के लिए अनुपयुक्त है. मंच के पीछे से तैमूर और छात्र-संघ अध्यक्षा ने गाने को रोकने का संकेत भी किया लेकिन  शायद त्रिथा इधर देख नहीं पायी और मजबूरन अध्यक्षा को मंच पे जा के त्रिथा से गाना रोकने की अपील करनी पडी. तुरंत तैमूर ने भी इसे गंभीर मानते हुए मंच पर जाकर बहुत हलके ढंग से शुरू किया… ‘आइये अब कुछ समाजवादी दुनिया के बारे में बात करें’!

बहस के केंद्र में यही अंतिम घटना है. इस घटना की आलोचना करते हुए अपूर्वानंद ने और साथी मीरा ने इसे क्रमशः ‘कलाभिव्यक्ति की हत्या’ और  ‘अविश्वसनीय असहिष्णुता’ एवं ‘लोकप्रियता और उपेक्षा के मेलजोल से लगने वाला सेंसरशिप’ कहा है. अपूर्वानंद की आलोचना और उसकी भाषा निहायत ही गैरजिम्मेदाराना और जे.एन.यु. की वाम राजनीति की और प्रकांतर से दुनिया भर के मेहनतकशों के पक्ष में खड़े होने वाली कला की उपेक्षा करने वाली थी. छात्र-संघ के  इस आयोजन और उस आयोजन में शामिल श्रोताओं के बारे में अपूर्वानंद की टिप्पणी और उसकी भाषा पर गौर करें- “निश्चय ही त्रिथा को यह प्रसंग या तो पता न होगा या वे इसे भूल गईं जब मई दिवस पर जवाहरलाल नेहरु विश्वविद्यालय में  एक वामपंथी छात्र संगठन द्वारा आयोजित एक संगीत संध्या में मंच पर वे  अनामंत्रित गाने चली गईं. एक तो वे स्वयं अनपेक्षित , अतः किंचित अस्वस्तिकर उपस्थिति थीं , दूसरे आयोजकों और श्रोताओं  को, जो मई दिवस पर संघर्ष और क्रान्ति के जुझारू गीत सुन कर अपने शरीर के भीतर जोश  भरने आये थे इसकी आशंका थी कि वे इस पवित्र अवसर पर जाने  क्या गा देंगी.” ऐसा लगता है कि बाकी लोग जो वहाँ पहुंचे थे वो क्रान्ति के जुझारू गीतों से शरीर में जोश भरने आये थे और अपूर्वानंद गणेश वन्दना या हनुमान चालीसा या महादेव मन्त्र या दुर्गा मन्त्र सुनने!! और ताज्जुब नहीं कि गणेश से लेकर देवी और महादेव के मिथक किसी समय गैरब्राह्मणीय और जनजातीय या ‘अनार्य’(!)व्युत्पत्ति वाले ही हैं! आगे उन्होंने हिरावल के सादे ढंग से पेश किये गए गीतों के बारे में लिखा “ अपने सादा अंदाज में उन्होंने जो सुनाया ,वह वहां इकट्ठा जन समुदाय की इच्छाओं के मुताबिक़ ही था”. क्या थी वहाँ इकट्ठे जनसमुदाय की इच्छा? हिरावल के गीतों में व्यक्त होती चेतना अगर सर्वहारा चेतना के साथ थी और उसे समृद्ध करने वाली थी तो यह तो तय है कि वहाँ उपस्थित जनसमुदाय मई दिवस के दिन जिस संगीत के लिए एकत्रित हुआ था वह कला और संस्कृति के वर्गीय सौंदर्यबोध और उसकी सापेक्ष स्वायत्तता से वाकिफ था. और यही कारण है कि त्रिथा के पहले दो नंबरों को उचित सम्मान भी मिला. आखिर ‘वक्रतुंड महाकाय’ के गाते ही यह जनसमुदाय क्यों विरोध करने लगा? विरोध करने लगा क्योंकि वर्ग-विभाजित समाज में समाज की अभिव्यक्ति जब कला और संस्कृति में होती है तो वह भी वर्गीय प्रभुत्व के दायरे से मुक्त नहीं होती. वर्चस्वशील संस्कृति की अभिव्यक्ति का नकार क्या कला-अभिव्यक्ति की हत्या है? फिर कलाभिव्यक्ति या कला की स्वतन्त्रता का क्या अभिप्राय है? क्या कला की स्वतन्त्रता से लेकर व्यक्ति-स्वातंत्र्य के नारे हमें शीतयुद्धकालीन अमेरिकी विचारधारा की याद नहीं दिलाते. और तब क्या इस कलाभिव्यक्ति की स्वतन्त्रता का अर्थ हमें ज्यादा करीब से समझ नहीं आने लगता. और इसी बात को अपूर्वानंद बड़े नैतिक ताकत के साथ आज व्यक्त कर रहे हैं. क्या यह इतिहास के दुहराव का प्रहसन है! और हद तो तब है जब इसकी तुलना वह मकबूल फ़िदा हुसैन और रामानुजम की अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रा के प्रसंग से करते हैं!

          कलाभिव्यक्ति की स्वतन्त्रता के पैरोकारों को कलाभिव्यक्ति और कला में निहित प्रगतिशील तत्त्वों को नज़रंदाज़ नहीं करना चाहिए. खुद कला के भीतर नवोन्मेष कला को नवीन बनाता है. और इस नवोन्मेष में उस समय और समाज की सच्चाई को ज्यादा बेहतर अभिव्यक्ति मिलती है. और हमें इस अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता के लिए आखिरी लम्हे तक लड़ना चाहिए. परन्तु क्या ‘वक्रतुंड महाकाय’ का वह गायन इनमें से कोई भी काम कर रहा था? और अगर नहीं तो सचेतन जनसमुदाय की इच्छा को छात्र-संघ, जो खुद ही उस चेतना की भौतिक अभिव्यक्ति है, को अगर पूरा करता है तो इसको स्वतंत्रता की अभिव्यक्ति की ‘सामूहिक हत्या’ जैसे चालबाजी भरे शब्दों से संबोधित करना क्या कहा जाएगा!

          बुर्जुआ उदारवादी पदावली में सोचने वाले अपूर्वानंद जैसे गैरावयाविक बुद्धिजीवी कैसे खुद उसी उदारवादी प्रोपगैंडा के शिकार हो जाते हैं , यह उसका सटीक प्रमाण है. यह बुर्जुआ-उदारवादी ‘स्वतन्त्रता’ कितनी आवाजों की खामोशी को ढंकने की साजिश है इसे विस्तार से बताने की ज़रूरत नहीं है. इस स्वतन्त्रता को पुष्ट करने के लिए ऐसे बुद्धिजीवी इतिहास की गैरैतिहासिक व्याख्याओं का भी सहारा लेते हैं. और गणपति गायन की तुलना सूफी और संत गीतों से करते हैं. क्या कबीर और फरीद के जिन गीतों को हम सराहते हैं उसमे और गणपति गायन में कोई फर्क नहीं? क्या ‘गणपति वन्दना’ जैसी वन्दनाओं के मूल्यों के खिलाफ ही कबीर खड़े नहीं थे? और यह भी नहीं है कि सूफियों और संतों के धार्मिक और रहस्यवादी पदों का विरोध नहीं किया जाए. हम तो सर्वहारा की मुक्ति चेतना को इससे नहीं आंकते. लेकिन अगर आज भी कबीरादि के पद प्रासंगिक हैं तो इसलिए कि वह सर्वहारा के मुक्ति के पक्ष में अपना योगदान दे रहे हैं. क्या गणेश-वन्दना की भी प्रासंगिकता ऎसी ही है?

          इस बूर्ज्वा उदारवादी चिंतन ने मार्क्स को भी अपने तई उपयोग किया है. और इसका भी गैरसंदर्भित प्रयास अपूर्वानंद के यहाँ मिलता है जब बिलावजह अपने तर्कों में जोर लाने के लिए ई.प.एम(१८४४ की आर्थिक और दार्शनिक पांडुलिपि) को उद्धृत करते हैं. उनका मानना है कि पूँजीवाद में श्रम और श्रम के अलगाव को जे.एन यु. के छात्र न तो महसूस करते हैं और न ही वो श्रमिक वर्ग की विचारधारा को समझते हैं. असल में जैसा वो खुद हैं वैसा ही दूसरों को भी मानते हैं. एक गैर आवाविक बुद्धिजीवी जो फिलहाल कम्युनिस्ट विरोधी है. मैं नहीं मानता कि जे.एन.यु के सभी छात्र श्रमिक वर्ग की विचारधारा को आभ्यंत्रीकृत कर चुके हैं . लेकिन अगर वर्त्तमान छात्र-संघ उनकी संभावित चेतना का मूर्त रूप है और जिसे हम गर्व से कहते हैं, तो कम्युनिस्ट छात्र-आंदोलन के इस ‘हिरावल’ को बदनाम करने की कोशिश क्या कही जाएगी! और इस बदनामी में वो सब लोग भी निशाने पर हैं जो इस दिल्ली शहर के भीतर एक सही कम्युनिस्ट राजनीति के लिए समर्पित हैं. और जो अपूर्वानंद की तरह कला की जनवादिता को केवल जनता की रची कला मानने के संकीर्णतावाद को नहीं मानते. तब  बेचारे ‘मुक्तिबोधों’ का क्या होगा! और तो और श्रमिक वर्ग को भी अपूर्वानंद की खास काट की दृष्टि औद्योगिक क्रांति के वक्त पश्चिम में बनते नए श्रमिक वर्ग के चरित्र में थिर करती जान पड़ती हैं. उनके लिए न तो विश्विद्यालय के छात्र श्रमिक वर्ग से खुद को जोड़ सकते हैं  और न वैश्विक बाज़ार की मार से विलगित आत्म वाली किसी बैंड की गायिका.और दरअसल उस गीत का रोका जाना एक खास मौके पर था, एक खास समझदारी से था और यह मानते हुए था कि कला के उत्पादन में रत कोई कलाकार जब प्रभुत्वशाली वर्गों की कला को अनजाने ही व्यक्त करने लगे तो उसको रोका जाए.

          साथी मीरा का आलेख एक वाजिब चिंता के साथ विस्थापित(dislocated) विमर्श की भाषा में फंस गया है. यह एक वाजिब चिंता का बुर्जुआ विमर्श की भाषा के हाथों मिली चुनौती के सामने असहाय महसूस करना है. और इससे उबरने का एक मात्र रास्ता कला और राजनीति के रिश्तों की सही मार्क्सवादी-लेनिनवादी व्याख्या में ही है. उसका मानना है कि गीत को रोके जाने की यह घटना कला की उपेक्षा और लोकप्रियतावाद के सहारे सेंसरशिप का पक्ष लेती है. दरअसल बुर्जुआ लोकतंत्र के भीतर हम कम्युनिस्ट जब सेंसरशिप का विरोध करते हैं और ऐसा लगातार करना होता है, तब हम यह भूल जाते हैं कि किसी सेंसरशिप का हम विरोध क्यूँ करते हैं. हम दरअसल उस बहुसंख्यक आबादी की अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता का पक्ष लेते हुए बुर्जुआ उदारवादी लोकतंत्र का विरोध करते होते हैं. और अगर ऐसा नहीं है तो फिर हम क्यूँ जे.एन.यु. के भीतर इंदिरा गांधी ,मनमोहन सिंह और रिचर्ड बाउचेर से लेकर योगी आदित्यनाथ की अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतन्त्रता की हत्या करते! उस वक्त भी दक्षिणपंथी तर्क इसे  ‘सेंसरशिप’ ही  कहता है. और लोकप्रियता(poupularism) क्या सिर्फ पूंजी और बाज़ार का तर्क है? क्या हिटलर के फासिस्म के खिलाफ लोकप्रिय-मोर्चा कायम करने की मांग एक खास किस्म का पोपुलरिस्म था? उसी तरह सहिष्णुता की संवैधानिक और बुर्जुआ व्याख्याएं हमें इसे और ऐसे ही अन्य शब्दों को समझने की आलोचकीय क्षमता से महरूम करता है. क्या सहिष्णुता वर्ग-विभाजित समाज में, जाति विभाजित समाज में , लिंग विभाजित समाज में प्रभुत्व की स्वीकृति का माध्यम नहीं बन जाता. और हम कम्युनिस्ट जब सहिष्णुता की बात करते हैं तो इस बुर्जुआ लोकतंत्र को उसी की भाषा में चुनौती देते हैं , उन्हीं के नैतिक मूल्यों की बात करते हुए उन्हें बेनकाब करते हैं. और यह भी जानते हैं कि इतिहास के किसी क्षण में यह बुर्जुआ शब्द और मूल्य भी प्रगतिशील था. पर शब्द जब स्थान और काल का भेद भूल जाते हैं तो उसका क्रांतिकारी सार प्रभुत्व की विचारधारा का वाहक हो जाता है.

हमने ऊपर देखा कि उस खास जनसमुदाय की चेतना को गणेश वन्दना के गायन के गैरालोचकीय नकार के रूप में देखना दुखद है. और दुखद है कि इस घटना के कारण यह मानना कि देश भर के भीतर निरोधक कानूनों और दमनकारी कारवाईयों के विरोध करने की जे.एन.यु.एस.यु. की ऑथरिटी को धक्का लगेगा. क्या जे.एन.यु.एस.यु. अपनी संघर्ष और अपने विरोध की ऑथरिटी बुर्जुआ उदारवाद के निरपेक्ष मान लिए गए मूल्यों से ग्रहण करता है? नहीं हम विरोध की ऑथरिटी देश और दुनियाभर के शोषित और चुप करा दिये गए जनता से ग्रहण करते हैं. और इसी ऑथरिटी के सहारे उस दिन ऎसी घटना हुई थी.

          साथी मीरा के इतिहास की समझदारी की हम बहुत इज्जत करते हैं और इसलिए उस वक़्त हमें बड़ा झटका लगा जब इतिहास में मिथकों की व्युत्पत्ति और उनके वर्तमान राजनीतिक अर्थों के सन्दर्भ को उसने गलत तरीके से व्याख्यायित किया. यह सच है कि गणेश और बहुत सारे मिथकों की व्युत्त्पत्ति किसी कबीले या गण या आदिवासी समूहों से सम्बंधित हैं. वृन्दावन विहारी के रसिक गोपाल का मिथ भी तो गैर ब्राह्मणीय परम्परा से ही आया है. और अगर हजारी प्रसाद द्विवेदी की माने तो आज का हमारा सौंदर्यबोध जिन मूल्यों से बना है  उनमें अधिकाँश आर्येतर या गैर ब्राह्मणीय है. तो क्या हम उन सब को कला में आज भी वैसे ही स्वीकार करते जाएँ? क्या गणपति के चरित्र से महाराष्ट्र के मनसे और बाल ठाकरे की विचारधारा का कोई लेना देना नहीं है? या इस चरित्र का उपयोग करके जिन शोषणों को अंजाम दिया गया है उसे भूल जाएँ? और क्या आदिवासी और लोक से आने मात्र के कारण कोई मिथ या मूल्य स्वं ही प्रगतिशील हो जाता है? क्या लोक और आदिवासी समूहों के बारे में एक खास किस्म की शुद्धतावादी और प्रगतिशील रूमानियत का विरोध ज़रूरी नहीं? क्या गणेश वन्दना आदिवासी व्युत्पत्ति मात्र से प्रगतिशील हो जाती है? क्या आदिवासी व्युत्पत्ति परक मिथकों की पूजा करके दलित राजनीति का एक हिस्सा सचमुच मुक्ति की लड़ाई में प्रगतिशील भूमिका अदा कर रहा है? क्या व्युत्पति के कारणों की पड़ताल करने वाला इतिहास ज़रूरी है कि इतिहासवादी(historicists) हो जाए? और इसे संस्कृत भाषा के गैरज़रूरी नुक्ते से भी जोडने की कोई ज़रूरत नहीं है. और ना ही भगत सिंह या चे के प्रतीकों के पूंजीवादी दक्षिणपंथी अप्प्रोप्रियेशन की तुलना धार्मिक मिथकों से की जानी चाहिए. और मई दिवस के मौके पर जे.एन.यु  जैसी जगह पर धार्मिक प्रतीक और मिथकों की व्युत्पत्ति परक व्याख्यायों को समझते हुए इसका विरोध ज़रूरी है. और ज़रूरी है एक ऐसे स्पेस को ज्यादा क्रान्तिधर्मी बनाना जिसे वर्षों के अथक प्रयास से छात्र राजनीति ने जे.एन.यु. में हासिल किया है.

          मान लीजिए त्रिथा के गायन के विषय के बारे में पहले से पता होता तो क्या उस मंच पे उसे आने दिया जाता? क्या जे.एन.यु.एस.यु के मंच से कोई अनजान नौजवान रामचरितमानस का पाठ करने की इच्छा व्यक्त करे तो हम उसे मौक़ा देंगे? क्या कला की अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतन्त्रता के नाम पर राहुल गांधी या नरेन्द्र मोदी को भाषण देने की स्वतन्त्रता उस मंच से देंगे? क्या राष्ट्रीय स्वम्सेवक संघ के किसी सदस्य को हम आने देंगे ? और क्या ऐसा जिस दिन होगा हम इस छात्र संघ को सचमुच समर्थन देंगे? साथी मीरा खुद इस छात्र-संघ में थीं और सचमुच उन्होंने ऐसा फैसला नहीं लिया था कभी. उनको भी पता है कि छात्र-संघ का ये मंच कैसे धीरे-धीरे और भी ज्यादा व्यापक जनसमुदाय की वास्तविक मुक्ति से खुद को जोडता जा रहा है या जोडने की कोशिश कर रहा है. हम मुक्ति का स्वप्न देखते हैं. बुर्जुआ स्वतन्त्रताओं से आगे स्वतन्त्रता का, मुक्ति का. मार्क्स के शब्दों में कहें तो हमें सिर्फ बहुवचन में ही अच्छी लगने वाली “स्वतन्त्रता” पसंद नहीं…सीमित ‘स्वतंत्रताओं’ के क्षितिज ‘स्वतन्त्रता’ के लिए कितने खतरनाक हैं, यह बड़े ऐतिहासिक दायरे में साबित हो गया है.(कार्ल मार्क्स , “प्रेस की स्वतन्त्रता पर विवाद”, संकलित रचनाएँ वोल.१ मोस्को १९७५, पृष्ठ-१७८) और स्वंत्रता का मतलब है सर्वहारा की स्वंत्रता, जिसके सहारे ही सम्पूर्ण मुक्ति संभव है. और इस बार मई दिवस इसी मुक्ति के संगीत के लिए था.

 मार्तंड प्रगल्भ जे.एन.यू. के भारतीय भाषा केंद्र में पी.एच.डी. के लिए शोधरत    हैं.

VAKRATUNDA, MAHAKAY! Why Anything cannot be Sung Anywhere?

By Amit kumar

This small piece should not be seen as a response to what Meera wrote about ‘that night’ of first May,  2012 when ‘Laal Band from  Pakistan’ performed in JNU. Though I must   admit that if  Apoorvanand’s  piece gave Meera the courage to write what she  felt,   Meera’s own piece gives me the strength to write  what I feel. All in the name of ‘Individual/intellectual Freedom’! Like Meera and Apoorvanand I also joined the ‘crowd’ to witness a historical night which as Taimur the vocalist from Laal Band said is going to remain with us for a long time. It was May Day, a celebration of workers struggles and resistance which they have been waging since the day the fight for eight hour work a day was initiated in Australia and finally sealed by Haymarket affair on 1^st May, 1886. May Day for many of us is not only a day of celebration of working class victories but a day when we further our vows of our struggle for an egalitarian society. It’s a day of singing ‘revolution’ in poetry and slogans when fresh oxygen is pumped in the blood of all those working in the factories of Tata’s, Jindal’s and Mittal’s and other big corporate giants. To tell them that,‘we have nothing to lose but our chains’. This background is very important to put things into their proper context. Otherwise things will slide down to questions of ‘shrinking democratic space’, ‘individual freedom’ etc etc.

The JNUSU poster for the event which I hope all of us saw had this narrative very clearly engraved in it. ‘Utho Meri Duniya’ the full line of the song is Utho Meri duniya ke Gariboon ko jaga do. So given the history of May Day and the way it was projected by the organizers I must say that the whole night had already been conceived in a certain way by the organizers/JNUSU. JNUSU of 2012 is lead by a radical left organization and they like any other political group also have their own politics. The politics of this particular JNUSU like many other earlier JNUSU’s is to replace the exclusionary symbols of hindu right with those symbols which are more inclusive and democratic. May Day was one more attempt in that direction!

Hirawal a political musical group from Patna started the night of ‘Revolutionary songs’ which all of us thought would be followed up by the Laal. But suddenly Tritha the classical singer was introduced by Taimur and she was supposed to sing three songs. It’s important to make certain things clear. Tritha is not a part of Laal band and she joined Laal during this tour in India. She had never performed before with Laal as Taimur clearly mentioned it. She probably had a small role wherever Laal performed in Delhi. But in JNU she decided to sing solo songs, the content of which was not mentioned to anyone, at least not to the organizers/JNUSU. She was a guest of Laal and Laal was guest of JNU so she was welcomed as a ‘guest of our guests’. Her first two songs were received well by ‘public’ and she at times got huge applause, despite her not adhering to the theme of the night. But once she touched what all of us try to keep away from the campus and wherever else we can i.e. a hymn in praise of Lord Ganesha it was received with hoots and shouting. JNUSU president and office bearers sensing the situation well asked her to stop which she eventually did. Meera saw in this act of JNUSU president as ‘unbelievable intolerance’ but what I saw here was a clear message ‘we don’t except whatever divides us, be it your Gods or your religion’. After this background I will simply put my arguments in a few points:

(a). Instead of saying that JNUSU curbed Tirtha’s space, I must say that she took the space which JNUSU had consciously created for workers struggles to gift it over to one more ‘Brahminical God’. So then, do we only sing ‘revolutionary songs’ on May Day? Of course not! The workers in Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) the trade union of BJP will never sing Gorakh, Faiz or Jalib, they night not even shout Inquilab Zindabad, and they will probably do Sarswati Puja or sing Ganesha Aarti. More than anything else it is also a ‘war of positions’. JNUSU tried to have inclusive Symbols, Bhagat Singh, Faiz and Jalib!

(b). History is not only in our text books or in what is taught in our classrooms, in everyday life History with capital ‘H’ is shaped in the way people understand it and it fits in the hegemonic discourse. I never knew till Meera wrote that Ganesha was a tribal God and was later appropriated by Brahmanism.  Ganesha a tribal God unfortunately has remained in the books only, and the popular perception puts him at the top list of Brahmanical Gods. My whole family before worshipping Shiva, Rama, or any other local deity worships him first.  So for me and for many of us who were there on that night and in the popular perception, Ganesha is nothing more than a symbol of Brahmanism despite his actual ‘historical’ position of being a ‘tribal god’. The attempts of appropriation of Che and Bhagat Singh by right wing forces might be the same like Ganesha’s but there remains a difference and if we ignore that, then the comparison seems a bit superficial. No one can tell a child if asked that Che was the one who founded Ford or any other brand which sells him today. You will have to say that Che was a communist Guerilla who fought for the liberation of Cuba and humanity as a whole. Myths and History have different ways of appropriation. One can appropriate the rock star face of Che not his ideas! JNUSU tried to be inclusive by bringing/highlighting the category ‘WORKERS’.

(c). No one has a problem with Sanskrit or any such language. But every politics has a language and every language has a politics. The Hidden Transcripts! Like Ganesha, Sanskrit has always been language of few. I might offend people by saying that it has been a language of elites always away from lower castes in India. For them this language served only one purpose i.e. codify laws of keeping them what they have been ‘the untouchables’, ‘mlechhas’, ‘the wretched of this earth’. Suddenly one fine morning if we tell all these people that listen this is a just language and nothing more than that. They will surely laugh at us. Sanskrit language, the sacred thread, manusmriti might be a language, a thread and a one more source of history writing for us. But for those who have been at the receiving end of Brahmanism, these all symbols are instruments of exclusion and exploitation. Codify, Disciple and Punish! How much we try to secularize them they will not be purged of their inherent tendency of exclusion so easily. JNUSU tried to be inclusive by speaking the language of hind-sind in Hindustani/Urdu.

(d). After these three points in mind I don’t think JNUSU will be stopped by anyone when in near future they are going to talk or stand in solidarity with the struggling masses of Nondanga, Kudankulam, Kashmir, Bastar, Egypt, Palestine!

 Amit Kumar is a research scholar at Dept. of History, Delhi University.

VAKRATUNDA, MAHAKAYA… OR WHAT CANNOT BE SUNG IN THE UNIVERSITY?

By MEERA  VISHVANATHAN                                                                

Apoorvanand’s article published online on Kafila had the courage to say in print things that I, as a student of JNU, had so far only said in private. Such acts of outspokenness are important for the conversations they set up. They allow me to believe that the space of democracy is available, at least intellectually, even as it retreats everywhere else.

I too stood among the crowd at the Parthasarathy Rocks in JNU on the night of 1st May as we waited to hear the Pakistani band Laal. Before Laal rose up to sing, we were introduced to a young singer, Tritha, who was to sing three compositions.  The first two were clearly classically inspired, but did not have a form that the audience could fit words to. As she began the third composition, singing Vakratunda, Mahakaya…… in what was clearly a hymn to Ganapati, an uproar broke out among the crowd. Tritha, however, continued to sing with her eyes closed. I watched in horror as the President of the JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) walked on stage, the image magnified by the huge screen set up for the audience, and asked Tritha to stop her song. The reasons for such an act were not discussed. One must assume that a hymn to Ganapati was considered ‘inappropriate’ for May Day Celebrations. On the big screen, I watched the singer’s face fall as Laal took the stage to much applause.

Vakratunda, Mahakaaya… I   cannot remember what the   rest of the hymn was because I     was not allowed to hear it. Somewhere, a few lines later,   the chant began Ganapati Ganapati… Based on my limited knowledge of  Sanskrit, Vakratunda, Mahakaaya translates as ‘of curved trunk, of great  body’. Just look at these epithets: can we imagine them being used for  any archetypal brahmanical God? Can they be used for Rama smiling  sweetly on Ramanand Sagar’s serial and presiding over the blood of  riots? As for   ‘Ganapati’ which provoked such an uproar: the term means  ‘lord of a gana’ where gana is usually translated as a political group, sometimes even a military one. The same etymology holds true for ‘Ganesha’. That is why, comrades on the left, even the General Secretary of the CPI(Maoist) can go by the name Ganapathy and no one has got up to ask him to change it.
Historians will tell you that in origin, Ganapati was a yaksha, a tribal or folk god of great powers. Over time, as brahmanical religion entered village and tribal societies, he was absorbed into the Hindu pantheon. This process was
not unique: it occurred for any number of local cults, images and themes across history. True, the figure of Ganapati himself tells us little about the people of the past. But we cannot always reach out to the ancient past with an ease that is possible for more recent events. And even if narratives of appropriation are complex, they need not take away from points of origin. To use a contemporary analogy: Does the fact that Bhagat Singh is appropriated by the Hindu-right detract from the fact that he was a Marxist? Does the mere image of Che Guevara occurring on vodka bottles or mass produced on t-shirts allow us to ignore his iconic status as a revolutionary? Cultural symbols are usually more complex than the ways in which they are packaged and made available to us.

What happened in JNU on the night of May 1st was an act of unbelieveable intolerance. It was marked by the peculiar combination of ignorance and populism that drives censorship. But worse still, is the fact that such intolerance is being justified in discussions subsequent to the event. Clearly, people did not come to the concert expecting to hear a hymn to Ganapati. But perhaps the situation could have been dealt with by allowing the singer to finish her song and then taking the mike to offer a critique? Surely we should be able to deal with ‘uncomfortable’ situations with some amount of political maturity and grace? Such an action goes beyond the unhappiness it causes an individual artist or member of the audience. It ties up to larger questions of how we view our histories and what worth we assign to freedom of expression.
Of course, we seem to have agreed that there are limits to the freedom of expression. But surely these limits are meant to be ‘reasonable’. Would singing a hymn to Ganapati on May Day have led to a carnage? Did it amount to hate-speech? If not, why shut it up instead of dealing with it in the terms of democratic debate? Small acts of silencing pave the way for larger ones. If JNUSU can use its position of privilege to act so summarily, then it erodes its moral authority to speak out against censorship. Next time you raise your voice in support of M.F. Husain or the struggling people of Kudankulam and Nonadanga, the chorus will be muted because you too have shown your ability to suppress something that isn’t ‘convenient’ for you. Next time you speak out against the moral policing of the ABVP, your voice will be muted because you too once abrogated to yourself the role of a ‘custodian of culture’. It is just one step away from the idiocy that says ‘he break my nation, I break his head.’
Stranger still was the fact that night we were able to accept disco versions of Pakistani poets we revere, but that tolerance died suddenly when faced with a Sanskrit hymn. True, certain languages are used by political and cultural elites to undertake acts of violence and bolster hierarchy. But they are also often used to articulate a politics of dissent. English, for instance, has been used to justify the worst possible racist and imperialist excesses. But does that mean that we will cease to read anything written in English? Most of the standardized bhasha languages of today’s India grew and spread at the cost of local and tribal languages. But does that mean we will exorcise them from our psyche? Nor is the knowledge of Sanskit opposed in any way to a left-democratic consciousness. D.D. Kosambi was one of the greatest Marxist minds of India, and yet he spent years of his life studying, editing and translating Sanskrit texts! To put it simply, it is not Sanskrit that must be opposed. Rather, it is the people who use Sanskrit (or any language, for that matter) to bolster caste hierarchies and brahmanical patriarchy.
And in the end, perhaps, what we need to reflect upon are the absences of our cultural politics. To the fact that we have reduced ourselves to canonizing certain texts and figures at the cost of others. To the fact that our involvement in cultural politics is often no more than a blur of slogan shouting. It shows not only an ignorance of history, but a hollowness to our political selves.
Of late, the university is a space where debates on censorship are becoming more potent. We have seen how difficult it is to even raise the debate on the removal of AFSPA or go through with a screening of Jashn-e-Azaadi. How the most terrible forms of discrimination are experienced by Dalit students, forcing them sometimes to commit suicide. How the legitimate demand to be allowed to eat beef or pork on campus is meant by sexist and casteist violence and abuse. But we of the left, progressive, democratic, feminist, anti-caste spectrum cannot replicate such forms of silencing, on however small or big a scale, because it takes away from our larger struggles and demeans them.
I too have been on occasion a member of the JNUSU Council so I know how difficult it can be to take decisions on the spur of the moment. But political decisions cannot and should not be based on the ‘mood’ of a crowd. They have to be handled in terms of democratic reasoning and civil debate. I would not expect a union that has known the inconvenience of speaking truth to power, that was forcibly shut down for three years in the name of the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations to suddenly abrogate to itself the privilege of
deciding which voices can be heard and which cannot, which songs can be sung and which cannot.
But it is not JNUSU that is at fault so much as the larger university community. I do not expect such acts of silencing from a university, particularly not from JNU.

(Meera Visvanathan is a former member of JNU students’ Union and a student of the Ph.D programme at the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University)