LEAVING LUCKNOW

LEAVING LUCKNOW:
TRIP ONE
30 october 2006

i went to Mumbai and Delhi during our break in late october for the Eid/Divali holidays and had a great time in both places. the weirdest part was that i saw more westerners there in a few days than i’d seen in the previous 2 months. i kept marveling, look at all the white people! they're everywhere! who are they? why are they here? do they know they look goofy in their ethnic-spicy clothing? ai hai, o fo, do i look that goofy too?

Divali weekend in Bombay was one nonstop string of multicolored explosions and deafening thunder. as strings of crackers went off on busy streets i was amazed that no cars were blown up. though my cousins were all a bit jaded, i myself was entranced by the strings of lights streaming down the fronts of apartment buildings, outlining windows and balconies, turning alleys and patios into magic gardens. i lit some crackers and temporarily went deaf in one ear. i ate massive quantities of sweets and top-drawer kulfi, but little else.

it was also really good to see my family-- some of them for the first time in over ten years. it was rather heartwarming to feel embraced as part of a clan with certain recognizable characteristics which i happen to share. everyone said i look exactly like my dad. when i told him this later, he said “sorry about that.” [thanks for the self-esteem boost!]

then in Delhi i stayed in a district right next to the railway station called Paharganj, which resembles someone’s idea of a heaven or hell for globetrotting hippie backpackers, dense with sabse saste hostels and internet outlets and tiny shops. places like that remind me of those trippy kaleidoscopic pictures of fractals, in that things are always flowering out into smaller microcosms, opening out behind and above. nothing is a simple facade: chowks behind alleys off of chowks behind alleys, balconies and stairways rooftops and courtyards jammed together in layers; temples or doctors’ offices tucked away behind jellabi-fryers or news vendors.

the vast majority of said backpackers are Israeli; apparently they come to India in vast droves to recover from military service by getting stoned, tranced and partied out. in some parts of the country they’ve superceded all other tourism, and this neighbourhood definitely caters to that clientele. i saw as many menus, signs etc in Hebrew, as much or more than i saw in English or Hindi. so i’m thinking, great, my identity issues are complicated enough right now, and AS USUAL everyone will now just assume i too am Israeli. but no, as i was sitting in the top of a cafe waiting for a 25-rupee masala dosa i heard the kitchen guy call to the waiter to see to the “Yankee upar.” [hmm, i wonder what gave me away?]

in my hostel, the cook in the rooftop terrace/cafe saw me writing Divali cards in Hindi [no, folks, i still haven’t sent them! subliminal fear of the Lucknow post office perhaps?] and came over to talk. he was quite pleased to discover i could speak a little bit, since most of the international travelers there don’t know any and are also, i might add, in my humble observation, quite rude and demanding whereas i was making an effort to behave with perhaps a bit more flexibility and patience. anyway he stopped to talk with me and told me about his family who lives in Nepal, where he is also from, and which he says is extremely beautiful. i took it as a sign that i must get to the mountains before i leave.

in Delhi i wandered around a lot, tramping past the Gateway of India, the Purana Qila [Old Fort], Lodi Gardens. i figure i’ll check off a few more of the tourist sights each time i go. i sprained my hand boarding a bus [they never seem really to stop; they only kind of slow down while you flag it down and run after it and jump on or off] but it’s almost better now.

i also did some research in the archives at Jawaharlal Nehru University...which resembles someone’s idea of a heaven or hell for lefty intellectuals. actually it’s physically not unlike UCSC, with roads winding through a wild wooded area with buildings scattered unpredicatbly among them in a nonlinear fashion. also, remember how i said they had no ideology at Lucknow U, only power politics? well at JNU the ideology is so thick you could slice it with a knife and stuff it into one of those fat deli sandwiches that you can’t get into your mouth.

in the couple of days that i was on campus i was intrigued to try to decude who the different student groups are, by following the tracks of the fierce and impassioned conflicts whose record was slathered thickly over the walls and bus stops. what i deduced was that the AISA and the AVDP despise each other, and that AISA was recently appealing to a bunch of other groups saying see, see, will you admit we were right that AVDP is evil, now that they’ve attacked you too?

representative nuggets of AVDP rhetoric:
Down with naxalism.
Down with Maoist terrorism-- sideline anti-national AISA on JNU campus.
Stop Congress-Communist hypocritical and unholy alliance.
Strength is life. Weakness is death. (Vivekananda)
Bande Mataram.

and the writing on the left-hand wall:
Defend India’s sovereignty against imperialist globalization.
Resist globalization, smash capitalism.
Unite against female foeticide.
End patriarchy-- no morality-policing of women in the name of tradition.
For half the earth, half the sky, we will fight and win.
[hidden word that ends with p-- rise up?] brothers of misery, we want no frontiers! Destroy the bourgeoisie and suppress tyranny. We must have heart’s energy. (John Reed)
Strike against the injustice and insensitivity of JNU: massive dharna demanding scholarships for needy students.
Smash regressive social structures of casteism, patriarchy, communalism.
Down with fascist Modi government-- support rehabilitation for riot victims.
Hands off Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine: oppose US-Israeli imperialist designs.
IMF, WB, WTO: Diktats of imperialism.
Bush proposes, Manmohan imposes.
Unite for a radical restructuring of society.
Oppose forced relocation in the name of development.
Independence we won; democracy we established; socialism we practice.

and this isn’t even counting the long detailed policy statements, declarations, and point by point arguments and counter-arguments.

my deductions were later confirmed when i learned from friends-of-friends who are students there that these are the student front organizations of the CPI-ML and the BJP, respectively...in other words, the farthest left and farthest right of major Indian political parties. the other groups also correspond to various mostly left parties. but there are also newer forces on campus upsetting this balance by introducing a platform of “equality” against reservations [comparable to affirmative action in the US] and by a caste-based movement slicing right across the left-right axis by denouncing the entire spectrum as uniformly upper-caste-ist. very interesting.

LEAVING LUCKNOW
TRIP TWO
16november 2006

overall, i find Delhi a breath of fresh air from Lucknow, and just an easy train ride away. but you should skip this next section if you find political commentary to be more a stifling sensation than a breath of fresh air.

i went back a couple of weeks later to attend the India Social Forum, a subsidiary of the World Social Forum-- this despite the warnings of several of JNU’s far left groups that the WSF/ISF is a mere reformist puppet of the corporate world, tool of capitalist imperialism, and an ineffectual tamasha to boot. i read the handout and they do have some good points. nevertheless it was a good place to get information about a lot of the different issues, organizations and movements.

it was held in three separate big dusty areas inside a giant stadium, in which everywhere you looked there was a regional womens’ or childrens’ group performing political street theater, members of various scheduled tribes, kisan, dalit or self-determination groups marching, drumming, singing or chanting slogans; delegations of the aforementioned squatting en masse in the dust to eat dal-caval on paper plates while visitors snacked on samosas and chai in plastic cups. flocks of people plied me with flyers on every topic, from river dams to HIV/AIDS to Burmese democracy. there were also communist bookstalls, artwork, and a film screening tent. one of my favorite things was the museum of bicycle lore and art sponsored by the rickshaw-wallahs’ union.

the scale was so big that unfortunately i felt like a spent most of my time wandering around trying to find things, or to decide which of the 10 simultaneous events to check out. and in the end i didn’t really learn anything i didn’t already know [you mean...can it be true??? corporate capitalism has had adverse effects on the global south?!?!?!?!?!]

some of the things i sampled:
--anti-Coca-Cola campaign: here i learned that Coke is BAD! in Plachimada, Kerala,they drain village groundwater supplies and then pass out toxic sludge as fertilizer, harass and intimidate union organizers or anyone who protests these practices...this India-based group is in coordination with a group in Colombia, where Coke has assassinated something like 8 union organizers in its bottling plants, and another group that works on eliminating Coke from college campuses in the US and Britain. but the real issue at the heart of the matter, the speakers emphasized, beyond a single softdrink, is privatization and control of water supplies.

--panel on self-determination movements and national sovereignty: this touched on the Tamil struggle in the south AND the separatist movements in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland in the northeast. one shaggy fellow looking the part of the proper guerrilla [though the ISF doesn’t permit participation by armed resistance groups] in Che T-shirt, camouflage jacket and long moustache gave a rousing speech in what i think [but am not sure, forgive me elder Ramnaths] was Tamil, in the liquid flow of which were strewn occasional English words like “imperialism,” and “neoliberal capitalism”. another guy spoke in English about Assam; this i found a bit muddled, conceptually. he had tons of facts and information, no question about that; but he kept vacillating between saying things like “it is the obligation of the [Indian] state to provide us with X, Y and Z; where are X, Y and Z?” and things like “we just want to rule ourselves”; between sentiments like “i am an Indian too! why am i not recognized as an Indian?” and “my people must have a separate homeland!” i found myself thinking, make up your mind: are you angry because you want in and you’re left out, or because you want out and you’re forced in? i guess maybe what it comes down to is that because India had NOT provided X, Y and Z, and had withheld recognition and inclusion-- in other words, to let them fully in-- for these reasons they now want out. he also talked about Assamese activist “Iron” Sharmila who has been fasting for 6 years [kept alive by forced tube feeding] for repeal of the brutal Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

--panel on Gujarat and the aftermath of the 2002 massacre: here i learned that, believe it or not folks, 4 years on and it’s not all better; i’m shocked, shocked. actually reminded me of the way New Orleans gets talked about in the US-- ie, that despite the fact that it cast light on [and exacerbated] deep socio-economic faultlines and prejudices, it seems to be such an effort for imvolved groups to simply keep it on the popular radar screen for low attentions spans beyond the temporary drama of disaster headlines. so anyway, they ran through the litany that ripple effects of death and misery continue amongst the displaced Muslim population, people still have not all reclaimed their homes and livelihoods, there is still fear, tension, and irreparable damage to inter-community relations, the perpetrators are still not being held responsible, etc etc. it was all in Hindi and i could actually understand most of it. too bad that beyond reporting that all of this is indeed NOT all better, there doesn’t seem to be much of an answer about what anyone should DO about it.

--documentary on the Komagata Maru called Continuous Voyage. related to my Ghadar movement research so i’d been wanting to see it for awhile. don’t get me started, i’ll go on for hundreds of pages.

--documentary on the Pakistani rock band Junoon called The Mullahs and the Rock Star. it had some interesting stuff to say about South Asian Islam-- contrasting “purifying” [and Arabizing] orthodox doctrines with an indigenous Sufi tradition of ecstatic music and unmediated mysticism...and claiming that by this argument, the mullahs’ denunciation of rock music in general and Junoon in particular as a decadent, un-Islamic contamination of Pakistani culture is completely inaccurate [both historically and theologically], and that this rock group fits squarely in the latter tradition.

--children’s rights caucus: the previous day, children from all around the country who participated had come up with a list of demands to “represent the voices of our friends back home, share with you our dreams and put forward our demands for a better world.” it’s a long list, and it included: good quality affordable and accessible education [and playground equipment] for all-- education was the most emphasized issue and included quite a few individual points; nutritious food and safe drinking water; government hospitals and health facilities in every village; eliminating gender discrimination including female foeticide; equal rights and opportunities for differently abled kids; stopping child labour and child marriage, exploitation of street kids, trafficking and “bad” tourism; ending police harassment [“such police should be punished and children should be protected”]; ending family violence and corporal punishment [“children should be able to live in a neat, clean and violence free environment”]; stopping evictions [“but if it has to happen, everyone should get proper shelter”]; fair employment for parents including migrants.

i was heartened by the fact that the children themselves had generated this document, or so i was told. the part i was less optimistic about was that the school-teacherish woman who cornered me at the door of the tent kept trying to convince me how important it was to get accountability for these demands-- sure, of course-- but that this meant above all “ensuring that the State gives us what we want. this is the only way. we can’t leave it to the localities. it’s the State’s duty to provide this for us. involvement at the family and community levels is useless without the State. we must ALL be empowered...to petition the State.”

of course i thought she had it precisely backwards, that power and organization should be decentralized and flow from the bottom up and be in the hands of local communities. why can’t we all be empowered...to take our own collective action to meet our own community needs? what about panchayat councils? what about neighborhood or basti associations? of course, who am i to judge: i don’t know the nuts and bolts of all the situations. given the intense maldistribution of resources, demanding economic outflows and legal accountability from the center may be crucial to enable people to undertake such projects, so they can actually be realized. nevertheless it’s a paradigm that i fundamentally disagree with.

overall, the ISF was quite the spectacle of edu-tainment-- to claim a slogan from the world famous Ten Minute Limit. but i tend to agree with the criticisms that the Social Forum doesn’t really accomplish any concrete organizational purpose. this is not to say that the participating movements and groups aren’t doing important and effective work; they are. i just didn’t think this extravaganza added anything in pragmatic terms to the separate projects they’re already doing on their own; and so the resources used to produce this thing might have been better used elsewhere.

BACK TO LUCKNOW FOR NOW
for my round trip i took the overnight train, which i really like.

first of all, there’s something about waiting on Indian railway platforms that really appeals to me, maybe because in my sentimental mind it evokes all those movies about the independence movement where you’re waiting for Gandhi to roll into town for a whistle stop speech, or else you’re taking leave of your weeping family to go to be a civil disobedience volunteer or a communist party worker, and you’re maybe wearing khadi and/or some little round lefty intellectual glasses yourself.

in any case despite the new golden quadrilateral of prostitute-hopping long-distance truckers, Indian inter-city travel seems still to be first and foremost by train. i’ve seen plenty of movies which involve a climactic scene of departure, with someone running along the platform as the train pulls out, hands outstretched to touch each other one last time, or else for a dramatic grab to pull someone aboard at the last possible second; and i’ve seen similar things repeated in real life as well. in short it’s iconic.

once aboard i like stretching out on the fold-out triple decker berth with my backpack under my head for safekeeping. i like listening to the snatches of sleepy conversation so i can practice my comprehension skills;

[eg, “ham iski madad kaise karen?”
“thanda hoga. kya apna kambal laya aap?”
“voh NA EK paisa dega.”
“mere dil ne kitna bola...” that last one said in perfectly straightforward manner by an elderly man.]

i like the sensation of moving steadily through the darkness, then stirring to squint at the names on the dimly lit disembodied islands of small town stations where you pause for 2 minutes at the hours of the wolf; and i like waiting for the chai-garam-chai-coffee-coffee-garam-chai guy coming down the aisle for my little steaming plastic cup in the morning, as the landscape emerges from mist and shadows. i also like the odd moment of eye contact when the train passes through a town: whether i’m in the clutch of bicycles lined up at the crossing while the people go by hanging out the train doors, or whether i’m the one peering curiously out the train window at the early farmers and milkmen and bicycles at the crossing. both ways wondering what they’re doing, what they’re doing. wishing for a journey to somewhere exciting...wishing for a place to call home.