Happening TODAY- Kindly join
- Sunday, 23rd January, 6 pm, for Grounded Voices Conversation 53
- PEOPLE’S STRUGGLES IN 2021-22: Looking Back, Looking Forward
- ‘Integrating’ the ‘Nation’: Losing the People
ABOUT THE EVENT:
A panel of speakers from important conflict-affected regions of the sub-continent will address the issue of how the narrative of ‘nationalism’ can amount to losing the very people who should be at the foundation of the ‘nation’. From Bastar in Central India and Naga areas in the north-eastern region to Kashmir in the north, India is being pushed into more militarization and people alienating policies, by successive governments.
The BJP led Union government has furthered this death trap for people by policies that have stripped people of their very identity, agency, dignity, freedoms and rights – like abrogation of Article 370 and the reading down of the special status of Jammu & Kashmir, the massacre of innocent people in Nagaland, repeated extension of AFSPA & complete negation of the ceasefire and peace process in Naga areas, and the brutal criminalisation of Adivasi resistance – under the garb of fighting Maoists.
It is important, especially for those who are committed to a peaceful, democratic and constitutional India, to understand the people’s concerns from these ‘conflict zones’ and engage in people to people relationship building.
In order to prevent escalating violence and blood shed as well as gross abuse of human rights, we need to hear the multitudes, and have to stick together till we find ways to transform our societies and lessen the impact of repression. People’s aspirations, dreams and hope about their own futures must have a place in a democratic polity.
Join us in an honest and open conversation by some of the most outstanding voices of reason and sanity – of justice persuasion and peace mongering.
Panel of Speakers:
- Dodging the Violence: Alternative Futures of Kashmir – a well known professional, a co-traveller and saathi, from Kashmir valley who wants to remain anonymous
- Re-imagining Peace Amidst Violence and Tears – Rosemary Dzuvichu (Naga women leader, Academic and Analyst)
- Wounded, Jailed and still Resilient: the futures of adivasis of Bastar amidst structural violence – Adv Bela Bhatia (lawyer, academic and author)
- Militarised Conflicts in the subcontinent: win-win or lose-lose? – Prof. Siddiq Wahid (Scholar and Founding VC, Islamic University of Science & Technology, Kashmir)