Ce dossier se veut un instantané de la résistance culturelle qui s’organise dans le pays, en réponse aux assauts culturels lancés par les partisan·es de l’Hindutva. Les exemples de résistance témoignent de la continuité de l’oppression et de la marginalisation que subissent certaines communautés depuis des années, et de leur soif de changement à travers la lutte.
Ce dossier rassemble des enquêtes sur les multiples facettes et aspects de la spoliation née de l’impératif de développement, dans deux contrées aux antipodes mais qui occupent la même place dans l’économie politique mondiale...
Malgré la laïcité inscrite dans sa constitution, l’histoire de l’Inde indépendante est marquée par de nombreuses tensions impliquant les diverses communautés religieuses. La situation des femmes est particulièrement difficile, notamment à cause du poids de la religion et des traditions...
Relaa, a pan-India collective of cultural artists and activists whose songs and music are born out of their lived experiences and struggles struggle to keep their activism alive in the ongoing Pandemic. Their struggle finds resonance amongst the larger cultural resistance to growing state oppression.
Kabir Kala Manch founded in early 2000s has been at the receiving end of the state. As it grew in popularity its members faced incarceration for long years and continued oppression under successive governments.
In the winter of 2019, a group of Muslim women protesting the new citizenship amendment act at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi soon became the face of the resistance. Shaheen Bagh fuelled similar protests across the country, brought together social movements, trade unions, and politicized ordinary citizens.
In the north eastern state of Assam, a community marginalised historically on the grounds of ethnicity and religion, Assamese Muslims of Bengal-origin find their voice through poems in the wake of a new citizenship act and reclaim the term ‘miyah’, an Urdu word for ‘gentleman’ turned a word of abuse. Young women poets from the community go further to raise questions of gender equality and violence.
As the Muslim community is being targeted with the emboldening of the right-wing Hindutva groups, a group of feminists came together to collectively read and revive historical texts as an act of resistance and being a witness.
In the conflict-torn state of Manipur, where children have grown up amid the violence and terror of the Indian state and non-state actors, The Imphal Talkies N The Howlers, a folk-rock band, has been raising their voice against state atrocities, asserting their ethnic identity and searching for peace.
The consistent rise of stand-up comedians, cartoonists, mimic artists has provided much-needed humour and reflections in these challenging times, but at a cost. Many have faced terminations, police cases and arrests as India descends in the global freedom and democracy indices.
Anhad is synonymous with the cultural resistance to communalism and fascism. For more than two decades it has given platform to new artists, actors and cultural performers and used cultural expressions to spread awareness on constitutional values and challenge the rising right-wing narrative.
Since November 2020, one of the biggest and longest sit-ins the post-partition India by the farmers have been ongoing, who have led seize to Delhi at three major points on the highways connecting it to neighbouring states. Protest songs, slogans, changing gender norms, innovating and raising new questions, concerns and contributing to protest cultures, movement succeeding in forcing the government to accept their demand.
S’inspirant des traditions historiques de la jalsa (une musique populaire) et des lok shahiri (les « poètes du peuple »), des groupes culturels anti-castes font désormais entendre leur voix dans le Maharashtra. Geetanjali Gurlhosur dresse le portrait de Samata Kala Manch et Yalgaar Sanskrutik Manch, deux groupes s’inscrivant dans un vaste collectif et qui dénoncent, à travers leurs chansons, les inégalités et l’oppression que subissent les communautés marginalisées.