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.
Dans le sillage de chaque civilisation, des ruines subsistent. Ces lieux et leur poétique nous aident à mieux appréhender les luttes et injustices contemporaines, selon Cecilia Enjuto Rangel.
Every civilization leaves ruins in its wake. These spaces and their poetics offer valuable insights into contemporary struggles and injustices, says Cecilia Enjuto Rangel
Inspired by the historical traditions of Jalsa and lok shahiri (folk performance and poetry), several anti-caste cultural groups are active in Maharashtra today. Samata Kala Manch and Yalgaar Sanskrutik Manch are part of the pan-India Relaa collective, using their songs to raise voices against inequality and oppression faced by marginalised communities.
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.