The Virgin Mary and books.

Last week I was at the National Gallery in London. Being the medievalist I think I am I couldn't pass up the opportunity to look at rooms full of medieval art. It is interesting how early representations of The Virgin Mary almost always showed her reading. Engrossed deeply in her book almost unaware of the Angel Gabriel about to tell her she is to conceive a child. Even more nurturing  examples of her with baby Jesus almost always depict her with a book in hand. 

The paintings reflect the artists own social climate but also the way they imagine this piece of history. I am a bit tired of the whole medieval women were oppressed and all they did was wait in their helplessness for the renaissance. The evidence is out there. 

These paintings have  an implication it has on our theology and also on the way we constructed gender. Women and their education must have been an issue women reading books must have been an ideal. I am no theologian but those images convey a certain truth about my faith.

Searching through the internet I found this article which explains the symbolism of the paintings better than I would. 

http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/meditations/olbook.html

Case in point. This paintings is from  The Mérode Altarpiece by Robert Campin It was created between 1425 and 1428.

Myths about colonialism

This will be a reoccurring post and will deconstruct myths about colonisation. Yes, I know colonisation was terrible but it was not genocide. I am tired of it getting misrepresented because it has consequences on people living in former colonial nations. The idea that we were passive observers of our own destruction  

Myth 1- The English language was imposed on us.

• At present (2014) the Republic of India does not have a national language. However, we have official languages- Hindi (in the Devanagari script) and English. India has over 700 languages and dialects. State languages are equally represented. 
• A highly Persianized and technical form of Urdu was the lingua franca of the law courts of the British administration in Bengal, Bihar and the North-West Provinces & Oudh. Until the late 19th century, all proceedings and court transactions in this register of Urdu were written officially in the Persian script. In 1880,  Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal abolished the use of the Persian alphabet in the law courts of Bengal and Biharand ordered the exclusive use of  Kaithi  a popular script used for both Urdu and Hindi Given the diversity of languages we have always chosen one spoken by the majority.
• In late 1964, an attempt was made to expressly provide for an end to the use of English, but it was met with protests from states such as  Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh. Some of these protests also turned violent.
• Given the kind of ethnocentrism we have towards our regional languages English is neutral.
• Learning English does not mean you wont remember another one. There is such a thing as multilingualism.

The idea of us being forced to learn English and not our mothers tongues is lovely for a few sado masochists who enjoy hearing stories of the Raj and its many oppressions or for Indian nationalists. It might be good to back a few centuries in the pure past for a few but for most of us adapting to a language that can help us expresses our current reality suits us best.  Partha Chatterjee's essay   - Whose Imagined Community? questions this assumption by pointing out how the writing in regional languages was encouraged displacing Persian (the language of bureaucracy). 

Reference- Chatterjee, P. (1991). Whose imagined community?. Millennium-Journal of International Studies, 20(3), 521-525.

We used to be known for cinema now we have man and woman dancing around a tree.

I am using films as a methodology in my thesis. Discussing this the other night with a friend made me realise while Indian cinema is now technologically at par with the west it lacks something fundamentally when it comes to writing stories. This has not always been the case. Bollywood films have at times toppled the dominance of Hollywood winning awards and being remembered for telling universal stories that people could relate to. Between the 1940’s and the present day a lot has changed, from this noble, uplifting thing we now have a cinema that says nothing about the human condition but titillates and creates an imagined India. 

The obvious cardboard sets, painted scenery and hastily put costumes were not a hindrance when it came to telling the story. Post independence cinema had all the elements we now consider hallmarks of Bollywood yet they were not mere entertainment. Even the minor characters contributed in some way. I remember watching black and white films about challenging the caste system, skin colour, unwed mothers and so many issues which are still realties. I do not see those films anymore. The 80’s for me was a decade of films with ear piercing romantic songs, man woman and lots of synchronised dancing around trees. The 90’s was about action films. Then the 2000’s saw a return to fluff and over the top affluence and glamour. I do remember art films but they were too few and in recent years always are banned. Often because they depicted a sexual scene, funny as there is worse stuff on mainstream cinema. I have seen mainstream popular films and frankly, they are not the stuff to watch with your kids or anyone for that matter. Art films deglamourise sex yet they become contentious.

What has changed since 1950? Why have we become complacent? We seem to have become a culture that is content to see women’s bodies being used and abused on screen all in the name of entertainment. We seem to look at a screen for three hours and not think or be challenged.

Did you know 20 p in the third world can do wonders…..

Charity is a wonderful thing when done correctly. I have seen too much of it go wrong which is why I clutch at my purse tightly when some approaches me to help people in exotic 3^rd world lands. Being a third world citizen myself I am fully aware of the problems my country faces. It is manner in which this charity is done which makes me angry. Now no longer savages we are noble savages albeit starving ones who would not know what a tap was even if it hit us. Gap year students visit us in the sprit of helping less fortunate people their ancestors might have colonised. A deep sense of guilt and shame is chief motivation to help and right all past wrongs. Yes, aspects of colonialism were terrible however we are free nations now who want to forget our pasts- we have moved on.

The sprit of the thing never feels right middle class kids slumming it out in the third world doing more harm than good. Never listening to us always thinking for us. Seems like history is repeating itself. Are we never to be independent of their gaze? Are we never to be treated as equals, only as poor beggars?

It also positions the poor against each other the poor in first world countries realise they mean nothing either to the government or to their middle classes. In short they are scroungers. Now the same class of people in another nation are to be pitied, deserving of charity. The hypocrisy and injustice makes me angry. It pits people against each other and eroticises poverty in the third world. It creates divides amongst races. Dark skinned people are not expected to do much except wait for white saviours to rescue them, never allowed to aspire always on display.

It is worth asking where all this charity money goes? I am not the first person to ask this. Foreign aid has had negative repercussions on our nations, it fosters corruption and creates suspicion. It is not healthy for growth, but these are not issues to bring up in front of a wide-eyed white student lest they accuse you of racism and callousness. Yes brown as I am I am accused of racism. I am the one who is to be reviled as a middle class person I am the problem in the third world not its solution I am not a noble poor person. I am difficult, which is another way of them saying we have met someone who can talk back.

The benign , patronisng gaze of the white aid worker is not as harmless as it would seem it makes the same old mistakes but more gently, it still holds the same assumptions about dark skinned natives. 

Post Delhi Gang Rape- The Justice Verma Commission

Interesting article -Crimes of Exclusion by  Siddharth Narrain. 
http://kafila.org/2013/03/30/crimes-of-exclusion-siddharth-narrain/

The rape case in Delhi brought a lot of public anger which led to changes in the law which he discusses in this article. 

St Dymphna Seminars, 2013 Manchester

The St Dymphna Seminars was created in 2012 to provide a safe and open environment for those with an interest in mental health to  discuss issues relating to practice and experience. Inspired by the models of community care in traditions established at Gheel, the seminars aim to educate and reveal aspects of living with mental illness and perspectives on predominant models and treatments that are rarely shared. It is hoped that these seminars will also provide an arena for conflicting stances to witness the reality behind the ideology.

Here is t link to the website. http://theswordandfettereddevil.wordpress.com/about/

Blossoms

Affordable proof reading service for students

Gentrification = whitewashing.

You in you small corner and I in mine ..... 

Oh you won’t like it is a very gentrified place. Said a friend to me what she wanted to say was you are brown and that is a white middle class or affluent locality. The term has come to mean one thing only – affluent white people. this is problematic for two reasons one it assumes only white people can be affluent. Two it assumes people of colour come on one class alone- poor.

Areas marked out for their diversity are also the poorest and have some of the highest crime rates. It is all we have to aspire to preserve our culture for public consumption. While I don’t deny our communities have problems they are divided on class lines too just like they are in white society. 

Merry Christmas

Ian Parker's suspension

 Mike Cushman

If we have got to a point in UK universities where raising concerns with colleagues is a disciplinary offence then we have deteriorated even further than I thought.

If Professor Parker had gone outside the University without exhausting internal procedures then there may have been grounds for action (although whistle blowing protection may have covered that as well) but he didn't.

The violent over-reaction of management leads an outside observer to believe that they have serious misdemeanours to hide or maybe they just want to be rid of a trade union activist. If so they w=should wait a few months till the Government removes any vestige of protection form people who are willing to speak up for and represent their fellow staff. 

This article was printed in The Independent. 

Manchester Metropolitan: 'Bullying' university bans world-renowned professor who spoke out

Do sign the petition Ian Parker should get back to his work

Intrepid traveller in London

The Museum of Natural History 

At the Victoria and Albert Museum

Accessible Academia

Rather interesting link to  the CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY STUDIES based in Bangalore. the good thing is that their talks are recorded and can be found on their  podcasts page. 

Disability and the Majority World - Free Conference

The Betrayal of the Western Church

http://apostlethomasindia.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/pope-denies-st-thomas-evangelized-south-india-ishwar-sharan/

Making the claims of us 'Indian Christians' seem like myths we created out of active imaginations says a lot about how the west needs to prove it's legitimacy and perpetrate the myth that it converted us barbarians. This denial strengthens the right wing which likes to see us as the illegitimate children left behind by colonial rule, which thinks of our existence is wrong. Then the western church wonders why we dont want to be a part of it. When our own family betrays us it is hard to expect any charity from strangers.

Jhilmil Breckenridge - unjust incarceration at IBHAS

Link to Jhilmil's testimony





OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER OF HEALTH, DELHI GOVERNMENT

From concerned friends, well wishers of Ms. Jhilmil Breckenridge

ADDRESSED TO: The Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi government

Dear Honourable Shri Dr. Ashok Kumar Walia,

Our dear friend, Ms. Jhilmil Breckenridge, is in double lock up at IHBAS- the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Shahdara, Delhi (also known as Shahdara Mental Asylum) since the last 2 days. She was towed away there much against her will and consent: This situation has alerted and shocked many of us who have undergone similar incarceration and emotional trauma within the mental asylum system. She was picked up by policemen in her own home and is in lock up at the asylum presently.

We are attaching hereby the testimony of Ms. Jhilmil for your kind interest.

Ms. Jhilmil, a wonderful, warm, vibrant woman and mother of 4 children, has been forcibly institutionalised in the Shahadara mental asylum. Jhilmil is eminently able to take care of herself, is a yoga teacher, and has a self discipline about her own well being and recovery. She is an inspiration to many regarding psychosocial disabilities, recovery and well being. She has contributed to the development of the communities through her work, as several of us will testify.

Ms. Jhilmil has been in the middle of a difficult divorce where there is day to day conflict and threat of violence in the household. She fears losing her children. Her reactions from holding on to her child, to being moody and difficult are being classified as ‘mad’, whereas they are the naturally angry responses of any mother. She was kept in ‘high security ward’ by the asylum authorities. After challenging this action by us, now she is moved to the private ward, where she is kept ‘for observation’. The superintendent, Dr. Desai, has informed us that it will take two weeks to evaluate Ms. Jhilmil or take decision to release her!!!

Why should it take two weeks to evaluate a person by an expert doctor: Anyway, there is no instrument or x-ray, or pathological analysis, which will give us clear evidence of ‘mental illness’ which she is said to suffer from. Psychiatry has no such physical test or parameter to tell us if she is suffering or not from any mental disorder. She has a supportive doctor who has confirmed over many instances throughout communications between her family and friends that she is NOT going through any symptoms of mania. Why is she being kept there in confinement for 2 weeks? Why can she not access treatment from her own doctor?

While patients in the public and private hospitals are given love and affection, what kind of system of care it is, when they tow away people in this undignified manner?

You will know, dear sir, that India has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Jhilmil has to be provided with all rights of any person with a disability. Under the mandate of this convention, institutionalizing her in the said manner violates:

Article 5: Equality and Non-Discrimination
Article 6: Women with Disabilities
Article 10: Right to Life
Article 12: Equal Recognition before the Law
Article 13: Access to Justice
Article 14: Liberty and security of the person
Article 15: Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 16: Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse
Article 17: Protecting the integrity of the person
Article 19: Living in the community
Article 25: Health

Her case is that of thousands of other women in this country who have had to face atrocities and eventually lock up, due to regressive laws on ‘unsoundness of mind’ that continue to function despite the ratification of UNCRPD in 2008. How many, many women have been towed away into asylums on an insanity petition in the context of marriage and divorce, so that the man can gain custody of children, be irresponsible about alimony, hide domestic violence, and obscure an extra marital affair before the public eye and the eye of justice? How many women have had to swallow their anger, because expressing anger would mean further shame and punishment through inhuman treatments?

Do you know sir, about the vested interests involved in damning someone as ‘mentally ill’, putting them away in asylums, and depriving them of all rights to a decent life and livelihood, and giving them torturous treatments?

———————————–

We, the undersigned, are calling on the intervention of yourselves to immediately release Jhilmil Breckenridge and put an end to such forms of ‘treatments’. Jhilmil is a victim of marital discord and sheer prejudices against women and a relentlessly harsh asylum system, has resulted in this situation where she is seen as crazy and not the husband, and she is forcibly committed.

We demand the Delhi Ministry should immediately look into how ‘legal incapacity’ and finding of ‘mental illness’ is misused by vested interests and causes harm by institutionalising women, especially in the context of Marriage and Divorce, custody, adoption and family laws, within the Delhi courts of law.

We, the undersigned, are calling on your Ministry to take responsibility and step in to stop such unlawful, inhuman and torturous practices, and misused / abused forms of ‘determination’ of ‘mental illness’ and treatments, for the sake of vested interests. She must be treated with all dignity as a person with a psychosocial disability, in accordance with the UNCRPD.

We request your full co-operation in an investigation into this matter, and release of Ms. Jhilmil, with immediate effect.

Yours truly,

Bhargavi Davar, Pune
Abdul Mabood, Director Snehi, Delhi
Human Rights Law Network (HRLN)
Rahul Cherian, Advocate, Inclusive Planet, Chennai
Aparna Sanyal, Mixed Media productions, Delhi
Rajive Raturi, Disability Rights Initiative, HRLN
Reshma Valliappan, The Red Door, Pune
BAPU Trust for Research on Mind & Discourse, Pune
Pavan Muntha, Swaadhikar, Hyderabad
Indu Prakash Singh, activist, Delhi
CREA, DELHI
Chris M Kurian, New Delhi
Shaweta Anand, Delhi
Janaki Visvanath, representing all women
Saher, NDTV, New Delhi
Dr.Vedhakumar Valliappan, Scientist and Father of a User Survivor of Psychiatry
Aarti Lukka, care giver
Jahnavi Mirashi, care giver
Minakshi Dewan, New Delhi
Divya Padmanabhan, New Delhi
Anita Iyer, EKANSH, Pune.
Gagandeep Singh, supporter for Human Rights
Gayatri Buragohain, Feminist Approach to Technology, Delhi
Nandini Rao, New Delhi
Minakshi, Delhi
Gail Warner, Hartman de Souza, Ratnakar, Anubhuti, Lovely, Kala Ramesh
Vilasini
Shruti, Dheeraj Jain, Sonja Chandrachud, Amit Bhattacharya, Shankar,
Anjana, Savita Narayan, Pallavi Mehta

The angels of Derby

I was in Derby sometime ago, and I think a bit of me is still lingering on .........

Derby Cathedral 

मैनचेस्टर में हिन्दी / उर्दू प्रार्थना

मैं अपने  दोस्त  से  हमारी मातृभाषा में एक प्रार्थना सेवा के लिए  जरूरत पर चर्चा कर रहे थे. वह पाकिस्तानी है और मैं भारतीय हूँ, लेकिन हम एक ही भाषा बोलते हैं. इस मंगलवार 21 फ़रवरी 2012 हम उर्दू, हिंदुस्तानी, और पंजाबी में एक प्रार्थना सेवा (आप में से जो लोग नहीं जानते येः एक ही  भाषा है ) है का फैसला किया है.
हम ईसाइयों के लिए उप महाद्वीप से बाहर तक पहुँचने के लिए उम्मीद कर रहे हैं. भारतीयों,पाकिस्तानियों और बांग्लादेशियों को आमंत्रित कर रहे हैं. यह हमारी पहली बैठक है, इस शब्द का प्रसार करने के लिए स्वतंत्र महसूस हो रहा है.

स्थान: सेंट Chrysostom चर्च, 4A Anson रोड विक्टोरिया पार्क, मैनचेस्टर. M14 5BG

चर्च के कोने एंसन रोड (ऊपरी नाले स्ट्रीट) और ऑक्सफोर्ड प्लेस, डाल्टन एलिस हॉल के बगल में है.नक्शे के लिए यहाँ क्लिक करें

समय: 6:00 बजे

में ड्रॉप भी अगर आप हम कोशिश करते हैं और आप कोई बात नहीं क्या आप भाषा बोलते हैंसमायोजित करेगा भाषा समझ में नहीं आता लिए स्वतंत्र महसूस.

यह चर्च वेबसाइट http://stchrysostoms.co.uk/ 

Urdu/Hindi prayer group in Manchester

I friend and I were discussing the need for a prayer service in our mother tongue. She is Pakistani and I am Indian but we do speak the same language. This Tuesday 21^st February 2012 we have decided to have a prayer service in Urdu, Hindustani and Punjabi (for those of you who don’t know the tree languages aren’t that different from each other).

We are hoping to reach out to Christians from the sub-continent. Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are invited. This is our first meeting, feel free to spread the word.

Venue: St Chrysostom's Church, 4A Anson Road Victoria Park, Manchester. M14 5BG  

The church is on the corner of Anson Road (Upper Brook Street) and Oxford Place,next to Dalton Ellis Hall.  click here for a map

Time: 6:00 pm

Feel free to drop in even if you don’t understand the language we will try and accommodate you no matter what language you speak.

This is the church website http://stchrysostoms.co.uk/

Euphemism for murder

First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me 
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Neimoller.

Yesterday I was at the Zion Arts Centre Manchester to attend an all day event. I must admit I was a bit apprehensive about sitting all day at a symposium, but then Manchester never fails to surprise. The day was brilliant to say the least.

Before I tell you about the event I have to share this video. It’s disturbing and will make you think, and it should. 

The idea that life can be taken away if it isn’t deemed right is a normalized idea. Mercy killing is thought of as a humane way of ‘ending suffering’ but it’s an idea that is imposed onto a disabled person by non disabled person who believes a normal body is required to live a ‘fulfilling life’. 

We looked at various ideas yesterday but this idea struck me the most. We decide for other people all too easily and believe it is the right thing to do.

The movie/ documentary by Liz Crow (Resistance Which way the future?) looks at an a little known aspect of the Nazi killing apparatus- killing the disabled individual. The Nazi regime was influenced by the ‘Science of Eugenics’, which isn’t very different from genetics of our time or social policy. It wasn’t just the far right that supported this idea but the left and non-fascist countries as well.

Some of the arguments made by the Nazis for the extermination of the disabled people was the resources taken up by the disabled individual and how the money for keeping a disabled individual alive was borne by tax payers. The other argument was benign but just as dangerous- putting an end to suffering. These are arguments that are still used by governments all over the world to discriminate against the disabled.

The documentary is worth watching and I recommend it strongly. 

Link to a BBC interview with Liz Crow. interview 

Link to Roaring Girl Production. Liz Crow's production company.

About the Resistance film/documentary. link to the website