WORKSHOP PRESENTATION: PRANAB MUKHERJEE

UNBOUND-A PERFORMANCE PROJECT ON MAHATMA GANDHI'S HIND SWARAJ

Jottings on Hind Swaraj and locating a few fault-lines:


It is chilling but true. 100 years after Hind Swaraj's publication it is dangerously relevant. As relevant as ever. More real than reality television. Especially at a time when misplaced ambitions and even more misplaced notions development are so rampant that we have lost our rights-based core. That the undercurrent of constructive dissidence have almost disappeared from our notions of spirituality. He argues that did we ever have one?

When a man rises from sleep, he twists his limbs and is restless. Similarly, although the Partition has caused an awakening, the comatose condition has not yet disappeared. We are still twisting our limbs and are still restless, and just as the state between sleep and awakening is considered to be necessary, so is the present unrest in India be considered a necessary and therefore, a proper state. The knowledge that there is unrest will, it is highly probable, enable us to outgrow it. Rising from sleep, we do not continue in the comatose condition, but according to our abilities, we are soon restored to our senses......Gandhiji in Hind Swaraj

2009: One hundred years of a seminal work. When Hind Swaraj was first published many raised eyebrows. Many believed that here was a pamphlet of anarchy. A century later, Hind Swaraj still answers many questions especially the disturbing one: Who or what makes a role model? For that matter can the state be a role model? Role model in a is never the figurehead it is always an idea. And what matters is not who did what instead who changed what?

It can be a change in the mindset. It can be a change in the way of national, local or even neighbourhood thinking. It can be bringing/introducing/re-introducing changes that make a tangible difference. Yes, the idea is defined by age but not merely the biological age. As Gandhiji says in Hind Swaraj that it is ultimately the soul force, which is the core.

This force has to be defined by the newness of thinking, the ability to dare and to look the odds into the eye. A change-maker can be a theatre director, sportsman, a peacenik, a labourer, a human rights activist, a sportsman, a painter, a lawyer, a bunch of activists or even a group or collective that gives birth to an idea who's time has come or which is far ahead of times. But the change maker has to be in active change and not some passive theoretical change that is chained by academic pedagogy.

Idea is not something you paste on the walls. You do that for heroes or superstars, the landscape of ideas are a little different. So, it is a tragedy that a Bob Marley ends up more being in the T-shirt rather in the protestscape. Any activist wants activism to be cool but with a philosophical core. We mixed up this manufactured aura coolness as being fashionably trendy. The cultural voyeurs that turned the Swaraj into a marketable commodity than as a light in such noxious times. As Gandhiji so rightly puts it in Hind Swaraj:

Swaraj is when we learn to rule ourselves. It is therefore, in the palm of our hands. Do not consider this Swaraj to be just a dream. There is no idea of sitting still. The Swaraj which I wish to picture is that, after we have once realized it, we will endeavour to the end of our life-time to persuade others to act likewise. This Swaraj needs to be experienced, by each one of himself. One drowning man will never save another. Slave ourselves, it might be mere pretension to think, of saving others. Now as you have seen it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English. If the English become Indianized, we can accommodate them. If they remain in India along with their civilization we have no room for them. It lies with us to bring such state of changes.

Passive resistance is the method of securing rights through personal suffering. It is, the opposite of resistance by arms. If I refuse to do a thing is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If I use violence to force the government to repel the law, I am employing what is termed as body-force. I don’t obey the law and accept the penalty for the breech, I use soul-force. It is the sacrifice of self.

Our immediate protestscape is a series of images. Ranging from Manipur to East Timor. >From struggles in Aceh to images of Iraq. From the starkness of Bhopal to lost hope in Golan Heights. The body is used as a tool to look at the images that haunt us. And the praxis, the dialectic that guides us through this choppy images is Gandhiji's lines in Hind Swaraj. That hammers away the fact.

We have to realise that world is not a bunch of celebrities doing some inane populist nonsense and pretending that they are the world. They can be "a" world and not "our" world. Our world is individual, a small core and the collective. The individual contain multitudes, the core contains some specific aspirations and the collective nurses that individual flame of dissent. So ideas are humane-yet-out-of-the-box, dense, multi-directional, multi-faceted and believes in a collage of slogans that enhances humanity and not merely showcases individual aspiration. Aspirations that percolate and churn the cesspool. Let's go back to Gandhiji's prophetic lines in Hind Swaraj:

Everybody admits that self-sacrifice is infinitely superior to the sacrifice of others. Moreover if such a cause is unjust only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes. Men have before done many things that they have subsequently found to be wrong. No man can claim that he is absolutely in the right or that a particular thing is wrong because he thinks so, but it is wrong for him so long as that is his deliberate judgment. It is therefore meant that he should not do that which he knows to be wrong and suffer the consequence. This is the key to the use of soul force

So whether we like it or not we have to look at the futility of violence especially the state-sponsored ones. But the path still has painful snapshots that keep confronting us.

This year-2010 is an interesting year in terms of landmarks. Centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. Centenary of Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech. Centenaries of EMS and Nripen Chakraborty-two of the Marxist stalwarts of the sub-continent(at a time when the Official Left-in-power in three states have unleashed their brand of oppression). Completion of the Sixty years of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Completion of Twenty Five years of Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the centenary celebration of International Women's Day.
This year is also completion of centenary of an association that had one of the deepest philosophical churnings of our time between Gandhiji and Leo Tolstoy (infact it was in 1909 when Gandhiji translated in Gujarati, Leo Tolstoy's Letter to Hindoo ). The year also marks the centenary long association of Gandhiji with the visionary architect Herman Kallenbach.

On the voyage from England to South Africa aboard the SS Kildonian Castle, Gandhiji wrote Hind Swaraj in 10-days flat. Interestingly, he wrote almost in a trance sometimes writing with left hand when the right hand was tired. Our idea of producing Hind Swaraj's first ever theatre production is to bring out the essence of a classic that talks about the machines that enslaves us. And also tells us unequivocally the difference between development and sustainable development.

Let' s jump cut to a Gandhiji quote: .....I should be prepared to be killed by an arrow of Bhil than to seek unmanly protection...and it is the same person who also says in Hind Swaraj: I can never subscribe to the statement that every Englishmen is bad. Many Englishmen desire Home Rule for India. That the Englishmen are somewhat more selfish than others is true but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice shall give justice to others. Sir William does not wish ill to India, --- that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India shall sooner be free. You will also see that, if we shun every Englishmen as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our process towards the goal

Into that realm where braveness become a mindset and not bravado and there is an underlying humanism that constantly runs through the sub-text..... lies our production.


Our at least that is where it should lie.

I do not for one moment believe that my life would have been wasted, had I not received higher or lower education. Nor do I consider that I
necessarily serve because I speak. But I do desire to serve and in endeavouring to fulfil that desire, I make use of the education I have
received. And if I am making good use of it, even then it is not for the millions, but I can use it only for such as you, and this supports
my contention. Both you and I have come under the bane of what is mainly false education. I claim to have become free form its ill
effect, and I am trying to give you the benefit of my experience, and in doing so, I am demonstrating the rottenness of this education


There's this edge. Perched precariously on the cliff you realise that if you tilt a little more you die. If you don't fall you are still convinced still of not living with great relish. It is that state of a queer quasi-adventure where we should locate our Gandhian thoughts. His texts are real.....


the workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. the conditions of these women working in these mills is shocking.


when there were no mills, these women's weren't starving.

if the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land

Standing in a no man's land is a strange feeling. On one hand you have your own country and on the other hand you have the populist notion of the other country always described as other. So, i have to prove myself to be an Algerian in Paris, an Eritrean in Ethiopia, Gabonese in Bordeaux, Ivory Coast refugee in Marseilles, an Aceh in Java, memories of the East Turkestan which the Chinese took away from me in 1949, a displaced Tamil in Jaffna, a Tibetan in Dharamshala, a Chakma in Chittagong Hill tracts

I don't know which country I belong to; clinging on to the immediate notions of motherland

I've always been grappling with definition: Who am I?

Am I a minor minority voice in this huge protest industry? A commodity in such multiplex times.....

I can hear a rumbling from the sky ....I don't even know when the acid rain will fall.....my skin is on fire in such toxic times


The shook the British Power received through the partition has never been equalled by any other act. This does not mean that the other injustices done on India are less glaring than those done by the partition. The salt-tax was not a small injustice. We shall see many such things later on. But the people were ready to resist the partition. At that time feelings ran high. The leading Bengali’s were ready to give up their all. They knew their power, and hence the conflagration


The sky today is sombre. There are thunderclouds drifting all over the place. The river has turned toxic. The mountains have lost all their vegetation. Nowadays, I don’t see dreams; nightmares occur to me with unfailing regularity tan that regularity seems to have taken a normal hue. And I seem to ask myself this question, what is nature? What is against the order of nature? Should traditions inspire us or dictate us? Even a straight line is a concentric circle depending on which dimension you look at it from. I don’t want to be a footnote in your historical trashcan or a deleted file in the recycle bin. I am a strange voice. And my strangeness is my normalcy. But your normalcy is your strangeness.

the fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love. therefore, the greatest and most impeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in-spite of the war of the worlds, it still lives on. thousands, indeed tens of thousands depend for there existence on a very active working of this force. little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. hundreds of nation live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul

I entered a room. There was one cot; one window; one small shaft of light entering from that hint of a window; one man-hole in the centre of the room; one type-writer in which you type with one finger; one television set which telecasts only a blur; one glass half-filled with stale water; one battered plate and one half-lit sun outside, giving suffused sun-rays

Nowadays, it is painful to be displaced. I don’t hear the rain anymore, consistent sounds of air-crafts from the promised land, hovering over my territory. Each broken building is yet another story of broken dolls, broken limbs, and lost tears from lost retina.

What do I do? My notions of music have changed, every time I lift the charcoal and it touches the paper, figures that come out are of noxious fumes, noxious forms…that seem to choke me. Barbed wires, Barbed fences. Lost fractals in lost time

There can be no advantage in suppressing, an eruption; it must its vent. If, therefore, before we can remain at peace we must fight amongst ourselves, it is better that we do so. There is no occasion for a third party to protect the weak. It is this so-called protection which has unnerved us. Such protection can only make the weak weaker. Unless we realize this, we cannot have Home rule

Inside the forest a variety of sounds play themselves out… screech, howl, roar, or even small low intensity tears. What do I do if I am a minority in a Batticaloa. Isn’t it ridiculous, when you use humans as human shield, the very purpose of existence gets denied.

I have one leg and the other one has became redundant when I stepped into a landmine. I am now hobbling with a makeshift wooden crutch from one relief camp to another. Barbed wires around the camp. Food packets with insufficient quantity. Ceylon datelines keep flying by. 1983, 1984, 1987, 2009 .....as I keep turning the pages of every year, I am reduced to being a "clunker." A political footnote of our turbulent times.

I am an internally displaced refugee. Like a football in a soccer match between the state-of the-mind and the mind-of-the-state. My voice is not heard because I seemed to have lost mine.


The English have not taken India, we have given it to them. They are not here because of their strength, but because we keep them. Let us now see whether these propositons can be sustained. They originally came to our country for the purposes of trade. Recall the company Bahadur. Who made it Bahadur? They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who assisted the company's officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? As history testifies it was we who did all this. In order to become rich, we welcomed the company's officers with open arms. We assisted them

So, I cannot relax and shrug off the changes around me. I cannot live in a fancytopia. Pretending that these changes do not bother me. I have to re-orient constantly to include the changes in my context.

To sign off in Gandhiji's words: Not so. The proclamation of 1857 was given at end of a revolt, for the purpose of preserving peace. When peace was secured, and people became simple-minded, its full effect was toned down. If I cease stealing for fear of punishment, I would recommence the operation as soon as fear is withdrawn from me. This is almost a universal experience. We have assumed that we can get men to do things by force, and, therefore we use force.

Faultline 2: Hind Swaraj in action..let’s look at the multi-cultural hues in France..let's look at some scribbles from the digital domain


HOW CAN ONE BE MUSLIM IN FRANCE?


The question posed in the title, which hints at Montesquieu's famous query:- "How can one be Persian?" also focuses both on the debate on culture and religion in the French definition of citizenship and secularism, and on the failure of universalisation faced with the double movement of Trans-nationalism and identity. It is illustrated in French political debate and public opinion by a continuous questioning about legacy, allegiance, intrusion from people of Islamic culture and Maghrebian origin. Several times, the allegiance of populations of Islamic culture has been questioned. On the other hand, Islam both as a religion and as a collective identity is now part and parcel of the French political space. How can we manage this entanglement of relationship, playing over nation states, borders and allegiances?

We have to analyse the place of Islam in the French internal and external political order and the role of transnational relations in this new political game. The visibility of Islam in France with its various sociological ways of life, and the transnational mediators, is questioning the French definition of citizenship and the new building of identities around ethnic and- religious belongings.


DIVERSITY LINKED TO HISTORY

It is difficult to give precise figures of the number of Muslims in France because, since the census of 1986, membership to a religious faith is no longer asked for. We can, however, assert that they represent between 3 and 4 million people. In spite of the frequent references to the Islamic community in France, it is far from homogeneous. It is less and less so because of a plurality of cleavages of nationalities, age, sex, trends linked to' various periods of immigration and identification points, even if all these features are not a decisive factor for the degree of homogeneity of a community. Islam in France was brought by five 'waves' of immigration since the First World War. The immigrants included Tunusians, Moroccans and Algerians among others.

Sunnite in its majority, Islam in Franca is dominated by Maghrebians who 'give the tune'. Today, even if "Maghrebian Islam' becomes more and, more a French Islam because of the French nationality of those belonging to the Muslim culture, it gathers many groups: young Franco Maghrebians (one million), Maghrebians of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco (1,412,000 at the census of March 1990), Black Africans (178,000 half of them belonging to Islamic culture), Turks (201,000), French Muslims (harkis, 500,000), Pakistanis and others (50,000), converted French- (50,000).

Polycentric game

If the image of French public opinion is still full of the old image of a population turned towards its region of origin, the reality is very different. Second generation Franco Maghrebians, new migratory waves from Maghreb, are playing with community feelings and identity self-belonging and are building mediation between politics and religion, lower classes and elites, towns and suburbs, 'here' and 'there' in the transnational political field. But in their behaviour, they are mostly characterized by re-centring their attitudes. These processes and changes are also linked 10 institutions and to formal and informal structures. The main role belongs to the freedom of association, granted by the socialist law of October 9, 1981, when foreigners became ruled like the French

And finally while wrapping up....

Let's debate the force, the use brutality and thought control. Twenty years on the scars of Tiananmen are still fresh. At the end of this constant debate, let us change the context and not the pretext. Let us not "Yes" to the co-oerced "Yes" and also at the same time we also have to shout an emphatic "no." Let us not be co-opted by the regime of status quo. Let us still be the change that attempts to change even if it gloriusly fails each time.

The production weaves in a host of fault-lines to create a collage of words, sounds and silences. And debates with Hind Swaraj rather than just perform the lines.

(All the quotation in italics have been taken from Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. 2009 is the centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj or the Indian Home Rule)