Thursday, February 16, 2012

தமிழில் சாகித்ய அகாதமி விருது பெறும் முதல் தலித் எழுத்தாளர் இந்திரன்



2011 ஆம் ஆண்டுக்கான மொழிபெயர்ப்புக்கான சாகித்ய அகாதமி விருதினைப் பெறும் திரு. இந்திரன் தலித் சமூகத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவர். கலை விமர்சகராகவும், மொழிபெயர்ப்பாளராகவும் பிரபலமடைந்திருந்த அவர், தலித் இலக்கியம் குறித்த விவாதங்கள் தீவிரம் பெற்றிருந்த 1980 -90 களில் அதில் நேரடியாகப் பங்கேற்கவில்லை எனினும் '"அறைக்குள் வந்த ஆப்ரிக்க வானம்'  "  ‘ பிணத்தை எரித்தே வெளிச்சம்’ என்ற தனது மொழிபெயர்ப்பு நூல்களின் மூலம் அதற்குப் பங்களிப்புச் செய்தவர்.
1985 ஆம் ஆண்டு நான் பாண்டிச்சேரிக்குப் பணி மாறுதல் பெற்று வந்த சில மாதங்களிலேயே அவரது அறிமுகமும் தொடர்பும் எனக்குக் கிடைத்தது. 1986 ஆம் ஆண்டு ஜூன் மாதத்தில் நடைபெற்ற எனது திருமண நிகழ்வில் வெளியிடப்பட்ட எனது கவிதை நூலான ‘ இதனால் யாவருக்கும்’ அவரது முன்னுரையோடு வெளிவந்தது. அவரது தம்பியும் தற்போது புகழ்பெற்று விளங்கும் திரைப்பட கலை இயக்குனருமான மஹி அந்த நூலுக்கு அட்டைப் படம் வரைந்து தந்தார்.

சாதியின் கொடூர நிழல் இருளாகக் கவியாத சென்னைப் பெருநகரச் சூழலில் பிறந்து வளர்ந்தவர் இந்திரன். ஓவியக் கலையோடு நெருங்கிய தொடர்புகொண்ட குடும்பம் அவருடையது. சாதிக் கொடுமைகளை அனுபவிக்காதவர் என்றாலும் சாதி குறித்த தெளிவு அவருக்கு உண்டு. மும்பையில் பணியாற்றியபோது அங்கு எழுச்சியோடு பரவிக்கொண்டிருந்த தலித் பேந்தர்ஸ் இயக்கத்தின் செயல்பாடுகளையும், அதன் முன்னணியில் இருந்த தலித் எழுத்தாளர்களின் படைப்புகளையும் அவர் நெருக்கமாக அறிந்தவர்.

1986 ஆம் ஆண்டு வாக்கில் தலித் இலக்கியத்துக்கென சிற்றிதழ் ஒன்றைத் துவக்கவேண்டுமென்று நானும் அவருமாக பாண்டிச்சேரி கடற்கரையில் அமர்ந்து முடிவுசெய்தோம். ‘அடையாளம்’ என்று அதற்குப் பெயரையும் தேர்வுசெய்தோம்.அதற்கான படைப்புகள் சிலவற்றையும் தொகுத்தோம். அதற்காக நான் ‘ காடாக சம்பு … ‘ எனத் தொடங்கும் கவிதை ஒன்றையும் எழுதித் தந்தேன். ( அதன் ஆங்கில மொழிபெயர்ப்பு தற்போது நானும் அழகரசனும் தொகுத்து ஆக்ஸ்ஃபோர்டு பதிப்பகத்தின்மூலம் வெளியிட்டிருக்கும் Tamil Dalit Anthology இல் இடம்பெற்றிருக்கிறது.) அந்த இதழை அச்சிடும் பொறுப்பை அவர் ஏற்றிருந்தார். தலித் இலக்கிய இதழ் ஒன்றை நடத்துவதில் அவருக்கிருந்த தயக்கத்தாலும், அந்த நேரத்தில் அவரது நண்பரகள் சௌந்தர் மற்றும் கதிர்வேலன் ஆகியோர் ஆரம்பித்த ‘பயணம்’ என்ற சிற்றிதழாலும் ’அடையாளம்’ வெளிவராமல் போயிற்று.அப்போது நான் எடுத்த முயற்சி செயல்வடிவம் பெற சுமார் பத்து ஆண்டுகள் காத்திருக்கவேண்டியதாயிற்று. ‘தலித் ‘ என்ற பெயரில் நான் பத்திரிகையைத் துவக்கியதன்மூலமே அது நிறைவேறியது.
கடந்த இருபது ஆண்டுகளுக்கும் மேலாக நான் ஆங்கிலத்திலிருந்து மொழிபெயர்ப்புகளைச் செய்துவருகிறேன். தமிழிலிருந்து ஆங்கிலத்துக்குச் செய்யப்படும் மொழிபெயர்ப்புகளையும் கவனித்து வருகிறேன். ஆங்கிலத்திலிருந்து தமிழுக்கு மொழிபெயர்ப்பவர்கள் பெரும்பாலும் தன்னார்வத்தின் அடிப்படையிலேயே அதைச் செய்கிறார்கள். ஆனால் தமிழிலிருந்து ஆங்கிலத்துக்கு மொழிபெயர்ப்பவர்கள் அப்படியல்ல.  

சாகித்ய அகாதமி நிறுவனம் ஆரம்பித்து இத்தனை ஆண்டுகளில் தமிழில் ஒரு தலித் எழுத்தாளருக்குக்கூட அந்தப் பரிசு தரப்படவில்லை என நான் அண்மைக்காலமாகக் குரலெழுப்பி வந்தேன். அது உரியவர்களின் காதுகளை எட்டிவிட்டதுபோலும். 


 இந்தத் தெரிவு எப்படி செய்யப்பட்டிருந்தாலும் இந்த விருதுக்கு முற்றிலும் தகுதியான ஒருவர்தான் இந்திரன். அவரை   வாழ்த்துகிறேன். 

ART-CRITIC INDRAN HONOURED WITH SAHIYA AKADEMI TRANSLATION PRIZE-2011



Indran  (real name B.G.Rajendran) ,  a Chennai based poet,  translator and art-critic  was conferred with Sahitya  Akademi Translation Prize for 2011 by Sahitya Akademi, India’s  national academy of letters for his translation of Odiya poetry in to Tamil through English titled  “ Paravaikal oruvelai thoongipoi irukkalaam” by Dr.Manorama Biswal Mahapatra .He will receive Rs.50000 in cash and a copper plaque .
He has published  more than 25 books in both Tamil and English ,which includes eight collections of poetry , nine books of translations and nine books of art -criticism  .His landmark translation of Black writings in to Tamil   “Araikul vandhe Africa vanam” (1982) greatly influenced Tamil writing in the 1980s.He has also translated in to Tamil , Indian writing in English, Dalit writing from Kannada, Marathi and Gujarathi,  Adhivasi poetry and Third world literature.
With a Travel Grant from the  Association of British Scholars  and British Council ,Chennai he went to UK  to study the Indian art-objects collected in British museums. He has contributed significantly on the field of Tamil aesthetics with writings on literature a,arts and cultural practices including cinema. He has also served on the editorial boards of literary and art magazines like Velicham, The Liiving Art and Nunkalai  and produced documentary  films-The Sculptural Energy and A dialogue with painting.
His curatorial works include many exhibitions of art including a prestigious mega- show of 133 painters on Thirukkural , an ancient Tamil poetry , organized by The Art and Culture Department of the Government of Tamilnadu state. He co-ordinated many Art and Folklore Workshops and Meets on behalf of IGRMS, the Museum of Mankind, Bhopal,  Orissa  Sahitya Akademy, Bhuvaneshwar, The Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai. He organized an International Seminor on Art writing  for British Council anad ABS ,Chennai. He is the founder of Yali Foundation, an organization for the promotion of  inter-cultural dialogues in Art and literature.
He is a visiting professor on Indian Art  History for Shivaji Ganesan Film Institute, SRM University, Chennai.
Contact:
 Indran, # 8, Park Avenue, Corporation cololny,Arcot Road,Kodambakkam, Chennai,India.
Landline: 044-24721443
Mobile: 98407 38224
Mai :     lindran48@gmail.com

Jashn-e-Azadi Successfully Screened at Delhi University Despite Right Wing Hooligan Threats and Police Pressure:AISA



Guest Post by AISA
AISA and Students of Sociology Department (DU) Successfully Screen Jashn-e-Azaadi in DU, Braving Attacks and Threats by ABVP and ‘Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena’! Hundreds of Delhi University Students Participate in Film Screening and Discussion with Sanjay Kak, Director of Jashn-e-Azaadi!!
Today hundreds of DU students and teachers participated the screening of the documentary film  Jashn-e-Azaadi organized by AISA and students of sociology in the Department of Sociology, Delhi University. “Predictably this screening had to held in the teeth of opposition from right-wing fascist forces like ABVP and the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena, who tried their level best to stall the screening. Moreover, the DU administration and the Delhi Police also shamefully sided with these forces and tried to pressurize the Sociology department to stop the screening”, said Harshvardhan Tripathi Secretary DU, AISA.
AISA had taken proper permission for this programme on Monday itself (13th of February, 2012). However, the DU administration and the Delhi police tried to prevent the movie from being screened. Since early this morning, the Delhi police kept calling the organizers (AISA representatives), stating that the Police has been receiving “threats” from ABVP and Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena. These forces openly told the Police that they would disrupt the screening, if it was allowed. “Instead of giving protection and preventing the hooligans from the entering the premises of Delhi School of Economics, Delhi police kept pressurizing the organizers to cancel the screening”, added Harshvardhan. The DU administration initially also tried to pressurize the sociology department and the organizers to cancel the programme.
However, the Sociology department stood firm in its defence of academic freedom. They demanded that the DU administration give in writing details of legal and academic grounds on the basis of which the film screening should be cancelled. Unable to give any logical response to this, the DU administration changed its stand and in a written statement, it told the Sociology department that the film screening could carry on. And so, the programme was held.
Commenting on today’s incident, director Sanjay Kak said, “By defending their right to screen the film, the Delhi School of Economics has stood for the best traditions of academic independence. And by coming in large numbers despite the intimidation, students have shown themselves to that trust. Thanks to AISA for showing the way.” The film screening in DU today was followed by a discussion with the director Sanjay Kak, who pointed out that disruption of his movie or any other talk on Kashmir serves the simple purpose of not letting the people know the reality in Kashmir.
AISA condemns the role of the Delhi police, which instead of preventing the goons from entering the premises of DSE, escorted them till the gates of Sociology department where they were stopped by the huge gathering of teachers and students. This incident should also be seen in the light of the DU administration’s recent move to remove AK Ramanujam’s essay ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas’ from BA History syllabus. Yesterday, several groups in DU (including AISA) unitedly organized a massive seminar in DU against such draconian attacks on academic freedom by right-wing forces. And today’s incident is yet another victory of progressive forces who have been fighting to reclaim the campus space from corporate and fascist take over. It is a victory for campus democracy, against hooliganism and for a culture of debate and discussion.
Courtesy : kafila.org

Inhuman

Vanur victim Vellaiyan narrates his horrific experience to VCK president Thol.Thirumavalavan MP

Inhuman

Part of the crowd assembled at the protest demo organized at Vanur

Inhuman

VCK president President Thol.Thirumavalavan speaks in the Protest Demonsration organised at Vanur on 15.02.2012 against the inhuman act meted to Vellaiyan -a quarry worker.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Inhuman

The victim mr. Vellaiyan and his wife Boobathi. They are working in a quarry near Vanur in Villupuram district of Tamilnadu. On suspicion of a minor theft one quarry owner Durai forced Vellaiyan to eat human excreta on 31.02.2012.

Monday, February 13, 2012


No More Clichés 

- Octavio Paz

Beautiful face
That like a daisy opens its petals to the sun
So do you
Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
To you manufacture fantasy.

But today I won't make one more Cliché
And write this poem to you.
No, no more clichés.

This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not on their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazade wake up
Everyday with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battle for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.
From now on, my head won't look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
And its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.



முதுபெரும் தமிழ் எழுத்தாளர் ஏ.ஆர்.இராஜாமணி காலமானார் - பேராசிரியர் நாச்சிமுத்து


இன்று ( 13.02.2012) அதி காலை தில்லியில் வாழ்ந்து வந்த முதுபெரும் தமிழ் எழுத்தாளர் ஏ.ஆர்.இராஜாமணி காலமானார்,தனியாகவே வாழ்நாள் முழுதும் வாழ்ந்து வந்த அவர் எல்லா வகையிலும் துன்பம் அனுபவித்து வந்தாலும் மானத்தோடு வாழ்ந்தவர்.அவர் எழுத்திலே ஓடும் நகைச்சுவையும் சீற்றமும் நம்மை வாட்டுவதற்குக் காரணம் அவர் வாழ்வனுபவம்தான்.'வாழத்தெரியாத' அவருக்கு யாராவது உண்டா எனத் தெரியவில்லை.இறந்தபோது சான்றிதழ் வாங்க அவர் தந்தை பெயரைச் சொல்லக்கூடத் தெரிந்த ஆளில்லை.
வடக்குவாசல் பென்னேஸ்வரன் அவரைப் பார்த்துக்கொண்டதோடு அவருக்கு ஈமத்தீயையும் ஊட்டினார். தில்லித் தமிழ்ச் சங்கத்தைத் தன் குடும்பமாகவும் அதன் உறுப்பினர்களைத் தன் உறவினராகவும் அவர் நினைத்திருந்தார்.தில்லித் தமிழ்ச் சங்க அன்பர்களும் அவருடைய சில நண்பர்களும் இறுதிச் சடங்கில் கலந்து கொண்டனர்.தமிழ் எழுத்தால் வாழ்வோம் என்று நினைத்து ஏமாந்தவர்களில் அவர் கடைசி ஆளாக இருக்கட்டும்.இதைப்போல் வாழ்வோர்க்கு உதவ ஏதாவது அறக்கட்டளைகளை மனமுள்ளோரும் பணமுள்ளோரும் நிறுவலாம்.திருக்குறளில் இல்லறத்தான் இயல்புடைய மூவருக்கு உதவுவதோடு துறந்தார்க்கும் துவ்வாதார்க்கும் இறந்தார்க்கும் உதவவேண்டும என்று சொல்லியிருக்கிறார்.அவர்களில் இராஜாமணி கடைசியாகச் சொன்ன பண்புகள் ஒருங்கே கொண்டவர் என்பதனால் அறக்கட்டளைகள் இவர்களைப்போன்றவர்களுக்கு உதவுவதாக அமையவேண்டும்.


--

Citizen Philosophers



Teaching Justice in Brazil  
Getting out of the cave and seeing things as they really are: that’s what philosophy is about, according to Almira Ribeiro. Ribeiro teaches the subject in a high school in Itapuã, a beautiful, poor, violent neighborhood on the periphery of Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia in Brazil’s northeast. She is the most philosophically passionate person I’ve ever met.
Most of the four million slaves shipped from Africa to Brazil were sold in Salvador, the first residence of Portugal’s colonial rulers. It’s still Brazil’s blackest city. In Ribeiro’s neighborhood, children play football or do capoeira, pray in Pentecostal Churches or worship African gods. Many are involved with drugs; “every year we lose students to crack,” she tells me. And they study philosophy two hours each week because of a 2008 law that mandates philosophy instruction in all Brazilian high schools. Nine million teenagers now take philosophy classes for three years.
“But seeing things as they really are isn’t enough,” Ribeiro insists. As in Plato’s parable inThe Republic, the students must go back to the cave and apply what they’ve learned. Their lives give them rich opportunities for such application. The contrast between the new luxury hotels along the beach and Itapuã’s overcrowded streets gives rise to questions about equality and justice. Children kicking around a can introduce a discussion about democracy: football is one of the few truly democratic practices here; success depends on merit, not class privilege. Moving between philosophy and practice, the students can revise their views in light of what Plato, Hobbes, or Locke had to say about equality, justice, and democracy and discuss their own roles as political agents.
To foster that discussion, Ribeiro must take on a deeply rooted political defeatism. Voting in Brazil is obligatory, but many think it’s useless. In 2010, the largest number of votes for any member of congress went to Tiririca, a popular TV clown, who ran on the slogan, “I don’t know what a congressman does, but vote me in and I’ll tell you.” João Belmiro, another high school philosophy teacher, finds this outrageous. Philosophy, he hopes, will bring change before long.
“There are also other ways of political participation,” Ribeiro tells her students. She gives them the town hall’s phone number for complaints about infrastructure and asks them to find something in their street they want repaired. When one student calls, nothing happens. But when fifteen call, the city reacts. “You see that pothole?” she asks me. “It’s been closed. And that street lantern? It’s been fixed. Thanks to our philosophy class. . . . Politicians can’t afford disgruntled citizens who will vote them out of office.” In the same vein she’s now organizing an association of philosophy teachers. One urgent matter is the lack of qualified personnel. Another project is improving the relationship with the philosophy department at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), the region’s academic hub. Most teachers I meet complain that academic philosophers ignore them or look down on them.
That’s not surprising, considering that the 2008 law is above all a political project. In 1971 the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 eliminated philosophy from high schools. Teachers, professors in departments of education, and political activists championed its return, while most academic philosophers were either indifferent or suspicious. The dictatorship seems to have understood philosophy’s potential to create engaged citizens; it replaced philosophy with a course on Moral and Civic Education and one on Brazil’s Social and Political Organization (“to inculcate good manners and patriotic values and to justify the political order of the generals,” one UFBA colleague recalls from his high school days).
The official rationale for the 2008 law is that philosophy “is necessary for the exercise of citizenship.” The law—the world’s largest-scale attempt to bring philosophy into the public sphere—thus represents an experiment in democracy. Among teachers at least, many share Ribeiro’s hope that philosophy will provide a path to greater civic participation and equality. Can it do even more? Can it teach students to question and challenge the foundations of society itself?

• • •

I was intrigued when I first heard about the law and wanted to see for myself whether philosophy could do something outside of academia. My path to this subject is both intellectual and personal. I am an academic philosopher in Canada, with Brazilian roots: my parents were activists with a Marxist student group opposing the dictatorship and fled before my birth, though we returned to Brazil for four years after the 1979 amnesty for political refugees. With the help of colleagues and undergraduates from the UFBA philosophy department, I gained access to a broad range of schools in Salvador, where I was often welcomed as a guest teacher and had the opportunity to discuss with teachers their curricula, instructional styles, and hopes for the students.
In every classroom I was at first flooded with questions: Who is this professor from Montreal and what’s he doing here? the students wondered. I quickly learned that my excitement about Brazil’s experiment with philosophy is not universally shared. “Learning how to read and write and basic mathematics is useful,” one student said. “But why should I care about Plato’s concept of the soul?”
I conceded to the class that learning philosophy for the sake of erudition may not be the best use of their time.
“But if you want to build a just and democratic society, isn’t it useful to get as clear as possible on what you mean by justice and democracy and to examine if you have good reasons to pursue these?” I asked. “And aren’t your intuitions about knowledge, goodness and beauty worth investigating?”
Well, perhaps. But first the students had more questions for me. Is it true that Canadian bacon is the best in the world? What do people abroad think about Brazil? How did I get into philosophy? And—still more personally—do I believe in God, a question I encountered almost every time. I tried to get out of it by mentioning Spinoza’s impersonal God. That didn’t mean much to the students and, truth be told, I don’t even believe in the God of Spinoza. “We knew it—all philosophers are atheists!” they would say. When I asked who was a Catholic, who was an evangelical, and who practiced the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé (Salvador alone has more than 2000 terreiros, Candomblé’s houses of worship), all students raised their hand at least once.
I assured the students that until the nineteenth century hardly any philosopher was an atheist. Plato’s Euthyphro—with its argument about the relationship between ethics and the will of the gods—gets us into a lively discussion.
I asked them, “Do moral norms depend on God’s will? Would it be fine to murder an innocent child if God says so?” The students found the idea outrageous.
“But doesn’t God order Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?” I asked. There was a moment of confusion.
“But Abraham also holds God responsible when he wants to destroy Sodom and Gomorra,” one student replied. That can be interpreted as an independent norm of justice, I admitted.
I pressed on. “But if God must submit to objective moral norms, do we still need the Bible for moral guidance?”
Another student doubted that reason can replace the Bible: “Reason even justifies killing an innocent child if that’s the only way to save a thousand lives.”
We assumed for the moment that reason is indeed unable to ground absolute moral norms. “But how can we act on the authority of the Bible if there are so many different interpretations of it?” I asked. A third student intervened: “Can’t each interpretation be right in its own time and place?” I reminded them of Salvador’s Museum of Modern Art, which they visited on a class excursion. It is located in a beautifully restored casa grande—a colonial plantation owner’s mansion—with adjacent slave dormitories—senzala. “You remember the private chapel? Going to mass and having slaves obviously wasn’t a contradiction back then.” Most students have slaves among their ancestors. So they were reluctant to concede that an interpretation of the Bible allowing slavery is valid. “Is, then, reason the arbiter between competing interpretations?” I asked.
We hadn’t reached a conclusion when the bell rang, but we’d touched on a wide range of important issues in an open-ended Socratic discussion that seemed well suited to the public philosophy envisioned in the 2008 law. By giving students the basic semantic and logical tools they need to clarify their intuitions and to analyze arguments for and against their views, philosophy could help to extend and refine the debate that naturally arises in a pluralistic society from conflicting interests, values, and worldviews. And it could also help citizens make wise use of the power they have in a democracy, as Ribeiro’s town hall exercise shows.
But can philosophy really become part of ordinary life? Wasn’t Socrates executed for trying? Athenians didn’t thank him for guiding them to the examined life, but instead accused him of spreading moral corruption and atheism. Plato concurs: Socrates failed because most citizens just aren’t philosophers in his view. To make them question the beliefs and customs they were brought up in isn’t useful because they can’t replace them with examined ones. So Socrates ended up pushing them into nihilism. To build politics on a foundation of philosophy, Plato concludes, doesn’t mean turning all citizens into philosophers, but putting true philosophers in charge of the city—like parents in charge of children. I wonder, though, why Plato didn’t consider the alternative: If citizens had been trained in dialectic debate from early on—say, starting in high school—might they have reacted differently to Socrates? Perhaps the Brazilian experiment will tell.

• • •

The Socratic approach does not, however, have much support among the two main camps competing to define the high school curriculum in Brazil: academic philosophers on the one hand and political activists and educators on the other.
For academic philosophers, philosophy is not a democratic practice or an emancipatory exercise, but a rigorous scholarly discipline. According to the narrative I hear time and again, philosophy started in Brazil in the 1930s, when French scholars founded the philosophy department at the University of São Paulo. They put an end to the “dilettante period” characterized by the oratory of lawyers and the scholasticism of priests that had dominated Brazilian philosophy until then. Among the French scholars were Martial Guéroult and Victor Goldschmidt, who taught that doing philosophy is no longer possible, only history of philosophy: reconstructing systems of thought through a painstaking analysis of their immanent structure. Since then, studying the history of Western philosophy has been the paradigm of serious philosophy in Brazil.
For political activists and educators, this leads to “intellectual schizophrenia” as Eduardo Oliveira, who teaches in UFBA’s Faculty of Education, puts it. “If we want to think we must put on a German, French, or British head; the Brazilian head won’t do,” he says. Many in this camp are affiliated with the “philosophy of liberation” movement, a series of loosely related intellectual exercises resisting local dictatorships and what is seen as the West’s political, economic, and cultural domination. This movement draws on many sources, from Marx to Levinas. It emerged in South America in the 1960s and ’70s together with the pedagogy and the theology of liberation. But whatever its merits, I wonder if any substantive philosophical agenda is compatible with the diverse views citizens hold in a democracy.
Among the greatest skeptics of the 2008 law is José Arthur Giannotti, one of Brazil’s most respected academic philosophers. He is a close friend of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who vetoed the law when it was first proposed in 2001, after it had already been approved by the legislature. “Teaching philosophy to students who can hardly read and write,” Giannotti said in 2008, “is sad foolishness.”
To be sure, conditions are dire in public schools. Overworked and underpaid teachers deal with students who are often in class for the free lunch, reduced bus fare, or because of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s welfare program, the bolsa familia (family fund). More than 12 million poor families get tiny financial incentives to keep their children in school. Brazil still has 15 million illiterate people and an additional 30 million “functionally” illiterate who can decipher a text, but not understand it, much less write something coherent.
When I mentioned Giannotti’s statement to students they were outraged. They thought he described a vicious circle: if you can’t establish a just society democratically without the citizens knowing what justice is, and if you can’t know what justice is without philosophy, it would be impossible to achieve justice in an unjust society like Brazil if studying philosophy presupposes justice.
The philosophy law presented academic philosophers with a fait accompli, so they have been mostly vocal in ensuring that the high school curriculum reflects their idea of rigor. The Curricular Guidelines—published by the Ministry of Education in 2006, as the law was heading for final approval—reflect a broad consensus: high schools should adopt a toned-down version of the academic program with history of philosophy as its “cornerstone.”
When I asked Ribeiro what she thought about these guidelines, she looked amused. “Let’s see what my evening class students”—maids, taxi drivers, construction workers, and others who hope the high school diploma will get them out of what she calls “slave work”—“will say if I ask them to make a structural analysis of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.” And even if it were possible, she didn’t see the point. “If the students can’t relate what they learn to their own experience—of what use will it be to them?”
But other teachers feel that they must follow the guidelines if they are to be taken seriously. “That’s what distinguishes a teacher with a philosophy degree from a charlatan who organizes superficial debates on this or that question of the day,” one teacher told me.
One UFBA student pointed out, though, “Nobody really thinks that high school students can get through Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. This helps to explain the ubiquitous use of didactic manuals.” The idea seems to be that if you can’t read Kant, the next-best choice is to read a Kant digest by a recognized authority. After a précis of the history of Western philosophy, these manuals usually summarize what the author takes to be the principal areas of philosophy. In the most popular manual I saw, each chapter is followed by questions for the students. The teacher’s version includes an appendix with the correct answers. In the worst case this will lead to rote learning—one teacher goes so far as to give students multiple-choice assessments which include the question whether Sartre’s nationality is German, Swedish, French, or Russian. But that approach fits the general teaching culture in Brazil. Another UFBA student explained, “Since the goal is to get students into university, teachers must put everything into their heads on which they will be tested in the vestibular, the entrance exam.”
There are plenty of real-life experiences, though, that could be addressed in a philosophy class. Consider the myth of racial equality in Brazil, the idea that Brazil is a “racial democracy.” Following the Socratic call to self-knowledge, João Belmiro asks his students to sketch their biography and family background. “They always know much more about the white part of their family than about the black part,” he observed. One white colleague told me that his black wife doesn’t like to go with him to the beach. “People think she’s a prostitute going out with a gringo.” Another white colleague can’t bring his black wife to his parents’ house. “They’re poor and uneducated; she has a master’s in history and directs an archive of rare manuscripts from the colonial period.” In a country where races are so thoroughly mixed, what does it mean that skin color remains important?
Or consider the gap between rich and poor in Brazil, one of the world’s widest. Many here don’t perceive it as unjust. In an elite private school in Salvador, philosophy teacher Luis Rusmando told me, “You’ve come to the most expensive and bourgeois school in town.” An Argentinian Marxist who once wanted to be a guerrilla combatant (two relatives, he told me, were killed by Argentina’s military dictatorship) and joined the fight for agricultural land redistribution when he first got to Brazil, he doesn’t quite know how he ended up at this school. Although about 80 percent of Salvador’s population are Afro-descendants, the only black people I saw in Rusmando’s school are cleaners and kitchen personnel. “Most of my students think that inequality is a law of nature,” he explained. That’s why they find nothing wrong with the social hierarchy that Plato proposes in TheRepublic. “Only when I tell them that wisdom, not money, rules, according to Plato, they’re confused.” Rusmando is also in charge of the students’ voluntary community service program. Every few months he drives out to a farm owned by one student’s family. “It’s amazing how naturally a sixteen-year-old takes charge of the twenty servants who work there,” he told me. The students bring donations to a local daycare and spend a few hours with the poor kids. “For most of them it’s an opportunity to party.” But he also notices the students who haven’t yet lost the ability to be surprised, and to question their narrow world of privilege. “Perhaps that’s why I paradoxically feel close to my students,” he said.

• • •

João Belmiro’s students have discussed justice. In 1888 Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery. “But what is freedom worth,” one student asked, “without access to land, jobs, and education?” All students in his class are in favor of affirmative action programs in universities. The deterioration of the public school system in recent decades, which Lula’s center-left government did little to reverse, has made it all but impossible for poor children to get into one of the coveted public university programs—mainly engineering, law, and medicine—that open the door to wealth and prestige.
“But are quotas enough?” I asked the students. “Isn’t there a risk of graduating black engineers, lawyers, and doctors who think and behave exactly like their white colleagues?” If philosophy is indeed the way to change such attitudes, as the students proposed, what should it aim at? It turns out to be quite difficult to say how much equality social justice requires.
“Consider two acarajé stands,” I said, referring to Salvador’s most popular street food. One is run by a talented cook, the other by a cook without talent. Both work hard, but the first stand has lots of customers, the second only a few. “Would it be just to take part of the talented cook’s income and give it to the untalented one?” Differences due to talent or effort seemed acceptable to the students as long as equal opportunities were granted. I pressed harder: “Isn’t talent an arbitrary fact of nature? Why, then, should it be rewarded? And is effort really more in our control? If one cook has just lost a child in an accident and now is depressed and can’t work properly—does she deserve to be punished?” The bell rang. One more inconclusive discussion, and another invitation to continue the philosophical conversation.

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.1/carlos_fraenkel_brazil_teaching_philosophy.php

Thursday, February 9, 2012

POST-WAR, POST-GENOCIDE POETRY: REVISITING THE TAMIL EELAM TRAGEDY- MEENA KANDASAMY



After the teaching semester came to an end this May, as usual I had this list of huge things I planned to do. Now university resumes in mid-July and I have to welcome a new batch of students and I look back at the vacation, and I feel, well, I did the stuff that had to be done. (Even if it was not part of the plan)
So, what did I do this summer? Well, I managed to translate this moving collection of poems written by Cheran Rudhramoorthy, V.I.S.Jayapalan, Latha and Ravikumar about the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka’s NorthEast last year. The poems emit bitterness and tragedy, even as they speak a language of hope and resistance and faith and pride. Some of them are extremely intense, most of them bleed.
Cheran and Jayapalan are well-known poets from Tamil Eelam and have been anthologized (along with my hero-of-sorts Puthuvai Rathinadurai) in Wilting Laughter: Three Tamil Poets. While I have translated Cheran, Jayapalan and Ravikumar (with generous inputs and help from Sascha Ebeling) for this as-yet-untitled forthcoming book, Latha’s poems have been translated by my dear friend Ravi Shanker.
Darker than the poems, and much more haunting in its directness is the extensive 4000-word introduction by writer Ravikumar (the editor-publisher of this collection) of this who captures the myriad facets of the genocide and its aftermath. He makes use of a wide range of sources: letters by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary Executions, report of the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), news-stories, eye-witness accounts in exposing the anti-Tamil, xenophobic and ruthless nature of the Sri Lankan state. He also writes painstakingly of how India betrayed the Tamil people and how it failed to protect them. Because I had to pause to cry, I found his prose deadly and damning.
Lest we forget the horrors of the genocide, this book was brought out in Tamil (Engaludaya kaalathildhan oozhi nigazhndhadhu – எங்களுடைய காலத்தில்தான் ஊழி நிகழ்ந்தது,published by Ravikumar’s publishing house Manarkeni) in May 2010 to mark the first anniversary of Eelam War IV that left nearly half a million Tamils dead.
Watch this space for more details on the English translation, its publication and so on. If you are highly curious, please drop me a line.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012







ESSAYS

Existential dilemmas

INDIRA PARTHASARATHY

Ravikumar's approach to human issues, as seen in his writing, befits his many-sided personality.


Ravi asks: 'Why is that the cultural sphere gains more significance than the killing of a human being? How are we to understand the meaning of the word 'culture' here?



 
Venomous Touch: Notes on Caste, Culture and Politics; Ravikumar, Translated from the Tamil by R. Azhagarasan, published by Samya, Kolkata, Rs. 650

The 1980s witnessed a gradual ascendance of the young brigade of Dalit intellectuals in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, among whom were artists, writers, journalists, academicians and human rights crusaders. They were largely instrumental in bringing to focus the subaltern literature in the Tamil region in the context of the Dalit movement, which had earlier failed to catch the attention of the mainstream history.

Ravikumar, who had earlier started as a Marxist-Leninist, was one of the earliest members of this intellectually alert group. Self-made and well-read, and defying classification in any one of the conventional moulds of academic scholarship, he announced his arrival by publishing in Tamil in-depth articles in little Dalit journals. These pieces are now eminently translated into English by R. Azhagarasan and brought out as a book with the title Venomous Touch: Notes on Caste, Culture and Politics.

Revelation

In the 1990s, Ravikumar was largely responsible for the publication of the still-then unknown Siddha doctor Pandit C. Ayodhya Dasa's (1845-1914) collected works. It came as a revelation to many that such a person had existed much earlier than Mahatma Phule, Dr. Ambedkar and E.V. Ramaswamy. Dasa, in the true classical line of philosophical dissenters that distinguished the Indian intellectual tradition from the days of Carvaka and Buddha, repudiated the Manu Dharma that created the caste hierarchy and aggressively canvassed for the total emancipation of the Dalits.

Ravi says in the appendix of this book, "Iyothee Thass (Ayodhya Dasa) is, perhaps, one among the several Dalit icons whose names have been blacked out by mainstream history." The biographical sketch of this eminent Dalit, given by Ravi, tells us that he knew English, Sanskrit and Pali. He strongly believed that Buddhism flourished in Tamil Nadu before the advent of the later Cholas and a conspiracy of circumstances, resulted in the decline of this non-Vedic religion. Eventually, according to Dasa, the Buddhists were deprived of their religion and they descended to the status of untouchables. It reads like a speculative theory but does not seem improbable.

Ravikumar's approach to human issues befits his many-sided personality, as is evident from the incident he narrates in this anthology. As a Dalit intellectual and also as a as a human rights activist, he raises this question why a metaphorical humiliation of a Dalit icon should anger people more than the calculated murder of a poor Dalit individual.

He instances a case where a young Dalit was killed in police custody. It was cold-blooded murder and the Dalit organisations reacted to this by formally organising roadblocks and rallies. All attempts by civil liberty activists to get a post-mortem report to file a case properly were of no avail and it lacked sufficient backing by the other Dalit groups. '

Cultural crime

A few days later, a statue of Ambedkar was desecrated by some miscreants in Tindivanam provoking violent riots all over the region. In the police firing, one person died and several seriously injured. Both pertain to a Dalit as well as a human issue. In one, a young man met his tortuous death inpolice custody and, in the other, an abstract or a 'cultural' crime in the form garlanding the statue of an icon with chappals.

Ravi asks: 'Why is that the cultural sphere gains more significance than the killing of a human being? How are we to understand the meaning of the word 'culture' here? Are the tools and methods currently available to define and understand the term, sufficient in the context of Dalit oppression?'

Such questions pertaining to a situation of existential dilemma can never be satisfactorily answered.







Sunday, February 5, 2012

எழுத்தாளர், திரைப்பட, தொலைகாட்சி நடிகர் தி.சு. சதாசிவம் மறைந்தார்





எழுத்தாளர், திரைப்பட, தொலைகாட்சி நடிகர் தி.சு. சதாசிவம் மறைந்தார்

 

எழுத்தாளரும் மொழிபெயர்ப்பாளரும் தொலைக்காட்சி ஆளுமையுமான திரு. தி.சு. சதாசிவம் இன்று (05.02.2012, ஞாயிறு) காலை காலமானார். சிறிது காலமாக அவரது உடல்நலம் பாதிக்கப்பட்டிருந்தது.

 

திரு. சதாசிவம் கலை, இலக்கியம், முற்போக்கு அரசியல் இயக்கங்கள் என்று பல துறைகளில் ஈடுபட்டவராக அறியப்பட்டவர். 1997இல் சாரா அபுபக்கரின் சந்திரகிரி ஆற்றங்கரையில் என்ற புகழ்பெற்ற கன்னட நாவலை மொழிபெயர்த்ததற்காக திரு. சதாசிவத்திற்கு மொழிபெயர்ப்புக்கான  சாகித்ய அகாதமி விருது வழங்கப்பட்டது. 25க்கு மேற்பட்ட அவரது மொழிபெயர்ப்புகள் புத்தகமாக வெளிவந்திருக்கின்றன. அவர் முதன்மையாக கன்னடத்திலிருந்து தமிழுக்கு மொழிபெயர்த்தாலும் மலையாளம், ஆங்கிலம், இந்தி ஆகிய மொழிகளிலிருந்தும் மொழிபெயர்த்திருக்கிறார்.


யூ.ஆர். அனந்தமூர்த்தி, சிவராம காரந்த், மொகல்லி கணேஷ், சந்திரசேகர கம்பார், லங்கேஷ் போன்ற முக்கியமான கன்னட எழுத்தாளர்கள், பெர்டோல்ட் பிரெக்ட், அகிரா குரசோவா போன்ற சர்வதேச ஆளுமைகள் ஆகியோரின் படைப்புகளை திரு. சதாசிவம் தனது நேர்த்தியான மொழிபெயர்ப்பின் மூலம் தமிழுக்கு அறிமுகப்படுத்தியிருக்கிறார்.

 

சாகித்ய அகாதமி விருது மட்டுமின்றி திருப்பூர் தமிழ்ச் சங்க விருது (1998), நல்லி திசை எட்டும் விருது (2006), நெய்வேலி புத்தக விழா அமைப்பு அளித்த வாழ்நாள் சாதனை விருது (2007) போன்ற பல்வேறு விருதுகளையும் அவர் பெற்றிருக்கிறார்.

 

தமிழில் மாற்றுத் திரைப்பட ரசனை இயக்கம் மற்றும் நாடக விமர்சனத்தின் முன்னோடிகளில் ஒருவர் திரு. சதாசிவம். கடந்த 15 ஆண்டுகளாக அவர் நடிப்பிற்குத் தம்மை அர்ப்பணித்துக்கொண்டார். அவர் பல திரைப்படங்களில் குணச்சித்திரப் பாத்திரங்களிலும் பத்துக்கு மேற்பட்ட தொலைக்காட்சித் தொடர்களில் முன்னணி கதாபாத்திரங்களில் ஒருவராகவும் நடித்திருக்கிறார். நடிகர் கமல்ஹாசன் இயக்கிய நம்மவர் படத்தில் அவரது நடிப்பு பெரிதும் பாராட்டப்பட்டது. மர்மதேசம், விடாது கருப்பு, அண்ணாமலை, கோலங்கள் உள்ளிட்ட பிரபல தொடர்களில் அவர் முக்கியமான பாத்திரங்களில் நடித்தார்.

 

நாடகத் துறையில், குறிப்பாக வீதி நாடகத்தில், இவர் இயக்கம், நடிப்பு என பல படைப்புகளுக்கு காரணமாக இருந்திருக்கிறார். சென்னையில் பரீக்ஷா அமைப்புடன் இணைந்து செயல்பட்டார்.

 

திரு. சதாசிவம் இடதுசாரி கலை-இலக்கிய வட்டங்களிலும் தமிழ் தேசிய, தலித் இயக்கங்களிலும் முனைப்புடன் பங்கேற்றார். அவர் 15.03.1938இல் அன்று வட ஆற்காடு மாவட்டமாக இருந்த திருப்பத்தூரில் பிறந்தார். அவர் இந்தியன் டெலிபோன் இண்டஸ்ட்ரீஸ் நிறுவனத்தில் பணிபுரிந்ததால் தம் வாழ்க்கையின் பெரும்பகுதியை பெங்களூரில் கழித்தார்.

 

அவருக்கு மனைவியும் இரு மகன்களும் ஒரு மகளும் உள்ளனர்.

 

தொடர்புக்கு  செ.ச.செந்தில் நாதன், ஆழி பதிப்பகம் 9940147473




Thursday, February 2, 2012

ரவிக்குமார் கவிதை


பெயர் தெரியாத தாவரம் ஒன்று
முளைத்திருந்தது
கொல்லைப்புறத்தில்
அடர் பச்சை  இலைகளும்
கம்பி போல் தண்டுமாய்
எப்போதும் அது சிரித்தபடி இருந்தது

’இது பாம்புக் கடிக்கான பச்சிலை
நல்ல பாம்போடு சண்டைபோட்டுவிட்டு
கீரிப்பிள்ளை வந்து இதில்தான் புரளும்’ என்றார் அப்பா
 ‘அதுவொரு கீரை
மாவோடு கலந்து தோசையாய் சாப்பிட்டால்
மூட்டுவலி போகும்’ என்றார் தாத்தா

எவ்வளவு உயரம் வளரும்
என்ன நிறத்தில் பூக்கும்
அதற்கு என்ன பெயர் வைப்பது
குழந்தைகள் மனதில் ஆயிரம் கேள்விகள்.

அவர்கள் யோசித்துக்கொண்டிருக்கும்போதே
வந்தாள் அம்மா
‘ செடி கொடி மண்டினால்
 பூச்சி பொட்டு அண்டும்’ என்று
வேரோடு பிடுங்கி வீசிவிட்டுப் போய்விட்டாள்

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

ரவிக்குமார் கவிதை




புத்தகங்களில் இருந்த மரங்களைக்கூடப் 
பிடுங்கியெறிந்துவிட்டது காற்று 
பாவம் குழந்தைகள்
பாடப்புத்தகங்களின்
ஒவ்வொரு பக்கத்திலும் சாய்ந்துகிடந்தன 
பலப்பல விருட்சங்கள்
தென்னை வாழை பலா வேம்பு 
ஆல் அரசு என ஆயிரம் வகைகள் 


திகைத்த குழந்தைகள்  
பெற்றோரை அழைத்தனர் 
அவர்களுக்கோ ஆயிரம் வேலை
மரங்கள் இல்லாத புத்தகங்கள்
சுமப்பதற்கு சுளுவாகத்தானே இருக்கும் 
என்றொரு நினைப்பு 

குழந்தைகளுக்குத்தான் தெரியும் 
மரங்கள் இல்லாத புத்தகங்களில்
பறவைகளும் இருக்காது என்பது 
பறவைகள் இல்லாதுபோனால் 
வானமும் இருக்காது
வானம் இல்லாவிட்டால் 
மேகமும் இருக்காது 
அப்புறம் 
நிலா எங்கிருக்கும்
சூரியன் எங்கிருக்கும்
நட்சத்திரங்கள் எங்கு வசிக்கும் 

கவலையோடு புத்தகங்களைப் புரட்டுகிறார்கள்
குழந்தைகள் 
உதிரும் சருகுகள் 
ஊரெங்கும் பறக்கின்றன