Sites of Resistance: Mushaira, Academia, and Youtube

Group report of the event

Date : 10th April, 2019

Time : 3:30 PM – 6:30 PM

Venue : Classroom 12, Ambedkar University Delhi campus

Organisers :

Group 1- Soumya Duggal, Swati

Group 2 – Sukriti, Sparshna, Kirti

Group 4- Sristi, Manan, Udham, Shalini

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Aim : To create a space for dialogue on radical poetry of protest and resistance with focus on understanding of academia, mushaira, and YouTube as sites of resistance.

Conception : The process of conceiving an idea for the event took a long time, in the stretch of which the original concept changed several times. We considered many contemporary issues in which protest was articulated through poetry. For instance, we looked at how Indian poets have been speaking out against the rise of extreme nationalism in India in the last few years, an evidence of which was the threat of war being fuelled by jingoistic celebration of the Balakot air strikes post the Pulwama attack. We arrived at our final topic, ‘Sites of Resistance : Academia, Mushaira, YouTube’, once we decided to expand the scope of the event to analyse more than just one theme of protest poetry in order to produce a theoretical reflection on how such literature creates its impact. One of the ways of doing so, we found out, is to study the primary locations of its performance and dissemination, three of which  in contemporary time are academia, mushaira/kavi sammelan and YouTube.

‘Academia’ includes within its ambit not only the physical space of the university where protest poetry emerges in the midst of student-led movements against injustice, but also the less material space of recorded resistance such as academic books from which protest poetry is taught, college magazines where views of the students are expressed through articles and original creative work, theoretical essays which are the ground for unceasing debates and knowledge production, as well as the discursive space of the classroom where collective learning takes place.

‘Mushaira’ and ‘kavi-sammelan’ have traditionally been public spaces for relatively freer speech since they allow a subversion of dominant ideologies and norms of social behaviour (like alternative sexual identities etc), often through the use of humour and inventive language, since reality is presented wrapped in metaphor, and so the focus is not only on the content or message of the poem but also on the skill of the poet in crafting it. In recent time these curated conditions for poetry recitation have become all the more significant to poets for expressing discontent with social injustice under corrupt and oppressive regimes, and in some ways are designated spaces for showing resistance and connecting with large numbers of people of like minds. But these places are also shrinking because of the common branding of dissenters as ‘anti-national’ by many members of political parties and the news media. Often, the perceived religious identity of the poet plays a crucial role in determining how much prejudice is attached to their words by reactionary and chauvinistic members of the privileged majority.

‘Youtube’, a virtual medium, is soon turning into a global and a more democratic mushaira of sorts because of its unrestricted access to most people in contact with technology. Voices of reputed poets blend with those of amateur ones, giving rise to a multitude of perspectives. Throughout the course, students of Radical poetry of Protest and Resistance,  referred to poetry published on YouTube, a lot of it which was not available in the written format or in a language accessible to all students on other mediums. Sabiqa Abbas Naqvi, a speaker at the second event of the semester (Dance and Resistance), also talked about the power of the platform. Her insights contributed to many of our group discussions and an analysis of YouTube as a space of resistance became an important aspect of what we wanted to explore through our event.

The event was envisioned as a two-part affair consisting of a panel discussion and a performance session. For the panel discussion, individuals from varying academic and social backgrounds were considered to be invited to speak. We wished to encourage a diversity of opinions and maintain a numeral parity between all gender identities in the panel. While we were able to achieve the former, we could not succeed in bringing the latter hope to fruition due to a number of issues, mainly those of busy schedules. Nevertheless, we unanimously agreed on extending the warmest invitations to Apoorvanand Jha (professor at DU) and Gauhar Raza (poet and scientist) and both of them promptly agreed to grace our event with their presence. Mrityunjay Tripathi (professor at AUD) very kindly accepted the role of the moderator. For the performance session, google forms were circulated to accept entries from potential participants. After a careful screening process of the received creative work, our diligent team gave the green signal to those applicants whose poems and songs were appropriate for the event, and the rest were regretfully refused, albeit not without genuine explanation.

The following is an account of how the event was conducted :

Panel Discussion- The three panelists were Dr. Apoorvanand Jha, Dr. Gauhar Raza and Dr. Mrityunjay Tripathi, who addressed the audience on and around the theme : ‘Sites of Resistance: Mushaira, Academia and YouTube’.

About the panellists:

Dr. Apoorvanand Jha : A professor of Hindi at the University of Delhi, Dr. Apoorvanand Jha has published two books of essays in literary criticism: Sundar ka Swapna and Sahitya ka Ekant. His critical essays have appeared in all major Hindi journals. Apart from his academic and literary works, he also contributes columns in Indian Newspapers and magazines on the issues of education, culture, communalism, violence and human rights regularly. He joined us as a speaker.

Dr. Gauhar Raza : A scientist at the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, Dr. Gauhar Raza is also a social activist, a leading Urdu poet and a documentary filmmaker working to popularise the understanding of science among general public. He is known for his films like Jung-e-Azadi, on India's First War of Independence, and Inqilab (2008) on Bhagat Singh. Gauhar Raza's poetry collection Jazbon Ki Lau Tez Karo has been praised for the social concerns it raises with great sensitivity. Dr. Raza joined us as a speaker.

Dr. Mritunjay Tripathi : A professor at Hindi Department, Ambedkar University Delhi, School of Letters and a scholar of much renown, Mrityunjay has translated the autobiography of Mallikarjun Mansur into Hindi (Rasyatra). His Hindi translation of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing recently came out in 2018. Siyah Hashiye is a published collection of his poetry. His book Alochana mein Canon-Nirman ki Prakriya (2015) is acclaimed as one of the first critical studies of the processes of canonization in Hindi. Dr. Tripathi joined us as the moderator.

The panelists explored the various ways in which these spaces become significant for protests. Dr. Jha, while talking about how technological advancements shape the modern life, discussed the convenience that platforms like YouTube have brought into our lives now. He also talked about the impact of technology on publishing and writing, meditating on how the process of publishing has evolved over time: getting a book published would take close to three of four years earlier, but it is relatively faster process now. People have managed to take the responsibility of recognition into their own hands and have various ways to get their word out. The panellists urged only that freedom to publish one’s works with one click should be used responsibly because such a platform offers an individual the way to protest and reach out to diverse audiences. On being asked questions about the protest of ideas especially, at one’s own home i.e. with one’s parents, Dr. Jha had to say that parents are a difficult category to explain ideas to or to protest but they will not leave you in the process. So, if you think what you’re standing for or against is right then you should go ahead. To which, Dr. Raza disagreed and said that parents are not enemies of their child and they should be given enough chances to understand and grow out, if possible, of the conditioning that they received as children and support their child if they feel it is right. Matters of the relationship between education and ideology were also discussed—questions regarding the role of school education and pedagogy in determining the political and national ideology were posed from the audience; Dr. Jha, in response, highlighted the role of political interventions within education policies and the often counter-productive measures that governments at the Centre take to ensure conformity. The discussion was chiefly centered on medium and themes of resistance in the contemporary era. Dr. Apoorvanand said that in modern days, it is easier to get one’s works published or to get them known to public through mediums like YouTube. Whereas in old days, the publishing of poems and other works used to take as much time as three or four years because of the long process of editing and binding of printed books involved. Sometimes, the publishers would give preference to the works of poets by their appearance. So, the entire publishing process used to be quite hectic back then. But after the emergence of modern techniques like YouTube, a lots and lots of people are writing poetries and are getting acknowledgement for their works; which is indeed a commendable progress. Gauhar Raza talked about the nature of resistance poem. He said that before writing ‘resistance’ or ‘inquilab’, one must learn to write good love poems because love is a source of power and passion which provides fuel to resistant themes. The panel discussion was followed by a performance poetry session.

Poetry Performances- Many students from different departments and Universities came forth to give their poetry performances. We invited students and artists to perform their artistic creations. Performances of poems, shayaris, nazms, or any other forms of poetic expression to register protest or resistance were welcome. Hindi, Urdu and English were the preferred languages of the content. Through a process of screening, the entries were chosen in accordance with the theme. There were poems against patriarchal oppression and communalism and most importantly, against misuse of political power. 

Among the selected performers was a budding poet Amit Puri, whose voice and words won all hearts. Even Dr. Gauhar Raza couldn’t stop praising him. Among many poems which were sung on political theme, one of them was called –“Amber ki baat” with its stupendous line- “Mehaj Hindustan hi ek aisa mulq hai jisme watan ko lutne wale watan ki baat karte hain, translated in English as “India is the only country wherein one who robs, talks about saving the nation. One such another poem was mingle of love and political fervor, titled– “Aamne Saamne”, it ran as “Vo hain nazro ke aamne saamne, khade hai vo banduk taan kar, faike jaa rahe hain pathar aamne saamne”. This poem is a political satire involving the passion of love. There also happened a monologue performance on the theme of partition of the country by a student of M.A. English. It was so vigorously performed that everyone seemed to love it. All the poetries and performances evoked overwhelming enthusiasm from the audience.

Problems – The overall event was a success, but not without struggle. The three groups that came together proposed different ideas around which the event was to be organised. Hence, to find an umbrella theme was difficult, at first. The first theme finalised and promoted did not receive much response from the student community. After multiple discussions on Whatsapp and two group meetings, we were finally able to agree upon a new concept. The concrete theme took more time to take shape, after a series of disappointments and consultations.

A major problem our group had was getting the budget approved. The first budget proposed, according to how we had conceptualised the event to begin with, proved to be too constrained to work within when our program idea changed. Because we did not have clarity about the amount of funds we had, we could not send speaker invitations to poets and academics residing beyond Delhi. The second budget took very long to get approved, in fact we received confirmation only two days before the event. Because of these hiccups, our event had to be rescheduled towards the end of the semester instead of mid-semester as planned. Too late to use the funds in any other way, we used a small amount on event promotion and some to get tokens for our speakers. A ghazal compilation by Suresh Salil, one by Gulzar, and Rakhshananda Jalil’s Shahtyar were the choice of books.

On the day of the event, we scheduled the event at the most suitable hour. Notwithstanding that, there was slight delay in the arrival of panellists and there weren’t many students in the room to listen. So, we had to wait and gather more people before starting the event. Due to the delay which pushed the timings of the event, most of the audience left after the panel discussion.

Another problem that we had to face was the technical set-up. The microphones did not function properly and we had to constantly keep changing the batteries. Interestingly, we had to use the cell from the clock in the room in the microphone so it worked properly. Technical glitches ate a lot of time and the event could have ended sooner had the sound system worked properly.

The latter part of the event comprised of curated poetry performances around the theme of protest and resistance. Since the event was delayed and the audience had to wait for more than 45 minutes before the event started, we lost most of our audience by the time poetry performances began. Besides the performers, only a handful of students from the course stayed behind. However difficult it seemed at first, the event we organized helped us learn a lot on the way.

Insights gained - The purpose of the event was to understand spaces of protest- mushairas, academia, YouTube, etc. and discuss what role poetry plays in resistance. We were successful in facilitating a productive discussion on understanding the location of protest poetry and the scope of the discussion extended beyond this too. Other major topics of concern included the contemporary mushaira and Kavi sammelan, changes in the reception of resistance poetry in the contemporary times, the Hindi-Urdu language debate, and the protest of ideas at home and in university spaces.