Recently, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights recommended counselling for children participating in the anti-CAA, anti-NRC protests at Shaheen Bagh, Delhi, citing ‘mental trauma’ as a result of ‘rumours and miscommunication’. Not a very long distance from the popular general sentiment of ‘Politics is bad. Students’ duty is to study, not do politics’.
Where do we draw this squeaky clean line between study and politics? Is the choice of staying ‘out’ of politics for future citizens of a nation, a genuine choice at all? After all syllabi do not simply appear out of vacuum. Neither do popular comics openly based on myth-like childhoods of political leaders.
The question then is, can we continue teaching the social sciences from the textbook under the realities of time, syllabi and administration constraints when the winds around us are affecting and reshaping the very concepts whose precise definitions our students get marked on?
We’ve been compiling/curating (some of) the explosion of art that has come into the public domain in response to the socio-political changes that have sparked off a country-wide public discourse on citizenship and democracy through innovative forms of protest. Witty posters, biting references to a history being repeated, brutal groovy rap, digital illustrations of unforgettable verses, and so much more.
Can you use any of these to start conversations inside and outside your circles to talk about these issues? Tell us how it goes! Come across art you think belongs in this gallery? Share with us!
Cartooning/Postering Resistance
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About the dark times
Can poetry be documentation of oppression by the oppressed? Mahmud Darwish, Palestinian poet and perhaps among the best known globally for verses of resistance late in his life, wrote that he
‘thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet.’
Does poetry have a purpose, can there be more than purpose to poetry are questions that have plagued the mind eternally.
Our interest here is in a more specific question: Can we use poetry about the times we live in to open avenues into exploring contextual issues? Can the social sciences use poetry and can literature use poetry to overcome the inter-subject borders boards persistently try to make impermeable? What do you think?
Find here poems graphically illustrated, spoken, sung.
Bol, ki lab azad hai tere
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, illustrated by Sohini Sengupta, shared here with the artist's permission.
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Selections from Faiz's Subh e Azadi
Illustrated by Sohini Sengupta, shared here with the artist's permission.
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Composed by writer- stand up comedian Varun Grover in protest against the CAA and NRC.
‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega’
Read more about the poet-singer Aamir Aziz here.