📰 Indian military personnel for Moscow soon for S-400 training
India prepares to receive first batch of the long-range air defence system by year-end
•As India prepares to receive the first batch of S-400 long-range air defence system by year-end, the first group of Indian military specialists are scheduled to depart for Moscow soon to undergo training courses on the S-400, the Russian Embassy here said in a statement.
•“S-400 supplies initiative is one of the flagship projects in the Russian-Indian military and military-technical cooperation, which historically constitutes the main pillar of the special and privileged strategic partnership between our two friendly countries,” said Russian Ambassador Nikolay R. Kudashev, hosting the Indian team at an event in the embassy.
•He further stated, “Currently Russia and India are deeply involved in joint development and production of military equipment, components and spare parts as well as technologies sharing, improving after-sales service system. We have developed an advanced legal base for this purpose.”
•In October 2018, India signed a $5.43 bn deal with Russia for five S-400 Triumf regiments despite objections from the U.S. and the threat of sanctions under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
U.S.’ concern
•In the farewell address early this month, outgoing U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Juster declined to comment on whether the U.S. would proceed with CAATSA sanctions against India over the S-400 purchase, but said India should consider the impact of such purchases that constrain “technology transfers” and other defence cooperation between India and the US.
•On the ongoing defence cooperation, Mr. Kudashev said along with the S-400, the two sides successfully were moving towards the implementation of a AK-203 rifle contract and 200 Ka-226T utility helicopters supplies among others. They are looking forward to an early implementation of the spare parts joint production agreement. “Work also is going on the mutual logistics support agreement, strengthening maritime cooperation, including in the Indian Ocean,” he stated.
•Russia intended to be one of the biggest exhibitors at Aero India 2021 in Bengaluru next month, where several Russian military hardware would be demonstrated including the Su-57 fifth generation fighter aircraft, Mr. Kudashev added.
They raise ‘grave concerns’ over implications of the choice and autonomy of Indian citizens, it says
•The Government of India has asked WhatsApp to withdraw the proposed changes in its privacy policy, stating that the proposed changes raised “grave concerns” over the implications of the choice and the autonomy of Indian citizens.
•In a letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart, the government pointed out that the Indian users, who have not been given the option to opt out of data-sharing with Facebook companies, were being subjected to differential treatment when compared to their European counterparts.
•“Whether this [the new policy] will enable better provision of service to users or not is besides the point; the issue is the impact it has on informational privacy, data security and user choice,” the letter said, adding that sovereign independence of India’s distinct identity and its people must be properly respected and any unilateral changes to WhatsApp Terms of Service and Privacy would not be fair and acceptable.
•The government asked WhatsApp to reconsider its approach to respect the informational privacy, freedom of choice and data security of Indian citizens.
Different for European users
•“The privacy policy offered by WhatsApp to its European users specifically prohibits the use of any information shared with a Facebook company for that companies’ own purposes, while this Clause is not present in the privacy policy offered to Indian users. This differential and discriminatory treatment of Indian and European users is attracting serious criticism and betrays a lack of respect for the rights and interest of Indian citizens, who form a substantial portion of WhatsApp’s user base,” it said.
•The government also asked it to respond to about 14 detailed questions with regard to changes made in the privacy policy within seven days. These include questions such as exact categories of data that WhatsApp collects from Indian users, details of permissions sought and their utility, if it does profiling of Indian users on the basis of app usage, difference between privacy policy of the application in India and in other countries, if WhatsApp shares data with other apps, whether WhatsApp captures info about other applications running on the mobile phone device of the user and on which server is the data of Indian users transmitted and hosted.
•Speaking at an event earlier in the day on Tuesday, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Be it WhatsApp or any other digital platform, you are free to do business in India but do it in a manner without infringing upon the rights of Indians who operate, and sanctity of personal communication needs to be maintained”.
India largest user
•The government pointed out that India formed the largest segment of WhatsApp’s user base globally and any change in policies would have a disproportionate impact on its citizens.
•In the letter, the government noted that changes in the policy would enable WhatsApp, and other Facebook companies to make “invasive and precise inferences” about users that may not be reasonably foreseen or expected by users in the ordinary course of assessing the services.
•“Given the huge user base of WhatsApp and Facebook in India, the consolidation of the sensitive information also exposes a very large segment of Indian citizens to greater information security risks and vulnerabilities creating a potential honeypot of information,” it said.
•The government expressed concern over the way in which Indian users have been made subject to these changes. “By not providing Indian users with the ability to opt-out of this data sharing with other Facebook companies, WhatsApp is treating users with an ‘all-or-nothing’ approach…[this] takes away any meaningful choice from Indian users,” it added.
📰 In bad faith: On the ongoing farmers agitation
State intimidation of protesting groups cannot serve as a substitute for political dialogue
•The NIA’s decision to summon people associated with the ongoing farmers agitation as ‘witnesses’ in a sedition case is definitely out of the ordinary, even if not entirely surprising. Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu and farmers’ leader Baldev Singh Sirsa are among 40 people it has summoned in connection with a fresh case registered on December 15, 2020 against Sikhs for Justice, a U.S.-based organisation that is banned by India. Others summoned include functionaries of Khalsa Aid, a Sikh charity that provided material support to agitating farmers, and those who organised a community kitchen for them. The insinuation of the NIA in the very act of summoning them as ‘witnesses’ follows statements by BJP leaders that linked the agitation to Khalistani separatism. Law officers of the government told the Supreme Court last week that anti-national forces that had infiltrated the protests were misleading the farmers. This portrayal of critics of a government policy as either misled and ignorant or anti-national actors forecloses all possibility of any honest dialogue with them. That may not be an unintended outcome for a government that has never been enthusiastic about consultative processes. In this instance, the government and the Court proffer dialogue with protesters while agencies employ intimidatory measures against them.
•Efforts to undermine the legitimacy of political actors opposed to the government have acquired a predictable pattern. Its critics are routinely labelled anti-national by social media trolls and functionaries of the ruling BJP. Investigations follow, often by central agencies, the NIA and the Enforcement Directorate. The state responses to agitators in Kashmir, Bhima Koregaon and during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act have been heavy-handed. That, probably, is the message that the government wants to convey to all dissenters, current and prospective: it will not feel restrained by principles of federalism or democratic norms in putting down protests. The NIA’s move cannot be seen delinked from this broader context. Sikhs abroad are a vibrant segment of the diaspora, having links with the motherland, including through donations to religious and charity activities. Other diaspora groups also support activities, including in the fields of education and health. The Narendra Modi government has a policy of harnessing the strength of Indian diaspora everywhere for national progress. There has to be a high threshold to consider any such community activity as anti-national and no consideration of religion must influence that assessment. The NIA’s instant move has been condemned as intimidation, among others, by the Akali Dal, until recently a BJP ally. Strong-arm tactics may be unavoidable when there is an immediate threat of violence. But replacing political dialogue with state intimidation is never strategically prudent. The government must talk to the farmers in good faith.
📰 India-Nepal relations in a new transition
New Delhi is comfortable with some changes as its Nepal policy is heading towards deeper engagement with all sections
•As a unique characteristic, Nepal’s internal political fundamentals continue to shape its foreign policy choices. In the process, what gets lost is the scope of pursuing ‘enlighted self-interest’. In such a scenario, any inbound or outbound delegation is seen from a different prism, and anything discussed or not equally gives ample space to interpretation and misinterpretation. The year 2020 marked China’s unprecedented aggression, with an aim to counter India’s conventional edge in Nepal and South Asia at large. Accordingly, China’s geo-strategic, economic and infrastructural drives were made tempting to a precarious Nepal with its fragile democracy and the adulterated ideological standing of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal (CPN).
•The CPN is a divided house, and publicly, this was known when Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli dissolved the House of Representatives in late December 2020. The move was termed ‘unconstitutional’ by the experts and the country’s Supreme Court is hearing writ petitions against Mr. Oli. In fact, the Court has called for ‘serious constitutional interpretation’. This merits to be seen even as a moral denial of the Oli government’s stature as a ‘caretaker government’.
•Amidst the domestic political chaos, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal, Pradeep Kumar Gyawali (picture), visited New Delhi for the sixth meeting of the India-Nepal Joint Commission on January 15, 2021(https://bit.ly/3bTMniG), that was co-chaired by the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
Business as usual
•The keenly awaited meeting proved to be more focused on confidence-building measures such as exchanges of courteous remarks on significant and concrete progress made since the last meeting of the Joint Commission in taking forward several bilateral initiatives, and the close cooperation between the two sides in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. An early provision of vaccines to Nepal was positively considered by India. On the development partnership front, the expansion of the Motihari-Amlekhganj petroleum products pipeline to Chitwan and the establishment of a new pipeline on the eastern side connecting Siliguri to Jhapa in Nepal formed a part of the discussions. For the upgraded first passenger railway line between India and Nepal from Jaynagar to Kurtha via Janakpur, the elusive operating procedures for commencement of train services have been discussed. Other “cross-border rail connectivity projects, including a possible Raxaul-Kathmandu broad gauge railway line”, were also discussed.
•The Joint Commission laid emphasis on the need for facilitating cross-border movement of people and goods, thus giving the sub-regional cooperation, its actual due. The recently inaugurated Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) at Birgunj and Biratnagar have helped in the seamless movement of people and trade between the two countries. The construction of a third integrated check post at Nepalgunj has already commenced, while the new integrated check post at Bhairahwa would begin shortly. Since Nepal relies on India’s seaports in a big way for trading, and goods are transported by road, the integrated check posts are expected to ease trade and transit.
•The joint hydropower projects, including the proposed Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project, should get positive momentum following this round of meeting. India’s support to two more cultural heritage projects in Nepal, namely, the Pashupatinath Riverfront Development and the Bhandarkhal Garden Restoration in Patan Durbar is significant in the times when China is exploring all avenues to disrupt Nepal’s natural choice in policy-making. Moving away from the recent hiatus, Nepal expressed support for India’s permanent membership of an expanded UN Security Council (UNSC) to reflect the changed balance of power. The next meeting of the Joint Commission in Nepal should be crucial in giving a new direction to the bilateral ties, keeping a balance between change and continuity.
Stirrings for change
•Notwithstanding the Nepali side’s demand to include the boundary in the Joint Commission Meeting, India made it clear to find a fresh mechanism to resolve any such crucial long-pending issue. Apparently, this was not something surprising, however, as Kathmandu had seen certain signals about this. The growing disenchantment among the Nepali masses over the increased centralisation of power, failure of the Provincial System in addressing the developmental issues, misuse of Presidential authority by Nepal’s President Bidya Devi Bhandari, and unprecedented corruption provide ample room for a re-setting of Nepal’s democracy. Worryingly, a large section of the people want the ‘cultural Monarchy’ back to substitute the Presidential system and a re-establishment of certain traditional ways to governance. While the unusual developments are taking place in Nepal, there are many who still think that India is comfortable with some changes as its Nepal policy is heading very clearly towards deeper engagement with all sections.
•The timing of the high-profile visit was strategically important as in the last few months, as Mr. Oli had categorically placed conditions before engaging with India at the top decision-making level. With a possibility of surviving the self-created political stalemate feeble, Mr. Oli is believed to be receptive towards unexpected changes. This is not something unfounded as one of the key centres of the pro-monarchy agitation is his constituency in eastern Nepal, Jhapa. In the time of transition, his outreach to India is being seen in such contexts. A great survivor so far, he is believed to be open to gaining a new ground of support from different quarters including India. His China connection has been artificial and failed him at times, and he knows this better than anyone else. It is equally true that he has failed China too at times; by breaking even the cosmetic ‘Communist unity’ in Nepal, he has finally made China’s hyper-interventionism a wasted effort.
•Democracy in Nepal is achieved, not ascribed, and Nepal and its people deserve a better deal than what has been offered by the Oli-Bhandari duo. Like many other democracies across the world, Nepal’s democracy has been affected with an extreme rise in majoritarian sentiments. Nepal cannot afford to enter in another round of political instability, and those who have commanding authority to spearhead India-Nepal bilateral relations must give a humane consideration to it. At the crossroads, Nepal needs action and to come to term with realities.
📰 The threat of deepfakes
We need AI-backed technological tools to detect the unreal
•The protesters who created chaos in Capitol Hill on January 6 believe that the 2020 U.S. election was stolen by the Democrats. This is largely due to misinformation and disinformation of which deepfakes are a part. Deepfakes — synthetic media, meaning media (including images, audio and video) that are either manipulated or wholly generated by Artificial Intelligence — even have the power to threaten the electoral outcome of the world’s oldest democracy. Sevreal social media platforms blocked President Donald Trump’s accounts after the attack.
Fabricating content
•The cyberworld has been facing the challenge of deepfakes for a while now. AI is used for fabricating audios, videos and texts to show real people saying and doing things they never did, or creating new images and videos. These are done so convincingly that it is hard to detect what is fake and what is real. Detection can often be done only by AI-generated tools. Several books caution us against the threats of AI-generated content comprising non-existent personalities, synthetic datasets, unreal activities of real people, and content manipulation. Deepfakes can target anyone, anywhere. They are used to tarnish reputations, create mistrust, question facts, and spread propaganda.
•In October 2020, the U.S. Senate summoned Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai to find out what they are doing to tackle online misinformation, disinformation and fabricated content. Senators said they were worried about both censorship and the spread of misinformation. According to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, a law which protects freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This means that the companies are not responsible for the posts on their platforms. The chief executives said they need the law to moderate content, but industry watchers and some politicians feel that the law is outdated and needs to be revisited.
•India also faces the same problem. So far, it has not enacted any specific legislation to deal with deepfakes, though there are some provisions in the Indian Penal Code that criminalise certain forms of online/social media content manipulation. The Information Technology Act, 2000 covers certain cybercrimes. But this law and the Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines (Amendment) Rules, 2018 are inadequate to deal with content manipulation on digital platforms. (The guidelines stipulate that due diligence must be observed by the intermediate companies for removal of illegal content.) In 2018, the government proposed rules to curtail the misuse of social networks. Social media companies voluntarily agreed to take action to prevent violations during the 2019 general election. The Election Commission issued instructions on social media use during election campaigns. But reports show that social media platforms like WhatsApp were used as “vehicles for misinformation and propaganda” by major political parties during the election.
New tools
•This is worrying. Existing laws are clearly inadequate to safeguard individuals and entities against deepfakes. Only AI-generated tools can be effective in detection. As innovation in deepfakes gets better, AI-based automated tools must be invented accordingly. Blockchains are robust against many security threats and can be used to digitally sign and affirm the validity of a video or document. Educating media users about the capabilities of AI algorithms could help.
•In July 2020, the University of Washington and Microsoft convened a workshop with experts to discuss how to prevent deepfake technology from adversely affecting the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The workshop identified six themes: a) deepfakes must be contextualised within the broader framework of malicious manipulated media, computational propaganda and disinformation campaigns; b) deepfakes cause multidimensional issues which require a collaborative, multi-stakeholder response that require experts in every sector to find solutions; c) detecting deepfakes is hard; d) journalists need tools to scrutinise images, video and audio recordings for which they need training and resources; e) policymakers must understand how deepfakes can threaten polity, society, economy, culture, individuals and communities; and f) the idea that the mere existence of deepfakes causes enough distrust that any true evidence can be dismissed as fake is a major concern that needs to be addressed. In today’s world, disinformation comes in varied forms, so no single technology can resolve the problem. As deepfakes evolve, AI-backed technological tools to detect and prevent them must also evolve.
📰 A plaintive lament on liberty that rings hollow
As examples show, the judiciary’s callous attitude at every level towards human liberty is destructive of the rule of law
•In early November 2020, after the overnight listing of a defective petition, the Supreme Court of India granted bail to the television anchor, Arnab Goswami. In a section of the judgment, delivered later on November 27 and titled “Human Liberty and the role of courts”, the top court noted that “human liberty is a precious constitutional value”; that “the writ of liberty runs through the fabric of the Constitution”; that it was important for courts across the spectrum to ensure that “criminal law does not become a weapon for the selective harassment of citizens”; that the courts remained “the first line of defen[c]e against the deprivation of the liberty of citizens”; that “the remedy of bail is the solemn expression of the humaneness of the justice system”, and, most poignantly, that “deprivation of liberty even for a single day is one day too many” (https://bit.ly/3quEFiX).
The reality for many
•Observers of the Indian judiciary would no doubt have been bemused by this eloquent encomium to human liberty. At the time of the Supreme Court’s judgment, social activists incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case had been in jail for more than two years, with the trial yet to start, and with multiple bail applications having been rejected by the courts (they still remain in jail). In the aftermath of the Delhi riots in February 2020, students had been jailed for months (again without trial), with bail having been refused on specious grounds such as a court telling an accused who was not even present at the scene of a riot that “if you play with embers you cannot complain when there is a fire” (most of them still remain in jail).
•After the effective abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, thousands of Kashmiris had been locked up for months, with their habeas corpus petitions going unheard, or dismissed with absurd invocations to the mythical Greek King Menelaus (whose accomplishments included a 10-year war of destruction to retrieve a wife).
•The same Supreme Court that on November 27 sung paeans to personal liberty had, a year before, in 2019, told the daughter of a detained politician, in a habeas corpus petition, “why do you want to go to Srinagar when it is so cold there?”
•Indeed, the same Supreme Court had, earlier in the year, in 2020, suspended the Karnataka High Court’s decision releasing certain Citizenship (Amendment) Act protesters on bail, and had kept that decision suspended for six months — leading to six months in jail, when, apparently, “a day” was “a day too many”.
•In this background, the Supreme Court’s solicitude about human liberty appeared no more than a cruel joke. But perhaps, one could bring oneself to believe these words were implicit acknowledgement of past mistakes, and a promise to do better. Perhaps, one could bring oneself to believe that a judiciary that had visibly held human liberty in contempt over the previous few months would now turn over a new leaf. Perhaps habeas corpus would start to mean something again, as would bail.
•But in the two months that have elapsed since the judgment in Arnab Goswami’s case, it has become evident that the judicial hymn to personal liberty was not worth the paper it was written on.
Two glaring examples
•After the horrific gangrape in Hathras (September), came the news of Kerala journalist Siddique Kappan along with three others being arrested and incarcerated by the Uttar Pradesh police, in October, while en route to Hathras. When Mr. Kappan’s lawyers approached the Supreme Court in a habeas corpus petition, it turned out that “deprivation of liberty even for a single day” was no big deal.
•The Supreme Court adjourned the case on multiple occasions, harangued Mr. Kappan’s lawyers for not going to the High Court (when, it turns out that under the Constitution, moving a habeas corpus petition before the Supreme Court is a matter of right, while an appeal from a High Court decision, as in Mr. Goswami’s case, is only meant to be admitted in “special” circumstances). On one of the dates when the case was supposed to be heard, the Supreme Court did not take it up because it was hearing Tata Sons vs Cyrus Mistry for the third consecutive day. At the time of writing this piece, Mr. Kappan remains in jail.
•At the turn of the year, a comedian named Munawar Faruqui, along with other individuals, was arrested and jailed while he was performing at a comedy show in Indore. The arrest took place on the apparent basis that Mr. Faruqui had “insulted Hindu gods” during his show. Leaving aside the larger point of what jailing comedians for cracking jokes about gods says about the present state of Indian democracy, it soon came out that Mr. Faruqui had not, as it turned out, made any jokes at all.
•When this was pointed out to the Police, the Police responded by saying that that did not matter, as “he was going to make those jokes”, bringing Indian policing firmly into the terrain of the film, “Minority Report”. Despite this, the local court rejected Mr. Faruqui’s bail application and, subsequently, the bail applications of his colleagues on the spurious basis that releasing him would be detrimental to law and order (who, one wonders, would have been responsible for disrupting law and order if these men had been released?).
•The rejection of Mr. Faruqui’s bail application was on January 5, 2021. His lawyers immediately moved the High Court. On January 15, the High Court “adjourned” the case because the Police had failed to bring their Police Diary along with them. However, as it has been noted, the police station was two minutes away from the courtroom, and that it would not take much time to bring the diary to the court. It turned out, however, that indeed, “a single day”, or rather many days deprived of personal liberty were wholly irrelevant, and the case was “adjourned.” At the time of writing, Mr. Faruqui remains in jail.
•These two cases present simply the most glaring examples of how every level of the Indian judiciary, from the trial court to the Supreme Court, has treated the issue of human liberty, after the judgment in Arnab Goswami’s case. Examples could be multiplied —after all, the social activists in the Bhima Koregaon case and the students in the Delhi riots case still remain in jail despite evidently specious prosecution cases against them, but these suffice.
Blow against rule of law
•The rule of law in a society breaks down when the courts appear to be telling the citizenry, “show me the man and I’ll show you the law”. The rule of law in a society breaks down if the Supreme Court says, one day, that “a single day deprived of liberty is a day too many”, while every other court including the Supreme Court itself rejects bail applications of people jailed for years and months without trial, and in Mr. Faruqui’s case for something a man did not even do. And the rule of law breaks down when the Court declaims that “liberty is not for the few”, but by its conduct, extends liberty only to a few, while the unfortunate many count the weeks and months in jail cells. The judiciary’s undeniably callous attitude towards human liberty is deeply destructive of the rule of law; and in that context, its plaintive lament in Arnab Goswami’s case, that deprivation of liberty for even one day is a day too many, is reminiscent of Macbeth plunging his hands into the basin and asking the world: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand?”
📰 Cooking up a storm: on 'The Great Indian Kitchen'
A new film shows that it is individual insurrections that could prove critical in challenging hegemony
•About a month after actor-politician Kamal Haasan’s party manifesto said Tamil Nadu should recognise housework as labour and pay homemakers, the Malayalam film, The Great Indian Kitchen, has hit our screens. Given the brisk debate the manifesto stirred, the film couldn’t have been timed better — by listing in excruciating, exquisite minutiae everything a woman does at home, it seems to prove the case for payment many times over. Yet, that is hardly its intention. Its canvas is much larger, more elemental. It is arguably the most starkly ‘feminist’ Indian film of recent times, making its point with deadly stillness and accuracy.
Labour of love
•The extent to which director Jeo Baby has internalised and mapped the average woman’s unending list of tasks is remarkable. He films it with implacable veracity, establishing the repetitive drudgery of housework with a cinematic artistry that rivals the assembly line of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. The film begins cheerfully, as the unnamed protagonist (played superbly by Nimisha Sajayan) embarks on married life. The countless dishes emerging from the kitchen are an orchestration of happy labour, the labour of love, set to the sounds of cutting, grinding, stirring, frying. Until slowly, the bride realises that she is trapped in an unacknowledged, unrewarding and unshared cycle of Sisyphean toil. The recurrent filming of the actions of cooking, serving, washing, wiping becomes a relentless, manic beat to which the woman must dance till she drops.
•The paterfamilias of this family must be handed his toothbrush each morning. His son has inherited the same privileges. There is no violence — both men reinforce the patriarchy gently, confidently, invoking ‘family’ values. Harking back to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s description of sanitation work as “an experience in spirituality,” the daughter-in-law is told that household work is more valuable than a bureaucrat’s. But, as with sanitation work, the privileged don’t actually do it. And its value remains uncalculated and unpaid.
•From the kitchen, the film strides into the bedroom, bathroom, manure pit and temple, establishing how the politics of each are closely interlinked and, in turn, linked to the ideas of purity and pollution, the sacred and profane. When the kitchen counter is replaced by the marital bed, the hierarchies of labour are replaced by the hierarchies of desire — the female body must accommodate desire but can’t express it.
•Thence, to the hierarchy of purity. From the filthy dining table after the men eat to their dirty laundry, rooms and plates, everything is cleaned by the woman. But, as with the Dalit body mandated to clean people’s waste, the cleaning female body is the one labelled ‘impure’ when it bleeds. So impure that it pollutes simply by being of an age when it menstruates. So impure that its touch pollutes temple, tulsi plant, the men preparing for the pilgrimage to Sabarimala. This is the politics of exclusion, the pivot upon which society revolves, which is being extended today in newer, more horrific ways.
Shattering myths
•The film’s clogged kitchen sink serves as a metaphor for the privileged, Brahminical, patriarchal male, who is cleaned, liberated, and nourished by other’s toiling hands but claims an innate purity and actualisation. It’s the woman who struggles with the clogged sink, and it’s the man who says mockingly, “You seem obsessed with waste”. At the end, the woman realises exactly what she must do with waste — throw it back to where it came from. It’s an action of controlled violence, anger and contempt, calculated to shatter the myths of purity, virility and male honour that continue to be used to defend many kinds of dehumanisation.
•As in the film, we are still far from any universal solution. Mostly because hegemony is seldom ceded away. Of course, diverse movements, like the one for Sabarimala temple entry or the Una march, try to chip away at its foundations, but equally, as the film hints, it’s the small, individual insurrections that might provide the tipping point.
