Workshop Snaps

Prof. Jancy James, Prof. Sieghild Bogumil and Prof. Chandra Mohan

Prof. Dorothy Figuiera inaugurating the International Workshop

The two day International Workshop on Curriculum Development for Comparative Literature organised by the Department of Comparative Literature(CUK) was inaugurated by Pro. Dorothy Figuiera.

Chandrabhan Prasad writes on DCL in Pioneer

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FORAY | Sunday, March 21, 2010 | Email | Print | Chandrabhan Prasad Recently, I visited “God’s Own Country”, Kerala. This State is more of a painting than a landmass with vegetation all over.I was visiting Kerala Central University on the invitation of Dr Raghavan Vellikkeel, a faculty at the Department of Comparative Literature. The subject of discussion being “Englishing Dalits”, I was tempted to accept the invite. Inaugurated by the visionary Vice Chancellor Prof Jancy James, there were fantastic presentations from celebrated scholars like Dr Sanal Mohan, (MG University, Kottayam), Prof M Dasan (Kannur University), Dr V B Tharakeswar, (EFLU, Hyderabad), D Shyam Babu (RGF, Delhi), and Ms Meena Kandasamy (Anna University, Chennai), whom I describe as the “Goddess of Dalit poetry”. Organised much better than seminars in premier institutions in Delhi, the subject was introduced by Dr Prasad Pannian, a young faculty at the University. Dr K Joseph, another faculty, played a key role in organising the event. High in attendance, students demonstrated a great amount of intellectual rigors. So much so, that D Shyam Babu, Dr Tharakeswar, and I were required to have another session with students the next day. The seminar was a grand success as it deconstructed the notion of Dalits’ ‘Mother Tongue’. Subsequent speakers detailed how Dalits spoke dialects and that mainstream languages — Hindi, Malayalam, Telegu, Kannad, and Tamil — were never Dalits’ mother tongues. With no bondage of mother tongues, Dalits can, therefore, be easily dispassionate with native languages and passionate with English. English is neither caste abuse loaded nor with any caste-loaded prejudices. A consensus had arrived. As usual, I had requested Dr Raghvan, who apart from being a thinking scholar is also a great host, to take us to a few Dalit inhabited villages around Kasaragod district where the university, in its formative stage, is located. My request required that I would prefer visiting Dalit families involved in agricultural sector as farm workers. We were taken to Kannur district where some farming, as the organisers had assumed, still existed. Escorted by the ever-energetic CK Vishwanath, D Shyam Babu and I visited a Dalit hamlet of 12 families. We were disappointed as none were in farm work. “Where is farm work left in Kerala?” asked an elderly Dalit. “Neither are we interested anymore in farm work,” he added. I was not surprised when told that in Kerala, too, bullocks have been replaced by tractors in the State’s rice bowl areas such as Palakkad. I was told as to how massive labour shortage has forced farmers to shift their cropping pattern. Back in Delhi, I did a bit of research and found how fast India’s cropping pattern is changing. In the year 1980, 801,700 hectares of land in Kerala was under paddy cultivation, which fell down to 276,000 hectares by 2006. Production of rice fell from 13 lakh tonnes in 1980 to 6.3 lakh tonnes in 2006 despite many high yielding varieties now being sown. Due to changing cropping pattern, areas under food crops fell from 37.5 per cent in 1981 to 12.5 per cent in 2006. Uttar Pradesh is losing its top slot to Maharashtra in producing sugar. The cane acreage in the State is falling at an alarming rate — from 2.85 million hectares in 2007-08 to 2.14 million hectares in 2008-09. Hit by socialism, Kerala has turned into a Western Union economy as people are betraying the “God’s Own Country.” Moving away from farm to non-farm work is gaining currency, and workers are fleeing Bihar and Uttar Pradesh countryside as well causing a massive labour shortage forcing farmers to shift their cropping pattern. Extreme desire to escape from farm work, and the economic expansion driven opportunities in urban centers, in less than a decade, there will be fewer hands left to work in farms in most parts of northern India. A great crisis is awaiting India where the country may witness a massive fall in production of rice, sugar, pulses, oilseeds and vegetables. Most crops requiring hands for harvesting will be replaced by wheat. As evident in this year’s budget, and intellectual response to it, India’s planners, policy makers and opinion creators seem completely unaware of. What seems clear is that, in its intellectual life, India has weakened even more. The country’s intellectual reflexes are much slower than the pace of transformation. India’s intellectual poverty is far more worrisome than the poverty of its citizens. Heavy investment in new farm machines can save us from a big food crisis which appears quite real.

International Workshop Invitation

National Symposium Invitation

The Frontal View of the Central University of Kerala

National Symposium: Englishing Dalits

CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF KERALA
Department of Comparative Literature Organises

National Symposium

"Englishing Dalits: Questions of Caste, Colonialism and Nationalism"

on 11 March 2010 at

Central University Conference Hall
from 10:00am to 05:00pm

The symposium is conceived as a bouquet of invited lectures by eminent academicians/intellectuals/activists.

Prof. Jancy James (Hon'ble VC, Central University of Kerala) will inaugurate the symposium.

Courtesy for Image: bog.shashwati.com

Lectures By:
1. Prof. Kancha Ilaiah (Osmania University, Hyderabad)

2. Dr. Chandra Bhan Prasad (Author/Activist, New Delhi/UP)
3. Dr. D. Shyam Babu (Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi)
4. Prof. M. Dasan (Kannur University)
5. Dr. Sanal Mohan (MG University, Kottayam)
6. Dr. V. B. Tharakeswar (EFLU, Hyderabad)
7. Ms. Meena Kandasamy (Writer/Anna University, Chennai)

Venue: Central University Conference Hall.

A Brief Background to the Theme of National Symposium:

One more controversial deification has occurred in India. Some Dalit groups have literally started to idolize and worship English—the language. This act is definitely the first of its kind in the history of entire human civilizations. The language is now an object of worship, not only the medium. After a careful marshalling of relevant historical data, here, English is foregrounded by Dalits as the tool of liberation. Officially, this socio-linguistic campaign was ‘inaugurated’ in a meeting of Dalit intellectuals and likeminded people, on 25 October 2006 in New Delhi. The day has its own historical importance and the selection of the day too was deliberate—it was the birthday of Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, whom some Dalits hail as the “Father of Indian Modernity”. On the occasion, a portrait of English—the Dalit Goddess, painted by Dalit artist Shanti Swaroop Baudh, was also ceremoniously, rather religiously, unveiled. The galaxy of Dalit intellectuals assembled on the occasion also designed and resolved on a four-point programme:

i. All newborn Dalits/Adivasis will hear A...B...C...D… as the first sounds from their parents;

ii. All newborn Dalits/Adivasis will first see the picture of their Goddess English;

iii. All Dalits/Adivasis will have their own Bhagawati jagaron [a religious procession] of Goddess English on 25 October – the day Macaulay was born; and

iv. For complete emancipation, Dalit/Adivasi parents ought to give English education to their children at all costs – if necessary, work for more hours, borrow money, sell jewellery, even mortgage property.

Language being the most sensitive index of one’s identity, any debate on language has to be rightly problematized. While debating English, which is often perceived as a colonial legacy, how the caste question gets intermingled is a new turning point. In the present day socio-political context of social inequity and exclusion, Dalits and Adivasis believe that Goddess English is all about emancipation. ‘Worshipping the English Goddess’ is designed to be a mass movement against the caste order and the local languages; because Indian languages are, allegedly, more about prejudices, discrimination and hatred and less about expressions and communications. This movement draws intellectual inspiration from the earlier declarations like: ‘Through English, casteism can be destroyed and brahminical teaching can be hurled away’ (Savitribai Phule); ‘English is the milk of lioness’ (B.R.Ambedkar); ‘Dalits can use English as a weapon’ (Namishray); ‘…the vernaculars have been colonised by Sanskrit for thousands of years.’ (Omvedt); and ‘English speaking Dalits are less disrespected’ (Chandra Bhan Prasad). In addition, there is a boycott call against almost all vernacular languages of India. The ideological undercurrents and political repercussions of this particular piece of Dalit discourse are highly debatable.

Please forward this mail to all who you think should know about this event.

For organizing Committee.