2020–2021

Alka Kurian / The Golden Age of Social Protests

This talk explored the rise of fourth wave feminism encapsulated by a new and transgressive form of women’s politics that draws on the language and modalities of a global protest culture and the internet technology.

We examined women’s street activism that deliberately defies accepted norms of civic behavior and body politics. Our conversations also focused on the novel intersectional politics created through the attention to women’s issues with a wider call for social justice across gender, class, caste, religious, and national borders.

Subha Wijesiriwardena / Private Parts

This talk examined a historic feminist faultline — the debate on pornography and sexual content, and linked it to the ongoing regulation, surveillance and censorship of sexuality in the digital age. We attempted to make links between colonial legal frameworks such as Obscenity and

Public Decency and saw how these shape practices and discourses around sexual expression even today. The conversation also revolved around the actors who are involved in present-day censorship and regulation.

Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli and Jason Keith Fernandes / Pride, Politics, Solidarity

The charges of sedition filed against a group of participants at a Mumbai Pride Solidarity gathering in February this year raised important questions about existing fissures within the “queer movement” in India. In the projected utopia of queer lives post-377, what does it mean to demand solidarity between subjects who emerge from multiple political and social histories?

As the lockdown continues, the term “solidarity” is co-opted to deploy communal hatred, suppress dissent and target communities, all in the garb of creating a united India to fight the virus. In this context, how can we think of organizing during an ongoing pandemic and think of a future politics that does not prioritize some lives over others?

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