Antardrishti

आज काफ़ी दिनों बाद दिल्ली की हवा में एक अजीब सा नशा महसूस हुआ। अपने रात के सन्नाटे में, दीवाली की रौशनी को खुद में समेटती हुई दिल्ली ने जैसे मेरे बेचैन  और अंधेरे रूह  को एक पनाह दिया। एक घर दिया जिसकी तलाश थी कबसे और कुछ अपना सा महसूस हुआ। बहुत अपना। और फ़िर याद आया  की यही तो इसकी नियत है। सबको अपना सा महसूस करा कर खुद ख्वाबों के तले दब जाती है दिल्ली। कुछ हमारे ही तरह शायद। एक ख्याल आया फ़िर ये भी, कि शायद कुछ हमारे ही तरह कहीं थक तो नही गयी होगी दिल्ली? मैंने कोशिश की कि पूछूँ उससे भी उसके जज़्बात ओ हालात। कि कहानी सुनूं कुछ उसकी भी जो शायद किसी को बताने के लिए बेताब होगी दिल्ली। कुछ चाय हो, कुछ बातें हों। कुछ ग़ालिब ओ मीर के शेर  कुछ मुग़ल दरबार के राज़, कुछ बगावत की बातें कुछ बटवारे के एहसास, मेरे साथ बांट कर, बयान कर शायद अपना भी दिल हल्का करना चाहती थी दिल वालों की दिल्ली।  लेकिन वक़्त शायद थोड़ा कम था मेरे पास। मंज़िल आ चुकी थी, जाना था। पर इतना तो तय है कि किसी रोज़ मजबूरियों से फुरसत ले कर रात के सन्नाटे में, दीवाली की रोशनी में, एक चाय का कप हाथ में लेकर दूसरा ...

  Clothes veil the body. They are part of a cultural politics by which nations are actively produced. [1] They are a form of social control, a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion, mirroring social hierarchies and moral boundaries. [2]   British imperial presence in India had introduced not only new forms of government, language, education and social etiquette, but also a new set of criteria of civilisation with a new set of clothes to go with it. It was only in the early Twentienth Century India that the nationalist movement begun to perceive cloth and clothing as central symbols in the struggle to define a national identity. Women, as such, emerged as important bearers of this identity.   While the dress of British women who came to live in India were conformed to sartorial conventions of a memsahib, draped clothes (Sari, in this case) were of prime importance in the Indian nationalist discourse. However, many women from elite families began adopting the stitch...

  Abstract : Dalit women in India have had a long history of suppression and of leading lives of routine indignity and humiliation. The ‘Breast Tax’ (Mulakkaram or mula-karam in Malayalam), imposed on the lower caste, Dalit women by the Kingdom of Travancore (in present-day Kerala) if they wanted to cover their breasts in public, was one of the many ways of oppressing them. This indignity on the part of the dominant castes inculcated into one of the most significant Dalit as well as female revolts in history – The Channar Lahala or the Channar revolt (also called the Maru Marakkal Samaram) -   a relentless struggle of the Nadar climber women of Travancore for their right to wear upper-body garments. This historic revolt, made news a few years ago, in the CBSE’s infamous decision (2016) to remove the section titled ‘Caste, Conflict and Dress Change’ from its social science curriculum, by labeling it as “objectionable content”. This amounted to an attempt to erase the history ...