A review of #NLHafta from Harjant S. Gill, Vivek Iyer and Vijay Krishnan

Dear NL Hafta Team (and Abhimanyu):

My name is Harjant Gill. I am a (Punjabi Jatt) originally from Chandigarh (burrah!), but I’ve been living in Washington DC for the past 10 years. I am also professor of anthropology, and I make documentary films with a focus on gender in India – shown on Doordarshan.

I am also a paying NL subscriber and I truly appreciate and value the work that you guys do. “NL Hafta” and “Awful and Awesome” have become an integral part of my routine media consumption and my primary way of keep up with current events and entertainment in India. Please keep up the good work, and I will continue to support you in whatever capacity that I can! I have also been preaching the gospel of News Laundry to my friends and students (“pay to keep news free”) and many of whom have since transitioned from “mufatkhors” to paying members.

I am writing in response to a passing comment that Abhimanyu made during the final few minutes of last week’s Awful and Awesome podcast in regards to the Daily Beast article, “American Gods Most Explicit Gay Sex Scene Ever.”

I was surprised and somewhat-offended by Abhimanyu’s homophobic response to the specter of having to witness a four minute sex scene between two men, and the subsequent connection he made with “influences of globalization” and the threat such depictions posed to the social fabric and his supposed worldview.

There are so many problems with this logic, I don’t even know where to begin!!!

First of all, I am disappointed in Abhimanyu’s lazy approach to journalism, and sensationalizing this particular story (rather headline) without actually bothering to watch the scene in question. If you go back and re-read the Daily Beast article carefully, you’ll see that the crux of the article is about how this scene actually celebrates the very rare representation of sexul desire among two men as “erotic, meaningful, and arousing” layered with “intimacy” and “compassion.”

As a gay men growing up in a aggressively homophobic world where we have been largely ridiculed and stereotyped (in films like Dostana) or depicted as silent marginalized victims of violence (in films like Aligarh and I Am), encountering these public reclamation of our sexual agency is very rare. As LGBT individuals having to inhabit the straight world all-of-the-time and be subjected endless depictions of straight love and desire, is it too much to ask for Abhimanyu to experience our world for four minutes (even if it is just for the sake of good journalism)? Or is his sense of (heterosexual) masculinity so insecure that witnessing a four minute intimate sex scene between two men threatens to break it apart?

Abhimanyu went on to state, “even I would not be comfortable watching this… think about how many people would be comfortable watching that?” Here, I also want to point out that this is exactly the kind of rhetorical sex-shaming that motivates the conservatism and the moral-brigades of the religious right, as well as the paternalism of Indian censorship apparatus that treats Indian viewers like “bachhas,” incapable of engaging with art or other forms of visual culture that might make them feel “uncomfortable.” I can go off on a long tirade about the role of art in any given society, or on the history of (very explicit) same-sex depictions in Indian artistic traditions (Kama Sutra, Khajuraho, etc.), but I will finish this sentence by simply asking: “What is the point of art? To make us feel comfortable, or is it more than that?”

Where as for Abhimanyu these limited depictions of same-sex sexuaity (on TV) seem to largely evoke questions of “aesthetics and boundaries of liberalism,” I want to end by pointing out that for many LGBT people around the world, there is so much more at stake here! In countries like Russia, Indonesia, and Turkey where homosexuality is not (yet) illegal, there has been a steady increase in laws that prohibit any public depictions and displays of same-sex love and desire. From there it is a slippery slope to an outright injunction or ban on acknowledging our existence and our human rights (as is the case in India). Once we have been erased from the mainstream and classified as “second-class” citizens, we can be rounded up and sent off to concentration camps to be eradicated (as it is currently happening in Chechnya).

So, please give this four-minute of explicit gay sex scene a bit more thought. Regardless of how uncomfortable it might make you feel, the existence of these representations are extremely important for us (and especially for young LGBT kids around the world) – to be able to claim our identities, our desire, and our agency! Which, I think is the point that the Daily Beast article is making; a point that Abhimanyu seems to have missed entirely.

As I said before, I really love you guys and really appreciate the work that you do, but I would appreciate a more thoughtful attention to LGBT issues, feminist issues, and issues related to sexual rights within “Hafta” and “Awful and Awesome.” I really miss Deepanjana and her queer, feminist, and sex-positive insights and perspective. I hope you can find someone as cool as her, or better yet somehow convince her to return to Newslaundry.

Keep up the good work!

PS: I am attaching scholarly article that I recently wrote on Censorship in India – that address some of the concerns I highlight above. Perhaps you might find it useful.

Sincerely,
Dr. Harjant S. Gill

Hello Folks,

In the last hafta Abhinandan quoting General Aunty and others asked a question on Kejriwal which if put in “A Few Good Men” style would look like -> “Why do you all hate him so much?”

I think the answer is simple – I hate him as it is in my (aam aadmi, general aunty etc etc..) self-interest.

In 2012/13, corruption (in high office) was at its peak, govt at its weakest and out comes this guy saying exactly what we wanted to say. Support we did. Self Interest.

Now corruption is low (fact..) and there is hope of ache din (misguided maybe..). But in 3 yrs Kejriwal hasn’t given people ANY reason to like him apart from corruption. And to top that he somehow manages not only to stand out as the most negative guy among the pack by a mile but also as a party pooper who will block good things. And is in your face with such negativity all the time. That’s where not liking changes to hate. People WANT to believe there will be progress (till like UPA 2 they are proven wrong) else ordinary life is difficult. Self-interest.

At the moment, for me personally he is a COLOSSOL irritant. I want him to be put in cold storage and made irrelevant somehow and bring him back if/when NDA 3 is corrupt in 2023 and not allow them into power again. That’s the onl;y thing I believe he is good for. Self-interest!

Kejriwal is a politician now, Ranga uncle accept this pls. Abhinandan has settled for “Politician with a difference” while still trying to define “with a difference”.

But Kejriwal is a bad politician. Not because he didn’t anticipate the games BJP would play as Madhu said. He is a sly slippery guy himself who can play games all day as Abhinandan reminded us with such fanboy glee “See how my Kerjiwal foxed everyone in the assembly with the EVM thing… “. He is bad as he is playing these games with an eroding base.

People in their self-interest will manage his transition to a ‘just a politician’ well and back him provided he gives them a positive idea and gets shit done. If this idea is not caste, religion, identity but something positive then you will get the “with a difference” tag also irrespective of the playing games + looking the other way sometime. Modi has Hindu + Development. What does Kejriwal have?

Disclosure: I support Modi but voted AAP in 2014 as I wanted Modi in power with a good opposition.

And now it’s my turn to ask you Abhinandan (A Few Good Men style) “Why do you like him so much?”

Engaging with Subscribers

I wonder why in this age I have to e-mail in to engage with you folks? You guys did declare that you won’t close the comments section despite abuse as you want to engage as this medium allows it. Very good sentiment but does anyone of you read it / reply to it? So what’s the point? Couple of suggestions here:
Make commenting subscribers only and engage? In case you still want to give the general public an option to comment make a separate comment section for subscribers where you NL folks engage regularly.
Do something like The Rubin Report does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWR-ZbwtcBM&t=2198s. Invite people to write in as to what they want to talk about. Select the best from them and get them on to a podcast / video.

Best, Vivek

Dear NL Team

The great thing about being a subscriber (got that out of the way right at the top, didn’t I?) is that I get to kvetch at you when I please. Or so I’ve decided today.

I’ve composed a few mails over the year I’ve been a subscriber, and sent two. This time, though, I’m writing to crib. so here goes.

1. the podcast player app still hangs, and this means I can no longer listen to hafta on my phone [using the browser means the screen has to be on and I can’t do anything else with the phone; using it on computer/tablet means that I’m tied to one place]. I wonder how many regular listeners you’re losing to this. maybe you should put out a poll?

2. On the 100th hafta (18 weeks ago… gulp!) someone said you’d do well to refurbish your rss feed. I wrote in a couple of weeks later to remind you, but….

3. overall, your follow-through is a bit patchy. the science desk came about (marginal yay?) but it seems a bit top-heavy with biologists. and neuroscience people to boot. not the best people to talk about the mental healthcare act, for eg. but the deep dive podcasts have seemingly petered out. I’m trying not to be unmindful of the huuge effort that putting these things together must be… but part of being a subscriber is that warm fuzzy feeling of entitlement. no?

4. hafta’s getting long. this is related to 1 above, I think. while I could listen to you on the move, I never really felt that you were stretching it. Now, however, I find myself listening to it in half-hour segments, which takes away from the experience. again, please do something about your podcast player!

5. abhinandan needs to step up his moderating game, honestly. manisha is even quieter than before. last week, samrat told you three times(I think) that he wasn’t interested in your conversation. It seemed like a great opportunity to talk about the northeast in a non hot-button-issue manner. there was a time early on when it seemed like feedback about this sort of technicality seemed to affect the way you did stuff. either you’re not getting that feedback any more, or it’s not affecting you. which isn’t a bad thing.

6. i really enjoyed biraj swain’s podcast, and would love to see it return.

7. Could you please return hafta to media critique? I know you’ve struggled to define which way you’re going with it, but I think those portions were the best. especially when you have someone like saurabh dwivedi (or general pannag) come in to burst the media bubble ever so slightly. I miss those moments of true insight, when you explained the media narrative to your audience.

8. I’d like you to declare a moratoriam (at least for a finite time period) on the following:
-relitigating what it means to be a liberal
-conversations initiated by anand, on what it means to be an atheist
-discussions of bill maher and donald trump.

It’s not that these aren’t entertaining segments; it’s not even that I don’t have opinions on these, or wouldn’t like to hear fresh views. It’s that I’ve heard the hafta team’s opinions on this, and unless you can bring fresh insight into this, there really isn’t any point. in re trump, it’s just absurd that you know more about american politics than you do about what’s going on in this country. not absurd because it’s wrong, absurd because you’re setting yourselves up as journalists.

9. I’d love to hear from the team where you see yourselves going with this (NL, ie). there are times when you seem to merely want to show that you can survive, some sort of proof-of-concept. But what are you doing to make your content different from that of every other newsportal out there? I know this last one isn’t directly hafta-relevant, but I’m hoping you can talk about it for a bit on the podcast, just to let us know. I’d like to hear what beats you’d want to cover, what kind of stories you’d put your money behind, that sort of stuff. [Amit is doing a great job creating your politics beat, btw; Manisha, I’m assuming does media stuff.].

Sorry about the long mail. I’ve not done the seemingly traditional appraisal of each of you. I did that last time….