Churnings of a movement: Sangtin's diary

South Asian Popular Culture

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 17-30

  Nagar, Richa ^a   Singh, Richa ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

^b Sangtin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan   (India)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79952885104     PISSN: 14746689     EISSN: 14746697     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14746681003633127     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. This article has been developed from excerpts of forthcoming book in Hindustani, Sangtin Yatra Jari Hai. Sangtin Yatra Jari Hai embraces some of the key intellectual and political challenges articulated in Sangtin Yatra/Playing with Fire, and presents an analysis of the processes by which the public debates generated by Sangtin Yatra/Playing with Fire translated into the making of Sangtin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan (SKMS), a movement of 5000 peasants and laborers, and how this movement has tried to provide an ongoing critique of mainstream projects of empowerment while also pushing the state to implement its own policies adopted in the name of 'the poor.'
2. The questions pertaining to authenticity that arose in the context of discussions in the US played out very differently than they had done in sangtins' alliance work in India, and the political meanings embedded in these dialogues were also quite different. While a detailed discussion of this topic is outside the scope of this article, we would like to share a broad point: the intensity ofour emotional engagement with how each of us was read and interpreted as part of SKMS and our gradual 'discovery' that our responses emanated from the audiences' desire to 'know' the 'true sangtin,' led us to locate this desire and our responses in relation to.
3. The complex processes pertaining to the making/representation/translation of a movement such as SKMS.
4. The cultural and political economies through which 'knowledges' about the Other are produced, processed, consumed, and made into objects (of study, charity, admiration, and/or pity) in the global academic and non-profit industrial complex.
5. Sangtin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan (SKMS) is an organization of peasants and workers working in Mishrikh and Pisawan development blocks of Sitapur District in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. More than half of SKMS's members are women and over 95% are dalit. The three full-time organizers (Richa Singh, Surbala Vaish and Reena Pande), who were working to build the movement in the villages of Sitapur in 2005-2006, are from the sawarn castes.
6. The term Sangathan throughout this chapter refers to the movement led by the organization, SKMS.
7. In 2005-2006, more than two thousand members of SKMS mobilized to return the flow of irrigation waters to the Islamnagar distributary channel of the Sharada Canal.
8. This channel was dry and had been written off as unusable, even though the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department continued to issue contracts for its cleanup every year. After several months of organizing in over 60 affected villages and sustained non-violent campaigning at the block and district offices of the Irrigation Department, water was released into the canal in 2005 for the first time in 16 years. The water has continued to flow through the canal since then.
9. Saathi means friend or companion and refers to a member of the movement.
10. Padyatra refers to a long march, in this case from village to village, to mobilize people on a particular issue.
11. A block refers to a 'rural development block' and a tehsil is an administrative unit of
12. Gherao can be described as a protest where people surround or detain a person in power.
13. Zindadili is derived from zinda dil, or a heart that is alive. The term denotes a passion for life.