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Zee JLF 2019 Day 2: Highlights of an action-packed day

Day 2’s  highlights included many sessions relevant to both India and the world including a discussion on Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker in which Pavan K. Varma was in conversation with Malashri Lal. Varma discussed Jagad Guru Adi Shankacharya in the context of today's complicated understanding of Hinduism and examined the credence that modern science gives to his ideas. 

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Day 2’s  highlights included many sessions relevant to both India and the world including a discussion on Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker in which Pavan K. Varma was in conversation with Malashri Lal. Varma discussed Jagad Guru Adi Shankacharya in the context of today's complicated understanding of Hinduism and examined the credence that modern science gives to his ideas. 

Sessions with wit, grit and perspectives followed in quick succession.

 

The Battle for Egypt: Dispatches from the Revolution

The session took place symbolically on the morning of 25th of January exactly 8 years after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution which was sparked off by a “Day of Revolt” on January 25, when tens of thousands of people stormed public spaces across Egypt to protest the increasingly oppressive regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Max Rodenbeck, South Asia Bureau Chief for The Economist, moderated a panel that looked back at the events of Tahrir Square, discussed whether it’s ever possible for a revolution to succeed, and looked ahead to what the events of the Arab Spring heralded for our global future. Recounting the drama of the revolution days, Egyptian author and cultural commentator, Ahdaf Soueif noted that it was a true grass-roots endeavour. “For a year, people were prepared to be out there in the street, to be in harm’s way” she said, highlighting how people from all over Egypt were willing to risk grave consequences in an attempt to usher in a new dawn of freedom.

The Empire of Cotton

In his book Seeds of Change: Six Plants That Transformed Mankind, author Henry Hobhouse described the potato, sugar, tea, quinine, cocoa and cotton as having altered the course of history forever.  In a session titled The Empire of Cotton, Sven Beckert, one of the most credible academics and writers in the study of capitalism, sat down with fellow historian Patrick French to chronicle the rise of capitalism through the lens of the ubiquitous crop. When asked what prompted him to pick cotton as the centre of his book The Empire of Cotton, Beckert likened it to air, noting that “We need it, we must have it, but we don’t think very much about how it comes about.” This, according to him, made it the perfect commodity to illustrate the evolution of industry, capitalism and mankind at large, from a truly global perspective. Walking the audience through the ways in which cotton has changed the way we live, Beckert touched upon slavery in the USA, which is inextricably linked with the crop and wondered, why do so many from the West choose not to remember that? “Because it’s not a nice history,” he said.

To Catch a King

In To Catch a King: Charles II’s Greatest Escape where Charles Spencer, the Ninth Earl and younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales was in conversation with British biographer and historian Jenny Uglow had the former describe the escape of Charles II, as “the finest six weeks of his life”, and as much a tale of terror and trauma as of luck and loyalty.

Spencer’s book To Catch a King: Charles II’s Greatest Escape addresses the saga of Charles II through the prism of clear-headed historical research. Charles II’s childhood was a drama enacted against the backdrop of his parent’s relationship, which was arguably affectionate but also contentious. After his father, Charles I, was publicly beheaded in 1649 and Charles II himself suffered a massive defeat at the hands of Oliver Cromwell in the Battle of Worcester, Charles II had no option but to flee. On the day of the battle, Spencer remarked, “Charles II started the day as King of Scotland hoping to become King of England but ended the day as the country’s most wanted outlaw with a huge price (precisely £1,000) on his head”.

Where does fiction come from?

In Where Does Fiction Come From, some of the world’s most widely-read authors: Andrew Sean Greer, Ben Okri, Sebastian Barry, Tania James and Vikram Chandra - spoke about the creative process touching upon the novel vs the short story, the so-called confidence a writer is supposed to affect, which according to Ben Okri is all a “con”, the fascinating act of story-telling and the idea of a mentor as a writing guide, through the context of their personal experiences.

 

Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi are in the process of compiling the works of their legendary litterateur fathers – Jan Nisar Akhtar and Kaifi Azmi – in two unique anthologies with the forewords to each compilation to be written by the son-in-law and daughter-in-law of each poet. Discussing chapter, verse and the frontispieces of the lives of their fathers, both of whom were integral parts of the Progressive Writers Movement, was the dynamic duo from India’s cinema and poetry in the session Jan Nisar and Kaifi.

The Right To Know

In The Right to Know, Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander in conversation with Urvashi Butalia, discussed the legitimacy of the ‘Right to Information’ which owes itself to the efforts of visionary activists. Aruna Roy, founder-member of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information and School for Democracy, shared glimpses of her journey quitting the civil services with the aim of working at the grassroots. She commended Rajasthan for nurturing the “best democrats,” and explained how the campaign for RTI itself grew out of a demand for transparency in wages for workers. Former civil servant and current human rights advocate Harsh Mander explained that he had been motivated to work as an activist when confronted with the face of massive corruption. In the late 1980s, he saw how loopholes in the system prevented provision of relief from a massive drought, and thought: “How can we have a democracy where people are allowed to starve?”

 

Butalia broached the question of cause-based mobilisation in pre-internet days. Roy recalled how people even then were very much attached to the spirit of democracy and demanding their rights. In particular, she narrated an incident wherein some journalist asked a companion of hers if she could understand the motive of the campaign. She had replied, “Mai 4th pass hoon- mai jaanti hoon! Mai apne bete ko 10 rupay dekar bazaar bhejti hoon toh hisaab leti hoon. Ye sarkar hamare arbon rupay rakhti hai - hisaab nahi loongi?” (I have studied till the 4th grade and I understand things! Even when I send my son with Rs. 10 to the market, I ask for account. Will I not do that when the government has crores of our money?)

Gene Machine and Culture of Science

 

In The Gene Machine and the Culture of Science, Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, in conversation with Professor Priyamvada Natarajan, spoke about the mind-boggling properties of protein – the constituent of the ribosome; the role of antibiotics and the ongoing research in expanding their scope, the disturbing experiments in eugenics which modern science is in the process of conducting and dangerously aiming towards creating a “mono-culture” of superior humans of one kind disregarding diversity in genetic make-up, a highlighting feature of the human race. He described his own journey from humble and lesser-known universities and feeling like an outsider within the inner nexus of cutting-edge scientific research.

 

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