Schio’s Old Water Canal

The north Italian town called Schio, where I live, has a one thousand-years' old water-canal. It starts from Leogra river and ends in another river called Timonchio. On its way it passes through different suburbs to the north and south of Schio, going underground for a brief part in the city centre. It is called Roggia Maestra (Master Canal).

Over the centuries, this canal has played a key role in the city’s life and history. Today, it has lost its importance for the city’s industries, however it accompanies some of the most beautiful walking areas around the city and continues to be important for the farmers.

I am always interested in discovering the history of old places. This post is a result of my search for information about this canal. I had found some information on internet, but most of it came from some books in the Schio library. There are some bits of information which are still missing.

The River-Crossing Canal

Schio’s water canal has one peculiarity, which I think is rare among the water-canals – it comes out from one side of the river, after a few kilometres it crosses over the river in a tube-bridge and then continues on the other side of the river. Have anyone heard of any such river-crossing canal in another part of the world? Do share information in the comments below.

Originally there were two water canals on the river Leogra. One was built on its western bank along the little town of Pieve Belvicino, a few kilometres to the north of Schio and it ended in a place called Ponte Canale (canal bridge), which had a wood-bridge for crossing the river. This was the old canal built around 1000 AD. The image below shows this part of the canal.

The second canal one was located along the eastern bank of the river, starting near Poleo area at the northern edge of Schio. It was much longer, it proceeded to the south of Schio towards a suburb called Giavenale where it accompanied the river Timonchio for a distance and then joined it. This canal was probably built later (after 12th century) though I could not find specific details about its construction.

During the second half of the 19th century, when the industrialist Alessandro Rossi was setting up his wool factory in Schio, he decided to combine the two canals by building a tube bridge because there was not enough water in the second canal.

Thus, the western branch of the canal in Pieve was deviated and connected through a tube bridge to the eastern canal. (The image below shows the starting of the tube-bridge where the canal from Pieve crosses over the other side).

On the other side, ruins of an old sawmill covered with vegetation marks hide the exit of the tube-bridge. At this point some water-basins and closes are also located, so that at times of high water levels the excess water can be diverted back to the river. (In the image below, water coming out of the tube-bridge on the eastern side).

Northern Part of the Canal in Pieve Belvicino

“Pieve” was the first important urban settlement of the Schio area. It had come up during the first millennium on the western bank of Leogra. It was connected to the settlements of Magre, San Vito, Malo and Vicenza on the south through a Roman road. It had the mother-church, an old fort and a tower. The people living on the mountains around it, came down here to sell their wool and dairy products. It still has an area called Valle dei Mercanti (Valley of the merchants) from those early days. At that time, Schio was a little settlement, cut off from the Roman road by the Leogra river. (The image below shows the Pieve part of the canal)

The Republic of Venice (Serenissima) and the Holy Roman empires (from Charles the Great to Fredrick Redbeard) competed for power in this area. In the 11th century, it belonged to the Malatraversi family, the Counts of Vicenza. At that time, the old St. Mary church of Pieve was the principal church of this whole area. The first water canal of Pieve probably pre-dates this period. It still passes next to that old church, though it seems that its specific course was changed over the centuries. It provided hydraulic energy through the use of water-wheels for setting up flour mills and wood-sawing mills. It also provided water for agricultural use.

Building the canal must have needed a lot of money – who had paid for it? The church or the Malatraversi family? There are no clear answers to this question, though it seems likely that the costs were covered by the noble family.

Schio's development had suffered as it was located between two rivers, Leogra on the east and Timonchio on the west. It only had small foot-bridges over the two rivers. Probably a carriage-bridge on Timonchio was built in 14t-15th centuries, which allowed it to be connected to Thiene and Vicenza. Thus, In late 15th century, a new cathedral was built in Schio while Pieve lost some of its importance.  The arch-priest also shifted from the old St Mary church of Pieve to the new Duomo church of Schio.

The area had many flour mills and weavers, which used the force of the water-torrents coming down from the mountains. In 18th century, the "Council of 150" approved the production of "Panni Alti" (fine clothes) in the valleys around Schio, so this activity increased. In the 19th century, wool mills arrived in the city.

Among the wool factories set-up in Schio, there was the factory of Francesco Rossi. His son, Alessandro Rossi, took over the factory management in 1849 and slowly became the biggest wool producer. (In the image above the abandoned Rossi wool factory in Pieve, which once had its own rail line). 

Pieve regained some of its importance in 1870s when a Rossi wool factory was opened there along the old canal. Electricity had not yet arrived and thus wool-factories used the water-power to run their machines. However, by the end of the 19th century, gradually steam and hydro-electric powers had replaced the simple hydraulic power of the water-flow and thus the canal slowly lost its importance for the wool factories.

The Canal in Schio’s Centre

The water-canal in Schio was built in the 12th centuy CE. Most of the early churches of Schio including the Duomo came up two centuries later along its western bank. The Schio part of the canal starts in the northern end of the city where the Gogna torrent coming down from San Martino merges with Leogra river.

Soon after it enters the old Cazzola wool mill, which was converted into a war hospital during the First World War, where a young Ernest Hemmingway had worked for a few months as an ambulance driver. (In the image below, the old Cazzola mill, where my mother-in-law also used to work)

The canal then proceeds towards the Rossi and Conte wool mills, which were also built along its western bank, near the city centre. Building of the big wool mills brought immigrants from surrounding countryside to Schio. My wife's grand-father had also arrived in Schio to work in the Rossi wool-mill around the end of 19th century. Thus, in late 19th and early 20th century, new houses were built and the urbanisation of Schio increased. New housing areas for the mill-workers were built on the agricultural lands on the eastern bank of the canal. Thus, new bridges were also built in the city and some parts of the canal in the city centre were covered and it became underground. (The image below shows the canal under the old Conte wool mill).

Some of the old names of city areas are the only memory of those early days of urbanisation along the canal. For example, Via Pasini, the main street in the centre of Schio today, was once called Via Oltreponte (Beyond the Bridge street) as it had a bridge over the canal - this part of the canal was later covered and today many persons passing from there are not aware of the waters passing underneath the street. 

Towards the end of 20th century, with the advent of a new phase of the globalisation, the wool factories of Schio gradually lost their markets and closed one after another. With urbanisation of the past 2 centuries, most of the agricultural use of the canal water had also decreased. Thus, the water-canal has lost some of its importance.

The last part of the canal located in the city centre of Schio still has the old “lavanderia”, the community washing space, where a wooden sculpture of a washer-woman remembers those days when women used to gather here to wash clothes.

Southern Part of the Canal

After passing through the Schio city centre, the canal comes out near Via Paraibo and proceeds to the rural part of the periphery along Via Mollette. The old ruins of the Cavedon sawmill are located here. The last tract of Via Mollette running along the canal has been converted into a beautiful walking/cycling area (in the image below).

From here, the canal comes closer to Timonchio torrent and runs alongside it to the area known as Giavenale-Maglio. Another new cycling and walking path has been created along this part of the canal. (The canal in Giavenale in the image below)

A few kilometres down this walking/cycling path, finally the water-canal ends in Timonchio. The image below shows the last part of the canal along the cycling-walking path).

Conclusions

Today the economic and industrial importance of the old water-canal of Schio has decreased, yet it has become important in other ways. Evolution has taught human beings about the importance of water. Schio and its surroundings are full of beautiful walking and cycling areas that are located next to its two rivers, Leogra and Timonchio, and its water-canal. It also continues to supply water for agricultural use.

Perhaps one day the cycle of the history will turn once again and the water-canal of Schio will restart play an important role in the city’s economic life. Till then, the aesthetic pleasure of its beauty and its importance for the nature are its contribution to the city life.

Researching the history of the canal and exploring its passage through the city was a rewarding exercise. It made me aware of how our landscapes change along the passage of time and events. For thousands of years, this landscape was only changed by the nature, but over the last few centuries, humans have accelerated the pace and scope of this change. Schio and its surroundings are beautiful and I am glad that the city could use some of those changes to improve its beauty through the old canal.

(An older version of the post was first written in June 2021 in my blog)

Failures in Global Health?

Three years ago, in July 2019 Dr. Madhukar Pai, Associate Director, McGill International TB Centre in Canada wrote an article on "Failures of Global Health". In this article he had written:

In global health, we love to talk about success stories and publish interventions that seem to work. Eradication of smallpox, dramatic decline in polio incidence, reduction in child mortality, etc. But we also know global health deals with huge, complex, challenges. And involves several agencies and stakeholders with their own agendas and political instruments. So, failure is guaranteed. Failure is a powerful tool for learning, and we can always learn from failed interventions and projects.

Then Pai went on to list some of the major failures in Global Health: "I do not see a similar openness about failure in the global health arena. To be sure they are discussed in hushed tones in the corridors of global health agencies in Geneva, New York and Seattle, but not quite publicly, in a way that facilitates learning."

I think that Pai was a little superficial for at least 2 of the failures (leprosy elimination in India and the goal of health for all) on his list. I feel that it is simplistic to give summary judgements of success or failure without taking the time to go and study what had really happened and the documents from that period. IMO, such views could have been understandable in past but in the internet age, so much information is openly available, such a judgement from Pai is less defensible.

Background

During the 1990s and 2000s, I was active in the discussions about Global Health at international level, for example, in the People's Health Movement (PHM). In that period, I was collaborating regularly with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva. Around 2004-05, for a couple of years I was also the president of ILEP, the international federation of organisations fighting leprosy. Thus, I witnessed firsthand most of the things about "Health for All" and "Eliminartion of Leprosy", I am writing about in this post.

The Failure of Leprosy Elimination in India?

Point number 9 on Pai's list of Global Health failures is about leprosy control in India. He says that it was a failure because, "In 2005, India declared leprosy to be eliminated and scaled-back on its leprosy programmes. Today, according to WHO, India harbors 60 percent of the world’s cases, with more than 100,000 new diagnoses each year." He links his judgement on this point to an article from New York Times, "In India, a Renewed Fight Against Leprosy - Health workers thought they had vanquished the disease in 2005. But it lived on, cloaked in stigma and medical mystery."

I believe that this is an unjust and superficial judgement about the leprosy services in India and its achievements. The "failure" in this case, if we can call it that, should be attributed to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which had set up the "Leprosy Elimination Goal - to reduce the prevalence of leprosy to less than 1 per 10,000 population by the year 2000".

The WHO goal was actually for "reducing the leprosy burden" but it was called "elimination goal" for political reasons. In 2000, WHO had declared that the elimination goal had been reached at the global level, but India was not included as a success at that time. India had managed to reduce its leprosy burden to the level of WHO's elimination goal only in 2005.

Declaration of "Global Leprosy Elimination" did lead to premature closure of many leprosy programmes around the world, but fortunately not in India.

Instead of asking about the "failure of India's leprosy programme", we should be asking - "What is the impact of setting international disease-control targets and what can we learn from the experience of WHO's Leprosy elimination goal?" I want to answer that question in this post.

I am writing this post from my memory of the events, but a lot has already been written about it, as can be seen from a simple literature search.

WHO's Leprosy Elimination Goal

The goal of "Eliminating leprosy as a public health problem by the year 2000" was decided by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 1991. This goal was aimed at a reduction of leprosy-prevalence to less than 1 case per 10,000 population and was not aimed at reducing the incidence of leprosy (number of new cases). Thus, in this goal, the word "elimination" did not mean how ordinary people understand this term. Everyone involved in setting up the "elimination goal" knew that it was not possible to actually "eliminate" leprosy in the sense of "not having any new cases of the disease".

What was the rationale behind the decision of setting up this goal? The official reason was that if we could reduce the prevalence of leprosy in a population, the pool of infected persons would decrease and gradually the disease incidence will also decline. People and organisations working in leprosy control such as ILEP had opposed the "elimination goal" but were over-ruled (some of those discussions never really stopped and even today continue in some form on LML, 30 years after the decision of WHA).

Need for the Leprosy Elimination Goal

There was another reason, a more important one, for setting the Leprosy Elimination Goal. MDT, a new combination of drugs for treating leprosy was recommended by WHO Expert Committee in 1982. A review meeting organised by WHO on the progress in the implementation of MDT was held in Brazzaville (Congo) in 1990. It had shown that after 8 years of recommending and promoting MDT, globally less than 15% of the leprosy patients were being treated with it, while the remaining persons were still taking only Dapsone (in many endemic countries, the percentage was less than 5%).

I believe that this situation was linked to 2 other issues - (1) most of the leprosy programmes were being run by NGOs and missionaries, while the governments played little or no role in them; (2) the programme decisions were made by clinicians, who focused on individuals and not on the collectivity. Thus, while the WHO had been pushing for the adoption of MDT, doctors working in leprosy programmes felt that MDT administration needed their personal supervision and were hesitant to start it in rural areas where doctors were not available.

The "Elimination goal" was targeted at the governments, asking them to assume greater responsibility and, simplify and expand the use of MDT without requiring supervision of doctors and it achieved great success in reaching both these objectives - MDT coverage increased across the world and national governments took over the responsibilities for running their leprosy programmes from the NGOs and the missionaries.

International Pressure to Reach the Leprosy Elimination Goal

Fixing international targets and goals can motivate governments and people but it also has some side-effects. For example, for the leprosy elimination goal, once the  target was fixed, there was a lot of pressure on countries to reach the goal. If a country did not reach the goal then this meant that their programme was not good or their health staff were not working properly. On the other hand, there were insufficient discussions about the strategy itself, that reducing the numbers in high endemic areas within that period was not feasible because the other instruments to control leprosy (such as a simple serological test for diagnosis or a vaccine for its prevention) were missing.

When it became clear that many countries like India and Brazil would not reach the elimination goal by the year 2000, there were other effects. So, under the new WHO guidelines, treatment duration was reduced, active search for new cases was stopped and countries were encouraged to quickly integrate vertical leprosy programmes into their primary health care systems. All these measures helped in reducing the identification of new cases, the numbers decreased and India could reach the goal in 2005.

I remember the press-conference during WHA in Geneva in 2005, during which the announcement about "elimination of leprosy as a public health problem in India" was made as a triumph of the global health.

Impact of the Leprosy Elimination Goal

As explained above, the "elimination goal" was actually a "reducing the disease burden goal" and its objectives were to expand MDT and to improve government run leprosy control services. The elimination goal was successful in both these objectives. Expansion of MDT had a huge impact and millions of persons could be treated effectively and a large number of complications such as disabilities were prevented. Thanks to the goal and expansion of MDT, individuals affected with leprosy could be fully treated in 6-12 months and avoid most of the complications. Finally, for the health workers leprosy was like any other disease.

Once it achieved those results, ideally WHO should have clarified it and explained to the countries that we had not eliminated leprosy, we had only reduced the disease prevalence. However, that was not possible due to political reasons. Many persons involved with this issue in WHO had also started to believe that with reduction of disease burden, the disease transmission will be interrupted and the number of new cases will start deceasing, and were very optimistic. Unfortunately that did not happen and the fall in the number of new cases over the past 20 years has been much slower. The image below shows the participants in a WHO meeting in 2005 (Dr Lee, DG of WHO is in the centre, while I am the first on the left ) to talk about the leprosy elimination goal.

Reaching the "leprosy elimination goal" had consequences. Thus, in different countries across Asia, Africa and South America, reaching the goal led to many countries to scale-down their leprosy control programmes, even when they still had many new cases. Fortunately for countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil, their health professionals knew that leprosy was still a big issue and they could continue the leprosy programmes, but for many smaller countries, especially in Africa, achieving the elimination goal led to elimination of their leprosy programmes for many years.

This leads us to the question of the need for goal-setting and international pressure for reaching numerical targets. When your country is lagging behind in reaching an international target, what happens to its health workers? The answer is easy to guess - if they do not show the required impact on the disease condition in their work areas, they will be labelled as a bad workers and their programme will be called a badly-run programme, without looking at the real situation on the ground. So what are the options for them? In many leprosy programmes across the world, when their new cases did not decrease, many of them stopped registering new cases and therefore, manipulated their data.

For example, at the African Leprosy Congress held in Johannesburg in 2005, it had come out that Tanzania which had apparently reached the elimination goal in 2000, had actually manipulated its data for achieving the goal and the actual number of cases was still high. 

Unfortunately, the negative impact of the term "leprosy elimination" for this goal continues to create problems even today, because countries and health workers start beliving that do not have a significant leprosy problem.

For example, in 2016, I was involved in the evaluation of a leprosy programme in a couple of districts in central India. The evaluation showed that eleven years after reaching the WHO goal, district health officials were still confused about its meaning and many health workers complained that if they find "too many new cases" it created problems for them because the districts with higher number of new cases were seen as "bad districts".

Over the years, WHO keeps on finding new goals for the leprosy programme but the confusion created by "leprosy elimination programme" continues to exist and to create problems.

Let me now touch briefly on the "Impact of Health for All" goal of WHO. 

Failure of Alma Ata Declaration

Pai's list of failures of global health also includes the failure of the Alma Ata declaration and the goal of "Health for all by the year 2000". In his article, he had written that, "Failure to deliver on the Alma-Ata declaration: Despite the 1978 Alma Ata declaration on "Health For All by 2000", nearly half the world's population lacks access to essential health services."

Alma Ata declaration on the Primary Health Care in 1978 with its goal of "Health for All by the year 2000" was one of the biggest utopias which has motivated and mobilised the health activists all over the world for almost five decades. Even today, the echoes of that call continue to reverberate among us. I think that a summary judgement that the goal of Health for All was a failure, does not take into account the impact it had and continues to have even today, for example its influence on the discussions about the Universal Access to Health.

Fifteen years ago, I had some opportunities of talking about Alma Ata with Dr Halfdan Mahler, who was the director general of WHO during the Alma Ata conference and one of its main inspiring figures. Dr Mahler, originally from Denmark, had been working in the TB programme in India, before taking up the role with WHO (in the picture below, from left - Hani Sareg/Egypt, Armando/Brazil, I and Dr Mahler in Geneva during a World Health Assembly).

Some Achievements of Alma Ata Declaration

I think that Alma Ata declaration was an impossible dream but it was an important ideal at that time because it was so inspiring. I would not call it a failure, I think that it was and continues to be one of the most successful ideals of Global Health. It helped in achieving some important services - from my personal experience of working in international health programmes, three elements are mentioned below as an example:

(1) Alma Ata declaration and health for all was not a single goal. It had many elements in it, and many of them were implemented successfully. For example, the essential medicines and the programmes for fighting against different infectious diseases, both of which had a huge impact.

(2) For 30 years, I was involved in Community- based Rehabilitation (CBR) programmes (also known as Community-Based Inclusive Development or CBID) aimed at persons with disabilities in rural areas of lesser developed countries. The CBR approach was a part of the Alma Ata dream, which had developed independently because PHC approach was struggling for its own implementation. CBR also had a positive impact on thousands of lives of persons with disabilities and their families all over the world.

(3) Another related programme, which was inspired from Alma Ata and has been finally realised in the past couple of years is that of Priority Assistive Products list, which brings assistive technology to persons with disabilities and elderly persons.

I am sure that others can come up with many other examples of successful programmes which were inspired by the spirit of Alma Ata declaration. May be they were not fully achieved in 2000. Certainly, a large number of people still do not have access to essential health services, even in rich countries like USA. But a lot has been achieved since the Alma Ata declaration as shown by the evolution of global morbidity and mortality data across countries.

Impact of Other Factors

In terms of learnings from the Alma Ata declaration and the "Health for All by 2000" goal, for me a key take-away point is that health services and related goals can't be seen in isolation, they need to be looked at against the background of everything else happening in the world, including wars, famines and the role of international institutions.

I remember many discussions in People's Health Movement during which one reason had come up repeatedly for not having achieved a full primary health care (PHC) services approach across the countries - the decision by UNICEF to implement selected elements of child care because they felt that countries did not have sufficient resources for a full implementation of the PHC approach. Looking back, I don't think that UNICEF was to be blamed because in any case, the idea of providing free primary health care to everyone everywhere was an impossible dream in a world which was controlled by forces that did not see this as important or feasible.

During the debt crisis of the 1990s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, by promoting austerity policies, had hammered a big nail in the PHC's coffin. Since then, over the last 30 years, looking at health services purely in terms of numerical calculations of costs-benefits, cost-cutting and privatisation across countries, including those which had a good model of universal health care such as UK and Italy, has further taken us away from the Alma Ata trajectory.

A second Alma Ata conference was held in October 2018, which agained called for universal health coverage and sustainable development goals. However, I doubt that it is going to stimulate the dreams of activists around the world like the Alma Ata declaration had done in 1977. This may be also because today we live in a different world, a world of climate change, AI and internet, where new goals are set and forgotten all the time. The Millennium Goals have gone by, the Sustainable Development Goals are coming and setting international goals is a business strategy and not an exercise in idealism.

Conclusions

Pai's list of "global health failure" provoked me to write this post. As my explanations about leprosy and Alma Ata show, each of these points can be subjects of debates, and the answers may not always be negative. I think that similar provocative statements can be very useful to stimulate us to go deeper, study what had happened and reflect on the lessons we can learn from those expereinces.

A key point of Pai's article was that we don't learn from our failures. I am not sure if it is true. I think that the professionals involved in each of these "failures" must have debated and reflected on what happened and why for a long time, like we did about leprosy elimination. However, as time passes, all those discussions are forgotten and unless one takes the trouble of going back and reading through different point of views, the lessons learned can be easily lost.

(Note: an earlier version of this article was published in my blog in October 2021)

Liberal Dilemmas

I have always thought of myself as a liberal. However, increasingly I feel confused when I am faced with competing liberal values. Often, I am not sure, which values should be chosen and why. Most of the times, the more I try to read and understand about these issues, the more complex they seem to become. In the end, it leaves me frustrated because I can’t make any decision.

Even a decade ago, if somone had told me that I will be confused about my liberal values, I would not have believed it. It is not just me. Many others I know, face similar dilemmas, while some others, wh seem to have taken a positio, can't really explain their choices in a logical way.

So, lately I am not very sure, what kind of liberal I am or if I am really a liberal! One thing is sure, compared to some people’s certainties, I feel like a sand-castle whose walls fly off in all directions at the first sign of the wind.

Liberal Struggles in the Past

The identity struggles in the past were simpler. For example, fighting for the LGBT rights used to mean that countries and societies had to accept persons who identified themselves as LGBT, and that they were citizens like everyone else. Those struggles are still not over in many parts of the world. For example, in some countries, to be gay or lesbian or a transgender person can lead to blackmail, rape, prison, torture and even death. In addition to the specific anti-LGBT laws, in some countries, it is socially accepted that families and communities can force individuals into marriages, undergo conversion therapies, get raped or even be killed.

Countries which accept the individuals with different sexual orientations, might have other struggles. For example, their right to live with or to get married to the persons of their choice or to adopt children.

Often, most of our liberal struggles were framed in terms of limiting the role of religions and traditions in our lives. For example, when these impacted the lives of women and other marginalised groups such as "lower" castes in terms of where they could go, how they could dress or the professions they could choose.

New Directions of the Liberal Struggles

Over the past couple of decades, in the developed world those fights for the rights have branched out into new directions. Often, in these new fights, the rights of one group of persons start competing with another, and we have to decide which rights and whose rights are more important.

One big arena of fight is about the words we use to talk about things, especially in English. Thus, it is no longer about the intentions of the persons, or their histories of work in challenging the oppression and marginalisation of people – the moment they use some “undesirable” or "politically incorect" words and terms, they can be attacked, sometimes viciously, even to the point of destroying their reputations, jobs and lives. Every time this happens, it leaves me dismayed. People playing victims because their "dignity has been outraged" by the politically incorect terms are full of rightous anger and can be extremely unforgiving and vindicative. However, this article is not about the use of politically correct language.

Instead, in this post I want to share some of my doubts about some other liberal values - gender identities, religious/cultural identities, women’s rights and the rights of the persons with disabilities. Let me start with the dilemmas about gender identities in sport.

Identities and Sports

In the 2021 Olympics held in Tokyo, the New Zealand’s women’s weight-lifting team included Laurel Hubbard, who is now a transgender woman. 43 years old Laurel had transitioned to become a woman in 2013. In the past, she had participated in other Olympic games as a man. Many women weight-lifter teams from other countries protested against her inclusion since they felt that Hubbard will have unfair advantage. However, she failed to win any medal and in the end the polemics died down.

Lia Thomas, a transgender woman swimmer from Pennsylvania university has been in news in 2022, for her repeated wins in free-style swimming events. Thomas had previously competed in the men's team for three years before joining the women's team, the last time as a man was in 2019. Many persons had expressed anger at her success in the women's swimming events and called it as "unfair advantage". According to the local rules a trans woman must complete one year of the male-hormon suppression treatment before she can take part in women's events in Pennsylvania University.

Another story was that of Santhi Soundarajan, a middle-distance runner from Tamil Nadu in India, who had grown up as a female. In 2006, when she was 25 years old, her silver medal in the Asian Games was revoked because her DNA test had shown that instead of the “XX” chromosomes of women, she had “XXY” chromosomes. It didn't matter that Santhi had no idea about being genetically an intersexual person.

How do you feel about the stories of Laurel, Thomas and Santhi? Should they be allowed to take part in the women's events? In 2006, when I had read about Santhi, I had felt that the organisers had been cruel and unjust towards her. However, when I looked at the pictures of Hubbard and Thomas, I saw broad, tall and muscular bodies, and I could understand why the other women in the championship had felt that it was unfair. 

We have separate sports competitions for men and women, because men and women have different bones and muscles because of their hormones. Somewhat similar logic is used for the participation of persons with disabilities in sports – separate sport events are organised for them and they are asked to compete against other persons with disabilities, for example in Paralympics.

So, a person who has grown up with male hormones with a certain kind of bones, muscles and bodies, and who decides to transition to become a woman, should compete against other women or men? Women protesting against Laurel’s inclusion should be seen as persons’ fighting for women’s rights or as trans-phobic?

As a liberal, what should be my position on this? I have to confess that I am not so sure. For sports where body strength is not the most important variable, for example for playing tennis or badminton, I think that transwomen athletes won't have unfair advantage, but for something like the javelin throw, it can be an issue. While reading about Thomas's own behaviour at a swimming meet where she had won the title, I think that she herself is also conflicted about it. 

I have not seen similar discussions around trans-men's participation in sports and they seem to be accepted more easily, which is understandable because other men do not see them as "unfair advantage". For example, Moiser (Lake Zurich, USA) had taken part in the women's team of triathalon in 2009. A year later, he decided to transition to become a man and in 2016 became selected in the men's team.

Trans-men usually take the male hormone (testosterone) as part of their transitioning and on-going therapy while its use is prohibited among male athletes. So, I am not sure how does that work when they try to qualify for Olympics and Paralympics.

Defining the identity

There are many on-going debates around the issues of gender and sexual identities. For example, in some countries, transgender persons when they transition, can ask to be legally recognised as a man or as a woman.

In many countries, women transitioning to become a man must get operated to remove their uterus before they can be legally recognised as a man, while men transitioning to become a woman must get their testicles removed before they are legally recognised as a woman. This is done to avoid that a legally recognised man can become pregnant or a legally recognised woman can father a child.

However, many transgender persons feel that they have a right over their bodies and being transgender is more about how they feel in their hearts and not about compulsory removing of their body parts. Thus, there are trans-men who have their uterus and trans-women with functioning male genitals, and both these groups are fighting for the right to be legally recognised as men and women.

On the other hand, some other trans-men and women, who have been through surgical operations and have got legal recognition, feel that it is problematic if for being recognised as a trans person it is enough only to declare that you are one.

There are also debates about “real woman” versus “transgender woman”. Last year, in June 2020, a huge controversy had erupted about an essay written by the writer J. K. Rollings, who was called trans-phobic for differentiating between biological women and trans-women. Some weeks ago, Nigerian author Adichie Chimamanda has also been criticised for the same reason.

For not discriminating against the trans-women, some persons are advocating the use of more "inclusive" terminology, such as "chest-feeding" instead of "breast-feeding", and "birthing parent" instead of "mother". Many women have spoken out against these terminologies as they seem to negate women's rights and spaces.

 

I feel that these discussions about trans-women and biological women have implications for another liberal value – the respect for diversity. When we ask for trans-women to be seen as women, are we asking for negating the diversity of their experiences? The struggle for recognition of diversities has become very complex over the years. For example, many groups feel that the term “LGBT” is restrictive. Some ask that we should use the acronym LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-sexual, Queer, Inter-sexual and Asexual), others prefer LGBTQ+. Some persons do not feel comfortable in any of these labels, they feel that they are somewhere in between. Some feel that their gender identity is fluid and can change, so occasionally they might fit one label, but not always.

Thus, on one hand we are advocating for increasing recognition of our diversities. On the other, we are asking of cancelling the diversities of terminologies between trans and cis women (many men and women do not like the term "cis"). As liberals, which value should be considered more important - equality or diversity? I am confused.

Religions, Traditions and Modernity

I grew up surrounded by discussions about patriarchy and women’s rights. In those discussions, the traditional Hindu wife, her face covered with her sari or a scarf, walking two steps behind her husband, was a symbol of women’s oppression under the guise of traditions. We agreed that women have a right to dress as they wish, choose the profession or work they like and marry the person they wish to. In those discussions, fights against the traditions were not seen as fights against the religions and in my mind, those discussions applied to all the religions. Thus, the fight for a common civil code, a uniform law that applies to all the persons of different religions in multi-religious societies, was seen as an important liberal value.

Over the past decade, suddenly such discussions have become more problematic. For example, the ban on wearing of full veil covering the face among Muslim women in some countries of Europe. The liberal position has sided mostly with the more orthodox groups by insisting that “Hijab and veils are cultural symbols and a free choice of Muslim women”. However, discussions with the cultural mediators working in the immigrant communities show that peer, family and community pressures and expectations play a large role in use of veils and hijabs, and sometimes, young girls face violence for rebelling against those pressures.

For example, Italy has a large Pakistani immigrant community. Last year, a young girl of Pakistani origin went missing while she was rebelling against family pressures. Police suspects that she was killed while the rest of the family went back to Pakistan. Debates among the Pakistani community on this theme underline the difficulties of talking about women's attempts to escape the social control on how they dress and the persons they wish to marry. Some girls insist that modest dressing including hijab is their free choice; others, usually men, at best talk of "not washing our dirty laundry in public because there is already so much discrimination against us" and at worst, threaten the few dissenting Pakistani women's voices about the perils of not obeying the "fundamental values of our religion/culture".

Sometimes, even in a European town you can find very young girls from Muslim background being covered from head to feet, while some see it as "sexualisation of young girls". The community spokespersons often talk of veils and hijabs as important for their faith. Recently in Afghanistan, the Taliban authorities have made maindatory the use of full veil by the women. So in such a situation, can hijab and veils be seen as "free choices"? Liberals refuse to talk about this because they see it as reinforcing the negative stereotypes about Muslims. 

Similar dilemmas face immigrants from Africa. Black persons in Europe are often stereotyped as drug peddlers and criminals. At the same time, many black women face domestic violence. Liberals often refuse to raise the issue of violence experienced by black women for not reinforcing negative stereotypes against the black communities.

Thus, how do we talk about the negative stereotyping faced by Muslims or blacks in Europe, without closing our eyes to the rise in conservative Muslim forces which increasingly force women and LGBT persons into silence or the black women victims of domestic violence? Is there a way to talk about one without negating the other? While talking about patriarchy is encouraged among Christians and Hindus, in relation to Muslim women it may be seen as Islamophobia.

The Right of Choice and the Right to Life

The women’s right of choice to say no to unwanted pregnancies and to have safe spaces for abortion was another of the progressive struggle with which I had grown up with. When I read about conservative groups, which oppose women’s right to have safe abortion, because their church says so or because Bible says so, I have no doubts about which side I am on – I support women’s right to make the choice.

However, over the past decade, increasingly there are groups of persons with disabilities, which fight is for the right of children with disabilities to be born and not be aborted. For example, one of the common reasons for abortion is when tests show that the child will be born with a disability such as Down’s Syndrome.

So, should we continue to support women’s right over their bodies and their wombs and only they can choose if they wish to go ahead with a pregnancy or should we be on the side of persons with disabilities asking for life for children with disabilities?

In the End

There are no easy or blanket answers to these dilemmas. At the same time, I feel that it is important that we continue to talk about them, without being trolled or called names by those who feel that they already have the answers.

Let me conclude with a couple of additional issues, which I believe are important liberal values – (1) not labelling people, and accepting nuances and complexities of peoples’ beliefs and affiliations; and (2) freedom of expression.

The moment we say something, there are people waiting to stick labels to our foreheads – right wing, left wing, fascist, communist, follower of this or that. I find this extremely tiring. I refuse to label people and I try to have a dialogue with everyone - when I find that I don’t like some of their positions or opinions, I can always ignore them. My motto is "the world is big and there is enough place here for people who don't think like me."

Finally, I believe in freedom of expression, even of people with whom I do not agree, as long as they are not actively inciting violence. I believe in people’s right to raise questions about every thing including religions, gods, and prophets. I do not agree with trolls and fundamentalists who want to cancel all the voices they don’t like.


*****

Notes

01: The images used in this post are from the Guwahati (Assam, India) LGBT Pride Parade in 2015.

02: An earlier version of this article was published in my blog in June 2021
 

Meet the Artist - Eva Trentin

Eva Trentin is an artist from Marano Vicentino, a tiny commune a few kilometres away from Schio (Veneto, Italy), where I live. Her art is closely linked to the nature and the natural world, such as flowers, leaves, plants and trees. Her works combine the organic world with UV photography and some special techniques of imprinting on paper and clothes, creating designs which look like rain-washed shadows of fossils.

I am always very keen to meet artists and to understand the ideas underlying their artistic evolution. Recently, I had an opportunity to talk to Eva and to visit her art-studio. This article is an introduction to her and her art-world. Let me start it by showing you an artwork called "289" which had a profound impact on me when I had seen it at the Mutazioni exhibition in Schio in 2021.

Meeting Eva

This work "289" was my first real encounter with her at the Mutazioni art exhibition held in Palazzo Fogazzaro, our local venue in Schio for important art events. I was captured by it and in an article about that art event, had described its impact on me with the following words: "I want to close this article with the work I liked most in this exhibition - I absolutely loved the mosaic like works of Eva Trentin from Marano Vicentino, with each piece of the mosaic expressing nature, places and moments of life. I felt that I could look at them for hours, find new points of reflection and at the same time, feel an emotional connection with them."

The image below of her another artwork titled Mare (Sea) is also from the same exhibition.

My second encounter with Eva came during a visit to the fifth Schio Biennale on Paper-art, when I was invited by Valeria Bertesina, the curator of the Biennale, for a special guided tour of the exhibition. Eva was also invited to it. We were together in a small group for a few hours. We spoke briefly but at that time, I didn’t realise that she was the same artist whose work I had liked so much.

Fortunately, some weeks later Eva saw my article on this blog and contacted me. So, recently I went to visit her home and her art studio in Marano Vicentino, where she lives with her husband and twin daughters. It was an opportunity to talk to her about her artistic journey and the ideas underlying her art.

Eva’s Artistic Journey

Her artistic journey started in an art institute when she attended the G. de Fabris artistic school in Nove (VI), which was followed by a degree in interior design at ISAI Academy in Vicenza. For many years Eva worked in a studio of interior designers and architecture, till about 6 years ago when she started a new phase of her life as an artist, after her husband gifted her some plastic art materials, which led her to taking up art more seriously. Soon, she gravitated towards the use of flowers in her art.

During the last couple of years, she has started experimenting with botanical printing inspired by the works of Australian artist India Flint, who uses leaf printing, eucalyptus dyes and botanical alchemy, garment cutting and stitching, paper-folding, bookbinding and a little poetry; and by the Israeli artist Irit Dulman, who makes monochromatic and colour botanical prints on silk and cellulose fabrics.

Thus, Eva started experimenting and combining different techniques which use organic materials such as tree-barks, leaves, flowers and resins for paper-printing and then combined them with photography, cyanotype and fabric-printing.

Art Techniques of Eva Trentin

Eva has developed her own art techniques which I call “delicate imprinting” - it involves organic matter such as leaves and flowers which leave their imprints on paper and tissues such as silk, and which look like fossils drawn in gentle lines and soft colours. These imprinted papers and tissues can then be combined with resins or cut into different shapes, can be placed on different surfaces covered with gold-leaf or cyanotype, sometimes combined in mosaics of hundreds of small pieces, which look like scrolls telling stories like the two works presented above.

I am not sure if these techniques of imprinting organic matter (Botanical Prints on Paper or fabrics) to create art have a specific name.

She explained to me about the Cyanotype technique, as I was not aware of it. Later, I searched for it online to understand it better. Wikipaedia defines it as “is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300nm to 400nm known as UVA radiation. It produces a cyan-blue print used for art as monochrome imagery applicable on a range of supports, and for reprography in the form of blueprints. For any purpose, the process usually uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate, and potassium ferricyanide, and only water to develop and fix. Announced in 1842, it is still in use.”

Over the years, Eva has made a conscious choice of moving away from chemical products and using only natural materials in her art. For example, she experiments with the extraction of natural colours from the flowers, barks and leaves for her art. She defines these natural colours as being “multi-vibrational with specific mutating tones, because every colour is composed of different shades whose vibrations combine together, and which transmit a sense of equilibrium and aesthetic pleasure”.

Eva’s Studio

Her studio is a workshop where she keeps her collections of leaves, flowers, tree-barks and their extracts. “I am not very orderly, sometimes, I forget to label the things and then I have to throw them away”, she confesses candidly, while showing off a box full of barks of different trees which her father had collected for her.

Actually, her studio, located in the attic of her home, seemed to be in perfect order, everything was labelled and placed in boxes, though the fridge was kind of overflowing with them. A microwave oven and a couple of steam baths are part of her art equipment as she needs to keep her leaves and flowers wrapped in the paper for many hours at a time, while they leave their imprints.

Eva is also experimenting with other ways to use her art for making daily use objects. She is collaborating with a jeweller for making ear-rings while her imprints on silk are being used for making unique kimono-like jackets (image above).

For learning more about Eva’s art and for buying her art works, ear-rings, textiles and kimonos, you can check her Facebook page, Instagram Page and her website.

Conclusions

Meeting Eva and learning more about her artistic process was like opening a door and discovering a new world of conceptualising and experimenting with art. It was a world where nature and natural processes, some what similar to the those which lead to the making of fossils, are used to create art. It also made me think of the prehistoric artists who had left their hand-prints and drawings in the caverns and rocks in different parts of the world.

Every encounter with a new artist is a journey for discovering new ways of expressing artistic impulses, sometimes through new materials and/or techniques. That artistic expression can be seen as a continuum on a spectrum, which goes from sparse lines drawn on sand or rock, to paintings using different materials, to sculptures of stones and metals, to new ways of combining emerging technologies. Eva's work are located on that spectrum close to nature where dream like delicate figures in soft colours become manifest through her imagination.

I love meeting artists and trying to understand their specific gaze and thinking which underlies their creative expressions. Meeting Eva was a wonderful part of that journey.

The Kashmir Story

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been reading about the film “The Kashmir Files”, its box-office success, its impact and the heated discussions it has generated. Perhaps, after a few weeks, it might become available on some streaming platform and then I will be able to watch it, though I am not sure that I will – from what I have read, it has some very graphic violence and I have no stomach for watching violence.

However, reading about “The Kashmir Files” has reminded me of another film about Kashmir and the Kashmiri Pandits – the film was “I Am” (2010), and it was directed by Onir. I think that it was a good film that merited greater attention. I had translated its subtitles into Italian, when it was shown at the River-to-River film festival in Florence.

The Kashmir Story in “I Am”

“I Am” was an anthology of four short films, loosely connected with each other. Among those four stories, the Kashmir short film was the second story of the film. It had beautiful performances by Juhi Chawla as Megha, a Kashmiri Pandit, and Manisha Koirala as Rubina, as her childhood Kashmiri Muslim friend.

This part of the film started with Megha’s journey to Srinagar to sell her house. Rubina comes to the airport to pick her up and is happy to see her old friend. Megha is by turns, angry and anguished, at the memories the return has brought back. She is unwilling to give in to romantic nostalgia about the city, and maintains some distance from her friend.

During the 24 hours of Megha’s stay in Srinagar, there are only a few scattered moments of nostalgia for her childhood home. A visit to the ruins of her uncle’s home who was killed by neighbours, brings back the memories of her terror of those days when they had abandoned their home and ran away to the refugee camp.

An encounter with a group of youth on the road, brings out that the story of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits has been changed and retold by the locals. In this new retelling, they were the cowards and villains, who had run away from the valley.

At the same time, Megha’s dispersion of her father’s ashes in the river, brings out the attachment of older generations for Kashmir and their dreams about the day when they will return to their original homes.

Those 24 hours also show Rubina’s changed life in the Kashmir valley – she is lonely, living closed at home and is unmarried, while the guy she used to love has left India. Her brother, who had become a militant, has repented and come home, but is disabled and a shell of his former self. Police comes to their home frequently to check because they are a militant family. The city is divided by barbed wires and check-points, which gets deserted as the evening falls and people rush to their homes.

Megha’s righteous anger and resentment at the fate of Kashmiri Pandits, has one final moment of push back from Rubina. A brief exchange between the two friends, brings out the tragedy of changed lives of Kashmiri Muslims, especially those of the women and youth. The awareness that in the end there were no victors among the ordinary persons on the two sides plants a little seed of mutual understanding.
Impact of “I Am”

“I Am” was a film dealing with other difficult themes along with the Kashmir story. Perhaps that is why its Kashmiri section did not receive proper attention. It had a strong impact on me because in the process of doing its Italian subtitles, I had spent a lot of time with each of its scenes.

This part of the film gave precedence to the view-point a Kashmiri Pandit. It was shot in dark and drab colours. It showed a Srinagar of barbed wires, road-blocks and sad people, and not the romantic town of lake and gardens from 1980’s Bollywood.

The whole sequence of Megha visiting the ruins of her killed uncle’s house, had a very strong impact on me. Its background score was filled with the shouts of slogans by angry people asking all kaffirs to leave Kashmir or be killed. I could identify with her refusal of Rubina’s sympathy, when she responds, “Don’t worry, I am not going to cry”.

The film also shows the impact of the events on the other side, through Rubina’s family. They have also suffered and continue to suffer due to the militants on one hand and Indian army on the other. However, I felt that it was more difficult to empathise with them, because their pain was closely linked to issues related to militancy and its violence.

For example, there was a sequence when Megha is accompanied by Rubina’s mother to a neighbourhood shop for buying saffron. The elderly shop-owner remembers that he had accompanied Megha’s pregnant mother to the hospital when she was born. However, their discussion also brings out that it was that same person’s son who had killed Megha’s uncle and later, died as a militant. Megha comes back from the shop full of indignation – “You only had that shop to take me, whose son had killed my uncle?” she asks bitterly.

While I could see the dismay, regret and frustration on the faces of the local Kashmiris, I also had a feeling at the back of my mind that “it was their sons and families who did it”! I think that is the biggest difficulty when we look at victims of Islamic terror, that we are less willing to acknowledge the pain of its Muslim victims.

The Elephant in the Room

I remember talking to Onir in Florence about the Kashmir portion of the film, expressing my appreciation and saying that it was a great pity that this episode of our recent history had been allowed to be forgotten.

To write this post, I watched again the Kashmir portion of “I Am”. I think that there is an aspect of the Kashmir situation which had remained untouched in the film – the rise of more conservative Islam which was linked with militancy. Traditionally, the Kashmiri Islam has been moderate and open, and it had a history of a peaceful co-existence with Hinduism. Over the past couple of decades, the more conservative version of Islam has become more common, but its role and significance in the Kashmiri Pandits' exodus was never mentioned in the film.

Whose sufferings need acknowledgement?

As far as I understand about the events in Kashmir, the problems worsened with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979. To counter that the Americans started supplying money and arms to Mujahideen through Pakistan, which contributed to strengthening of the more conservative ideas of Islam in the region and reached Kashmir through Pakistani militants in the 1980s. Apart from the militants, it impacted different groups of persons, such as -Militants from Pakistan along with radicalised Kashmiri youth killed many Kashmiri Pandits and provoked their mass exodus in late 1980s and early 1990s.

Militants and hardliners from Pakistan along with their companions in Kashmir started killing moderate Kashmiri Muslims and those seen as sympathetic or collaborating with India, starting from early 1990s and continuing even now. Around 7000 Kashmiri “political opponents” have been killed, though some say that the Kashmiri victims have been many times more. They specifically target the intellectuals and they can abduct or rape their families.

Since the 1990s, Indian army has been fighting the Kashmiri separatists and militants and once again, a large number of victims have been reported, not only among the militants, but also among the civilians. The army rule has also affected general life.

Each of these groups have their own stories to share. I have read of Kashmiri Pandit families weeping at the shows of The Kashmir File - they are happy that finally their sufferings have been acknowledged through cinema. Onir’s film “I Am” did not show that violence directly, it focused on its aftermath.

I think that one of the good films about the impact of army in Kashmir was Shaurya (2008), which touched upon the human right abuses.

Stories about the situation in Kashmir involve different and complex issues. The views of the Islamic hardliners and militants may not be acceptable or understandable for most of us. However, I think that our cinema needs to explore these different areas and view-points so much more. For example, little is known about the violence against moderate Muslims in Kashmir and it would also benefit from a greater exploration in literature and cinema.

The Angry Indians

There are some persons on the Social Media, whom I call the "Angry Indians". They can be broadly divided into 2 main groups. One group is of persons who claim that they are trying to safeguard Indian culture and Hinduism. Often they have furious fights amongst themselves and some of them are full of hate. They often act in ways contrary to the beliefs they claim to defend.

The other group of that of persons who define themselves as progressives or liberals. They claim that they are trying to safeguard India's plurality and diversity. However, their main aim seems to be to counter BJP-Modi, and they are not really concerned about anything else. Like the first group, often they also act in ways contrary to the beliefs they claim to defend.

I call these 2 groups, the Hindu Cultural Warriors and the Progressive Cultural warriors. They are also co-dependent on each other, creating spaces for their fights and constantly, feeding-off each-other. Here are some recent examples of issues around which they fight.

India Versus South Asia

Recently the American vice-president Kamala Harris greeted the "South Asians" on the Holi festival and the Hindu Warriors erupted in protests. Don't you know that Holi is a festival only of Hindus of India, they asked. They don't like to be grouped together with India's neighbours, especially with Pakistan. On the other hand, Prograssive Warriors love using the term South Asia, I think mostly because Western progressives like it and even more, because they know that the other group hates it.

I need to confess that I am partial to Kamala Harris, since she has my mother's name, but my defense of the term "South Asian" has nothing to do with her name. I feel that the term "South Asian" acknowledges the common cultural identity of what was once known as Indian subcontinent. It is an identity which is shaped mostly by Indian culture, by its tradition of creating and accepting, even encouraging, blurred boundaries between the religions and its basic idea of "all the different paths lead to the same God".

All countries of South Asia have some Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhists - in India and Nepal as majorities and in other countries as minorities. So wishing "Happy Holi" to all the people of these countries, did not seem like a bad thing to me and I can't understand why the Hindu Warriors don't like the term South Asians.

I can understand if conservative persons of other religions in "South Asia" resent Harris' greetings, because that is happening in some parts of the world. For example, there are many persons in Europe who get offended if you wish them for festivals which do not belong to their religions (for example, some Muslims get offended by the widespread Christian symbols in public spaces around Christmas and Easter times. So they are coming out with ideas like hiding Christmas trees in private spaces and saying "Season's greetings" instead of "Happy Christmas").

However, in India, festivals of all the religions are holidays for everyone and I have grown up in an environment where we wished everyone for all the festivals. For example, we always said "Happy Eid" or "Happy Gurupurab" and not "Happy Eid to Muslims" and "Happy Gurupurab for the Sikhs". So, if Harris is treating all South Asians as "people who celebrate Holi", why should the Hindu Warriors get offended? They should be jumping with joy!

Indian Festivals

Another issue which often leaves me confused is when Hindu Warriors get offended if someone dares to say anything about an Indian festival. I can understand the irritation about the extreme positions of some Progressives, who may be motivated by virtue-signalling - for example, their calls for "water saving" at Holi or for not making bonfires on Lohri and Holi. I can also understand the irritation because Progressives seem to focus only on Hindu festivals. However, I don't see the need to feel offended if someone says that Deewali can be hazardous for environmental pollution or the Durga and Ganesh statues pollute our rivers and lakes - I think that we need to look at these seriously and search for solutions.

Compared to other religions, Hinduism is not bound by any one book or any one tradition, so it is easier for us to question our old cultural practices and start new ones. For example, over past decade, I have seen different variations about the way we celebrate Rakhi, the festival in which sisters tie a rakhi on their brothers' wrists. Now, for promoting greater inclusion, some of our family celebrates it by sisters tying rakhis on the wrists of both, their brothers and their wives; and, at Karvachauth, both husbands and wives together keep fast. If we can change our rituals and practices according to the changing times, it is good for us as a community, and is certainly better than to remain with outdated practices and ideas.

Therefore, if the fire-crackers of Deewali cause horrendous increases in pollution and problems for people with breathing difficulties, especially in the big cities, and there are calls to limit their use, why should that be seen as an attack on Hinduism? IMO, it does not matter that traffic or industry or crop-burning are more polluting. On Deewali evenings, even 30-40 years ago, when traffic and other kinds of pollution were much less than today, the doctors' clinics used to be full of people with asthma attacks and breathing difficulties. I can vouch for it because I practiced medicine in Delhi in the 1980s and saw it every year. So why can't we use this opportunity to find alternative joyful and fun ways to celebrate Deewali? BTW, even Europe has campaigns around Christmas and New Year to limit the use of fire-crackers.

If chemical-based colours used in Holi can cause skin allergies or dermatitis, they also end up in our sewage waters and rivers. Our rivers and lakes are usually in terrible shape at festival-times. Use of chemical colours painted on the Durga and Ganesh statues, are bad for our environment in the same way. The answer for Hindu Warriors should not be to shout about these as "attacks on Hinduism" but to think of how to promote a wider use of plant-based natural colours. If we can promote our local artisans and organic colours' and dyes' industries by doing that, it will be even better. It can become an economic opportunity and also in line with our scriptures, which ask for the respect of nature.

BTW, the fun of Holi and the joy of covering people's faces and clothes with colours is increasingly finding emulators in Europe. Vicenza, the provincial town near which I live, has been organising "Holi celebrations" during summers, where it is an opportunity for people to drink, dance and play with colours.

Hinduism - Hinduttva

Many of the Hindu Warriors are promoting a version of Hinduttva which seems to be inspired by the ultra-conservatives of Christianity and Islam. Progressive Warriors are their partners in this, they also agree that Hinduttva means only that and nothing else. In fact for Progressives, the word Hinduttva belongs only to BJP, so they are fighting against it (they also think that the colour saffron belongs only to BJP and it should not be used).

I personally think that the word "Hinduttva" or the "essence of Hinduism" can not be reduced to only one meaning. Hinduism has developed along thousands of streams of ideas and practices across different parts of India, which have a lot in common and at the same time, an incredible amount of variations. Thus, if our ideas about Hinduism are infinite, the meanings of Hinduttva should also be infinite. So, why do we accept to let the idea of Hinduttva be hijacked by these 2 groups?

IMO, a wide public debate on the meaning of Hinduttva would be beneficial to India. It might help us to understand which cultural values are shared by the majority of Hindus and by majority of Indians. Though I don't think that we shall ever reach a consensus, this discussion would be useful. Probably, this commonly shared idea of Hinduttva would be closer to the results of the PEW survey in 2021 on the Religions of India. This survey report had shown that in spite of different religions, most Indians hold similar common beliefs. The "common shared cultural values of India" should be valued and safeguarded. Such an understanding of Hinduttva will be forged by the encounters of different religions of India and it will acknowledge the blurred boundaries between the religions, as one of its key characteristics.

The more conservatives among the Hindu Warriors do not accept anything except their ideas about traditions of Hinduism. At the same time, the ideas of blurred religious boundaries and common traditions shared across religious diversities are increasingly non-acceptable also to Progressives. They often talk about India's past and how it gave a home to persecuted minorities of the world, to cry about the lost Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb and the lost traditions of accepting religious diversities in ancient India. However, for today's world they do not want to look at the norms and processes governing the acceptance of other religions in India's past. Instead, they would like to follow the ideas of secularism developed in the west, which are based on separation of religious identities. In India, the Progressive Warriors seem most concerned about how to safeguard the more conservative ideas of minority religions. I personally feel that the ideas of identity-politics developed in the west are problematic for a harmonious multi-cultural living in India because they destroy the blurred religious boundaries which has been a fundamental characteristics of Indian cultural world. For the same reason, Progressives defend maintaining separate specific laws for minority religions and fight the idea of common civil code.

Insulting Religions

Some of the Hindu Warriors are always looking for people insulting Hinduism, to fight with them. If you use a Sanskrit verse from a Veda in a rock-song or if you print the picture of a Hindu God on a bag or god-forbid, a pair of shoes or underwear, they are waiting to rise up and start a campaign to destroy you. The Progressive Warriors are willing to overlook all insults to Hinduism but are very careful in making sure that you do not insult the minority religions.

I think that the idea of "insulting God" is stupid because it does not fit in with the basic ideas of Hinduism, which include the belief that God is within each of us. "Aham Brahm asmi", "Aham Shivam asmi", "So Hum" - all mean "I am" or that "God is inside me". In Shrimad Bhagvad Geeta, Krishna shows his Virat Roopa to Arjuna to explain that he is there in every particle of this universe. These fundamental ideas should guide Hindus to the respect of nature and respect of every human being.

So, how can anyone justify killings in the name of Gods or religion if one believes in this teaching? If one believes that God is inside every being, how can anyone justify discrimination towards any person because of his caste or his religion? And, once you accept that God is there in every particle of the universe, how can anyone offend God?

Recently, I had read about people being killed in Punjab for "offending" the Sikh sacred book Guru Granth Sahib. I wondered if they had forgotten the story of Guru Nanak's travel to Mecca? The story says that some men complained that Guru Nanak was sleeping with his feet pointing towards Mecca and thus offending God. So, Guru Nanak told them, shift my feet towards another direction where there is no God. The story says that in which ever direction they shifted Guru Nanak's feet, Mecca appeared on that side. Therefore, the idea of Sikhs who get offended because someone disrespects their holy book and kill those persons, seems incomprehensible to me.

It is a pity that such messages of "offending God" are also spoken by people wearing saffron, who talk of beheadings and killings. Their saffron clothes should signify spirituality and learning. Yet, they can refuse the temple drinking water to a thirsty boy, because he belongs to another religion and say that they are defending Hinduism. How can they defend Hinduism if they do not believe in the ideas contained in the Veda and Upanishads?

IMO, Progressives have facilitated this rise in the Hindu chauvinism by closing their eyes to similar ideas and practices of conservatives of minority religions by suggesting that only the majority bigotry matters. Every time, there is violence or aggression involving persons of different religions, it seems that the Progressive speak out only if victims are from the minority religions.

In The End

The Hindu cultural warriors are convinced that if they don't save Hinduism then it is in great danger. The progressive cultural warriors believe that the problems lies only with the Hindu chauvinists and they are blameless. The thinking of both the groups is a problem.

Fortunately, in spite of everything, life goes on. I have great faith in common Indians, as shown by the findings of the PEW survey. I think that in spite of all the mutual hate expressed by the two groups, common Indians will find the right balance and a way to go forward.

Day before yesterday was 23rd March, the birthday of Doctor Saheb (Dr Ram Manohar Lohia), the iconic socialist leader, whose ideas had so much impact on me as a child. Today it is 25 March, the day on which papa had died 47 years ago at the age of 47. He was an associate of Doctor Saheb. If he was alive today, he would have been 94. Even after so many years, I miss him. I think that I would have loved to talk about the subject of this post to him and to Doctor Saheb - though I am not sure if they would have agreed with me!

Four Books from 2021

It has been some time since I wanted to write about a few books, and now I had four of them to talk about. The four books I wanted to talk about are - "Away with the Penguins" by Hazel Prior, "Bonnie Jack" by Ian Hamilton, "City of Vengeance" by D. V. Bishop and "The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict" by Trenton Lee Stewart. They are very different books, they belong to different genre but they also had something in common - I finished all of them without leaving them aside for days and without skipping any parts! Unfortunately, as the years pass, I tend to get bored with books very easily and I either leave them halfway or skip parts of them. It happens even with the books of authors whom I used to love till recently.

I wonder if it could be due to an over-consumption of books? I have been reading every day since I was 6-7 years old - without reading, my day seems incomplete. I read mainly in English, Hindi and Italian but at times I have read in French and Portuguese as well. There was a time when I read everything and used to think that if they had printed something on the toilet paper, probably I would have read that too. But lately, I get tired of most books very easily and they need to have something special to keep me going.

Warning - Spoiler alert - If you want to read any of these 4 books, be aware that this post may have some minor spoilers. If you hate the spoilers, perhaps you will be better off reading these books and then come here to check why I liked them!

Away with the Penguins by Hazel Prior

The best way to classify this book will be to call it a "feel-good" book. It is an optimistic book in which everything ends well, including an old lady who end up in a scientific laboratory in the North Pole.
It is the story of Veronica McCreedy, a rich old lady, who is disappointed by the meeting with her long-lost weed-smoking and loser-looking grandson, and who then decides to leave her inheritance for the welfare of penguins. However, before making the final decision about her testament, she wants to be sure that penguin research is useful, so she decides to verify it personally by visiting the arctic laboratory involved in doing penguin research.

It is a simple book with some twists. It made me smile and even laugh occasionally, and most important, it kept me engaged. I liked the characters of the old lady as well as that of her grandson.

In some way this book reminded me of the Italian film "Quo Vado?" with the actor Checco Zalone, which I had seen a couple of years ago. I like Checco Zalone and his films. So if you like reading "Away with the Penguins", you might follow it up with watching "Quo Vado?" of Checco Zalone, which does not have penguins and is about the Italian obsession with a permanent job contract in some state office - it was partly located in a scientific laboratory in the Arctic.

Bonnie Jack by Ian Hamilton

Ian Hamilton is a Canadian mystery writer. However "Bonnie Jack" is not a mystery book, instead it is inspired by the real story of his father. It is about a boy called Jack in Dublin Ireland, who is taken one day to a cinema hall by his mother and sister and while he watches the film, his mother and sister go to the toilet and never come back. The abandoned boy is adopted by an American couple and leaves Ireland. Many decades later, when he is a rich man and father of grown-up children, he decides to go back to Ireland to look for his sister and his mother.

Back in Ireland, Jack meets his sister and finds out that their mother is dead. He also finds out that when he was abandoned, his mother was pregnant and later, she had twins. She had run away from an alcoholic and violent husband. He also meets his father, who is still alcoholic and violent.

In the book, he does not like the person his elder sister has grown up to be - she is bitter, lonely and poor. Instead, he becomes good friends with his twin siblings and decides to ignore and not have any contact with that sister. I did not like it that he decides to ignore his sister, who was as much a victim as he was, though in a different way. She also had to live with the guilt of having abandoned her boy brother.

It has been a few months that I had read this book and every time I think of it, I feel a little angry at him, for not trying to build a relationship with that sister or at least be kind to her. So while I liked this book, it is here in this list because it is struck in my throat like a fish-bone. Every time I think about it, I feel bad about Jack's sister. Since it is based on a real story, I can't seem to let it go.

City of Vengeance by D. V. Bishop

It is a historical fiction book set in the renaissance-period Florence. The book is about the 3 men of the Medici family - Alessandro, Lorenzino and Cosimo. The history books say that Alessandro was killed on the day of epiphany, 6 January 1537. When I used to live in Bologna, I had been to Florence numerous times and loved visiting that city. In those days, I had heard the story about Alessandro while visiting the Medici buildings. However, Bishop's book brings to life the Florence of that period through two murder mysteries about a Jewish money-lender and a transvestite young man, who are killed in two separate incidents.

Thus, the book focuses on what it meant to be Jewish and to be gay in medieval Florence. The two murders are connected to the conspiracy for the killing of Alessandro de Medici, but the focus of the story is the investigation by Captain Cesare Aldo, who is charged with finding the killer of the Jew moneylender, while he tries to hide that he is gay and in love with a Jewish doctor.

It was a very interesting read - I finished the second half of this book in one long sitting, staying awake till late night. Knowing the places described in the book and having heard the story of murder of Alessandro de Medici, made it a wonderful history lesson, while enjoying it as a murder mystery.

Looking at Florence and the reign of Alessandro de Medici, under the benevolent hand of the Pope and fears of popular uprising of those who want the republic on one hand, and seeing the city through the eyes of the poor and marginalised including the prostitutes and gays, gives an understanding of the political machinations of that period which is impossible in the dry tomes of history. I am not sure if it is very accurate, but it is certainly interesting.

I wish there was a Hindi writer who could write about the Indian history in the way Bishop has written "City of Vengeance". There were 2 historical books in Hindi, which I had read this year - "Akbar" by Shazi Zaman (translated from English) and "Maurya Samrat" by Rajendra Mohan Bhatnagar, but TBH, I didn't find them very engaging.

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart

This is a fantasy book for young people. I don't like fantasy books and I don't read books for teenagers, so actually I was not even supposed to open it, much less read it. However, I liked its title very much and started reading it without checking for more information about it. It has a crisp and clean writing style, which caught me straightaway. It is supposed to be the prequel of a series of books, which already have 3-4 books in it. Mr. Nicholas Benedict is shown as an old man in those books while in this book, it shows him as a young boy and is about how he became the venerable Nicholas Benedict of the later books.

I liked the lesson which this book gave against bullying and also about using intellect to fight the bullies. After finishing it, I was tempted to read the other books of this series, but I am not sure if I would do it.

If you have a teenager and you need to buy a gift for him/her, I strongly recommend this book. Try to buy it some days in advance and read it before giving it away. It is a real pleasure.

To Conclude

This year, I had also liked reading a couple of thriller and adventure books, though I can't seem to remember their names or their authors. That happens to me often with thriller and action books - I read them happily, but a few days later, I forget them.

This year, I had heard a lot of praise for the book "Fresh Water for Flowers" by the French author Valerie Perrin. It was an ok kind of book but I was bored by parts of it and I had skipped them. I had also read about the Icelandic writer Ragnar Jonasson, but I have found his books to be too slow moving for my taste in mystery books. I have to thank our local library in Schio, which gives me an opportunity to read so many new writers and their books.

At the end of 2021, I am looking for suggestions about Hindi writers, that I can try reading in 2022. As I wrote above, I would love to find good historical fiction books in Hindi, like the books written by Rangey Raghav, Chatursen or even Narendra Kohli, in the post-independence period in India. So if there are any Hindi writers with good books on historical-fiction, do share information about them  in the comments below.

I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that this Covid-19 epidemic will not stop me from visiting India in 2022 and buying some Hindi books! While I am happy to order English and Italian books online (if I can't find them in our local library), but somehow I don't like to order Hindi books online - for buying them I like visiting the bookshops!

I like the idea of writing about the books which I liked, as a way of remembering that experience. During my life, I must have read hundreds, if not at least a couple of thousands of them and yet if you ask me, I may be able to tell you only about 30-40 of them. I like this idea of trying to remember the books I had read decades ago and see what I can come up with - may be I will write a post about it as well.

*****

#bookreviews #booksilikedin2021 #trentonleestewart #dvbishop #ianhamilton #hazelprior