Dalit Women who beat drums, Bihar

The Nari Gunjan Sargam Mahila Band is a group of 10 drummers - the first all women's band in Bihar. These women from the underprivileged Musahar community have trained for months with the support of Sudha Varghese who established Nari Gunjan, an organization that works towards the education, livelihood and rights of the Dalit and Mahadalit communities of Bihar. Their music is empowering, joyous and a steady source of livelihood for them. This film was commissioned by Oxfam India who work closely with Nari Gunjan as a partner organization

COMMUNITY AND SEXUALITY by Chayanika Shah

COMMUNITY AND SEXUALITY: LEARNING A POLITICS OF UNBELONGING

• July 1, 2017
 
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After writing the words “Community and Sexuality” as the working title of this piece, I attempted to begin writing many times, but kept getting stuck at “community” and its meaning. I kept coming back to this common phrase that we hear often in conversations, “hamare yahaan…”, “hum logon mein…”,[1] or the many variations of the same. To me the act and ability to say these phrases comes from that sense of a community, and a belonging to it. And as I thought about this further, I came to see why it was becoming so difficult for me to write. These are phrases that I do not use. Often because they just don’t apply and mainly because they create a notion of othering which fractures a larger sense of community. Dr Ambedkar referred to this larger sense of community as fraternity, in the Constitution, and said that it was crucial for the idea of a nation in a society divided by caste. I do not believe in the concept of “a” nation but I do believe in something else uniting us in a sense of community beyond the accident of our birth.