💫 Celebrating Tehreer // تحریر
Tehreer // تحریر showcase, Anti-caste resources, Black History Month and more!
Access an audio version of this newsletter here.
Dear friends
We hope you’re all keeping well and feeling hopeful, reflective and supported as we approach the end of the year. We’re feeling super grateful and connected since we’ve been able to meet our team members in person for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately, we were so excited we forgot to take any photos! 🙂
Read on to find updates on our work including what we’ve been doing behind the scenes building our new strategy, opportunities to participate in our upcoming virtual zine, and how to join us as we celebrate the end of our first ever Tehreer // / تحریر program with a showcase on ‘belonging: roots, journeys, and beginning’.
As always, if you want to get in touch with us to collaborate, or simply say hi, our DM’s are open. Or, feel free to send us an email.
In solidarity,
The Rights Collective
Join us at the Tehreer // تحریر Showcase next week!
Tehreer is a six-month writing program that we ran for the first time ever this year. We had five incredible participants who wrote on a range of themes from abolition to identity, favourite drinks to migration and much more!
As the program ends, we would like to invite you to their final showcase event on Thursday 11th November from 6 pm to 8 pm (GMT). The participants will be doing live readings on the theme of ‘To belong: roots, journeys, and beginnings’ and we have some other fun surprises lined up for you too.
Sign up below to reserve your free place. Feel free to invite others you think may enjoy being in the community in this way.
📣 Finding Family: be featured in our virtual zine
We’re collaborating with the Young Creative Indian Space for their inaugural South Asian Creativity Festival, exploring the topic of ‘Finding Family’.
We’d love to receive your submissions in any form of media - be it a photo, drawing, video, writing, audio or anything else! Deadline: Monday 8 November.
✊🏽 In honour of our Black comrades
In honour of Black History Month last month, we'd like to express gratitude to the thinkers who came before us who have shaped our ideologies and organising. It is the work of Black feminists that has contributed to and continues to shape our understanding of social justice.
We've highlighted just a few examples throughout history of cross-racial solidarities and movement building between the Black and South Asian communities. Black resistance has informed South Asian movements in the fight for justice and civil rights for many years and we must acknowledge that. Here are a few articles you may find interesting:
Black political resistance informed South Asian resistance in many ways, from working-class alliances in Harlem to The Dalit Panthers. Read Kajal Mags post here.
South Asians in the UK refused to be ‘model minorities’ and instead, united with racialized communities to confront racism.
Anirvan Chatterjee runs The Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour, uncovering South Asian and African American history.
New Blogs
Tehreer participant, Sivakami Prasanna’s piece on Hindutva and Women carefully highlights the paradox of the juxtaposition of women who stand on either side of the “Hindu line” in a nation where violence against women continues to rise.
“The project of the Hindu nation that we seem to be crawling towards defines women’s legitimacy by their existence within the frameworks of conjugality and caste.”
We’re also now accepting pitches from our community for any articles, reflections or art you’d like featured on our blog. Head over to our blog page to find the form to submit your ideas.
Anti-Caste Reading Circle: Resources
Earlier this year we hosted an anti-caste reading circle, facilitated by Jyotsna Siddharth and Varun Khanna, with 30 participants attending discussions over the course of six months. We covered topics such as caste and love, food, race, privilege and entertainment. To find out what we read and access our materials, click here.
At the end of the six months, participants voted to continue their learning independently requesting that we share resources on a regular basis. So this is our new regular section where we will share anti-caste resources with you every month - from readings to videos to events. Feel free to send us anything to feature and check out some of this month’s readings below.
🔮 Shape the future of The Rights Collective
We’re looking for members of our community, funders, partners and friends to help shape the future of the collective. In 2021, we spent over six months reflecting on our work over the past few years and ideating together about:
who we are
what we value
the future we envision and how we can create it
our role as a collective and
so much more!
It was a genuinely joyful, challenging and slow process but, through it, we came up with a “rough and ready” strategy. As we get ready to share more about this with you all in January, we’d also like to invite you to get involved. We need you to give us your feedback, test what we’ve come up with, tell us what you and your community need and let us know what we’ve missed. In 2022, we’ll be hosting a series of participatory focus groups for just that.
If you’re interested in joining us to shape how the collective should move into the future, register your interest to join below.
P.S. There are options to input in other ways too so click on the link ^ to let us know which you prefer.
📚 We’re currently reading…
After the much anticipated ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ conference, Ajay Skaria explains why Hindutva Is a Racist Supremacism, and labelling it as merely communalism or majoritarianism is problematic. Read the full piece here.
Bangladesh turned 50 this year. But the plight of stateless Bengalis remains in the former west wing of Pakistan. Hajira Maryam writes on the ethnic Bengalis in Pakistan for Al-Jazeera.
Does anyone have the right to sex? Amia Srinivasan delves into Utopian Feminism, consent, and how Hinduism has influenced her metaphysics. Listen to the conversation here.
Events we’re attending
We know some of us are still shaken by the news of #SarahEverard and #SabinaNessa - the streets don’t feel safe and the police do not protect us. It has become clear that only we can keep ourselves safe. Sisters Uncut has launched national bystander intervention trainings on street harassment and stop and searches. You can sign up for free here.
The team recently attended the launch of the Dalit Justice Defenders in India report which defined the challenges and proposed solutions regarding Dalit representation in the judicial systems. You can read the entire report here. You can also access our updated resource hub for more information.
The University of Wolverhampton hosted a two-day conference this week with over 6 panels on anti-caste thought. The discussion touched upon caste and institutions, caste and culture, and more.
Have you checked out our resource hub yet? We’ve compiled articles, podcasts, and videos to expand and aid existing knowledge on issues of caste, class, race, anti-racism, and more.