In this episode of South Central, hosts Dhanya Rajendran and Leena Reghunath are joined by The News Minute’s Sudipto Mondal, political commentator Tara Krishnaswamy and independent journalist Anna MM Vetticad.
The discussion kicks off with the mass layoffs at Infosys. Dhanya talks about the “lack of dignity” with which the IT services giant let go of hundreds of employees.
“Why couldn’t they figure out some better way of doing this?” asks Sudipto critiquing the framework within which Indian corporates work. He highlights the kind of “impunity” companies enjoy “to flout established laws of labour”.
Tara talks about how class consciousness shapes such events. “IT employees feel they are an educated class, and they don’t need the same kind of protections that factory workers need,” she says. She adds that IT employees often feel that they won’t be laid off as layoffs “happen to people who don’t perform well or people”..
The conversation moves to censorship and how platforms are now self-censoring films to comply with unwritten restrictions. Anna says: “Filmmakers are now self-censoring because they don’t know where the next crackdown will come from. A film like Nasir was submitted to the CBFC, and that’s it – no update, no certification, just silence.”
On the censorship of Diljit Dosanjh’s Punjab 95, Anna says, “There is a mindset within this government that members of minority communities should not be built up as heroes, as rebels, as people who have taken on the establishment in any way.” She talks about how Bollywood producers are avoiding making films with Muslims leads.
Leena adds, “From Nasir to Punjab 95 to how films are just disappearing, it shows how deep censorship has seeped in. And very few people are even willing to speak up about it.”
This and a lot more. Tune in!
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Timecodes
00:00:00 – Introduction
00:01:24 – TNM’s 11th birthday
00:04:34 – Headlines
00:09:38 – Summons to Ranveer Allahabadia
00:15:57 – Layoffs at Infosys
00:35:20 – Censorship in films
01:04:59 – Recommendations
References
Inside the manosphere luring young Indian men and boys
‘Your laptop is your life’: The truth of Bengaluru’s IT workforce
How A Modi-Era Ecosystem Of Official & Unofficial Censorship Is Transforming India’s Film Industries
Hindi cinema’s lone rangers: Dissent in a sea of propaganda films
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Recommendations
Anna MM Vetticad
Bread, Cement, Cactus: A Memoir of Belonging and Dislocation
Tara Krishnaswamy
The Politics of Poverty Reduction in India
Sudipto Mondal
‘Your laptop is your life’: The truth of Bengaluru’s IT workforce
Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals
Leena Reghunath
The Ritualistic Hypocrisy of Caste Hindus
Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition
Dhanya Rajendran
Inside the manosphere luring young Indian men and boys
How A Modi-Era Ecosystem Of Official & Unofficial Censorship Is Transforming India’s Film Industries
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Produced by Bhuvan Malik, edited by Jaseem Ali.
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