On Thursday, April 16, professors in the political science department brought in well-known Indian journalist Neha Dixit to give a talk to Professor Sangay Mishra’s Cultural Diversity and the Law class.
Dixit is a journalist and author based in New Delhi, who highlights socioeconomic issues and injustices, especially with regards to historically oppressed groups of people like Muslims and members of the Hindu Dalit caste in India.
Dixit’s talk was mainly focused on her recently released book, “The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian,” in which she catalogs the experiences of a real-life “faceless” marginalized Muslim mother who is subjected constantly to “corrosive tension,” as “displacement, tragedy and hardships are the things [Syeda] is used to – being poor and Muslim and a woman,” writes publisher Juggernaut Books.
During her talk, Dixit highlighted a culture steeped in lack of transparency in much of Indian media. Her former employer, she told students, had instructed her not to report on specific types of stories after a merger, severely limiting the amount of coverage she was allowed to provide. The marketing team at that employer tried to “dictate” what investigations she was allowed to perform, she said, especially limiting any stories on sexual violence against Muslims (among others).
Dixit also emphasized that many cities and societal structures in India are “idealized” in terms of their history or current leaders. However, she said that that idealism is often built off the backs of migrant laborers from other parts of India. That’s where Syeda falls in, she noted – “a former silk-weaver in Banaras whose home was destroyed in sectarian riots.”
Syeda had moved from Banaras to Delhi to escape this violence and find new work due to her profession being outpaced by automation and technology, and because many employers are turning to cheap outsourced manufacturing. Dixit used almonds as an example – the U.S. state of California produces about 80% of the world’s almonds, however, the biggest export market for them is India despite India’s already rich biodiversity.
The reason for this is that many agricultural companies ship the almonds to India, use cheap Indian labor to shell them and render them ready for human consumption and then ship them back to other countries in the Global North with a profit margin of almost 100 times any manufacturing costs, she said.
Many companies also ignore or circumvent child labor restrictions, and many women are trapped into what Dixit called a “cheap gig economy,” where people from particular more vulnerable communities form the vast majority of the often-exploited workforce.
Dixit also called Delhi a place “where migrants come to disappear.” She said that Muslim and Dalit communities are often “scapegoated” and sent to jails on arbitrary charges, and – being migrants – their families are not there to find their whereabouts or bail them out. Many sit in jail for years on end, with no real charges filed against them yet no way to escape unjust imprisonment.
In addition to this, dissenters are often labelled as “anti-nationalist” or unpatriotic by Hindu extremist groups, rendering them even more vulnerable to political, religious and gender-based violence on an alarmingly regular basis.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has identified heavily with right-wing Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has not held a press conference in 12 years. Instead favoring a practice popularly termed “bulldozer justice,” where he shows up with bulldozers and heavy equipment to demolish the home of anyone who dares to defy him.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party completely suspended laborer protection laws in many parts of the country and violently crushed strikes and protests, rendering marginalized workers even more vulnerable to exploitation than they already were. All this, Dixit says, culminates in a system that perpetuates relentless violence and bigotry and foments hate against women, Muslims, Dalits and other vulnerable minorities as not a glitch, but a feature.
Replying to a question from a student, Dixit commented that she dubbed her main character “Syeda X” because her book represents “not just the story of Syeda, but the story of millions of other women” just like her. “[There’s] no acknowledgment that people like her exist – we don’t need more [out-of-touch] legislation,” she concluded; “we need institutional change.”
Dixit’s book “The Many Lives of Syeda X” is currently available on Amazon.com for purchase as a hardcover for $19.89.
Sabr Keres-Siddiqui is a junior majoring in political science and minoring in sociology and media and communications.
