[IndyMedia Bombay] Re: From IMC Bombay

[Shekhar Krishnan]

Dear Mark:

Thanks for your encouragement. We had a meeting of the IMC this past 
Saturday in which we had a vigorous discussion about editorial and 
decision-making policies, and the principle of openness: that we are 
an open collective, and what the meaning of open publishing and open 
source is. The minutes of this meeting are shortly to be posted to 
our IMC discussion list 
(http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-mumbai). We have 
also agreed to hold twice-monthly meetings of the IMC and publicise 
them as much as possible. Recalling our discussion in New York in 
June about the question of the open collective and how 
decision-making works through its structure, I'm happy that I 
attended that meeting at the NY IMC. It has shown me how the IMC here 
should work -- though I think the Indian democratic tradition is 
perhaps less civil and disciplined than the American! While there 
have been some questions about what an open collective signifies and 
how it works, I hope that the IMC will adapt the best aspects of the 
tradition of activist meetings in Bombay, which are collective, open 
and very flexible (while discarding their less savoury aspects: 
sectarianism, exclusivism, rigid ideology and male domination).

Sanjay and I will be doing a series of presentations in Bombay 
colleges early next week on the concept of IndyMedia, and we will be 
demonstrating how the site operates to groups of second year 
undergraduates in BMM (Bachelor's of Mass Media) courses in K.C. 
College, Wilson College, Sophia Polytechnic, and Jay Hind College. 
This is part of a series of interactions which PUKAR is organising, 
called the "PUKAR Monsoon". These one-hour presentations will allow 
student volunteers to volunteer to provide content, reportage, 
documentation, for which we will create "PUKAR Monsoon Features" on 
the IMC site (http://mumbaidad.bandwidthcoop.org/). We will also 
hopefully recruit many more people to the IMC amongst mass media and 
arts students. Two weeks after this, as part of the Monsoon, we will 
also be conducting a documentary film-making workshop for students 
using digital media and showing them how to do basic editing and 
uploading. Again, IndyMedia will be featured here.

In parallel, PUKAR is working with the teachers of the BMM courses to 
explain the concept of IndyMedia. BMM is a paid course that was 
started only two years ago by Mumbai University in fifteen of its 
affiliated colleges. The course was introduced in response to the 
increasingly lucrative jobs in the corporate media, and the BMM 
courses are now marginalising earlier liberal arts and 
humanities-based education. While on the one hand it is an example of 
the commercialisation and debasement of the college educational 
system in the country, it is an important institutional space that 
has opened through market shifts and one where we are well positioned 
with both students and teachers. We hope to develop a strong base for 
the IMC in the BMM courses, where the majority of students will 
graduate into positions in the electronic and print media, film 
industry, journalism and advertising. Hopefully some of them will 
take the message of IndyMedia with them.

In the next several weeks Sanjay and I are also planning to 
personally contact all the NGOs and resource centres, movement and 
activist groups, and individual journalists, writers, photographers, 
etc. in Mumbai and introduce them to the IMC and demonstrate to them 
how they can use the site as a open platform for their own creative 
and political expression, as well as networking and sharing 
information about their activities and events. We have already filled 
up the "Links" section of the site with contact information about 
these groups, and we hope to make the IMC an important node in the 
various progressive networks in the city. In the meanwhile we are 
working on uploading any information that comes to us: on police 
repression, the state elections in Gujarat and the situation of 
communal violence, riots, and fascism there, on events in Bombay 
organised by the groups we know.

What we wanted to know from you and Jay Sand is what happened to our 
submissions on the Membership Criteria and other responses we gave to 
the New IMCs group about being officially listed as part of the 
global IMC network. Are they being discussed on either New IMCs or on 
IMC Process? We have not been kept informed of these discussions, and 
some of our people who have attempted to subscribe to these groups 
are not receiving any e-mails (including myself). While Boud's 
questions have been constructive and detailed, I think it is 
premature for us to attempt to answer many of them until we have had 
more meetings, have developed our network, and stabilised some 
regular members beyond the dedicated handful of people who are 
initiating things now. I think also the expectation that we could 
immediately reach out to groups working with Dalits and 
Adivasis/tribals is very high (the situation is different with 
women's and minority groups, which have been coming to meetings). 
Most NGOs or groups of educated middle-class political organisers 
have spent decades attempting this kind of dialogue with lower caste 
and tribal communities, and have failed. While we no doubt want to 
raise concerns of these groups, to expect them to participate in the 
IMC at the outset, when the English language is a major barrier, as 
is access to the Internet, is unrealistic.

We have to depend on people joining the IMC who are working with 
these groups and understand what IndyMedia means. That effort of 
communication and networking is the task before us here, and we will 
go about it tactically and creatively. But I hope that others in the 
global network realise what this effort of translation entails in an 
extremely hierarchical, unequal, largely poor and extremely violent 
city -- where on any given day you can see police harrassing and 
striking poor people in railway stations, on the streets, anywhere. 
Where the slums and huts of the poor are bulldozed during heavy 
monsoon rains, their belongings confiscated by corrupt municipal 
officials. Simply opening people's eyes to the actual reality of our 
city, as opposed to the virtual-fantasy reality propagated by the 
corporate media which wants to close our eyes, will be a major step 
forward. This is something I am personally committed to, as I know is 
Sanjay. I was one of the first people in India to contact the IMC 
network, and have known Jay for more than two years now, when we 
first began dicussing an IMC in India. I'm glad that because of 
Sanjay's energies and PUKAR's organisational base, we have been able 
to set up a provisional Mumbai IMC. What I hope is that all of our 
present well-wishers can knit us more closely into your own 
discussions and networks and also make the attempt at translating, 
and thus really globalising, IndyMedia.

In solidarity,



Shekhar


At 5:29 PM +0300 22.7.2002, Mark Pickens wrote:
>Shekhar and Sanjay,
>
>This is Mark from the NYC IMC.  I just wanted to second Jay's 
>thoughts that planning is critical at this stage of your work, 
>especially as regards some of the basic internal processes (decision 
>making, meeting facilitation).  You definitely seem to be forging 
>ahead with the content, if your list of projects is an accurate 
>judge of your efforts.
>
>When I spoke with Shekhar here in NYC, I reinforced the thought that 
>NYC IMC's openness and transparency has been a source of much 
>strength for us.  Although it causes us to move slowly in some 
>regards as we probe for consensus, it has also permitted individuals 
>to move rapidly and fully into positions of responsibility by virtue 
>of the absence of overt hierarchy.  In an org with many functions to 
>be accomplished by an all-volunteer staff, this "flatness" has been 
>the primary way that members have dived in and taken up tasks that 
>needed to be done.
>
>A clear consensus/decision-making process, as well as non-partisan 
>facilitation of meetings, has helped create this openness for the 
>NYC IMC.  I encourage you to continue examining how this may be 
>adapated to your situation in Mumbai, and to establish clear systems 
>and rules at the beginning.
>
>Please let me know if there are any documents or resources I can 
>provide you with.
>
>Mark
>
>P.S. A personal note -- these issues you're working on look GREAT.
_____

Shekhar Krishnan
9, Supriya, 2nd Floor
Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road No.4
Dadar, Bombay 400014
India