[IndyMedia Bombay] Re: From IMC Bombay

[boud]

Dear shekhar, other IMC Bombay people,
   Thanks for your message - i think it's helping everybody
learn more and more about how things are going at IMC Bombay.

i think your plan to go into fee-paying "mass media" students'
classes is brilliant, it's taking the bull by the horns, maybe
this could inspire similar actions in other IMCs... This is 
probably just one example where IMC Mumbai will *teach* and
inspire other IMCs about ideas that may be useful!

On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Shekhar Krishnan wrote:

> 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 

Well, maybe in order to make it really clear to the students that
they are encouraged to volunteer for decision-making and non-hierarchical
organising aspects of the IMC collective - either via email organising
or organising at face-to-face meetings or both - and *not* just 
content provision, maybe you could do something like:

- 15 min general presentation
- 5 min explain that you want 1-2 students to volunteer to
facilitate questions, discussion for 30 minutes, that they will
be totally in control, not you
- 30 min qn/discussion - with *student* facilitators
- 10 min summing up by sanjay/shekhar, invite any student to 
not just provide content, reportage, documentation on "serious" 
issues, but *also* to post a report to either the mailing list
or the newswire *about this 1-hour presentation itself* (i would
say the mailing list would be better, to distinguish "serious" 
news from "internal" news - of course, both are public e-places)
= total 60mins

This way the students would see that they really do have equal,
non-hierarchical power and would be more encouraged than if
they just feel they can write articles *for* IMC Bombay...


> the IMC site (http://mumbaidad.bandwidthcoop.org/). We will also 

Great to see the site !


> 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 

Great! i think this is more enthusiastic outreach than many other new
imc's are able to do so quickly!  

> up the "Links" section of the site with contact information about 

Sorry, i couldn't find this on the site... Where is it?


> 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 

Well, this is addressed to mark and jay ...

> 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 

Well, the discussions are all public:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-June/
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-July/

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-process  
[nothing there so far, i believe]

You can subscribe at
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/new-imc/
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-process/

though for new-imc, the idea is that you should be willing
to do some work on the group - and i'm sure that following
your example, over the next 12-24 months there might be
several other people starting to catalyse new IMC collectives
around South Asia who would be very glad to have some Bombay 
people do the "talking through", by email and/or face-to-face
visits. The more decentralised, the better! 

After subscribing on the listinfo page, you need to *confirm* your
subscription by email, wait for the instructions and then respond -
this makes it difficult for someone to wrongly subscribe you.

If there is a problem subscribing, you should contact
listwork@lists.indymedia.org
(remember that this too has public archives, so you should 
probably not quote the details of email message headers on 
the list - you could do this off list once someone answers you,
if necessary)

Regarding what has been said on the new-imc list, i don't think anyone
has said anything which has not been cc-ed to imc-mumbai, but you can
check for yourself, and jay or mark may wish to give their own
summaries to you. In general, the idea is that if noone says anything,
they more or less agree with what has been said.


> questions have been constructive and detailed, I think it is 

Thanks. :)

> 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 

i think that it is reasonable to give provisional answers, 
and that as more people get involved, these are revised to 
give new answers - which again will probably *always* be 
provisional, since indymedia ought to continue to evolve, IMHO.

> 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.

i agree that this is a very high expectation.

However, indymedia in general has very high expectations.

Please note that i just asked for comments, i didn't say that your
application would be delayed because of this. i think you've clearly
responded, above and in the following paragraph.

i think many people in the global network feel strongly about
this sort of issue, and now that you've made your comments,
they will hopefully make their comments constructively and
realistically. If they say nothing, this will be considered
that they trust you on this.

Well, i would like to see what others at new-imc say for
what sort of expectations are reasonable, but here are some
specific suggestions:

> 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 

Could the failure be partly due to a difficulty in genuinely
giving equal decision-making and organising power to the dalits
and adivasis ? 

> 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.

language/internet: English and internet are only barriers to the
electronic side of Indymedia.

Surely it is possible to have a decentralised meeting where there's
initially a general introduction, translated into English & Marathi
(and a tribal language if needed), you explain that language problems
are in principle solvable technically, but that this needs to be
organised, then you split up into small groups based on common
language and discuss in parallel, then you get back together
and multi-lingual temporary spokespeople translate so that everybody
follows. 

> 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. 

Is it so difficult to invite some of these poor people into
a PUKAR or Comet Media Foundation office and have them facilitate
a meeting?

> 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.

Well, i don't know if you are worried about secret discussions about
IMC Bombay/Mumbai, AFAIK all the discussion - which as i said, is
probably nearly all cc-ed to imc-mumbai - is available on the
archives:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/

You're also quite welcome (in fact encouraged) to join the
global mailing lists (or in fact any local list - horizontal
communication is certainly a good complement to centralised
communication), via the listinfo forms at

http://lists.indymedia.org

Anyway, i'm looking forward to seeing the minutes of your 
meeting on the imc-mumbai archive, but i've just discovered that
you've already posted an editorial policy on the site:

http://mumbaidada.bandwidthcoop.org/info/display/howto/index.php

This was my only major concern remaining for your application, so i'll
post your editorial policy (from that page) as a following message,
but it would be good to see how the discussion in your meeting went,
so i'm looking forward to seeing the minutes on this.

However, before proposing IMC Bombay on the new-imc list for the
standard 3-day delay (after which there'll be a 7-day delay at
imc-process), i'll encourage new-imc people to see how they feel about
dalit/adivasi participation.

Remember that indymedia is ambitious, and that delaying your 
formal recognition will not stop or delay your integration into
the network or discourage people from other IMCs from helping
you. 

But i would feel better that there is some discussion about this,
i don't think it's up to me alone to make a judgment.

i also have specific comments on information pages on your site,
but i'll only post these to imc-mumbai - any new-imc people 
interested/willing to work on these details should read the 
archive/join the list, since they are all just practical details
regarding communication - important details, but much less important
than the question of dalit/adivasi involvement.


More soon
boud