If you don't already know, what's been happening with Tamil writer Perumal Murugan, here are a bunch of articles to provide context - not just with that particular article, but all the other articles and the section titled 'Key Developments'.
Today, Perumal Murugan was forced to sign an agreement with, I think, four differen organisations we can safely call 'Hindu', and this is what he has said:
This is tragic; not just because when there are immoderate, impulsive outpourings of support for a magazine none of us has read half a world away, none of the few voices raised since the end of December was loud enough or carried enough clout to make a difference to his leaving Tiruchengode, or to avert this disastrous silencing; but also because we have no right to demand Murugan's bravery, to ask that he be resolute in the face of threats to his life. If the author has to die for him to live, who are we to say he must not?
Anyway.
I'm just putting this out there because I've spent all day so upset about this.
Some measure of - I don't know what - was achieved by listening to David Shulman talking about the concept of truth in the Kambaramayanam. It seemed to speak down the centuries to what has happened today. But I don't yet know how to put all of that into a clear post. All I know is that scholarly expositions of what appear to be abstractions have real, political context and resonance and I was glad to have it, to think upon and find a way to understand what I feel about this whole thing, which is different to how I felt about it this morning.
Until then, here it is, this silence, a grammar of which Shulman promises to write one day.
Today, Perumal Murugan was forced to sign an agreement with, I think, four differen organisations we can safely call 'Hindu', and this is what he has said:
This is tragic; not just because when there are immoderate, impulsive outpourings of support for a magazine none of us has read half a world away, none of the few voices raised since the end of December was loud enough or carried enough clout to make a difference to his leaving Tiruchengode, or to avert this disastrous silencing; but also because we have no right to demand Murugan's bravery, to ask that he be resolute in the face of threats to his life. If the author has to die for him to live, who are we to say he must not?
Anyway.
I'm just putting this out there because I've spent all day so upset about this.
Some measure of - I don't know what - was achieved by listening to David Shulman talking about the concept of truth in the Kambaramayanam. It seemed to speak down the centuries to what has happened today. But I don't yet know how to put all of that into a clear post. All I know is that scholarly expositions of what appear to be abstractions have real, political context and resonance and I was glad to have it, to think upon and find a way to understand what I feel about this whole thing, which is different to how I felt about it this morning.
Until then, here it is, this silence, a grammar of which Shulman promises to write one day.
