India

We are now in the midst of an epoch of death and mass extinction. Conventional approaches are failing. Social and ecological regeneration must be rooted in communities of liberation and solidarity. The new book, Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community, by celebrated philosopher and educator John P. Clark explores significant recent progress in this direction, including indigenous movements of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Democratic Autonomy Movement in Rojava, in West Papua, and many more. Longtime human rights activist, educator, organizer Matt Meyer joins this conversation with his own work on international and intersectional organizing. This is a call to arms for the rebirth of a libertarian and communitarian social imaginary, and the flourishing of a free cooperative community globally. Join us!

In recent years the fascist movement in India has been growing. Led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), their electoral wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and sponsored by the big corporate houses in India, this fascist movement has sponsored and carried out viscous attacks on Muslims, Dalits (the so-called "untouchables"), women, Adivasis (indigenous people), religious minorities, and national minorities. All this has been coupled with extractive neoliberal policies aimed at maximizing corporate profits while undercutting the most basic and meager social welfare programs that still exist in India. Recently, a series of poets, human rights lawyers, professors, and civil liberties activists have been arrested on trumped-up charges and accused of terrorism. This is all part of the government's plan to forcible evict 800 million people from their land and move them from the countryside to the city by 2050. When coupled with draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (which give the state legal cover for arresting and killing activists with impunity), it clear that the people of India face a very dire situation. This panel will examine the growing fascist movement in India, speak on the dire situations that people face, and highlight the courageous resistance being waged across the country. We will also examine the role of US imperialism in supporting and sponsoring the fascist movement in India and the associated neoliberal extractive policies.

Bollywood, or the Hindi film industry of India which produce almost 1000 films every year is the world largest film industry. One of the most successful cinema industries found today’s in India. In 1896, the very first film of Lumiere Brother was shown in Mumbai. The success of the film led the screening of film by James B.Stewart and Ted Hughes. But history was really created when Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar popularly known as save Dada, was much influenced by the Lumiere Brother’s production that he ordered a camera from England. http://cinemaxx.com/

Conveners of the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice will review the formation of a new Los Angeles anti-war coalition: How it was formed, how it operates, what sort of progress has been made, where is it headed?

For at least five hundred years of global colonial occupation and imperial plunder, the devaluation, abuse, and exploitation of womxn has gone hand-in-hand with the depletion and degradation of the Earth. By the same token, however, Indigenous, peasant, racially marginalized, and other womxn targeted by cishteropatriarchy and anthropocentrism have been on the frontlines of mobilizations for broad-based autonomy, dignity, equity, justice, and sustainability, from the Chipko movement of India to the neo-Zapatista uprising of southwestern Mexico. As interlocking global crises intensify, the ecofeminist alternatives articulated by these womxn become more important than ever to the fight for another world. This panel will feature reportbacks on ecofeminist interventions from the Americas and South Asia. Its presenters will discuss how community gardens and urban farms, permaculture and agroecology projects, biodiversity farms, traditional medical practices, and counter-hegemonic learning initiatives across these parts of the world are recentering multiply marginalized womxn at the same time as they address pressing threats to land, food, and water sovereignty.

We are a theatre/ performance/ creative arts collective based in the US, with many connections globally through friends, family, students, etc. We have an especially strong tie to India, and the struggle for human rights and freedom of expression there. We express ourselves both regionally and internationally, through the United Nations, social media, and the mainstream press. Our goal is to promote democracy and to oppose authoritarian regimes, both in India and in the US, using theatre and visual arts as a weapon.

Recent years have seen the persistent rise of fascist, semi-fascist, and other extreme right movements and figures on a world scale, from the National Front in France to Forza Nuova in Italy and the RSS in India. In many countries, far right forces have taken executive power, weakening the parliamentary political form of the bourgeois state. The proper names associated with the extreme right capture of government include Modi, Duterte, Erdoğan, Trump, Putin, Assad, and Orbán.

This panel aims to address a series of questions concerning this phenomenon: How does one distinguish fascism from other forms of extreme-right populism? In what ways does the ‘classical fascism’ of the 1930s relate to the fascism and right populism of the current political conjuncture? Can a country with a parliament, elections, and a relatively free press be characterized as ‘fascist’? What is the mass base of the extreme right? What social conditions have led to the political and ideological crisis of the bourgeoisie today? How does extreme right forces relate to the weakness of the worker movement and proletarian forces worldwide? What are we to make of the parallel rise of welfarism (Sanders) and social-democracy (Corbyn, Podemos, Syriza)?

The panel will examine these and related questions with particular reference to concrete examinations of Modi in India and Trump in the US.