Who’s your K-pop bias?
It was August last year. The entrance to the FICCI auditorium in the Capital was packed and humming in anticipation. Bright posters screamed about the event. Uniformed volunteers handed out flyers and ‘I love K-pop’ T-shirts. I managed to grab one of the last ones. Strangely, people had arrived early for the second K-pop Dance Festival to grab good seats. I scrambled for an empty one. Noticing my feeble attempts, someone offered me a seat, but not before asking, “Who’s your K-pop bias?” When I said SHINee, she nodded in approval. I had passed my initiation.
My obsession with K-pop was fairly recent, a couple of months at best, but it was intense. The music was nothing like Linkin Park, hardly anything to headbang to, but it was upbeat and infectious. SHINee, in particular, is a group known for its contemporary music style, dazzling visuals and complex dance moves. Hours before the festival began, I’d fortuitously seen an ad about it. And here I was.
The lights dimmed in an auditorium filled with raucous K-pop fans. Participants took to the stage confidently, cheered on by the audience. All of them were Indian, but they were well versed in small Korean phrases. They sang and danced to popular K-pop numbers. Over the next few hours, energy levels rose and fell like a sine curve: shooting up for the dances and falling silent for the songs. Crazy Freaks Dance Crew won in the dance category for their performance of 2PM’s Again and Again. Edwin Kubzar won for his soulful rendition of Ailee’s Heaven — nearly four minutes that had stilled the hall. Small groups, squealing in excitement, hung back after the event to meet with the participants. They discovered common interests and strangers made dinner dates. I found myself getting pulled into this beautiful world of K-pop. And just like that, one afternoon this May, I found myself at Dunkin Donuts, discussing Super Junior — a K-pop superstar — and playing games such as Identify the Idol! with a roomful of strangers united in our love for K-pop. Were there really so many fans of Korean music in Delhi, I wondered.
Riding the Korean wave
K-pop is a pop genre from South Korea that is characterised by its audio-visual elements and hip fashions. The genre combines dance-pop, pop ballads, electronic, rock, hip-hop and R&B styles. The musical movement began in the ’90s, and has since turned into a ‘Korean Wave’, playing across the world. Bands such as Super Junior, Big Bang, 2NE1 and Girl’s Generation have become internet sensations and household names. Girl’s Generation even beat popular acts of Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and even Korean sensation Psy to win the inaugural YouTube Music Awards in 2013 for its music video I Got a Boy.
For this year’s festival, which concludes at the end of the month, the Korean Cultural Centre is bringing N-sonic to perform. A rising K-pop group, they recently released a music video, Pop Beyond, which has done very well in Korea. The band’s fans, who go by the name Supersonic, are thrilled with the news.
When Kim Kum Pyoung, the director of the Korean Cultural Centre, arrived in India in 2011, he didn’t expect to see so many K-pop fans. “India is one of the last countries to be touched by K-pop and Korean dramas,” he confesses. Youngsters, he says, identify with it because of its eye-popping videos and cheeky fashion. He also adds that the genre has a distinct Asian flavour, which is not visible in Western pop. “And of course, handsome boys,” he says, with a laugh.
This year’s K-pop Dance Festival is expected to be a bigger-than-ever affair. The auditions spanned across Chennai, Dimapur, Mumbai and Delhi. At the Delhi auditions, which took place on August 2, I was surprised to see a packed house, even though these were only the prelims. The talent this year was also better than last year’s. And more surprisingly, the festival is attracting a growing male fan base for a genre that is usually perceived to appeal more to women. The number of applicants had risen this year; bands had auditioned by uploading their videos on the festival’s website. When a group called the Undefeated Crew won the Delhi prelims, they were delighted. Their families were not too enthusiastic about their participation, but the crew hoped the win would change that. Who was their favourite group? They chorused EXO. “EXO is a star band. They are really amazing. They’re the best crew in the world,” a group member said. It was befitting then that their video was inspired by EXO’s video.
Nineteen-year-old Edwin Kubzar, who won last year’s prize in the song category, had stumbled upon the festival through a friend on Facebook. Hailing from Dimapur, Nagaland, his decision to participate was sudden: “I didn’t think of anything. I just went ahead and did it.” He doesn’t speak Korean, but he practised till he got the lyrics right. At this year’s festival, Kubzar will be a veteran. And a popular one. “People recognise me,” he says. Did he think he’d find so many fans? “Not really. But people are slowly coming to know about it (K-pop).” He might continue to be the reigning K-pop idol in India, but Kubzar is at work cutting a new single.
Sitting in my new N Sonic T-shirt at the prelims, I can hardly wait for the finals on August 30. And this time, I will be early to grab myself a front-row seat.
(Amina Razzack is a K-pop enthusiast and was an intern at BLink)
(This article was published on August 15, 2014 on http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/blink/watch/whats-your-kpop-bias/article6318218.ece)
Is India becoming a ‘Kafkaland’?
By way of proving the ISI-SIMI collaboration, a body lying unclaimed in the city morgue was identified as Salim from Lahore. This dead man was listed in the charge sheet as deceased accused 1, address and other details not known, nationality Pakistani. No one asked, and none answered as to how a burnt and mangled torso that was wrenched out of a blast site was identified as Salim of Lahore, other details not known.
A Terrorist is defined as someone who uses violence, mayhem and destruction to coerce people or countries into taking a certain action. They may be motivated by religious fervour, politics or greed. Different organizations have different definitions for the term:
European Union includes in its 2002 definition of “terrorism” the aim of “destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country.”
Terrorism is defined in the U.S. by the Code of Federal Bureau of Investigation as: “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
The FBI describes terrorism as either domestic or international, depending on the origin, base, and objectives of the terrorists.
Over the last few decades, incidents of terrorism have increased multi fold. Hardly a day goes by where we don’t hear of terrorist activities disrupting life in countries across the world. Particularly after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, there has been increased security laws and tougher measures to deter suspicious or extremist activities. India itself has several anti-terror laws, but the debate continues on whether it is misused by the authority.
Manisha Sethi is an Assistant Professor at Jamia Millia Islamia and teaches at the Centre for the Study of Comparative Religions and Civilization. She is an activist and an active member of the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association. She has written a book called ‘Kafkaland’ published by the Three Essays. The book explores how terror cases are tackled, how investigations get botched up, the anatomy of interrogations and how innocents find themselves tangled in a relentless web.
It is easy to target certain stereotypes of people under these laws and history has shown us that we often do. We have infinite evidence of such laws violating the rights of our citizens; illegal detentions, torture, false confessions and long periods in jail without trial are just a few of them. In a country that speaks of human rights on a global scale, we fail to ensure basic fundamental rights for our people.
AR: “You’re an assistant professor, and also an activist. How would you describe what you do?”
MS: “Well I think it is engaged academics. One cannot put a blind eye to what’s happening on the road. In fact that’s how we got involved in the Batla House campaign because as teachers here we saw what was happening across the road and how terrorized and traumatized our students and colleagues were. For us, activism is not just some rhetoric we give it the same kind of systematic and rigorous dedicated work that we give to academic work. I think for many of us that activism is inspired academics and our activism is as much of a serious job as academics. “
“Do you have any safety issues as an activist?”
“Touch wood, no.”
“So you’ve been lucky?”
“I think living in Delhi, belonging to an English speaking, middle class has its own safety zones. One doesn’t know when that safety net is broken. They’ve been a couple of smaller ones, but no major issues.”
“You’ve spoken before on ‘manufactured terrorism’ and ‘manufactured terrorists’. Do you think there are more real cases or fake?”
“A lot of the high profile cases of investigations, the Delhi serial blasts, 7/11 Mumbai train blasts, and so on, you find that the investigations are very screwed. What is more worrying is that there are many cases across the country where there is no incident of violence yet you have cases upon cases registered against people who even the police is not alleging that they have been involved in any violence and yet they are being tried under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which is the anti-terror law. The point is that there is no national audit of these cases so we don’t know- and we are only looking at so called ‘Muslim’ terrorists and you have the same sort of figure, sorry situation and sorry story where you have the Maoists. One can reinvestigate, unravel the prosecution papers of so many cases. The number is so huge. There would be a large number of cases which would be of manufactured terrorists.
“You recently published ‘Kafkaland’. What does the title mean?”
“It comes from the writer, Franz Kafka, whose novels and books ‘Before the Law’ and ‘Trial’ and so on, which talk about the way individuals and citizens get lost in the labyrinthine and what is supposed to be justice. You’re being prosecuted, you’re being tried for something you don’t even know about. It’s this absurd way in which the state reveals itself to the people. From that comes the word Kafkaesque which we often use to explain something so incomprehensible and totally absurd. So Kafkaland invokes Kafka’s writings to show many of these terror cases as so absurd and beyond comprehensions.”
“When Obama came to India recently, 15,000 CCTV cameras were installed in the Capital in a very short period of time. This shows that India can pull itself together if it has to but at the same time are we not trying hard enough for the safety of our own citizens?”
“I have a problem with this whole CCTV-ization of society. Security seems to be the major deal mostly hegemonic discourse of our time. People are dying of hunger, there are so many other issues we need to address. Security, security, security. It’s like all we’re suffering from is a lack of security. And when we say security we’re not talking about food security we’re talking about in a very narrow sense, so I don’t think the problem lies with installing more cameras. In fact I wouldn’t argue for more CCTV cameras anyway. As academics, researchers and activists, we need to really question this whole security discourse.”
“What are your thoughts on the ‘communal terrorism’ that is taking place recently? We’re hearing so much about attack on churches and attacks against religious minorities.”
“It’s interesting that you call it ‘communal terrorism’ because the way in which our law is structured, it would never be called terrorism. The way in which Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, or before that POTA even defined the act of terrorism, these sort of activities would fall outside the purview of terrorism. I think that’s part of the challenge, because they are terrorizing vulnerable citizens of the country. So at this point everyone has been writing about how there has been an upswing in these cases and I don’t see them fading away any time soon, but I do find hope and solace in the fact that these things are being questioned and reported very widely. It’s very obvious that since the time the new government came to power there has been an emboldening of what we call ‘the fringe’ but really they’re not the fringe. We know that many of these people who create violence and who talk in such violent language are sitting in the parliament.”
“Anti-terrorism laws and fundamental rights often clash. How can the state be made accountable for these?”
“The problem is at several levels. First is to recognize that there is a problem which to my mind the state is not even willing to accept despite documentation to the contrary, despite evidence to the contrary, despite court documents proving to the contrary- the state, the police and the executive is unwilling to recognize the problem. Until that happens….well, we don’t know what’s going to happen. The second issue is of the law itself, the way UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) …… oftentimes it’s said the way a law is abused or misused. If you really look at the way a law is structured or defined, it’s the very genetic wiring of the law- it is geared towards abuse of specific communities political activists, of communities which are ‘defined’ as terrorists. So one needs to question that law itself, one needs to start arguing that we do not need laws like UAPA, something that happened akin to Campaign against POTA. Third, the impunity aspect that police officers can get away with framing innocent people with no repercussions for that. That has to change. It’s a country where we’re talking about Human Rights when we don’t even have a bill against torture. So there has to be an end to impunity, police officers who frame people have to be prosecuted, until that happens there is no incentive to stop any of this. On the contrary if they’re getting incentives like promotions and awards out of framing people then obviously you can’t stop that.”
Buy the book here: http://www.amazon.in/Kafkaland-Prejudice-Counterterrorism-Edition-October/dp/9383968001
amirazzack 