Constitutional Observer

These 2 weeks have passed like a blur. There has been a stressed undertone when I look back, and too many moments of doubt and confusion. I have been learning a lot of new things, while at the same time it takes a lot out of me. I must balance my heart to worry less. An experiment of printing on transparent sheets in inkjet fails I rode down to Mallasamudram through Hosur, Rayakottai, Salem. It took 5 hours both ways. There was a family gathering, a yearly ritual of praying to the kula-theivam. Riding needs a rested mind, and a worryless mind. Both of which I did not possess, but it was okay, the weather was good, and the road was empty. In the grounds of the temple, Maasaniamman lies on the right, on the left, in the background women are making Pongal My niece roams around on the edges of the ground, to spite her mother. Her version of fun is to spite. I have been thinking about agency a lot these past weeks. Shreyas noted from his experience at Srishti, that the agency of the learner was of prime importance. I am faltering to create that environment in my class. ...

These 2 weeks have been a lesson in the necessity for the rigour of planning. I do not enjoy the stress of delayed work, especially delays that I find hard to control. The soil around the Srishti Manipal campus is getting held tighter. By the occasional rain and the ocassional tilling and the ocassional building. I have started as a Creative Peer at Srishti. I am going to spend a few months teaching and working on the Observer. Planning and designing courses is a good way to jiggle life around, it puts me in a different space. This course, title “A Critical History of your Constituency”, is planned to initiate enquiry into the everyday functioning and constituting of the country from the closest possible place. Your MLA and your assembly constituency. What is happening in your neighbourhood? How are they affected by the many acts of governance? This is a list of questions learners are expected to answer through maps of their neighbourhoods I have come up with a definition of vibe coding for myself, so that I do not engage in it in the future. I am tired of it. ...

After a month of peaceful protests, police-action induced violence, and a powerful march to the parliament, the youth have successfully made a minister take accountability. At Freedom Park, a hardworking print-maker, Y, makes copies of the Preamble of the Constitution for people to carry home. He invites policemen, and all the people who curious look at the screen print to make their own copies. There is a sense of hope in the air, and a sudden grounding of power. Quite suddenly, questions of prosecution are no longer fear inducing, there is companionship in numbers. There is space for cynicism, there is space for hopelessness still, but a large component of the feeling I am sensing is hope. ...

These past weeks, I have been as filled as a leaky clay pot would. I can accept all the water I can, but I would and am still leaking and evaporating all the excess water. I would hold to lose, remember to process and forget. It has been a full many weeks! That is what it has been. I have been working on the Constitutional Observer, packaging for Manesiri, a freelance work for Repair Cafe India and in general the mind has been full with many things. ...

My first attentive introduction to the person Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar is, is with the Constitutional Observer, I am learning who he was, and what he is now to people from the places I visit. I did not grow up with such a consciousness, so I must learn now. I must also learn what he means to my own politics. This is simply a collection of my own experiences during the Ambedkar jayanti Celebrations this year. Of course it is a lot of questions and observations that only people who have lived in Bidar may fully understand. ...

குறிப்பு: தமிழ் படிப்பதை பத்தாம் வகுப்பில் விட்டு ஒன்பது ஆண்டுகளில் விரிவாக எழுதுவது இதுவே. என்னுடிய முதல் தமிழ் நாவலும் ஆகும். பிழைகளோ அல்லது சாதாரணமாக எழுதப்படும் உரைகளில் இருந்து கேலி செய்யும் அளவுக்கு வேறுபட்டால் மன்னிக்கவும். கடலை இதுவரைக்கும் பார்க்காத ஒருவர் புதிதாக நெய்தலின் வாசனையையும் வியர்வையை முதல் முறை உணர்வது போல் எனக்குத் தோன்றுகிறது. சரோஜா எப்படி குமரேசனின் ஊருக்கு வரும் வழியில் எல்லாவற்றயும் புதிதாக அனுபவித்ததாளோ அப்படியே எனக்கும் தோன்றுகிறது சில வரிகளில். இருவரும் காதலிக்கின்றன திருமணம் செய்துகொண்டு ஒருவர் ஊருக்கு ஓடி செல்கின்றன…எத்தனை கேள்விகள்? எத்தனை அவமானங்கள்? அவர் ஊர் மக்கள் ஏற்றுக்கொள்வார்களா? எப்படி எதிர்கொள்கிறார்கள்? அதே தொடக்கமாகும். ...

While the talk’s original proposal contained the title: ‘Let us make accessible political archives on the internet’, it morphed into a pitch to make political archives outside of the internet, because the definition of ‘accessible’ is my mind is to really take these out of the circles within which these often get shared: The internet, public policy circles, bangalore and so on. See the slides here The recorded talk is available on YouTube ...

I present a public beta of the Constitutional Observer that was in the works for a few months now. It brings together a corpus of the Constituent Assembly debates and questions from the LS. It is envisioned as a comparative interface to understand the historical context of a constitutional argument. You can ask it seemingly simple questions, and it will semantically understand and return relevant responses from both datasets. The conceptual framing of these questions is meant to poke curiosity at a primal level, outside of explicit notions of political questioning.These were first exhibited at SMI Collective 2024, a show case of Srishti Manipal final semester projects at MAHE, Bengaluru

I write in brief about the making of the questions that were exhibited along with the Constitutional Observer, and a little of the vision for it.