Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You: On the Defiant Meena Kandasamy

In the wake of news of Indian artist Hema Upadhyay’s death in Mumbai over the weekend, focus is on the safety and rights of women in India. At the Los Angeles Review of Books, a critical essay by Manash Bhattacharjee on a poem by Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and activist Meena Kandasamy, "Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You.”

Tomorrow someone will arrest you. And will say the evidence is that there was some problematic book in your house.
Tomorrow someone will arrest you. And your friends will see, on TV, the media calling you terrorist because the police do.

"Since her first collection, Kandasamy has written extensively and candidly on caste and sexuality, including details of her legal battle against her abusive ex-husband," writes Bhattacharjee. "Kandasamy has also stood against laws that put restrictions on free speech and beef-eating in some parts of the country. Again and again, Kandasamy has defended her position with a trademark fiery disposition." More:

At the age of 17, Kandasamy began to translate vernacular writings by Dalits — the most marginalized community in India — into English. Translating these writers gave her a larger perspective on violence, dispossession, and human rights. And by translating Dalit authors, Kandasamy’s literary and political identity was, in a sense, translated into the Dalit caste. Despite coming from a marginalized community himself, Kandasamy’s father acted like a Hindu patriarch at home, making Kandasamy also acutely aware of her separate struggle as a woman. These combined marginalized identities find their way into her first two poetry collections, where she furiously asserts her rebellion against political violence and socio-religious/sexual mores. Her language is marked by a blunt, lyrical sensuality reminiscent of the Malayalam poet, Kamala Das. Critical debate around her work has focused on her poetry’s raw style, which dissatisfied many readers looking for more nuance and complexity. Now, in “Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You,” irony gives Kandasamy’s language poise and sparseness as she allows the law to speak through her.

The UAPA was passed in 1967. Initially intended to solve issues of communalization and caste violence, the law’s enactment saw issues of “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity” take prominence. In the 2000s, in response to the Mumbai blasts of 2008, the UAPA was remade into an overarching law that would help the state control anti-state activities. Both substantive and procedural provisions from other draconian anti-terrorist laws, like The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), were included within the UAPA. The amendment defined terrorism in an imprecise manner...

Read it all at LARB.