As a law student, I often witnessed people using difficult legal terms, jargon and sometimes even Latin terms in usual discussions. It became a norm to accept that legal language has to be a little complicated and inaccessible in order to attribute a higher place in the hierarchy of languages.
Any law review article, any journal and most of the “elite website” which produces qualitative pieces often seemed to be only understood by scholars, a more well-read audience, and people who have some background in some of these legal pieces.
This piece (promising it is non-sponsored by YKA) is written with the intention of understanding why we are failing our citizens in creating a hyperlocal discourse.
YKA is decolonizing the discourse?
Going back to August 2022, I was staying in a hotel with Anshul, with whom I was having an honest conversation about how I feel youth ki awaaz as a platform is non-qualitative; it doesn’t use citations, it doesn’t have the standards which I have witnessed in my legal world. It doesn’t create the knowledge which it aspires to be. There have to be more rounds of editing, proper citations, proper grammar checks and even structuring feedback. I tried to Rohitsplain Anshul whatever I learned as part of Law school.
First question which Anshul asked, Rohit what is knowledge? What are the decolonization efforts of language which you often refer to? This prompted me to answer that knowledge is created by doing rigorous research, bringing out new information that people can understand.
Anshul, not judging me and addressing my criticism, says that all of these stories by people are about their lives. All of these stories talk deeply about gender, caste, religion, and language bias people have felt personally. Isn’t reclaiming the mode of expression in their own voices the decolonization of discourse? This helped me so much to rethink the structures we were taught in law school.
Are principles of Sufism relevant in the 21st Century?
This part doesn’t go into detail about the history of Sufism or its relevance in the 21st Century but rather focuses on how one of the principles of accessibility of Sufism is relevant.
This idea came a few days back in February 2024 when I was reading a book by Khushwant Singh which is talking about Sufism. “The Sufis lived in villages, and their vocabulary was refreshingly rustic.” They compiled the day-to-day activities of peasants, artisans, and their womenfolk and the emotional interplay between various members of families and communities. Sufism uses the regular stories from the lives and takes similes (figures of speech that directly compare two things) and metaphors(a word or phrase that is used in an imaginative way to show that somebody/something has the same qualities as another thing.)
The community members used YKA, which appears in a Sufistic way of the 21st century where people are explaining complex issues in simplistic storytelling. This platform has redefined storytelling and knowledge creation in the most accessible manner to me.
In the last few months, it has changed how I have seen the laws, their interplay, their complexity and the sheer hypocrisy of people, including me, who have hierarchised laws and the discourse at a higher pedestal. What good have we done as part of the legal fraternity if people still have not understood their rights provided by law?
What we can learn from YKA and its users?
The structures, the framing of creating knowledge in academia, which are backed by complicated citation standards that have largely adopted the Western writing style, often reach echo chambers. Most of the impressive reports on caste and gender end up going to echo chambers, with complicated language being inaccessible to large audiences.
This is a collective failure, and there is so much we can learn from the Sufism of YKA if we really want to take the discourse of rights-based approach and law to the last mile delivery. The left liberals have called out the right-wingers so long for radicalizing the country like anything. However, the message delivered by most right-wing people has been very simplistic language. It is often accessible, personal and related to the person and makes them feel included.
If we really feel that the idea of a constitution, rights-based values, and inclusive India needs to be taken to all its citizens. The first approach to me seems to be the non-intellectualisation of the issues. Even if we discuss all social evils in Delhi, it leads to a tokenistic change in the lives of marginalized people. We should democratize the discourse, make the message simple, use various art forms, and engage artists to connect with citizens.
One of the reasons Sufism reached Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and other communities alike is because the message is simplistic, personal and hyperlocal. The Sufism of YKA in the last 15 years, even if limited to Hindi and English audiences (More than 1.7 lacs writers, to be precise), has led so many people to write about different issues. Some of these stories were read by thousands and millions of people, while some led to social impact change through government policy, protests and ground impact.
What good are we doing to democracy if we are intellectualizing the issues, going more hierarchical with every year, and leaving behind/not supporting local artists? Maybe the Sufism of YKA can teach us a thing or two which can make the world a little better than it is. The fight for building an inclusive country will require us to take a step towards understanding what knowledge creation is and why the voices of people matter in building a narrative for this beautiful, amazing country, India, i.e. Bharat.