BENGALURU: Indie rock band Parvaaz along with Girish Karnad got together to create quite the rumble in the city recently. The project “Rumble”, put together by Amnesty International India and The Humming Tree aims to break silence about issues that matter. “In November we shall hold Rumble on women and safety. It will host speakers and include art and cultural events to engage the audience to talk about issues that matter and encourage them in a discussion on topic that may otherwise make them uncomfortable,” informs Vidhi Kundan Jain of The Humming Tree.
In October’s “Rumble”, actor, director and playwright Girish engaged the audience in a discussion on human rights. City Express caught up with Parvaaz’s vocalist Khalid Ahamed, who believes in enabling humanity with arts and stresses on looking for human rights violation beyond “tensed regions”. Here’s more..
What does Parvaaz feel about human rights?
If we wait to speak up about our human rights, only when they affect us, it will probably be too late to be spoken about, because we as a community, at local and global levels, can only expect our rights to be safeguarded when they are defended collectively.
How do you think Amnesty’s tie ups with art and cultural bodies will help further the cause?
Initiatives such as Amnesty’s Rumble help in creating dialogues about causes through art is a beautiful initiative because we think art has a unique way of getting us together in a peaceful and a beautiful way and can help raise awareness about human rights among people more easily.
What are your views on the human rights violations ongoing in the tensed regions of the country?
In todays’ world, we have enough information to suggest that human rights violations don’t occur only in the tensed regions of our country, or of any country, but all around us. We may not be aware of it, we might not see it happening directly to someone close to us, or maybe because we are so conditioned to see those violations that they don’t register, but they are taking place and we should play our part in the society by talking about it and lending support to this cause in whichever way we can. And being aware and acknowledging these rights is something we all can do.
Do you think art and culture is an efficient tactic to fight the cause of human rights violation?
As musicians, we believe that arts are fundamentally meant as a source of self expression, both personally for the artist and collectively for the society. But the fact that arts are now more seen as mediums of entertainment and less as a medium of self expression, somewhere has lead to undermining the bonding power that arts has. Enabling humanity to connect though art, beyond our language, caste or colour and identities, has always proven to be both successful and beautiful, so why not?