4th Mumbai Collective to Start on Feb 1, Anti-CAA Discussions to Occupy Centrestage

The Mumbai Collective is a gathering of Mumbai’s intelligentsia held annually since 2016. This year’s event has been scheduled for February 1 and 2 at the YB Chavan Centre, Nariman Point. A number of sessions and activities have been planned to engage the crowds in these two days which gathers from all across Mumbai as well as other parts of Maharashtra.

The event this year is being organised in a special context, with the whole country raging with anti-CAA-NRC protests. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is one of the star guests of the event this year, who will share his ideas about ‘The National Struggle Against Communalism’. It should be noted that he was the first CM in the country who unambiguously opposed the highly controversial Citizenship Amendment Act and the imminent National Register of Citizens. Since the amendment bill was passed by Parliament, he has been hitting the streets to protest against the discriminatory act.

Other prominent speakers in Mumbai Collective include former Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLA from Kashmir, Mohd. Yusuf Tarigami; Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap; Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, Bollywood actors Nandita Das, Swara Bhaskar, JNU students leader Aishe Ghosh, actor Zeeshan Ayyub and others. The organising committee have said that the Mumbai Collective will be an attempt to gather all like-minded forces and discuss the road ahead. "It is also important that we, collectively, consider the way forward too, in channelling the anger around us, into concrete broad based political movements for transformative actions," reads the invitation.

The topics and sessions scheduled are to discuss various issues including the basic idea of Indian society to the actions that need to be undertaken at this time. The importance and contribution of art to these protests will also be discussed.