Good evening friends. Today we are connecting with a person when we were in what we say in the baby steps of this Beyond Law series. We had connected with Mr. Vikramjit Banerjee, one of the youngest additional from Mr. Janu. And again, after a year, we connected with him.  And after connecting with him, I realized that he's grounded just like a grass. They say the biggest of the storms cannot shake you up. And today, when we are talking about a lot of talks are going on, not only on the social media and otherwise regarding socialism, secularism and constitution. Yes, as a student of law, one always discusses all these issues. But I think these issues of late have picked up and there's a lot of debate on these aspects. And despite the fact that he is a pressing engagement, we mutually agreed that be that as it may, we should take the session forward. We understand that it's a weekend. And despite the weekend, we agreed to take a topic forward so that people can understand and enjoy the weekend, not only with good food, but also with the good insights coming from a speaker who is not only an additional solace general in the Supreme Court of India and whose large judgments are reported. Without taking much time, I would request Mr. Vikramjit Banerjee to take things forward and explain what is all this debate about socialism, secularism and the constitution. Over to you, Vikramjit. Thank you. I was part of and I like to think myself that I was part of when this series began. And it's been a wonderful series. I see the YouTube videos being circulated and it's such a pleasure and honor to have been a part of it when it began. And so it's honored to be back again. And the other thing is who can ever refuse Vikasti? Vikasti, as you know, is extremely persuasive. So there's no question of refusing because not only that, but because also the very importance of the series, which is now very widely circulated. I would also, before I begin, I would also like to apologize because I know that the series was scheduled to be started off a little earlier this talk, but because of reasons which could be on my control, we had to push back this at my request. So apologies for that. That being said, I think let us now return back to the topic which I wanted to address and which I wanted to put forward for your discussion and for your consideration. I think the topic which I would like to speak on is socialism and secularism and the constitution. The two words are, I think the most contested words in the constitution, in constitutional law, in constitutional thinking today in India. We read very regularly about the use of these words. These words are used very often. They're used as part of politics. They're used as part of constitutional law. And there is a large scale discussion about these two terms, which we are used to. Now, arguably, and this is arguably socialism and secularism are two most important values which have been inserted into the constitution. Now, we all know what is the history of the insertion of these two words. These two words were not there at the time of the original framing of the constitution and then subsequently, during by the 42nd amendment, very controversially during the time of the emergency, the pre-animal was amended and these two words were inserted into the constitution. However, and this is something which is to be noted that when the 44th amendment happened and during the Janta government and various different provisions of the 42nd amendment were undone, the two words of socialism and secularism being part of the pre-animal was actually retained in the constitution. Now, the question which therefore arose is how do you define these two words? And this is something which I would like to speak on the rest of the talk. But for the purposes of discussion, the purposes of noting of what happened in history, there was an attempt to define the word secularism. L. M. Singhvi who was the father of Dr. A. M. Singhvi was supposedly given the task of defining the word secularism, which Kulud being inserted in the constitution, but that sort of never came about. As for socialism, I think there is various different kinds of socialism from the time when this constitution was framed and we will address those issues. But the fact is socialism has... Yeah Vikram, I think... And these were not there at the time of the original constitution, framing of the original constitution is what is the legitimacy of these words in the constitution. And two, how have we read these terms and what is the history of these terms in the Indian context? How are we using it today? How does the courts interpret these words? And most importantly, and this is a question which I will try to answer right at the end, if we define socialism and secularism in our own way, in our own terms, however way we want it to, then what remains of these words? Because if we sort of define secularism in our own way as tolerance and socialism only as Gandhian socialism, then what remains of these words? What is the use of these words? And what purpose does it serve anymore? These are the broad questions which I would like you to keep in mind when you go ahead. But at the present moment, I will try to sort of discuss both these words separately. The first word is socialism. Socialism has a very long history. It's not... The idea is not new. I as a... As you know, I... The earliest I can trace the word socialism in sort of any Indian literature is of Bongkim Chandra Chatterjee. Bongkim Chandra Chatterjee. The reason why Bongkim Chandra Chatterjee is important is all of you may recollect. Bongkim Chandra Chatterjee is Chottabaddhaya, as we Bengalis call him, was also the person who wrote Anand Mart in which Vande Mataram was written. So Bongkim Chandra Chatterjee Chottabaddhaya was, of course, deeply at that present moment, a creature of his times. And he wrote an essay called Sammya or Shamma, as we say in Bengali, or Sammya or equality, as we say, which explored the contemporaneous debates of socialism, which were at that point of time floating in India. It's another matter that he later said that he didn't quite support those... He retained those views which he wrote in that essay, but he did articulate it. That's the first sort of indicator of, you know, socialism which I see, which is being discussed in history of any sort. The second and something which is extremely important, you know, is Swami Vivekananda. Amongst various different questions, questions were put to him as to whether he was a socialist and he famously answered, I am not a socialist. I don't believe in equality, but if speaking for the poor makes me a socialist, I'm willing to claim the label, because I said a half a bread is better than no bread. Of course, he was deeply concerned for the poor and he always distinguished himself that he was not, though he was actually not a socialist, he didn't mind being called a socialist. In fact, very interestingly, his brother, Krupendana Tattak, was a member of the communist party. But Swami Vivekananda is very clear that he did not contribute to communism. He was clearly aware of the debate, but he had various different arguments against socialism, including the one which he said that you can't have perfect equality. Perfect equality means death in many ways, his spiritual death in many ways. So, you know, that was his view, but he definitely was concerned that was his view of socialism or pro-poor, having a pro-poor outcome. I think Mark Magan also came across from a similar point of view, his conceptions of bread-labor, his conceptions of trust, the shape which he had, where he said the rich should own property as a trustee for the poor and should act as trustees of simple living, high-thinking things were all, you know, which he said was his own socialist ideas. And he had a regular debate with the socialist office times, his younger socialist office times. And he always said his version of what he said of pro-poor approach was better and more akin with Indian culture. Now of course, these differences with Mahapagandhi during the time of independence was extremely huge with the socialist office times. The Congress, the Indian national Congress, first adopts the word socialist during the Karachi Congress. And at the Haripura Congress, which is where the entire debate of socialism was Gandhian socialism actually comes to the fore during the debates which happened at the Indian Congress. And where the two protagonists were on one side, those speaking about a Gandhian approach to poverty, was Sardar Patel, was very strongly defended an Indian approach to socialism and he sort of castigated socialism because according to him socialism was not of large Indian religion. And on the other side was was being led by Netaji Shubhash Chandrabaugh. So as to what version of socialism, what would be our version of the court, these are questions which we've always had. And but it's interesting that when Shubhash Bose, who was the great socialist champion at the Haripura Congress, sort of laid out his vision of what he considered socialism and what he termed in his own words, Samyavad as in his equation of his version, which he considered a third way socialist way, which was different from that of, from that of the western socialism of Soviet India, for that matter. And he said it combines three that three components, one our ancient civilization, he says to our struggle against the British. And three, he said our ideas of modernism, which we have modern ideas of liberal ideas, which we have got from, from the West for better. And he turned it as, as the best way as India's way towards, towards having a proper approach to society, which was very key to have a forward thinking India, the way he wanted to move towards socialism was planning. Now, planning is extremely important, extremely interesting that the first planning committee of the Congress was was international Congress at that point of time, which was a body which incorporated every literally everybody was consistent of the very famous scientist, Begnath Shah, was again that very famous architect engineer, and from South India, great administrator, Vishweshwarya Ji, and was chaired by Jawaharlal Neb. And that was the first sort of committee which was formed at the Hariborah Congress under Subhash Bhush's presidential. Now, there were always socialists present within the Congress, they were the socialists of that sort of look like Jayatrakash Narayan, there was Ramana Luya, who were always present and who were always a very important force within the Congress, but, but they were they never were the Congress mainstream, as we all know the Congress mainstream was always with down the and Mahapagandhi and Mahapagandhi's approach to how to address problems of the poor. Close to independence, close to independence, there were the entire conception was how we have a socialist society. So in person to that, there were sort of two plans which were formulated, one was planned by Vishweshwarya, which, which he came out with a plan of you know how he wanted India to function. The other is is the famous plan which we know as the Bombay plan, where India's biggest industrialists actually got together and formulated a plan of how to take India forward. There were two Bombay plans which are available on the net, which you can see where actually the biggest industrialists said that we should be in charge of production and the government should be in charge of distribution. But this was basically a formulation of the top industrialists of their day as to what would be their interpretation, what would be their plan to take India forward. And as you know, planning was extremely important part of socialism. Now, at the time of framing of the of the constitution, at the time of constitution assembly, there were large debates as to whether to put socialism into the constitution or not. And it's interesting that that socialism didn't actually succeed. And most of the provisions which the socialists actually pushed forward and which were actively at the forefront of what the demands of the socialists were put into the director principle state policy, that is basically made unimplemented, you know, unimplementable. Now, but there were retained the influence of socialist in various different measures in the right to property, in the right to equality, which was extremely nuanced right to equality, which said that, you know, as we all know, that equals that there should be reservation, there would be affirmative action. There was the doing away with titles. There was a restricted right to property. And there were restrictions even on right to think of profession, right to carry on trade or business. So these were restricted largely under the influence of socialists who were extremely important at that point of time in the politics of India in the constitution assembly, who were an important voice. But nonetheless, their major demands were not made legally implementable. They were kept in the director principle state policy. Now it's important for us to sort of, you know, just as an indicator what were the socialist provisions in the constitution in the DPSS. One, I'll just enumerate some of them. One is article 38, in which says that the object of the state would be to promote a social and to promote a social order which promotes social economic justice. And the object of the state would be to minimize inequalities of income status and facilities. Article 39, which says state shall strive to ensure that the ownership of material resources are distributed to serve the common good. And this could be sort of construed to be a Gandhian sort of take on pro-poor policies. But the next is exclusive when it says that the operation of the economic system does not result in concentration of wealth or means of production. Means of production as we all know is treated. It's clearly a Marxian term, because Marx used that. So, you know, there is that sort of indicator as to the influence of socialist thinking in the constitution. And there is also equal pay for equal work and that's protection of workers' rights. There's an explicit article 41, which says, you know, you have to protect the right to work 42, 43 and 43A, numerous injunctions to protect workers' rights. We were all deeply influenced by socialist thinking. Now, coming to what the, how did the Supreme Court handle it? In, you know, the Supreme Court, in the first era of Supreme Court, there was this, all of us know, there was a huge debate about land reforms back and forth about land reforms. Eventually, the amendments made to the constitution and the amendments trying to, you know, the court would always talk about protecting the right to property and which was interpreted at that point of time to be, you know, against the court because the, because agrarian reforms were struck down and so on and so forth. So, in the beginning, the court took in the question of land reforms, which I think was finally sought at the time of during the Janta government when right to property was effectively taken out as a fundamental right and put as a constitution right in the constitution. So, that was a great debate back and forth where Supreme Court largely stood on the side of right to property. And the government then wanted to amend the constitution to ensure that in many ways land reforms, which were key socialist principle was enunciated, was incorporated into the constitution and into law. Next issue, which was extremely important was the question of nationalization.  Liberates, you know, we know those of those large number of Supreme Court judgments on protecting Liberates, chief amongst them, one of the major amongst them, Firestone, where again Justice Krishnayar's large number of the Liberates judgments was actually by Justice Krishnayar, who became very famous, you know, protecting the right of labor and employment and employment rights. And Firestone was one of the major judgments. On affirmative action, again, I think the social justice reservation, I think the key, most brilliant was the most important was of course, which we all know as the Mandal Commission case where the court sort of came out with a very nuanced form of equality of treating equals as unequals. And in India, I've construed an equality in a very, in the exact terms. And I always say this as actually pronounced equality saying that equality means in India does not only mean equality, economic equality class in India does not only mean class as an economic class, but class in India also means the incorporation of caste, which was a unique formulation, which I think this formulation of Ramana Loeyaji was brought into into constitutional law by Indra Soni, which sort of accepted that principle without technology, where it came from. But this formulation already existed because it was formulated by Ramana Loeyaji. Now, there is also this entire question, the other questions of workers' rights and where does workers' rights, we all know that there was all these workers' protection, ad hoc appointments, giving appointments to workers, ensuring employment. In any ways, the culmination of that was where basically all this was put to an end. And the entire contractual regime and the court very, very clearly said that people have been employed under the cover of what cannot get, cannot be regularized. So in many ways, if we consider Firestone, etc., etc., during their points of time in 1970s to be the height of socialist approach of the court, we can sort of take as Uma Devi when the court becomes takes a more market approach, takes a more free market approach to law. I'm not saying that it's clearly in many of those issues and all of them could be traced to provisions of the Constitution. But nonetheless, if you sort of take it broadly, I would put it at two ends of the scale. Most interestingly, and this is something which I would formulate and leave to your thinking, is that when it was asked, the court was asked as to what was the Indian formulation of socialism, what interestingly, in D. S. Nakaraj says, so people are interested, he says it's a mixture of Gandhianism and Marxism. So it is completely Indian in many ways. I would say that it's more modern here, but that there are Marxist provisions in the Constitution as I saw there are indicators of Marxist thinking in the Constitution. But the approach and the way it's been worked out has been completely Indian. I would say that it has, it is more close to the thinking of Mahatma Gandhiji's Sargodaya. And in parallel in today's world, it would be about the Indial Pathayaji's Antiyodaya, which is sort of an indicator of last person to the line, of the line. And Sargodaya means, you know, sort of Piti and Daya for everybody. So I think if we have an interpretation of the Constitution today, I think the closest interpretations of what sort of adopts is Gandhianism, which is a sort of shorthand word of the conception of Sargodaya. You know, I would like to think that the court has had three phases. The first is the liberal phase, post-constitutional phase in Indian socialism, when it spoke about property rights protected. It's second was the socialist phase in the 70s and 80s, where it sort of accepted by nationalization, accepted in many ways workers rights and was a pre-proponent of if all of us recall of even tenants rights and various pro-socialist causes. And then turning around of all this in the libertarian phase is the liberalization which happens in the post-90s. So that's the phase which sort of takes socialist demands. So maybe the interpretation of the court has varied from time to time and context to context. Now, coming to the other word which I sort of said that I will discuss as part of the talk is secularism. Secularism has, you know, people in our history discuss a long history of secularism, starting from Ashoka, Alkuba, Arshwarda. But I don't want to go into that because, you know, I don't know what sort of governance Ashoka had and Albar had or Arshwarda had at that point. And yes, they may have been tolerant, but, you know, we don't have constitutional law which goes back in that law. It would be difficult for us to take out Chanakya's Arthashashtra or Arbarnama and sort of try to translate what sort of constitution thinking may be. We have indicators of that, but I don't think we can draw final conclusions of what sort of state policy arose based on these sort of principles or based on these dates. I know that there are big edicts of Ashoka indicating what sort of ideology he said, but it's very difficult to make out an argument in constitutional law based on these sort of declarations. But if we have to trace the word secularism, secularism as we know it, I think it could be traced in constitutional law as we know it today from the 1858 declaration which happens after 1857. As we all know, 1857, a large component of 1857 was the perceived attempt of the British to impose religion on the people of the country, so which led to wide-scale rebellion across the country. So 1858, once the British sort of win against the first war of independence fails and the British win, 1858, there is the declaration of Queen Victoria's declaration in 1858. And in 1858, it's explicit that even though we construed this to be a Christian empire, however, there will be no interference in the religion. People, that becomes a late motive of British Indian judicial thinking. If anyone knows what is the history of that, we'll talk about a large number of judgments both in Diren Takata High Court or Bombay High Court, Bombay High Court famously in Sunabai, which says that all this we may not agree with the contents of the religion, but we will not interfere in religion because it is not the job of the courts or the government to interfere in the religious feelings of the people. If you can recollect before 1858, there was an interference in religious thinking. If you recall, Sati was banned at that point of time and there were reforms both in Muslim law and Hindu law, which could be traced back during that specific point of time when the British, before 1858, so much so both Hindu law and Muslim law, which were amended and which were changed, were famously referred to as the Hindu law and the Anu-Mahmatan law because the changes which were brought in by the British. After 1858, it ends. The government decides that it will treat all religions equally, even though ironically it had its own religion, explicitly it had its own religion. Up to Government of India Act and all Governments of India Act specifically, and this is interesting to note, all Governments of India Act specifically acknowledged the role of the Anglican Church. However, including the 1935 Government of India Act. However, interestingly, it said that the government shall not interfere into the religious beliefs of the people and decides to keep away from that.  But I'll just say this, that when partition happened, even Baba Sai and Ambedkar in the Constitutional Assembly specifically said that this constitution has been, this country has been formed on the basis of a communal majority. It says because the majority was formed because of the community. So even that was accepted when the Constitution was framed. However, something which needs to be noted and noted very specifically is there was a clear consensus that we were going to have a secular state. And this was across the board. Shama Prushad Mukherjee, Shama Prushad Mukherjee who was a member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly and during the violence which preceded partition on numerous, on numerous occasions, at that act, the then Muslim government which was running Bengal at that point on the ground that it was not acting in a secular manner, that there was discrimination between different regions. So, and at the Constitutional Assembly, even when Shama Prushad Mukherjee was a participant, it wasn't clear across the board, across the spectrum, whether one thinks that it was given that the Constitution was secular, that the state which India wanted to form was a secular state. Interestingly, and this is at the time the Constitutional Assembly debates, Sardar Patel at the time of framing of the minorities rights in which the reporter, which was submitted by Sardar Patel spoke very eloquently on protection of minority rights, but he also stressed that it's important for the minorities to be willing to merge themselves eventually in being Indians and being part of part of being Indians. So, he said, so he though he sort of spoke against separatism, minority separatism, he said eventually, you know, we have to protect minority rights because, you know, they have, we have to look after them till they can be part of the mainstream. You know, so, secularism and the Constitution, after the Constitutional Assembly debates was never explicitly a part of the Constitution, but it was taken to be across the board to be sort of inherent in the Constitution. There was protection of minority rights in Article 29 and 30, and very interesting the Constitution in Article 26 actually gave, which is unusual in any Constitutional world, give a group right to religion, which is very unusual, but all of us who live in India know that there are different interpretations of every religion that we know in India. Every religion has different sex and irrespective of where they are from, and they have their own interpretations. The Constitution of India, unusually for any other Constitution, protected that. The Supreme Court posting dependence, you know, from the very beginning, it was very clear that it believed that from the word go that secularism actually meant toleration, that everybody should tolerate everybody. The state should stay away from, you know, as they would say, Sarvatharmasamavad, treat everybody equally, the state should treat everybody equally. As I said, a history of which would be sort of traced to 1858, and the way the British approached governance of this country. From Sardar to Herupinsaid, now which is not like the excommunication case, Bombay's communication case, this was the British one before, which very explicitly upheld. Kishananda Bharati sort of said that secularism is basic structure because what was explicit, you know, this was implicit in the Constitution, and it sort of pushed forward the formulation, which was there before, but it sort of came to the public and came to be enthanced as a principle of constitutional law when it formulated that secularism actually means Sarvatharmasamavad, equal distance from all religions. And that famous formulation from the Panishads which said, ekam sadh debra bahuda vadanti, that is one truth. And, you know, people look at it from, the wise look at it from different angles. You know, when I was looking at it, and there's only one parallel which I could find, and it's interestingly that parallel actually comes from Indonesia. Indonesia is another secular country, multiracial secular country. Indonesia has a principle called pinak tundar ikka, which means that, you know, you may have different perceptions, but there is one truth, but the different perceptions of that truth. And it comes from a Javan, old Javanese sort of interpretation of governments, which said that, you know, there has to be amenity between different religions. It was said in context of Shaivite, Hindus and Buddhists and their differences, but then that came to be sort of dominant thinking in Indonesia and still sort of exists today, as you all know, through Panjshila, which is part of the governing principles of Indonesian constitution. But there are these wonderful parallel, irrespective of nominally what religion, dominant religion exists in these two countries, but the Indian heritage which underlines all this is very, very similar that, you know, there is one truth and people should look at it you know, differently. But sort of this seems to have been, again, the courts taken since areas Ahmedabad where the court took that point of view. The point of departure, this is something which is interesting to discuss off this principle secularism comes in Esalbomai. Esalbomai is of course those judgments which happen where governments of the BJP governments are dismissed on the grounds that they have violated principles of secularism, even those governments which were actually never involved in in the Ramchana movement, but merely because BJP was construed to be part of the Ramchana movement, so all governments were dismissed and Supreme Court upheld those dismissals and Supreme Court then formulated what is called positive secularism that you have to secularism is positive, you have to act in terms of, you know, positively to ensure that you're secular. Interestingly, the Supreme Court also sort of at that point of life adopted in Esalbomai an interpretation which was very American, it said there should be a wall between the judge and state and which is like the American formulation of the American Constitution says there's a Chinese wall between the judge and state. Now this is of course a very American formulation of secularism of religion and religion in judge and state, but this is not something which is very Indian at all. Now of course the Supreme Court walked back from that, walked back from that in Ismail Falooji, which is the Ramchana movement, first part of the Ramchana movement judgment which happens at that point in Terry Motors, when it's sort of Justice Parma again came back to that principle that we have to be the definition of secularism is, you know, toleration and equal toleration, everybody on the state should serve them some above and state should stay away from all religions and all religions should tolerate each other and it has, it sort of came away from that principle of positive secularism, a Chinese wall between the church and the state which is an extremely westernized formulation. Interestingly, the Balasai Thakari judgments with also Justice Parma was then presided over that bench as well, sort of said that this is part of Indian culture and, you know, with these judgments also known as the Hindu judgments, but he basically came to formulation that what you are construing is Hinduism today, it's part of Indian culture and in many ways, little bit, indistinguishable. Most interesting and this is, so this Supreme Court finally comes around in Bal Patil where for the first time the court sort of decries the fact that there can be sort of attempts to create identities and it says that, you know, identity formation on the way, on this religion itself, something to be decried because at the end of the day you all have to become Indians. So in the end, you know, I would sort of, in conclusion, I would say that we seem to have, the court seems to have defined both these words secularism and socialism in some way. I think secularism, it's very, very clear, the courts have defined secularism as that. That's the definition which is very different from the western formulation of secularism which sort of says that there has to be a wall between the church and the state. Now, of course, this is a raging debate in France, there is a different conception of secularism people are saying is a lacy thing, which means that equality, everybody is forced to be equal and irrespective of religion. But, you know, we have our own formulation, whether we call it secularism, whether we call it toleration, but basically religion between religion and the state. But I don't think secularism is a word which defines that because secularism has a very clear connotation of what it means. And I always say that you can't call a horse a dog because it is something else. The two animals are different. Apples and oranges are not the same thing. Same thing with socialism. Socialism, we've come to define socialism as, in some time, India's not another court has said that socialism is a mixture of Gandhianism and Marxism, but increasingly, Krishna in his judgments continuously said there's the integral yoga of socialism. Basically, you have an Indian version of socialism, which is more akin to something like Sarvodaya. So my view is that if you're going to have these terms, which are completely Indian, which are completely moved from the meanings of these actual meanings of these terms, why keep them at all? What is the relevance of the wine system them at all? We know that these, and as I said, you know that these terms are implicit into the constitution. There are clear, clear consensus that these are extremely implicit in the constitution, implicit because in India, historically, culturally, civilizationally, we've always believed in toleration. In India, there is no government which can ever say that it's against the poor. So it has to have all these two governing principles which implicit in the constitution. Why need to use Western equivalences of that? These are, these are legitimate questions. And most importantly, and most importantly, we also have to realize that the amendments to the preamble of the constitution was made in a, in a peculiar context, was made by Indira Gandhi, Srimati Indira Gandhi during, during the time of the emergency and was made because of the politics of that time. I'm not passing a value judgment, it was clearly motivated because there were two competing parties, there was the Jansang, there was the Swarajya party and sort of both were made in the politics of, of those times. And why be hostage to that? These are, these are genuine questions and all of us know both these terms, the validity of both these terms and whether they're valid, invalid, whether amendments were valid or not are pending before the court and the court is sort of looking into it. We don't know when that will happen. These are questions which need to be considered. I as a person sort of endorse what Babasaheb said in relation to this entire debate, that's my personal stand. My personal stand is, is that I'm sort of illustrated with what Babasaheb said. K.T. Shah who was socialist at the, in the constitution assembly debates sort of tried to insert the words, these two words socialist, I think they were, he tried to insert them four times and four times the constitution assembly actually rejected these two words to be inserted in the constitution even though there was quite an explicit sort of agreement and that these were implicit into the constitution. So there was no question of debate about them but it rejected it. And in the end, I think when there was a final attempt which was made by K.T. Shah which was sort of struck down by, which was rejected by the constitution assembly, Babasaheb gets up and says very, very interesting that, you know, these are value-related terms. Why burden the constitution which is for future, which is to govern future generations with values which mean, mean different things in the future. Why constrain them? Why not allow them to think for themselves? And that is actually what we have done. We've defined these two words in our own terms. We know what we mean by, when we use these terms, we mean very different from what these terms mean in the West. And therefore, I would say that, you know, my agreement with Babasaheb is, Babasaheb Amitkar is quite in that these two words are implicit. These two conceptions of governance both of, as we say, toleration as well as being appropriate are implicit in the constitution. But I am skeptical of using Western equivalent terms which have, which are value-related in themselves because they come from very westernised background into the constitution. Thank you very much. The staff had gone by this time. Therefore, I had to do the self-service for all this. So, two questions have come. Rishabh Soni says what was Mahatma Gandhi's view on socialism according to you? According to me, as I said, Mahatma Gandhi's view was largely on two principles. One was Sarvodaya, which means you can't have an English translation of the word Daya. Daya for everybody. Sarv means for all. And the other was trusty, which said that the rich should put proper trusty for the poor. And rent labour, everybody should work for them. Yes, we understand. Rishabh Soni says what are the challenges of our cultural practices in the name of secularism? As I said, you know, if you remove the western terminology of that, I don't think in the way the court interprets it. I don't think there are, if it's about Sarvodharma Samavav and Ekamsa Vipravadant, then I don't think there should be a problem. I think all the problems arise is when we insert the westernised conceptions of secularism into Indian constitution law, to which Babasaheb actually, Babasaheb Ambedkar actually models it. There were two questions. I was just trying to watch it on the YouTube. You don't have any questions. So you have actually rightly subtly put across as to how we have all developed in the way of secularism and secularism. And what the Lobo is normally said, sabka saap sabka vikas, that is the entire concept for the purposes of where you personally feel that the society can build together. And what we normally say that I is illness and we is wellness. So as long as we are all living in togetherness, that's the best way to move across in the society. And I feel that if we imbibe that we have to pull each one up, push down the line, the BPR level etc will all improve. And it's always going to betterment for the society at large. So it was good to connect you Victor on the platform and congratulations for shifting to the new accommodation. And everyone stay safe and stay blessed. Yeah. Thank you.


Hello and welcome to the Ed Hodl Show presented by Buffalo Wildlings. I'm Greg Royce showing my students and head football coach, Ed Hodl. Coach, last Saturday you hit your homecoming game against Wilkes, big crowd, great win, just a great day overall. Just kind of talk about everything that went on on Saturday. Crowd was awesome. You know, that home field advantage is something that we really enjoy here at Mustang Stadium and it's great to have the support of the students, the alumni, the faculty and staff. You know, and also I think, you know, a big thank you to everybody that puts on that type of event and having that many people here, Paul and Mike in the athletic department and you guys obviously, security guys, facilities guys at work and doing different stuff. There's a lot of moving parts to putting on a football game where, you know, we're going to have 3,000 or 4,000 people in attendance. So a big thank you to those guys and we're just happy to do our part and, you know, win the football game. Yeah. Speaking of the football game, obviously, big story, obviously, Chas Lyles the day he had, you know, threw for two touchdowns, ran for one and caught one. Just to talk about, you know, the type of play and what he's meant to your program this year and what he went on Saturday. Well, obviously, I think when you look at a day like that and, you know, as you kind of reflect on the game, post game, you start to wonder if you've ever been around to performance like that. And I know personally for me, I have not, you know, a guy that throws for two touchdowns, runs for one and catches another one and goes over 100 yards receiving. I think is a credit to his work ethic and practice. I think it's a credit to him as an individual and what he brings to the table, athletically, but also from a mental perspective and how he prepares through film study and things like that. I also give, you know, great credit to the offensive staff and being creative and putting him into situations where he can make those dynamic type plays from just about anywhere on the field. Certainly he's going to be a guy that our opponents are going to have to keep an eye on moving forward. Yeah. Another thing in the game, obviously a couple unusual plays, you know, that you guys are going to take advantage of. One was the muffed punt that you turned to a score and then the kickoff right starts like a half that you were able to get. And again, just to see if his team has a knack for taking those kinds of plays, being on the right side of them and converting them and turning them into points. Well, I think you look at the punt, you know, that's again, something that, you know, we weren't great at early in the season and Coach McCrae's kind of, you know, taking ownership of that group and really worked with them, you know, throughout the season and practice and where to be, you know, positionally when the returner catches the ball and, you know, and Vince was in the right spot at the right time and was just working and it was a hustle play. And I think that, I think the kickoff, if you ask Coach Nelson, he'll tell you we scripted it that way. I've never seen a ball come off of a helmet like that in all the years I've been doing this.  So, you know, exciting, so very excited. Yeah, and then talk about, you know, the job the defense did, you know, kind of a different look you got from Wilkes to make some of the other teams you play a little bit more through the air as opposed to the ground, but for the most part, they did a good job of containing them and also making plays when they had to. Like they were able to move the ball, but at the same time, when they get down the red zone, you were able to come up with some stops. Sure.   I mean, I don't know that we'll see another quarterback that's as good at extending plays as he is. And, you know, we knew we'd have our hands full and that's not necessarily something that, you know, you could talk about it, you can look at it on film, but it's incredibly hard to replicate in practice. I know they tried, but something that's difficult to prepare for.  Now you've got your bi-week this week coming up. I'm kind of, what's the plan this week with kind of, you know, the staff and, you know, obviously, we practiced a couple of times, but just kind of to have that chance to have a little downtime to kind of maybe get some guys healthy. And that's the key, you know, for us is, you know, we, our kids haven't had more than a single day off since August the 6th. So for us, it's getting them rested, getting them the extra treatments, getting them, you know, just downtime, you know, time to catch up on their homework, staff wise, you know, we're going to take advantage and hit the road and do some recruiting. Yeah. You know, it's an opportunity to get out a little bit before everybody else does, you know, the mad dash will start after the 11th week of the season, but it gives us an opportunity to get out late enough where it can be a meaningful visit with a potential recruit, but we still got football to play. So we've got kind of one hand in the recruiting jar this week as well as the game prep. So. Right, because obviously you still got, you know, obviously two regular season games and hopefully at least one post-season game to get prepared for. Absolutely. A lot of football. We got to play a lot of work yet to do as we look into the next month. And the key for our guys is getting the much needed rest and getting as healthy as we can be for two weeks. Yeah. All right, coach. We'll enjoy a little bit of downtime for you and your staff and your players, and we'll chat next week. Thanks, Greg. All right, for Ed Hoddle, I'm Greg Royce. This has been the Ed Hoddle Show.


where Deaf West is going from here, what DJ has been doing, and so I'll just start our conversation. So DJ, I'd love to hear you talk a bit about how you got into theater and how you arrived at Deaf West. I was actually lucky enough to grow up in Riverside and then moved to East Florida. My parents had taken me to a Deaf West show, so they had taken me to several of their shows and that theater just became something that was in my art that just became a part of me. And after I graduated from Gallaudet University, I moved down there because I thought that LA thought, I thought they had the best artistic community of Deaf people, so I wanted to be part of that community and the biggest reason that community is there is because the Deaf West theater has been there. So that was kind of how I slowly became involved and started to just scrape by with jobs, cleaning floors, moved up to production and writing and just kind of worked my way up and I became the artistic dresser at the education Ed Warner retreat, Water Street. And I was there for three, I was there three and a half years ago and they had given me that position to account, so. Great, great. One thing that Deaf West theater did in 1991, so that was 25, we had our 25th anniversary this year. Well, it has really, really strong history. And I've always thought of Washington DC as having a very strong Deaf community because of Gallaudet there. New York has a lot of people just because it has a wonderful arts community and a robust cultural sector and also even Rochester, New York. So it's great to hear that Los Angeles also has a strong disability or a Deaf arts community. So could you talk a little bit about how, about Deaf West's approach to theater production, what the process is from conception to performance and how Deaf artists are incorporated with hearing artists? So our mission for the theater company is to bridge Deaf and hearing communities and bring them together through theater. But there's still, you know, we've got to look at our Deaf audience members first. You know, what is it that most is most important to them and the accessibility to the language, the sign language and making sure that everything in our show is signed or is captioned and is accessible. Then from there we can figure out the speaking parts. So our mission is to set that up, lead by example. You know, an accessible approach, welcoming hearing and Deaf patrons together and or theater to watch the same show, but through different lenses. And you can't just say that the hearing and Deaf people are having the same experience and feeling the same ways in each show, but at the same time, you know, they're having access to the same show and they can have these same discussions and we think that's a beautiful thing and should be happening more often. Also we want to emphasize that the Deaf audience members are the most important part of our company. The Deaf people give most of the funding to our theater, the ones who do that. And because of that, we want more artists. We want more theaters. We want them to be invested in our theater as opposed to hearing individuals who may be, you know, they're fascinated by our theater and then they leave after five years. So the Deaf audience members and the Deaf patrons, they know that we're here to stay and that they want us to continue and do more of what we're doing. So how is sign language or even captioning incorporated into the shows so that both hearing audiences and Deaf audiences are able to access it? Scribe that a little bit. Well, we are a bilingual approach to theater. So we put sign language front and center and sometimes we'll have a voice speaking actor in front of them, next to them or behind them during the show and there's a diverse way of approaching that. There's no rule for how we might do that. We would give our directors freedom to play around with whatever, we don't tell them or dictate, we can tell them you can try one of several things but they also know that from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that there are limitations. For example, sign language, you can't have your back to the audience and be signing this way. You've got to make sure that you're front and center and signing visibly and also clearly. So that's a big part of our process. But first we like to play around with it during rehearsals and see what works and what doesn't work and then if we feel that this is becoming a problem or it's restraining us, then we figure that part out later. We actually have a huge, it's a huge process. For example, right now I'm speaking through an interpreter and the interpreter I just met today for the first time. So that kind of information and how you express those features through, it's a filter that you're getting filtered through. It's like any language. We've got a beautiful language and it's everybody that knows ASL, we play with that language. And it's mobile and the boundaries are constantly being broken and tested. So we wish we had a way to bring that to the spoken language. But at the same time, the audience members who are deaf, they say, hey, we wish they would have said this or they would have said that. They always have that disconnect between the two languages that happen. And sometimes they just get that connection and it works. I mean, if it happened all the time, that way it'd be boring. But we like to be able to play with different things. So does that answer your question? Yeah, I'm definitely interested in that process. Is it a longer process in the play development in the rehearsal process? Is it lengthened, is it also enriched in a way that other productions aren't? We actually have a team of ASL coaches for each of the actors. And they work and rehearse together and make sure that they're signing clearly. From the text, how that gets translated into sign and making sure that translation is appropriate and based on the writer's intent, different intent, different interests. There are many levels to that. So really, it's a long process and we tend to take about a week focusing on just reading the script and signing and the translation into sign language. And at the same time, we have to teach the hearing actors sign language along the way. So they've got to rehearse themselves and it's fascinating just how fast they learn it. It's not hard. It's just, it requires a commitment and an understanding and motivation. And by the end of the show, the hearing, they're going along just as well, well enough to converse with us actors that are deaf. They're just all together and it's a beautiful thing. I was able to see a little bit of that in action, not necessarily in person, but there were a lot of videos posted, video blogs that the actors posted. And you could see the camaraderie behind stage among the cast members and in the interviews that they did with the press, you could see the people that were double cast in the same role, the hearing and the deaf actors. They seem to have a real bond because they're playing the same character. So does that enrich the experience or the product that you're trying to achieve? The connection between them and do you ever have actors that don't get along in those pairs? You don't have to name names. Oh, definitely. Yes, you always have one or two bad ones. No, I'm kidding, I'm so kidding. But really, yes, each person has their own diverse, everybody brings something else. Some people pick it up overnight, some people really struggle and they have a hard time with it. And it's hard for hearing people to know how they feel. Sometimes you have to speak and sign at the same time. So that's a challenge for everyone, even me as a deaf person, I can't do that. So it's a challenge for all of them as well. And I think that number one, we have to recognize that everything is done in service of the play, of the production and in service of the story that's being told and everything else becomes secondary. You really have to look at what the experience should be to make sure that it's entertainment for our audience. And that's our responsibility to our patrons and our audience instead of focusing on the actors or all of the stuff behind the scenes. So there's a balance that we have to keep and we've got to keep that in perspective. And also, I wanted to mention that because we have that, so to speak, limitation of sign language, we're actually making art that is something new and it's something different. And it's the hearing actors through that experience, often they just, they love it, they fall in love with it, they keep coming back. So one of our actors who's from Broadway from Spring Awakening had mentioned that they'd been in many Broadway shows and it was the first time that they finally knew what to do with his hands. So that was kind of interesting to me. Instead of the issue of just having jazz hands, what do I do with my hands here? So it was something that was really interesting to me and at the same time, the issue of the choreography that was supporting the music and at the same time, accessibility too. So we had to think of several things at the same time. And really, we wanted to know there's in more theater sign language is something they wanna know. Well that's one of the things that I know was going to be one of the themes for the day that supporting artists with disabilities, creating opportunities for art making, by people with disabilities, is innovative. It drives innovation. It's not, quote, charity. It's creating art in a new way and in a different way that's more innovative and adds to the repertoire. It adds to our experience. Is that what, is that the reaction that you get from the public when you perform? It's an interesting experience because we've been in LA for 25 years and LA is used to us. They keep coming to see our shows. We've got a great audience. We always sell out at our shows. So then we come to New York and we meet people that they say, you're moving your hands too much. Why are you moving your hands so much? We have to explain it to them. It's sign language and it's part of the show. So we've really found that the education piece is ongoing. It never stops. It's endless. We've got to keep explaining it and educating people as to what we do and sign language and why we have deaf actors on the same stage. So yeah, the experience of going to New York and performing there made me realize how long we still have to go. Yeah, yeah. I think it takes a lot of awareness raising. And we saw with Spring Awakening so many people saw it and really appreciated the unique approach. And so hopefully that did make an impact. And speaking of which, Spring Awakening was the first show to a Broadway production to also feature a wheelchair user. And so what was your experience or at least your colleagues experience, the directors, in bringing Allie Stroker into the show and since this conversation today is about a broad range of disability, I'm sure you have some things to share about what was learned about how to incorporate someone using a wheelchair when the Broadway houses are so narrow and inaccessible. Yeah, I think it goes back to our small first production of Spring Awakening in LA. And I can remember when Allie came in and we walked in, she came in the room and I remember some people next to me got a little nervous. So, but we definitely know we have to do things like that. It's, she's a very talented woman. She's an amazing actor. She's a great singer. And we knew that we had to make that happen because of our experience and making accessibility and if making room for deaf people with accessibility we need to apply the same principle to others. So that was a discussion that we had for a long time from the opening show, asking her questions, making sure that that was the type of dialogue that was open and sharing. So, and we learned a lot too in that process. So then we came to New York and really it was a huge change. The theater was not accessible and we really had to pay from our own pockets to make sure that the theater was accessible for Allie and the door frames, the width of them were appropriate for her and also the new bath, they had to build a new bathroom for her. And we had to build a ramp, just so many things, everything, it would cost money and we just, we found donations, we found investors who were willing to support that. We were very fortunate to have that. And for me, it was fascinating just how, you know, how we found that out in the first place. The first person with a wheelchair ramp on Broadway, we didn't, we couldn't even believe that at first. We thought there had to, we did some searching and sure enough we found out, we asked the Alliance for the inclusion information and we said, is this actually true that she's the first person on Broadway and we were floored, we couldn't believe that. So yeah, it was also fascinating for me as a deaf person, how people were just so thrilled and celebrated Allie, you know, and her arrival on Broadway at the same time having deaf actors, they thought that was no big deal. They were more excited by Allie, like I've always seen that before. So to see the change, it's not a bad thing at all and it's certainly, there was no jealousy or animosity, but for me it was interesting because as a deaf actor, you know, it was the first time that we had that kind of awareness in the community, you know, compared to the wheelchair community. So it was interesting, at the same time we were all in the same boat together. You know, we were a group of artists, disability artists and hopefully we were growing together and we'll continue to grow together, that's important to me. That's great. I think it was just, it was a really important moment to have so many talented people on Broadway. You know, this past year they've talked about how of all the shows on Broadway and those nominated for Tony Awards, there was so much more diversity represented than say the Oscars which people had complained about. So do you see this as creating forward momentum with having more people with disabilities in theater in general or Broadway in specific? I know we have Glassman Ashery coming up with a second wheelchair user on Broadway, but do you see other movements forward coming out of this? Yeah, I could see some ripple effects from that, definitely. Yeah, but at the same time being aware of the deaf people in the media and in television and film and theater, you know, since I was a little boy and I know enough to understand that while that happens in waves, I think a pendulum is always gonna swing. And hopefully we can keep up with that when it swings, you know, as long as we can. Personally, it just, I have a long perspective of on things, instead of trying to worry about what's gonna happen next year or what other shows are coming up, I wanna make sure that we're making art that is sustainable and interesting and new. And it's from our own perspective and our own voice. That's more important to me than having more of it and rushing out to, you know, striking while the iron's hot.  I'd like to see all of them just doing more in the future. So that's the long-term perspective, I think. Well, hopefully we'll be able to see that continue. I like to see it, you know, there's the pendulum metaphor. I also like to see it as that pendulum is on a little rack and the rack is constantly moving forward, even though the pendulum might be swinging back. The thing that it's on is still moving forward. I hope. Yeah, Mohammed moving the mountain. Yeah, yeah. So what important part of this is actually having plays about the experience of having a disability or being tough. Do you see more plays being written by deaf playwrights or about the deaf experience? And what can we do to foster more plays? That's tough to answer and it's one that I'm trying to solve. I've been trying to solve for a while. The theater itself is not accessible and it is not an accessible art form for disabled people. So Deaf West is fortunate that it's in my backyard and I've learned how to appreciate theater from Deaf West. They've given me that, you know, but really that's not something you have all over the US. That experience doesn't exist for others. So you've got to start young and increase our art education, making sure that it's out there and that deaf kids get access to theater so that they later feel the motivation to make that choice to go into theater. And I'm not saying that they have no deaf, we have deaf writers, of course, but we just really need to develop an infrastructure for the deaf writers to be able to develop their work. With other hearing artists, deaf artists, it doesn't matter who they collaborate with, but that the deaf writer, that they're all working alone in silos and my goal is to bring them together. And also that at that level that, you know, knowing that English is not our first language. So we're writing in our second language, so to speak, so there's that mindset. So we've got to find a way to empower the deaf writers to write in their first language as well and find ways to translate that into a theater form. There are, I've met a few people from theaters here today and I know with the Hall around audience we'll have theater people out there. What would you recommend for theater companies around the country that might want to include more deaf actors, more plays about the deaf experience? How, what recommendations do you have for including those actors, whether they're in a deaf role or not, in a role that's written for a deaf character or not? My vice is always the same thing. I have one piece of advice I always give. Get deaf people involved in the process. Deaf people, you know, we are your best advocates and allies. We have the answers to give, we know what it takes, we understand what the process will entail and what it looks like, so we are your best resource. And also the other thing, be willing to learn and be open to that. You know, your heart has to be in the right place. And I don't mean that, you know, I often meet some people who are very motivated by, you know, deaf artists and disability artists because of the opportunity for public relations or for financial reasons. And I recognize that that doesn't work. It's in the long run, it won't be successful. Your heart has to be in the right place for that. And I think we have, everybody in the room definitely has their hearts in the right place, so it's just figuring out how to make it work. So you're talking about students and kids that are interested in this. What suggestions would you have for deaf artists or artists with disabilities who want to have a career in the arts? What would you recommend as they're in school and as they're looking at college and training and moving out into the world? That's a tough question to answer. I wish it was an easier road for them. I really do wish that we had paved it for them and that there were ramps with interpreters lining the side of the road, but really it's hard. You have to have perseverance and just keep going and envision and you have to have the motivation. And it makes me sad to see people who give up.  And that makes me sad because today's world was not designed for us. And we might get there, like you were saying, that pendulum in the rock keeps moving. We might get there, but for now we've got to actually just keep going in our dreams and just keep the dream alive. Great. So let's talk a little bit about deaf culture. And what, there's a term that has been going around called deaf gain. And I think we can learn a lot from it for the rest of the disability community, but could you explain what deaf gain is and what we can gather from that and apply it to other parts of the disability world? Well, the word deaf gain is actually kind of a play on words related to hearing loss. So it's a reversal of hearing loss and it's a reflection to something that's a benefit that deaf people have over other individuals. So for example, because I don't have a microphone in my hands, I can express myself openly and you can see all of my face and I'm sorry I had no offense to you, you've got to. But because I'm deaf, you know, I'm able to communicate at six months old with my parents. You know, I could tell them I wanted milk. This is the sign for milk. I had that advantage over hearing babies. Because I'm deaf, I have the ability, more ability to see in my peripheral vision and see a powerful field of peripheral vision, like what he's doing over here more than hearing people might notice would tend to see this young lady over here. So we're more sensitive. We rely on our eyes and eye contact. We're very visual people. Our meetings tend to go very well because we're always, you know, there's one person speaking at a time. There's turn taking. We require more collective effort and collaboration in one room to make sure everybody's in line with what's going on that that process is effective and we have that advantage over a hearing people, a hearing individuals who run the same kind of meeting. So it could also apply to other disabilities as well. For example, sign language itself as a language, you know, is a blessing. We feel fortunate to have it. It's part of our rich community with a beautiful language that we enjoy and we play with and that grows with us and that also applies to theater. You know, we feel like we're in the, it's just the tip of the iceberg. So, you know, there's more to come. We're gonna see it grow and hopefully that community will become more mainstream. Does that get to the heart of what you wanted to ask me? Yeah, I think so. What I was thinking about also is David's performance this morning revealed the benefits to his disability for certain roles that he could have that involves someone missing a hand and the often gruesome ways that he can get roles and the benefit of that. And I was just referring to the one with the sword. I still have that image in my head. So, you know, so there are ways that the disability can be of benefit. So, and I think people just need to take that forward. And it brings me to my other question that I wanted to bring out. A DJ did a TEDx talk. Oh, before you go on to that, I actually have one thing I wanted to add. Because we're trying to communicate with, you know, our hearing parents as children, I've noticed that many deaf actors, they're great actors because of that. They have a head start on that miming, gesturing, acting things out, trying to get their needs met.  So that process of growing up with that, that body language really becomes, is a head start for them. Overhearing performers. So that's just, that's a generalization. It's not all people, but, you know, in general, I think that's an advantage for us. And also the other thing is that deaf people tend to always be, we wear our heart on our sleeve. It's, you've really got to communicate using your eyes and eye contact. So it's harder for us to lie. We have to maintain eye contact while we do it. So it's a talent that we learn is how to communicate. And that's a benefit for us on the stage. Well, I had the idea that I wasn't going to mention Niall DeMarco, one of the currently most famous deaf individuals, because he's won two reality shows. And one of them was for his work being a model. And they were saying that it's his eyes. He's always communicated, he has a piercing stare because he's, because it is a visual language. And that's probably helped him. And then also knowing how to, his facial expressions and working with his body. And I can see that as also a benefit for actors. So, but I won't mention Niall again, so. Oh no, no, it's true. The deaf community loves Niall.  And giving back to the community that, the deaf community is just in love with him for that, so. Well, he has done a lot. It's an important part of the whole picture in the community. Yeah, he's done a lot to raise awareness of ASL education. Average person in our country doesn't understand that if children don't learn ASL from the earliest ages, that they cannot learn English as easily. And therefore, he's really advocating for that. And I think that's really important for a lot of us to know. The importance of early childhood ASL education. So, yes. And I think we all need it because, because then we can enjoy these types of productions and have more meaningful conversations. But I also wanted to mention, along those same lines, your TEDx Broadway talk, you mentioned that our quote, our limitations are our superpowers. I know we kind of got into that a bit with the deaf gain conversation, but do you have anything else, you know, what exactly you mean by that and how that can apply to your work? I think in that talk, I was talking about the process of rehearsal and of bringing in hearing actors and how they come into that process and start learning sign language and having full eye contact and becoming aware of the room and communication and the best ways to do that. And that really helps them become better actors. And, you know, by way of doing that, we really advance the field. Yeah, I can't tell you how many famous actors out there are out there that have worked with Deaf West and that they are also talking about that. They've mentioned how enriching that experience was to making them better actors and better people in general. And I think that's a beautiful thing for me. Not just that we benefit as the deaf community, but also that we're affecting the community at large and advancing the whole art form as a whole. Great, great. So, we're running up to the point where we would have some Q and A, but I just wanna see if there's, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? Yeah, no, the more questions, the better. Okay, I mean, this has been important for me and I think it's important to have the dialogue. Instead of me up here lecturing on stage, I think, yes, we're concerned with the larger picture here and that the big picture of performing with a disability and we really, that's what we really want to discuss. We wanna be able to achieve as a whole. And I think for me, that's the big question. We wanna keep it going and keep that dialogue open. Okay, speaking of which, before we move on, I wanted to point out that we handed out on the tables hand out from a online dialogue that the NEA had in conjunction with the Labor Department and the National Arts and Disability Center, an online dialogue on careers in the arts for people with disabilities. We had this back in June, it was a two week long dialogue in which around 400 people participated, posting over 100 unique ideas, numerous comments to talk about what the issues are, what are the barriers, what are the things that people can work on to remove the barriers and create more opportunities for people in the arts or people with disabilities wanting to work in the arts, whether it's as artists or as administrators or in any of the other roles. So you can take a look at this, we had some large print copies, I can also email them to anyone who needs an electronic copy. After this, right now we're developing a report and we're going to be coming up with some next steps for what we can do to continue the dialogue, so please let me know if you have any questions about that. So I guess we can open it up for questions. Hello, my name is Jackie. I'm curious if you could speak a little bit about what the lobby experience is like in these shows. For our shows that we have ASL interpretation, we find that our audience is very segregated in the lobby, who have those who can speak ASL and those who can't. And we've tried to integrate our audience for those shows and get people to make a new friend at the theater by bringing in volunteers who can speak ASL so that they can meet a new friend and have somebody there who can speak to them. But I'm curious if there are other things that we could take as maybe a best practice or do you find that your audience stays kind of segregated or how does that work? I think it's very challenging to create an audience organic environment where the hearing and deaf people can mingle together. That's always, they're separated by language, but we do, at Deaf West we do try to do some games at different exercises, charades, win or lose or draw, for example, but that kind of experience where it forces people to kind of step out of their comfort level. And before our shows we have ASL classes and we also invite the deaf audience members to join in with me as the instructor. So we bring them up, I'm like, you know the sign for that, come on up here and help me. You know, we don't have any spoken interpreter or anything like that in our ASL classes, it's all pointing out words, it's all written. So body language, communication, it's a fun experience. So that tends to break the ice a little coming in. But if we just tried to stick two people together, you know, with an interpreting student, probably be pretty hard to make that happen.  And often that experience of, you know, I've gotta now kind of deal with a hearing person, I've got enough going on in the world than adding that on top every day. So we've come to the experience to enjoy ourselves. So there's that balance that we recognize the politics of the give and take and how that's all involved. I also just want to put in a plug for hiring deaf people and your staff. I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but they're, you know, at the NEA, we've had deaf interns and there's lots of ways to communicate it with technology today. So, and then they can provide more insight into what audience members need. And so, yeah, there's a lot of accommodations and things to be used. I also want to mention that we have a, I don't want to single her out too much, but we have a person here from Dog and Pony. And she, I forget the name of it. You have these ASL chats. They're pickup? ASL pickup, where you get together and you learn and people can learn sign. We have the benefit of having Gallaudet University in Washington DC and that's where Dog and Pony is. And, you know, the neighborhoods all around Gallaudet, the waiters at the restaurants and the bars know at least some sign. So, the more, the more, because they want to be able to communicate with the students and the faculty. And so, the more that people become aware and learn some sign, and I know I need to learn some sign, and I also advocate that you start with your kids when they're really little because it's really hard when you're older, so. All right. Okay, before we give the mic to anyone else, I'm asking a question that I want to ask, and since I'm holding the mic, I'm going to do it. Totally rude, but I can do that today. I did not have a chance to see Spring Awakening on Broadway, but every time I watch the segments that I have seen online, I am blown away by the depth of it because I see interviews with the cast, and I want to take a moment to point out that you have two extraordinarily competent actors playing the same role on the stage at the same time. There's a level of ego management involved in that that kind of blows my mind, but the thing that I saw in the cast interviews and on stage was that everybody got along and it was tight. You didn't just have people working together. You created a community and a family in many ways, and I think that that is the theater experience that actors want. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about this process of creating a family where the deaf people are the center and the power, and you are bringing the hearing actors into your world, and doing it as, by the way, in a way that is so beautiful, it makes me cry, so I'm kind of a fan girl, so you can just kind of let that go. But I want you to talk a little bit about that, what that's like. Well, we just had the question asking about the organic environments and how that happens, and really it's the environment of everybody wanting to make good art. That's the number one motivation for being there. They're all actors, so we've brought people in that are trying to improve their craft, that want to be the best in their role, that are motivated to try to, and they're quick learners. They're working with another coworker, a co-team, that is there, they've got to talk about all those details, and they have high standards for themselves, and they want to make sure that they're doing a good job on the stage, and during that process, throughout that process, it just becomes natural. They naturally become family. And one other thing, there's also a learning curve, and I think that number one thing that as actors that they learn, they have to let go of their ego. And then the process of letting go of that, all of that, just it's so much easier. It just, and it's the harder part is that steep beginning of the curve, but once they get over the hump, it's everything just becomes natural. Hi, I'm Sarah. I also want to say, follow up to that, is whoever casts the show, I'm guessing they do that very well. So I don't know if that, you or not, but I think that probably has a lot to do with it. Well, we actually have our casting director, and we have the artistic director, and we have the team. But I think we're fortunate because people want to work with our theater group. Sure, yeah. Yeah, and that helps. So I have a kind of a practical question.   So did the production have to pay for those adjustments rather than the Neaterlanders who own the Brooks Atkinson where the show was on? Nope. Yeah. Yeah, don't ask me why. Betty? That theater, that Broadway is very old-fashioned in that way. Wow. Well, that blows my mind. Okay, and then my other question is, when does the tour start and where is it going and how do I make sure it comes to Pittsburgh? Hope so too, I hope it does. Yeah, we're in the process of developing the tour. So we're trying to figure out which cities, but I saw Pittsburgh is on the list, so hopefully. And Washington, D.C. And? And D.C. City Center, yes. Can I just say Sally Conway runs the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, ADA enforcement provision, and I think maybe we have to sick her on the Neaterlanders. Sorry. Yeah. Hi, my name's Claire. You touched a little bit on this before, but I'm really curious to know what your season selection process is like at Deaf West and just things that excite you in theater right now and things you wish you'd see more of? Well, both. Both, I noticed that we tend to pick shows that have meaning for the Deaf community. So for example, Spring Awakening is about a show about communication. So really, I personally didn't do that, but it hit me during the opening scene where the mother has to explain to her deaf daughter about the birds and the bees. That it's a very common experience in the Deaf community that the Deaf girls don't find out about that stuff, about the birds and the bees, until much later than most people do. So we had to find a show that has some tie to our community, but at the same time also is fun to do stuff. I mean, comedies, something that people will enjoy. We have an audience that we want and we want to keep them coming back. We don't always want to have these heavy dramatic stories. So we've got to keep it balanced. And we also have a huge children's audience so that we tailor our performances to the children as well. We really feel that having a variety to pick from keeps that audience in mind. Questions, anyone? Can I just, I want to put in a plug for a few other elements of Deaf culture and art. There is, when we talk about artist residencies, the Anderson Center in Minnesota has a residency for Deaf artists and it's primarily visual artists and writers at least at this point. They might, you know, I'm not sure if they're going to open it up to other types of artists. And two years ago they had a handful of Deaf, was it five or so? And this year they had five and it happened to be all women. And the benefit of that, you know, the goal at least in terms of, you know, from my own perspective it's great to have integrated residency experiences where you have people with them without disabilities working together. But for Deaf artists having an opportunity for everybody speaking the same language and they have the same culture. And, you know, I think those are wonderful experiences and so they just had their second round and hopefully they'll continue that. And then the other is Deaf architecture and design. I think I've mentioned Gallaudet a few times in this hour but I've worked with their architects. Deaf space? Deaf space, yes, thank you. I've worked with their, or I've met with their, the architect at Gallaudet, Hansel Bauman. H-A-N-S-E-L Bauman. And this is really amazing things that they're doing looking at color and light and arrangement of furniture and sight lines and things that most of us don't think about. You know, a lot of things that we can learn when designing spaces, setting up rooms for meetings, you know, the fact that we didn't want to be backlit here. Those are things that they bring into architecture and of course into theater. So I thought that was really fascinating and did you encounter any of that when you were, well I suppose at Gallaudet you were more focused on being a college student. But are those things that you think about when you're designing on stage and in other elements of your life? Right, yeah, we wanted to make sure that we were bringing visual equivalents to what the auditory, so for example, you know, in our theater we have subwoofers. You know, we allow deaf people to feel the beats. And we also make enough time that the lights are set up properly and that the light changing is in accordance with the music and that the mood, you know, we try to reflect what the lights are so that the mood of the lighting matches the music and that kind of thing. So we definitely may take a lot of time to do a lot of that in mind. Do what we can as much as we can as possible. And there's always a limit to that budget. That's the ceiling that you hit all the time. So there's always more we could do. But also another thing that I wanted to talk about and touch on in our conversation that I think is important, we really need to be making our own art on our own terms. Instead of waiting for the system to give us an opportunity for it. And I think that is something that's a really big takeaway from my experience as an artist and as an artistic director.  I still, I remember when I used to wait for the system to give me the opportunity, but at the same time, now I'm a little bit older, I'm a little bit wiser. And I feel that we can't wait for people to change, to adapt to us. We've, I really feel like we've gotta be more proactive in finding our opportunities ourselves and making our own art for them to become active. I think that's a great note to leave on if there's, though we don't have another question. I was just curious from an acting perspective, I know what some of the challenges that I deal with in terms of accommodation in auditions and places that are not so inclusive or inclusively minded. I'm just curious what the deaf actor experience is in that situation. I was just thinking about like when I auditioned for grad school, you know, and like if there's a young actor who wants to go to the URDAs and audition for graduate school, you know, what are, I'm just curious about what that experience is. It's pretty much the same. A lot of frustrations with the deaf actor. For example, you show up at the audition, there's no interpreter. So they've gotta bring their own interpreter, pay for their own interpreter, or often they'll have an interpreter that's an intern who probably isn't qualified. And often the interpreter will be monotone for all the, so that all the actors sound the same if they're not interpreting. So they're giving them the same feet. So it's based on your facial expression. It's based on your acting ability. And that doesn't always come through in the interpretation. So that's frustrating for the actor. So yeah, I don't know what the best way is, but it's unique and it's the ongoing education piece of it that I think the artistic directors can be more vocal and be more involved in the process. But right now it just seems that they wanna be more of a neutral party and just be the facilitator, but really they can be doing more in the system to help change the system. And it needs to change. And people need to be more aware. So yeah, it's hitting the wall. So my question for you is, DJ, what for hearing people who are auditioning deaf actors, what is the ideal situation for that audition and how should they assess the actor? Yeah, they should have a hearing perspective of a deaf person by their side. So someone that they can trust that they've worked out with that there's a dialogue and ongoing conversation. And in Deaf West theater we have that. I'm that person that does that. So I'm the person who tells the director and tells the actor, hey, you've got a very strong specific intent here. You can see the different perspectives from the deaf perspective and the hearing perspective and give that full picture that's required in a team that's requires teamwork. And often, sadly, the hearing people think that they know everything. So that's just, that tends to be common. So I wanna ask you enough. I have the mic so I'm gonna just ask this question. And it was the question that was asked to Rebecca earlier. When you are looking at theater, visual art, anything that is portraying people who are deaf, what do you want to see? I think for me, it's important that they're good. Number one, I don't wanna see bad art. But more importantly, I'm interested in their perspective. You know, what we bring to the material. Visual arts, theater, whatever it might be, making sure that we're bringing something new and that it's not just a repeat of what everybody else is doing out there. I think it's important that in our process, as deaf artists, it doesn't have to be explicit. Some deaf writers, when they write stuff for me, it's fascinating and it's fascinating because I'm paying attention to specific things that hearing people don't notice. But it's not there explicitly to the hearing people. It's not obvious to them. It's the voice that I'm looking for. And just one other topic. Since we just came off of a week of talking about accessibility and the practicality and the costs, you know, one of the fears of including, you know, people who are deaf and have other disabilities is the cost. But one of the issues raised in our round table that we had in January was when Big River was in New York, the producer said that, the theater director said that the cost really wasn't any different than, say, bringing in someone from England to come and perform and putting them up in a hotel or an apartment. That the costs really aren't that much, that they aren't any greater than any other theater cost. And I think Reagan was talking about how some of the costs associated with accommodating her really weren't any more than other things, you know, bringing in a, you know, like I think you said, bringing in a pink elephant or something, if they can bring that and they can bring in a wheelchair user, and the costs are similar to that. If Aida can have elephants and horses and things and there's a lot of costs associated with that, you know, there's all these other things are very similar to that, if that made sense. Yeah, and I think like we were talking about earlier, the cost of accessibility for the wheelchairs, I think it's like for Ali for her wheelchair was $7,000, but that's small compared to the whole budget of $4.5 million for the show itself. So when you look at the, again, talking about people who are willing to make the changes, to change their mindset and their hearts instead of looking at the budget only and what are we gonna do about this budget? You know, you have to look at the bigger picture and step back from that. I agree. Were there any other questions? Is that all? Great, thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, DJ. Thank you, thank you for having me. And thank you to the introvert. We're gonna take 15 minutes and then we'll be back. Thank you.


Installed PWAs can register as file handlers making it easy for users to open files directly from disk. The inert attribute allows you to mark parts of the DOM as inert. The navigation API makes it easier for single-page apps to handle navigation and updates to the URL. And there's plenty more. I'm Pete LaPage. Let's dive in and see what's new for developers in Chrome 102. The File Handling API allows installed PWAs to register with the OS as a file handler. Once registered, a user can click on a file and open it with the installed PWA. This is perfect for PWAs that interact with files, for example image editors, IDEs, text editors, and so on. To add file handling functionality to your PWA, you'll need to update your web app manifest, adding a file handler's array with details about the types of files that your PWA can handle. You'll need to specify the URL to open, the MIME types, an icon for the file type, and the launch type, which defines whether multiple files should be opened in a single client or in multiple clients. Then, to access those files when the PWA is launched, you'll need to specify a consumer for the launch queue object. Launches are queued until they're handled by the consumer. Tom has a great article on web.dev with all the details. The inert property is a global HTML attribute that tells the browser to ignore user input events for an element, including focus events and events from assistive technologies. This can be really useful when building UIs. For example, with the modal, you want to trap the focus inside the modal when it's visible. Or for a drawer that's not always visible to the user, adding a inert ensures that while the drawer is off-screen, a keyboard user cannot accidentally interact with it. Here, a inert has been declared on the second element containing button 2. So all content contained within this, including the button and the label, cannot receive focus or be clicked. A inert is supported in Chrome 102 and is coming to both Firefox and Safari. Check out introducing a inert on developer.chrome.com for details. Many web apps depend on the ability to update the URL without a page navigation. Today, we use the history API for this, but it's clunky and doesn't always work as expected. Rather than trying to patch the history API's rough edges, the navigation API completely overhauls this space. To use the navigation API, add a navigate listener to the global navigation object. This event is fundamentally centralized and it will fire for all types of navigations, whether the user performs an action, such as clicking on a link, submitting a form, or going backwards and forwards, even when the navigation is triggered programmatically. In most cases, it lets your code override the browser's default behavior for that action. Check out the article Modern Client-Side Routing, the navigation API on developer.chrome.com for complete details and a demo that you can try out. Of course, there's plenty more. The new Sanitizer API aims to build a robust processor for arbitrary strings to be safely inserted into a page. And the hidden until found attribute makes it possible for the browser to search for text in hidden regions and reveal that section if a match is found. All the details including links, docs, and specs are in the updates post linked in the description. Hit the subscribe button now so that you don't miss any of the latest Chrome DevTools videos, GUI challenges, HTTP203, and more. I'm Pete LePage and as soon as Chrome 103 is released, be right here to tell you what's new in Chrome.