A TIME TO WORK AND A TIME TO STRIKE

With civil activism at its height, how could I not devote a few moments to it? In India, we have been generally respectful of authority and this has its pluses and minuses. Activism has not been a transforming element of the social fabric, as it has been in many other parts of the world.

We have looked upon dharnas, bandhs, chakka jams, rail rokos as forms of protests and more often than not, it is always ‘their’ battle, the doctors, government employees, the truckers or the Jats, who from time to time have had their grievances addressed in such fashion. 

Our activism has never been channelized, as in campus reforms in Japan or opposition to the Vietnam war in America. Reforms in Education and Health, badly needed in India, have not yet been taken up by activists and voices are never raised for changes in curriculum, working conditions for teachers, youth issues and of course, affordable health care for all. We even don’t protest against unsuitable and imported changes in work culture and lifestyle!

Corruption, without doubt, has percolated to every walk of life and uprooting it is a daunting task. Stories of corruption in schools and offices, shops and stores are frightening! No wonder, it is difficult to even believe the degree of malpractices in high places! It is when power is hijacked that corruption raises its ugly head to benefit a few. In the process, everyone suffers, those who have to cough up huge sums and those who have to painstakingly hide their loot!

I was shocked to hear the government spokesperson say that Anna Hazare’s demand for a joint committee, with members from the government and civil society, on formulation of the Lok Pal Bill, was unconstitutional. In their view, civil society cannot be involved in bill formation as it is the duty of the parliament and legislature to initiate reforms! How much more dictatorial can an elected government get! Congress must tread carefully; else its statements may just fan the embers of the movement.

Corruption has to be tackled at all levels by all those who are affected by it. Yet again it is for the powerful to do it…you need power to change a system! So I wish Anna Hazare all the best and hope his band of social activists is able to deliver on their promise to the nation.

As one who lived in Bihar, during the tumultuous years, I cannot but draw comparisons to the student movement of 1974, and wait with trepidation, for the impact and result of the call given by Anna Hazare, on the public in general and students in particular.

Around, 1974, Jayaprakash Narayan gave a clarion call to all students in Bihar, to put on hold their their studies for a more important social cause, a peaceful total Revolution, against misrule and corruption in the government. Later it grew into a people’s movement and spread to other states of India. On the national level, after the infamous Emergency, the result was historical; the first non-congress government was formed in Delhi in 1977. It had altogether a different end in Bihar, one from which I feel, the state is yet to recover completely.

Before JP’s call, Bihar was caught in the throes of the Naxalite movement, which had its roots in rural Bihar- it began as a fight against the strong landlord-bureaucrat-politician nexus.  I lived in South Bihar, in  the steel city of Jamshedpur, and going by the events one read in the newspaper, a town which was comparatively, less affected. These naxals resorted to violence and some factions openly declared that  ‘If you kill one, we shall kill four’. Loot and kidnapping was the order of the day.

The state responded by putting its favourite machinery into action- the oppressive police force. Police atrocities were the talk of the town - frequent raids, destruction of household property, threats and intimidation, using abusive language towards women, arrests without warrants and then imprisonment without trial, and sometimes torture in prison. In towns like Jamshedpur, the innocents too paid a price.

Early one morning, the police came to the house of my neighbour and picked up their 19 yr old son, T. He was the eldest of four brothers, sons of a soft spoken and hardworking engineer. The family was shattered to learn that the arrest was a case of mistaken identity. The boy had been subject to third degree torture in police custody. No compensation was paid, no compensation could restore their normalcy. Another afternoon, we saw the  police at the house of another neighbour, with a truck in tow, for ‘kudki’ ie, confiscation of household items to bring an errant son down on his knees. No body bothered about the family.

However, life in remote villages continued to reel under much inequality, extreme poverty and oppression on a daily basis and these issues were not directly on the agenda of the 1974 movement, and as a result, there was little improvement in these aspects.

JP’s call brought out all the students, young men in large numbers and  even women  and girls from schools and colleges, small children, the common man on the street, and the teachers, and writers - all joined the campaign of chain fasting. When the movement intensified, in bigger towns, people stopped going to office to make the dharnas successful. 

Schools and colleges stopped functioning, and administration came to a grinding halt. Everyone identified themselves with JP’s cause. However, the political and social outcomes had far reaching effects.  The movement did not sustain Bihar’s government schools and colleges and the young activists had been left in the lurch. Colleges functioned in name only, not a single class was held for my post graduation course in English. I belonged to the 1985-87 M.A. Batch, but answered my exams in 1990, results were declared in 1991. Young men were left traumatized, the future they had envisaged was but a mirage.

As I write, I have just heard the news that the government has bowed to all four demands of Anna Hazare, who will call off his strike formally tomorrow. As for the commom man, on Monday he will go back to doing what he was doing, and hope for things to change. As for the Lok Pal bill and eradication of corruption, that will have to be an on going fight. Has the most corrupt political party in recent times come out trumps…as it showed its ‘sincerity’ to initiate changes in the system..? I am glad that Anna Hazare brought people together and knew when to let them off!