Going by the national indignation over the murder of 24-year-old Mohsin Shaikh, lynched in Pune only because he looked like a Muslim and therefore belonged to the community suspected to be responsible for an offensive Facebook post (this has yet to be established), it seems “civil society” is alive and kicking. Demonstrations have been held, articles written, and the union home ministry has been forced to ask for a report. This is no mean achievement, considering that the home minister and Mohsin’s alleged killers belong to the Rashtriya Hindu Sena, draw inspiration from the same ideology.
But can activism end there? Activists worth their salt would ensure that the killers get convicted. In a State notorious for letting Hindutva goons go free whether they commit mayhem or murder, this would be tough. It would mean keeping up the heat so that the investigation is wrapped up quickly and the case brought to trial, then monitoring the trial so that the public prosecutor does not side with the accused, and the eye-witnesses don’t buckle under, both of which normally happen in cases of communal violence. And doing all this in the face of an uncooperative State.
A government run by the rule of law would ensure justice to Mohsin Shaikh. Ours isn’t, hence the need for activism. In India, activism isn’t only about nudging the government to act. It means actually taking on the State.
Activism at a cost
Naturally, activism isn’t likely to attract hordes. Those fighting for human rights or the environment have always been a handful. Some have had to pay for their lives – in Andhra Pradesh at least half-a-dozen civil rights activists were killed in the 80s and later in 2001, because they were upholding the constitutional rights of those labeled Naxalites. There, the police colluded in the killings, because civil rights activists came in the way of their method of dealing with Naxalites by simply killing them in fake ‘encounters’. RTI activists have been killed by those wanting to hide information. Even volunteers such as Bhanwari Devi, who was working for a government programme in Rajasthan against child marriage, an innocuous a cause as can be, have been targeted with rape. Dr Binayak Sen, who ran a free clinic for tribals in Chhattisgarh, and spoke up against the Chhattisgarh government’s Salwa Judum, a vigilante movement aimed at forcible eviction of tribals from their land, was sent to jail and sentenced to life for being a Maoist.
Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian who set up an ashram to better the living conditions of tribals in Bastar, had his ashram destroyed and had to flee, only because he helped tribals file cases against the police.
Yet, activist groups continue to work across the country. Some individual activists even get recognition in the form of international awards, or in the media. Their contribution to the lives of those at the bottom of the heap has been tangible. It’s thanks to activists such as Aruna Roy and others that we have the RTI act; Medha Patkar and the Narmada Bachao Andolan got the World Bank to withdraw from the Sardar Sarovar Dam, and she along with others like her have forced the government to enact laws for the unorganised and selfemployed urban poor. The National Advisory Committee appointed by Sonia Gandhi was in effect, a group of activists. Thanks to them, we got the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, and the Food Security Bill.
Role of the NGO’s
But these achievements have come after long struggles. And the struggle just got tougher. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has just given the home ministry a list of foreign-funded NGOs who have been active in various causes, from the antinuclear movement to resistance to land grabs by the state or corporates. The IB has acknowledged that these NGOS take up “people-centric” issues, but it alleges that this is just a front to thwart growth.
Given that this is a government committed to growth at all costs, the outcome of the IB report is obvious. The Congress government also tried to stop the activities of NGOs accused of getting foreign funds. The home ministry was forced to admit that some of those labeled were in fact, not receiving any.
However, it’s also a fact that in PM Narendra Modi’s own state, if some of the powerful accused of the 2002 pogrom are now in jail, it’s because of activists. But perhaps their efforts might not have succeeded without the close involvement of the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission in monitoring the worst cases of 2002.
So what do activists do? Eschew foreign funding? That has been the principle followed by many groups, especially those directly exposing the State such as human rights groups. That means working with very tight budgets, which limits your reach.
The activist party
This has been the scenario so far: a handful of fundstarved groups working against a powerful state and a largely indifferent media. But this changed in 2011 when Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption in Delhi received unimagined support. It was what every activist had dreamt of — masses of people getting involved in a cause, not afraid to come out on the streets. For the first time, you had ordinary people responding to a direct challenge to the State without being mobilised to do so. Anna’s movement challenged the age-old relationship between an all-powerful government and a helpless citizenry. When this movement led to the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP); when the party, led by activists and academics, won 28 seats in the Delhi assembly and formed a government that in the 49 days that it ruled, not only fulfilled its promises of lowering electricity and water rates, but also significantly brought down the everyday corruption faced by citizens at the hands of the police and bureaucracy, it seemed activism had finally arrived. For the AAP remained an activist party, it never became a party of rulers. No wonder then that the 2014Lok Sabha elections saw activists such as Medha Patkar, Soni Sori, Dayamani Barla, Lalit Babar, Sanjeev Sane, P Uday kumar and others, fighting elections on the AAP ticket. Their election campaigns were run by volunteers and other activists, not by paid workers, and these campaigns were drastically different from the expensive, manipulative election campaigns of established parties.
No one expected AAP to win. But said one taxi driver in Delhi, “This election will show how many people want a corruption-free country.’’ So those who voted for it did so in the hope that the party would eventually bring in long-term change and till then, voice the people’s opposition to the Establishment. The incoming National Democratic Alliance government was expected to come down hard on activists; but AAP would be there with its hundreds of volunteers to oppose the ruling party – that was the hope.
AAP’s activists did not let down their supporters – at least Medha Patkar, days after her defeat, went back to doing what she has always done. Approached by a slum facing sudden, illegal demolition, she intervened on their behalf with the CM, and mobilised them to resist. Obviously, the promise of entering the Parliament did not change a lifelong activist such as Medha.
Will activists get media support?
What of AAP? Will it live up to the hopes of its supporters and be the quintessential uncompromising activist party? As things stand, AAP is in disarray, with its internal disagreements being leaked to a salivating media. It has to set itself straight before it joins or even triggers off mass protests. Meanwhile, there have been enough incidents to protest about, and activists have done so. But so far, these incidents, such as the Badaun rapes, have been so outrageous that even the media has had to protest. But will the media highlight protests in Jaitapur if the new government goes all out to push the world’s biggest nuclear project there? If labour laws are changed across the country as Rajasthan has just done, will the media highlight the protests of workers? What about mining projects which will displace tribals and destroy the environment? The media has always looked at environmental objections as impediments to ‘development’.
Be it mining or labour laws or nuclear projects, activists will definitely protest and court arrest if necessary, whether they get media attention or not. But after that, what? Will they be able to get a large section of citizens on their side?
New methods to participate
Though activists have always been few, there was a time when they magnified their impact by actually going on the streets, spreading the word through wall posters, street plays, small magazines and public meetings. Gradually, spaces to do this started shrinking. Today, street protest by activists is mostly tokenism; the same old faces getting together to shout slogans that only they can understand. There’s very little attempt to involve the passer-by.
Today, the real passion and protest is online. The internet is fast, cheap and can reach millions. Those who don’t have computers have mobiles with Whats App. Fanatics use this to circulate inflammatory videos, triggering off angry, violent reactions. Why don’t activists use the same technology to spread their message on a similar scale? Why can’t the angry protests on Facebook (FB) trigger off actual street action? It happens all the time in China, where protests are banned. In our democracy, it happened when Dr Binayak Sen was arrested. Many of those who organised actual protests for his release were first-timers who had heard of him through FB. But not all their protests, nor international outrage, mattered to the government. It was only the arguments of a senior lawyer like Ram Jethmalani in the Supreme Court that got him bail. Yet, the Raipur Sessions Court convicted him on no evidence at all.
So can activism only succeed with the help of the courts? Perhaps. For even Anna Hazare’s mass movement couldn’t force the Congress to enact a proper Lokpal Bill.
Activists have always had to live with frustration; under the new government, this will get worse. The real hope is the courts. That too is a form of activism – you need good lawyers fighting for free. Thankfully, their availability might not be affected by the new government.