On the night of the 5th of April, Medha Patkar who was agitating for the rights of the people displaced by the Narmada Dam was whisked away in the dead of night along to a hospital before her life was in danger. Medha Patkar was on fast and was arrested to be force fed on charges of attempted suicide. Whether one agrees with her views or one does not, what is to really mourned is that the space to express dissent and offer differing opinions in a peaceful and non violent way is fast disappearing. Fasts are not new to India – it was popularized as a form of protest by no less than the Father of the Nation and though often trivialized, it remains a potent weapon- which is why the arrests happened. The fact that Gandhi was often arrested for his fasts by a colonial government opposed to his views was understandable. But the fact that this happened in “free” India in a place and time where the ruling coalition’s dominant party traces its moral and historical linkages to Gandhi is an inescapable irony.
The message one gets when peaceful forms of protest are crushed is simply this – that if you become a Naxalite or a terrorist and blow up railway stations or kidnap police men and make enough of a nuisance – bide your time and some one will pay attention. You will be asked to come to the negotiating table, offered deals and rehabilitation packages, political power perhaps and gain a large measure of national and international clout which allows you to bring more chips to the bargaining table of negotiation. But if you venture to get your point across as is supposedly the essence of democracy, you will be swatted like a fly. It is a painful comment on our ability to deal and dispense with dissent.
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