[Reader-list] socialite columnist has the nerve

[Vishal Rawlley]

Pasted below is my (edited version - by the newspaper) letter to the Asian
Age in response to Suhel Seth's article pasted further below. My concern is
that while some sincere souls are fighting for equitable rights (re: Sigur
farmers) and exposing the cracks in the judicial mechanism (re: Afzal Guru
case), there are others who are in a big hurry to bulldose the farm lands
and hang the scapegoats so that we can be quickly on to the path of
development. These development enthusiasts call the activists disruptionists
and victims of police hostility terrorists. And there are many takers for
the preachers of 'lets bulldose our way to prosperity and fast'. Really, why
all the jhamela of settling every petty person's grouse... we should work
quickly in the larger interest of the nation... such reasoning is more
appealing than a complex understanding of situations that leave furrows on
the forehead. A lot has been done by independent media/ jurnos - in blogs,
reader lists, publications etc. in bringing to the fore the REAL issues/
stories (13th Dec Reader for example) but these have very little REAL
impact. Unless they lock horns with the main stream or atleast become a
constituency even worth counting, they shall remain merely good ideas for
intellectual consumption and personal gratification. Yes, we all cannot be
activists but perhaps media has to be used more innovatively and
dramatically to be impactful at all. Perhaps blogs have to be translated
into local and regional languages and printed as hand bills, situations have
to be translated into street theatre acts and 'phads' have to be sung out in
gullies... How many gallery walls shall we adorn and how many AC auditoriums
shall we regale? On to the street I say.



NON-VIolent NBA

Sir, Suhel Seth, in The Laws of Activism (December 18), calls Medha Patkar
and Arundhati Roy publicity mongers and disruptionists. There is absolutely
no basis to this accusation. The NBA is known for its non-violent protests
and has never resorted to activities like bus burning and stone pelting. The
NBA movement uses songs and fasts to call attention to the woes of the most
downtrodden. Further, why is Mr Seth baying for Afzal Guru's blood? The
Parliament attack case is full of mysteries. The criminal investigation
procedure too has been full of inconsistencies. Is it not important that the
real truth be revealed? In Singur also it is obvious that farmers are being
exploited; and all this activism will at least result in a better
compensation for them if nothing else. Mr Seth must realise that activism
and social work are two different things. While Mother Teresa did a lot for
the unfortunate, people like Medha Patkar fight to ensure that misfortune is
prevented in the first place. The battle for independence was won by the
proactive strategies of Gandhiji and other freedom fighters and we still
need these non-violent fighters to ensure that equal rights are available to
all.

Vishal Rawlley

Mumbai


*The Laws of Activism*

*Suhel Seth*

I guess the most poignant moment of last week must certainly be the return
of the gallantry medals that were awarded to those who warded off the
December 13 attack on Parliament several years ago, only because they
believe they or for that matter, the families of those who gave up their
lives, have not been given either due respect or been shown the decisiveness
that a case like this deserves. What makes matters worse is that the home
minister stands up in Parliament and tells us that clemency petitions take
up to seven years to be decided in a country that has professed
zero-tolerance for terrorism!

This speaks poorly of our justice system, and even worse, about the manner
in which we punish those who deserve punishment. But that is not the focus
of this article. What is my concern is how everything is slowly being
hijacked by an army of limousine liberals who have taken it upon themselves
to intrude and intervene in every issue that doesn't concern them. I have
high regard for Arundhati Roy's writing skills, but surely one God of Small
Things doesn't make her an authority on everything, from the amount of water
that the Narmada dam must release to farmers' rights in Singur. And we in
this country are being held hostage by such seemingly brazen acts of care
and concern which are nothing but repeated attempts in self-publicity. Medha
Patkar is more of a disruptionist rather than someone who is seriously
concerned about the issues she pretends to. Often we are lectured by these
so-called activists who somehow want to be in the middle of every
controversy yet will not engage in some serious development work. I am
seriously tired of seeing Arundhati Roy and Medha Patkar sitting on silly
hunger strikes and writing laborious essays on issues that they so easily
give up when media attention wanes. So even if their intentions are noble
(and I have no apparent reason to doubt them) the perception is that they
are disruptionists and anarchists and this is my real concern, Sometimes,
merely through association, the causes they lend themselves to start losing
public empathy and support and this is something that must worry those cause
managers who get these kind of people to lend a shoulder. I have often
noticed that eventually Medha Patkar's brand looms larger than the cause and
this is the real tragedy.

We recently had an example of Sunita Narain becoming the sole arbiter of
health and wellness in this country: she must obviously be well-intentioned,
but just the shrillness and sensationalism of the case she put forth have
made her perceptually much weaker than ever before. The same government
which handed her the Padma Shri criticised her findings on the whole
pesticide issue. The Tiger Task Force which she chaired was replete with
fissures and all you need to do is ask the only tiger expert (or certainly
one of them) Valmik Thapar as to what it was like having someone like Sunita
chair a task force on tigers when she had never even seen one. For this the
government must equally share the blame. Often the government uses these
so-called NGO brands only because it believes they will silence an otherwise
explosive media. But does the media really care? Obviously, they don't. They
are, in more cases than one, TRP driven, so this is the vicious circle that
every normal Indian becomes a part of. To put it simply, you never know who
to believe or what the agenda of these leaders is. I, for one, never know.

I believe the time has come for these NGO stalwarts to give themselves a
rest: they make enough money through unspecified sources of foreign funding;
they run rackets in the form of administrative expenses and the real heroes
remain forgotten. Why don't you ever see a Bunker Roy on a hunger strike, or
for that matter why didn't Mother Teresa ever fast?

For the simple reason they had serious work to do. They were not in it for
the media attention. They weren't doing this so that they could print the
Ashoka Chakra (as Rajiv Sethi has done just because he is part of the
Planning Commission) on their silly visiting cards and letterheads! They
were committed to helping people in the spirit of humanism. There is an
orphanage in Kolkata: the Calcutta Muslim Girls Orphanage which has people
like Mohamed Salim who despite being in politics gives much of his time as
does the editor of this paper.

There is no raving and ranting and abusing all and sundry.

The NGO movement, while doing some remarkable stuff, has perhaps the wrong
endorsers for its movement in India presently. They are typically people who
you avoid only because you can't stomach the fact that they see a dark
lining in every silver cloud.

The NGOs have to transform from being disruptionists and cynics to catalysts
and enablers. The vast majority of the NGO world does this. But the ones who
make a fetish of being opposers to everything good and fair, make me wonder
where all this is going and for how much longer we are going to see Medha
Patkar in every part of the country doing what she knows best: Looking for
the nearest BBC correspondent to beam her pictures across the world so that
donors know they made the right choice!

This is the truth. If it hurts, well, it should.

xxx
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