I loved reading about this in INDIAN EXPRESS, so I thought of presenting it to you all in my own way.
Protest: What does it signify? How it happens? What happens ? Political parties gather people to fight on a cause. Firstly they call for a bandh, stalling the economy for the day, send few people to shutdown the city by force if necessary, protest near the government offices or ruling party houses, holiday for children, tension for someone who has to attend an event, worry for someone about his closed means of livelihood and a festive season to loot for a theif.
But, there are things which come from the people, trying to show their grievances, protesting for greater good, voluntarily calling for a non-cooperation like recent Egypt protests. What all I saw about that in news headlines was 'Thousands march to tahrir square to protest and oust the corrupt Mubarak government' '27 killed and scores injured in protests' ' India in an awkward situation on Egypt crisis' etc and in contrast to this I read a live account in the editorial page which describes it like this:-
It is not an ordinary protest, a diehard supporter of Mubarak, with a stone cold heart would be convinced once he speaks with the people and understands their contribution and sense of belonging to it. An Old man was bringing food and water to the supporters, shopkeeper's getting vinegar, coca-cola bottles and cloth to reduce the effect of tear gas shelves bombarded on them, police signalling their inability for action, youth trying to spread the message with social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, rich, old and households caring the needs of the protestors.
And the strange part is, Hundreds of volunteers guarding the National Museum from Looting, an obvious outcome of a protest of this scale. Hundreds of them putting up checkposts and guarding them day and night to curb this menace. All this happening from the people, to the people. An old woman was weeping on the road, when asked, her reply was, her son was shot by the police in his throat and he is now in coma. She also adds that, the blood spilled here shouldn't go for waste. See the emotion in her words.
A striking point of these protests is, It can be arguably said that it started by the youth, getting the message of reform spread across length and breadth of country by Facebook and Twitter being inspired by Tunisian protests. Let's hope the welfare of these people would follow the protests.
Protest: What does it signify? How it happens? What happens ? Political parties gather people to fight on a cause. Firstly they call for a bandh, stalling the economy for the day, send few people to shutdown the city by force if necessary, protest near the government offices or ruling party houses, holiday for children, tension for someone who has to attend an event, worry for someone about his closed means of livelihood and a festive season to loot for a theif.
But, there are things which come from the people, trying to show their grievances, protesting for greater good, voluntarily calling for a non-cooperation like recent Egypt protests. What all I saw about that in news headlines was 'Thousands march to tahrir square to protest and oust the corrupt Mubarak government' '27 killed and scores injured in protests' ' India in an awkward situation on Egypt crisis' etc and in contrast to this I read a live account in the editorial page which describes it like this:-
It is not an ordinary protest, a diehard supporter of Mubarak, with a stone cold heart would be convinced once he speaks with the people and understands their contribution and sense of belonging to it. An Old man was bringing food and water to the supporters, shopkeeper's getting vinegar, coca-cola bottles and cloth to reduce the effect of tear gas shelves bombarded on them, police signalling their inability for action, youth trying to spread the message with social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, rich, old and households caring the needs of the protestors.
And the strange part is, Hundreds of volunteers guarding the National Museum from Looting, an obvious outcome of a protest of this scale. Hundreds of them putting up checkposts and guarding them day and night to curb this menace. All this happening from the people, to the people. An old woman was weeping on the road, when asked, her reply was, her son was shot by the police in his throat and he is now in coma. She also adds that, the blood spilled here shouldn't go for waste. See the emotion in her words.
A striking point of these protests is, It can be arguably said that it started by the youth, getting the message of reform spread across length and breadth of country by Facebook and Twitter being inspired by Tunisian protests. Let's hope the welfare of these people would follow the protests.
Good analysis, good writeup.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, it is always the youth who actually give life to any movement: be it Bhagat Singh or Vivekananda.
Keep the blogs coming.. :-)