Protests and the politics of event management in the confines of an idiot box named India
There is a method in madness. There surely is a method in protests, for instance the anti reservation stir.
Protests as a weapon of democracy has a history of defiance. It is the most potent weapon in the armoury of democracy, the life blood of any thriving movement.
The Mahatma was one of the most innovative leaders vis-a-vis protests. He could weave a protest from the most unusual things, for example the humble salt. The salt satyagraha was a huge trigger for masses. It gave the scent of democracy an urge of passion -- it showed how the mighty can be humbled by simple off-beat things.
The Mahatma emerged as what some people now call out of the box thinker; in fact he was simply out of the world for the conventional British savage acts that they couldn't think of any way to tackle the half-naked Fakir.
Mahatma has now been spared from the burden of history as protests gain a new dimension, the dimension of spotlight falling on it -- the spotlight of television crews.
So we now have stage-managed protests to suit the camera angles of the idiot box as we clap in joy when the television beams images of anti-quota protestors being dragged in front of water cannons.
We laugh at the spectacle because the whole thing has drama, but it all looks like a stage-managed television show sponsored by TV channels sprouting in every nook and corner. Television shows have become a cottage industry now.
Recently a stir in Bombay was directed by an event-manager, we are told.
That is where the protestors loose their vital link which can strike a chord with the public, which has to step in to shape the policies which determine their destiny, or at least to trigger the message of the masses to the corridors of power.
The protests staged by anti-quota agitators seem to be managed, evidently by television producers. So while it may appeal to some idiots glued to the TV, it is floating away from the tidal waves of grass root realities.
