Writes: Dr. Deepa Joshi*
Let me pick up on Reggie Lama’s opening line – ‘12 deaths and the hardship of a 104 days of shutdown remain conveniently forgotten’. With humility and respect, let me remind Mr Lama - that the world lives by forgetting the deaths and perils of the lesser mortals – the Rohingyas in Myanmar, Syria for the past few years, the Palestinians for as long as we can remember, and the list is long. What we have lost in the last five decades is but a miniscule of the numbers that add up to a staggering list of those who have died seeking dignity and freedom – rights that remain denied.
Mr Lama rightly captures the bitter bile of a public disillusioned, disheartened and desperate for answers and consolation and asks for hope that seems difficult to find, in trying to keep the Gorkha heart beating. I speak to this issue – how should we be going forward, and what is indeed forward for us? My suggestion is, it is time now “to engage in the political and not the politics”. I explain below what this means in the current context of the hopelessness that engulfs on the one hand, and the callousness of the politicians who appear so keen to grab and claim the vacant space of politics, and I explain why being political and not indulging in politics is our only hope in resurrecting our injured identity and regaining our rightful place, not in context to how others - whether they be – back (crotch, as well ) scratching and smirking fellow citizens “down there”, alive and kicking Mr Modi or the very dead Marshall Manekshaw – but in the context of how we see and conduct ourselves.
Engaging in politics is easy – but if there is one thing we should have learnt from the past 3 months – engaging in the political although, difficult and demanding – is what really matters. What then is the difference between these two terms? Even though, it was “the people” who led and kept the movement alive – in their everyday small and big acts of resilience, resistance and solidarity, engaging in this very “political” act of claiming space and voice - every now and then we faltered - backtracked by the compulsions of “politics”: going back to begging the powers that be – whether it was a muted BJP leadership only interested in play of politics and representation or a bunch of elites with vested interests and mandates in politics. What can we learn from this?
Being political empowers us the ordinary citizens in ways that politics can never do. Our leaders – steeped in the corruption of politics, our elites – shifting and aligning their positions to their convenience – will not get us the dignity and freedom we deserve as a people, as well as help ensure that, this dignity and freedom extends to all, especially those in the margins of what makes for the political entity of Gorkhaland. It is only we the people – who can and who must find these for ourselves.
How do we begin, now that we think we are ended? Contrary to the desolation we feel, I see hope all over again, hope in the everyday writings across the spectrum – from Mr Lama’s questioning about leaders quick to take control or those still in the hiding to Mr Sharma’s questioning of the everyday ethics [or rather the lack of it] at the SBI’s Ladenla Branch. We need to continue to write, but more importantly – continue to act – because our democratic rights are not disassociated from our everyday living and existence – in fact we can only achieve the democracy we desire by the choices we make every day. The list of things that come to mind, is way too long to list here, but it includes the small and the big of how we get on in our everyday lives.
First and foremost on that list, at least for me - is public scrutiny of every leader and official, who claim to represent us or to service our needs; ensuring henceforth that this disease of a consensus between politics, government and economics ends here and now. In honouring the 12 deaths and the 104 days of a shutdown – lets ensure that we make this space for politics and administration so regulated – that it will only attract those – who seek nothing else except to represent our interests and the needs of the most marginal amongst us.
Does this sound like some hazy nirvana dream (not to ignore that we are infamous in exploring the same ). The answer is a resounding No! Reclaiming politics through political people power is happening around the world, from UK’s Jeremy Corbyn’s spectacular comeback to the recent referendums for independence in Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan. What matters is what and how we chose going forward.
All the basic human dignity and freedom we have long been denied will come back to us, once we the people make it clear to the powers that be – from our very local municipalities, towns, districts to the state and central governments – that we are and we will forever continue to be political. That, this is our promise to ourselves, those whose lives have been lost not just in 2017, but decades back too - and to the many more who will be born to live in this very fair land of ours.
* Coventry University, London. Previously Assistant Professor at Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
Via The DC
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