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Unique forms of discomfort-inducing protest acts have been taken up in some cases to give more power and visibility to their expression.
Organic and dynamic, protests have often provided outlet for the relatively dispossessed or the disadvantaged subaltern relegated to the back burners of state conscience. Modern India has a long history of protests to power, starting with the pan-India Gandhian Satyagrahas to demand a nation free of the yolk of British raj. In the absence or failure of other avenues of redressal, peaceful protests call attention to urgent grievances, legitimise demands publicly and are a collective manifestation of freedom of expression. Unique forms of discomfort-inducing protest acts have been taken up in some cases to give more power and visibility to their expression. Here are five examples, recent and old:
‘Zameen Samadhi Satyagraha’ at Nindar village, near Jaipur:Currently protesting against the Jaipur Development Authority’s (JDA) move to acquire their land (1,350 bighas) for a housing project, about 50 farmers have dug out holes and buried themselves neck deep in the ground. The protesters include older women. JDA’s land acquisition project was initiated a fortnight ago, which led to the farmers sitting on a dharna for 15 days which did not yield result. Thus this new form of Satyagraha has been initiated to make a stronger statement.
Tamil Nadu farmers’ protest near Jantar Mantar, New Delhi: Heavily debt ridden and drought struck farmers from Tamil Nadu, almost 100 in number, have been in the news for a while for their repeated protests at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. They allege that they are incapable to growing crops under the present weather conditions and have been demanding loan waivers, revised drought packages and a Cauvery Management committee and fair prices for their products. In a desperate bid for government attention to their demands, many extreme and unconventional acts have been employed by them, such as biting mice, holding skulls and bones (allegedly of their peers who committed suicide) and threats of consuming their own excreta and urine.
‘Jal Satyagraha’ in Goghalgaon village in Khandwa district, MP:Led by the Narmada Bachao Aandolan, around 50 villagers — men and women — residing in the low lying regions of the Omkareshwar dam on Narmada river near Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh, sat in neck-deep river water for seventeen days in September 2012, demanding compensation and rehabilitation from the government as it gave orders to lift the dam gates. Faced by the prospect of flooded homes and shattered livelihoods, the ‘satyagrahis’ were bitten by fishes and developed several skin ailments in this period.
The protest was called off after the government agreed to their demands. A relief package of 212 crores was cleared for them in May 2013. A similar protest was undertaken in 2013 by other villagers in Khandwa, Dewas and Harda districts of MP, whose settlements lay in the low lying areas of the Indira Sagar Dam.
Manipuri women’s nude protest against AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act): “We are all Manorama’s mothers,” screamed the 12 Manipuri women as they took off their sarongs and stood stark naked in front of Kangla Fort in Imphal, the then headquarters of the Assam Rifles. They came from low-income families — mostly residing outside the capital. The oldest protester was 73, and the youngest, 45. They carried banners: “Indian Army, rape us”, “Indian Army, kill us” (army being a loosely used term).
32-year old Thangjam Manorama had been picked up from her house under suspicion of militancy by paramilitary Assam Rifles soldiers on July 11, 2014. Her mutilated body, raped and ridden with bullets, was found later and heavily militarised Manipur fired into unprecedented anger. The idea of a nude protest was first discussed on July 12, 2004 at a meeting of the All Manipur Women’s Social Reformation and Development Samaj, but agreed upon only later when the women agreed that ‘desperate times called for desperate measures’. The idea made them deeply uncomfortable and, fearful of their life and honor, many did not even inform their families of what they were about to do.
The protest lasted only 45 minutes but left an indelible mark — jolting the nation and world with Manipuri mothers’ anger and anguish. The protesters didn’t have it easy in the aftermath; the community immediately celebrated them but they were harassed by an embarrassed government, accused of arson and waging war against the nation and nine of them spent three months in jail. Four months after the protest, Assam Rifles vacated the Kangla Fort which they had occupied since 1949 and AFSPA was lifted from a few areas in Imphal.
However, Manorama’s killers have not been brought to justice yet and AFSPA still looms heavy in large parts of the state.
Chipko Movement against deforestation in Uttarakhand: A global pioneer, the Chipko movement of saving trees by hugging them began as an organised resistance against deforestation and logging abuse, undertaken by the native communities, often women and children, in 1973. The first Chipko action took place spontaneously in April 1973 in the village of Mandal in the upper Alakananda valley of erstwhile Uttar Pradesh where the tribal women went into the fobrest and formed a protective circle around it. Over the next five years, the movement spread to many other districts of Garhwal, out of which the pioneering tree-hugging action led by Gaura Devi in her village, Reni, is well known.
The sustained success of the movement, gaining momentum under leaders like the gandhian eco-activist Sunderlal Bahuguna, not only saved thousands of trees from being felled but also influenced a younger India’s natural resource policy. The activist movement catalysed the instating of a 15-year ban on felling by the Indira Gandhigovernment in 1980 which was implemented in not only Uttar Pradesh but also other states with forest covers.
