Utsab e Phera Shombhov? (Return to Festivities Possible?)

At some point of our lives, we need to ask ourselves - what is more important? To raise one's voice against what's wrong. or to just let things be and get on with our regular lives? Be immune to something - since it hasn't happened to me, or stand up and protest - because it can some day?

Come September-October, and there's a festive feel in the air in our country. Ganesh puja, followed by Navratri and Durga Puja, then Deepavali, are the mega festivals we wait for all year. 

To Celebrate What?

But festivals are enjoyable only when civic systems are in good health and the society is healthy.

If there is glaring rot in society, no festival or celebration can cheer us up. 

People in power dangle the carrots of religious festivities, along with the pet drugs of Bollywood, celebrity weddings and IPL, to distract public attention from actual problems plaguing our society.

Maslow had explained the hierarchy of needs about a century back. Unless the basic requirements of safety and security are ensured, one cannot hop on to satisfying a higher need- either social or self-actualizing. 

To use a very basic example, if you have a ugly gash or a wound, you don't dress it up in fancy bandage without cleaning it or applying medicine first. If you do, it will fill with pus and infect your blood.

Kolkata is witnessing a mass movement of unprecedented participation by common people protesting the brutal rape and murder of a young doctor at her workplace.

There is a spontaneous outpouring of grief, frustration, despair, anger, rage, against not only this particular heinous crime, but to protest the continued apathy of the authorities towards all things wrong in public governance. The sweeping-under-the-carpet policy has gone on too long. Now the rot is stinking. 

Not only has the medical fraternity erupted in staunch protest, it has been supported energetically by students, professionals, labourers, homemakers, the elderly, the very young, and even gig workers and rickshaw pullers. 

Distraction Tactics

Obviously, the government - both at the centre and the state, didn't see this coming. Such mass movements are rather unnerving for the administration that thrives on control and brute force. 

To make it worse, the continued protests aren't abating either, though every effort is being made to cover up the crime or distract with red herrings. So now, a clarion call has been given to people to return to festivities, ostensibly for the sake of those whose livelihood depends on the Pujas.

Current history is witness to the fact that any mass movement that goes on for too long, becoming uncomfortable for powers that be, is systematically brought down with the combined tactics of division, infiltration, and apathy. Remember the anti- CAA protests, the farmer protests, the wrestlers' movement and the like? All you have to do is wait till the patience and stamina of protesters thin out, insert a doubter or two, create some optics, and there! The protest fizzles out.

Now, if the government really wants the public to return to festivities and cheer. how about doing some rigorous spring-cleaning first, this autumn?

Preparation for any festival starts with cleaning the mess out, doesn't it?  Let's shove the filth out, purify our state and get ready for the celebrations, what say?

#MassProtest #DoctorsProtest #CivilianProtest #ProtestAgianstRapeMurder #DoctorsRapeMurder