by GARGA CHATTERJEE
Subhash Bose’s ‘Delhi Chalo’ call became a legend before such calls became clichés. It not directed towards the urban agglomeration of Delhi but at the seat of the British colonial administration in the subcontinent. The colonial extraction machine needed to be supremely centralised – one of the tell-tale hallmarks of an undemocratic set-up. Now that the browns have been in charge for sixty-five years, should we continue to view Delhi as the venue to lodge the ultimate protest or to celebrate the ultimate triumph?
Take the Anna dharnas. The place of choice was Jantar Mantar — the sanitised ‘democracy footpath’ in New Delhi, under the watchful eyes of the police and plain-clothes intelligence. If Anna’s group were performing a spectator sport (and I do not want to suggest that they were not well-meaning), it seems like Delhi is the stadium where it is worth playing, its inhabitants are the people in front of whom it is worth playing. It is tactically smart – headquarters of major ‘national media’ (whatever that is) are here, Lutyens bungalows of the powerful are here. The problem is that the media yardstick of success and failure of movements and protests played out in this mode is disproportionately influenced by the daily mood of an urban area that is unrepresentative of the subcontinent at multiple levels.
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