A Street Named Desire

Organising Legal Literacy Programs (LLP) is one of the most important experiences for me in Law School. I seem useful, though I may perhaps never be. We pick groups - school kids, organisations for women, workers. And then we teach them a few basic things about the law, generally in the form of a skit. I learn more than I teach.

My most recent LLP was for workers in the unorganised sector. This was on Labour Day, right outside the Town Hall in Bangalore. The last time I took to the streets was for a pride march; there's a part of me that comes to life when I'm out on the streets, hollering. Sometimes, it's necessary to be in one's face to tell them what you have to say. At least that's how I feel. I've never been one for subtleties.

Anyway, so there we were, a bunch of us law students, participating in a protest. The protest was to seek more legal protection to the unorganised sector. The only applicable statute for this oppressed section of our, yes, our society, does nothing but pay lip service to them. It makes them eligible for government programs that already apply to BPL families and more importantly, seldom work. But we set forth to tell them about this anyway. Foolish? Perhaps. Naive? Definitely.

In the midst of my extempore in Kannada, a woman from the audience, eyes brimming with tears of rage, asked me why I was telling them to go to the government when it was the government that was oppressing them. She told me of her husband who'd succumbed to alcoholism, of her three unmarried daughters and asked me what she ought to do. RTI I said, feebly, knowing fully well that this was just an excuse of a solution. She thought I was the government. Well, I sure as hell held out to be its spokesperson!

And once I'd braved the lady, a man, an activist, walked up to me and told me I was wrong. He wasn't being curt, no. He was however being brutally honest. "Che Guevara must not just be on your T-shirts", he said, "...we must not tell them to beg the government, we must tell them to revolt. Revolution is the only answer. It's as if they are compressed in a bottle. Help open the lid and you'll see them ebb and revolt for what is rightfully theirs. Keeping them oppressed is beneficial to an entire class of people and that's not obvious to them. Tell them as educated people that they should holler, they will".


In the end I wondered what the rally had achieved. I'd made a woman cry, a man wonder why I was siding with the devil and there were workers from the unorganised sector who were holding placards that they themselves couldn't read. The few passers-by who stopped were bemused by what we had to say, not enlightened. The government wasn't there. I had no legal solutions to offer, even after going to presumably the best law school in the country (which, ironically, has only just regularised its workers).

But what's the alternative? Not make any noise and live in a vacuum? Give up without trying? Women, blacks and the LGBT community, among others, have seen some success after demanding rights have they not? I live in the hope that workers of the world will unite, and get rights to help them live life to its hilt. And that you and I will help them in their endeavour.

Revolution in the Air

I know I wasn't missed much, but hey, if I've got to holler, I've got to holler eh?

I've heard a lot about protests and revolutions lately. My history project is on the JP Revolution (an idealist fighting against a tyrant basically). And then there was the Flower Power revolution in Across the Universe. A political protest in Blue State, where the protagonist leaves the States and goes to Canada as a political statement of protest against Bush's re-election. I'm now making my way through Snow and hence hear so much about the revolution in Turkey. And then the one in the dystopic movie Equilibrium.

Or perhaps I hear about revolutions all the time but have never thought about them until now. So what is it really that makes people jump into them? I'm talking here of those who are in them for they actually believe in the cause they're fighting for. It's amazing that there are in fact people who are idealistic enough to believe that they can shout loud enough to make a difference. And that they shout. At one level, I'm psyched that there are such romantics. Jealous even, for I may never have the courage to ever act on the many things I believe in.

But on another level, I can't but help play the role of the Devil's Advocate. What good did these protestors ever achieve? Sure, they made some sound waves. Sure they walked out of colleges and homes and comfortable lives. Sure, they may have even made headlines. But did they ever achieve even a modicum of what they set out to? In the larger scheme of things, governments and corporations are far too huge and mighty for dins on the street to effect them let alone make them mend their ways.

But perhaps, even the most radical protestors know that their dreams are much too big to come true. But they'll dream none the less. And perhaps they may not be able to stop wars or change political positions, but they tried. I may never know what a revolutionary feels. But I'd like to believe that they go to bed satisfied that they don't just discuss what's wrong with the system, they go about doing something to change it. So hey, better to have protested and gone unheard than to have never shouted eh?

But then again, are revolutions the answer to changing a foul system? Perhaps not if this is the only means used. Some of us may have to join the system, as the cliche goes, to beat it. And some others may have to make a few compromises and adjust. but then, those few idealistic enough to take things head on, in my opinion, are doing their own bit, in the way they think best. Perhaps, with all these little ripples from different shores, we can some day hope for a tide of change, if not a storm.

Some day I hope I'll have the courage and conviction to make my own voice heard, in whatever way. But until then, I can always hide behind excuses.