In my previous post, I expressed some speculative fears about my brother's fate, and some reservations about the strategy of activism to release him. Reports that I received from Tapan, our youngest brother, who was initially quite sceptical about the activism surrounding Dada, suggest that those fears may have been unwarranted. This is a lesson in the difficulties of assessing a situation from a distance, relying on reports from first-person observers whose perceptions themselves are filtered through their preconceptions. A report of the demonstration in Raipur has appeared here.
Tapan informs me that there has apparently been a huge surge of support for Dada. I know from e-mails from activist groups that similar but smaller demonstrations were held all over the country – Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Chennai, Bhopal…Medha Patkar, the NBA activist, addressed the gathering in Raipur. Some of Dada's friends from CMC and elsewhere gave up their busy professional schedules to be present. Perhaps with the enthusiasm of the newly converted, Tapan said he now understood how Gandhi became so popular during the independence struggle.
As for Dada himself, he seems pretty cheerful. His cell-mates are convicted murderers, but apparently they regard him as some kind of hero, practically fawning on him and appearing to be very protective of him (Tapan’s account). Tapan also felt, after seeing the demos and talking to lawyers and journalists, that there’s no need to be worried for him. In his conversations with his visitors, Dada kept insisting not to focus attention on himself, but on the war that the state is waging on its own people. (This “undeclared war of the state on the people” trope has become like a mantra to him, he’s brought it up several times, and it appears as well in other reports that I have read as “aghoshit griha yuddh” in Hindi). But it's not clear to me how Dada's individual role (or the role of other human rights activists) can be neatly separated from the conditions that necessitate his/their work.
I have been unable to reach Boudi on the phone since my conversation with her while she was in Delhi was abruptly terminated. She has not been too well of late, and I wonder how she manages to keep up with this punishing round of meetings and activism. I have only been receiving word of her from Tapan and my mother, with whom she has been in regular contact.
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