The Accidental Activist - To Die For

By Venita Coelho


What would you be willing to give your life for? That might seem like an odd question, but it has been on my mind the last few weeks. The Naxals and Maoists have been in the news as the war between them and the government has escalated. The people who the police have been arresting seem a world removed from Maoist rhetoric. Instead, they seem to be people like us.

First there was Kobad Gandhi. He was brought up in a rich Parsee family, lived on Malabar hill, and had the best of education. Still he chose to throw it all up and go fight on the other side of the fence. His wife was a professor of sociology in Nagpur University. Neither of them fall remotely near the stereotype of a naxal as the government projects it - dangerous lawless anarchists.

A year ago there excitement over the alleged naxalite with a Goan connection. Arun Fereira was arrested from Bandra and held by the police. Arun was educated at St. Xaviers college and again, a world removed from what you would imagine a naxal to be. There are more goan connections. Vernon Gonsalves is being held as a suspected leader of the CPI (ML). Arrested along with him was  K D Rao - a practising lawyer and office bearer of the Indian Association of Peoples Lawyers.

More recent is the arrest of Agriculture scientist Ravi Sharma and his wife B Anuradha. Ravi Sharma was working on a PhD. His wife was employed by syndicate bank.

Of course the most celebrated is the arrest of Dr. Binayak Sen. He is a paediatrician, a public health specialist and a winner of a string of national and international awards for the outstanding work he has done bringing medical aid to the people of Chattisgarh. His arrest was declared in breach of international law by no less an authority than Amnesty international. The police chose to brand him a naxal so that they could then use special laws that allowed them to hold him with no reprieve.

One person's activist seems to be another person's naxal. Our own Seby found himself slapped with the 'naxal' brand by the authorities so that they could better deal with him. Naxal or not - these are all highly educated people who had the option to live comfortable lives. Yet they have chosen to leave the mainstream and struggle on the side of the poorest of the poor. They have faced arrest, detention and torture. Why are they willing to put their lives on the line? What are they willing to die for?

This is a question that each of us needs to answer for ourselves. For a very real reason. I have been watching for a long time now as activists struggle in Goa against the combined might of the mining lobby, the building lobby, and the corrupt state. Where we manage to blow the whistle on one small issue, a host of other things are being sneaked in from other back doors. The GBA tried it's best to get villages to respond to the Regional Plan in a manner that would protect the villager and the village in the years to come. Now comes news that building laws are being passed, loopholes are being exploited and all that we fought in the RP is coming back in other avatars.

Over the last few months I have slowly realized that we are not just examining the projections of worst case scenarios. The foundation of the worst case scenarios is being laid even as we look on.  The mining industry and the building lobby are already laying the basis for a devastated Goa. It is time to ask you what you are willing to fight for. As an intelligent, educated person, what is it that you hold so dear that you would be willing to stake your life for it?

Would you fight if someone poured poison into your drinking water? Would you fight if someone choked the river that ran through your village? Would you fight if the raw sewage from a mega project leaked into your well? Would you fight if all the fields in your village were marked for destruction? Would you fight if the crop your family depended on for a whole years food was deliberately destroyed? All of this is happening in villages across Goa. It is time the fight stopped being restricted to a few 'activists'.

No one is asking you to be a naxal. But, frighteningly, if you don't stand up to fight now - it may be too late in the next few years. Your rivers will be choked, your water poisoned, your trees cut down, your fields filled in, your village reduced to concrete. Don't decide to join the fight when there is nothing left to fight for. Decide what you are willing to lay your life down for now.  (ENDS)

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As appeared in The Herald, Goa - October 26, 2009