The grammar of protest
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COMMENTS 
Kerala does not tolerate anything but calibrated and conventional protest. The media recently "exposed"a group of youngsters expressing solidarity with the Chegara land struggle as frolicking and not serious. They trivialised in the process both the cause and the process of investigative journalism
Some weeks ago, a group of cultural activists and youth undertook a night vigil in front of the secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram, to declare solidarity with the people's struggle in Chengara. A number of important social activists and commentators took part.
The next day, Kairali and People's TV beamed visuals of the event: young people sitting around, talking, smoking, walking, lying down, and hugging. Obviously they were unaware of the hidden camera fixed across the street. The commentary that accompanied the visuals was sarcastic, casting aspersions on the intentions of the youth in question. By "exposing" the "degeneration" of the protestors, the news item hinted at the "real intentions" and "degeneration" of the land rights struggle at Chengara, as if the visuals were a reflection of that battle. It was obviously directed at debunking the people's struggle in Chengara. It was like saying: look at the company they keep!
One could not have missed the contrast. At Chengara, a life and death struggle is underway where people are fighting for land and challenging the state by threatening to commit suicide if the police intervene by force. It is a spontaneous struggle in which the self-proclaimed "monopolists" of popular struggles have no role. The only way to counter such a struggle from the outside is to tarnish it, denigrate it and stamp it as "extremist". To explain it away as "gullible" people falling prey to the machinations of vested interests.
That is exactly what the state and the party have been doing ever since the struggle caught the attention of the media and the public at large. The strategy is to identify and isolate individuals behind the struggle and launch a smear campaign against them; not to address or analyse the issue at hand.
So what do we see at the vigil? A group of committed, concerned youngsters making merry at midnight in the middle of the city! Obviously the media was waiting for such an opportunity and readily zoomed in on the "juicy" story, "exposing" the full reality.
This sort of telecast for public consumption prompts several questions and offers insights into our notions about morality.
Over the years, political struggles have acquired and assumed a language of their own in Kerala. They have specific formats and modes of expression -- processions, sit-ins, pen-downs, dharnas, satyagrahas, hunger strikes, slogan-shouting, memorandum-filing, road-blocking, stone-throwing, destruction of public property (buses are especially vulnerable), hartals, bandhs, etc. These interventions or forms of struggle are graded, calibrated and performed according to the gravity of the situation and the amount of public support, especially from the middle class. Obviously, it is the affected parties' clout with the system that really matters and decides the form of protest, which is actually a kind of structured dialogue between the affected people and the powers-that-be. It is common knowledge that often, when a serious issue comes up the minister or concerned authority himself asks the affected parties to "stage" a public protest so that enough public opinion and pressure is (seen to be) created for the state to take a favourable decision. It's a drama where the affected appear to protest and the state appears to listen and take action. The great drama called democracy!
But if someone dares to break the rules and does not follow the grammar of protests, everything is turned around. Because the powers-that-be are clueless about how to contain it; and more importantly, such protests make them seem "powerless".
Only in calibrated and conventional "struggles" do the protestors need to follow the rules: rules about how to behave, about demeanour, speech, body language. Look "serious" so that you mimic the gravity of the situation. No smiles, at least in front of the camera. You are "crusaders", "cross-bearers". Do not loosen your grip on the elaborate performance put up for public consumption. Be the message!
So what happened the night of the vigil? The protesting youth certainly didn't look "serious" or "grave"; they didn't act the part of martyrs being led to the stake. They didn't even bother to put on appropriate faces! Instead, they were frolicking and making merry, chatting, smoking, and hugging. How can the guardians of public morality stand such behaviour? Naturally, the moralists sprang into action, denouncing the "debaucheries" of the youth, using their spy cameras so that all was "revealed" to the world at large. It was as if they were smuggling visuals out of a nuclear plant or the Pentagon!
The protestors were going about their activities in a public space and in full public view (what could be more public than the footpath in front of the state secretariat?). The photographers, on the other hand, were not casual passersby. The spy camera was being directed at a public act; in other words it was an act of spying on a public protest performed in front of the public, in a public space.
The energy and enthusiasm of these "investigative" journalists and their spy cameras would be better directed at the real centres of power and conspiracy; at the authorities that decide our lives and our futures, than on a group of youngsters just being themselves in a public space. If we leave our future to the moral policemen who keep vigil on public protests for us, who dictate to us "how to protest", we are doomed.
More importantly, let such "exposes" not muddle our exposure to the real struggles, both for our land and for our freedom.
(Dr C S Venkiteswaran is director of a media school in Kochi. He is also a filmmaker and film critic)
InfoChange News & Features, April 2008