Women in Resistance: What Women’s Organizations can do for Class Building

By Juhi Tyagi

“We, as Adivasi [tribal] women, could collect all men from the village and speak to them about women’s issues—at first, only when we were accompanied by the dalam [squad], since we were afraid to address men on our own. But as time went by and men realized we were associated with the women’s squad, we started to address them on our own. The biggest problem in every village was men getting drunk and hitting women. So, we would tell men not to drink. We then mobilized men to shut liquor depots with us, which were owned by economically powerful groups. Men became involved in this way.”

-Akhila, 39, Former Maoist Deputy Platoon Commander and Former Women’s Committee member.

Protest Psych – Counseling for the politically wayward

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve got a copy of LeBon’s The Crowd that I keep meaning to read. Of course I’ve internalized what we all now think he was saying—protestors are crazy!—because social movement scholars have spent the last thirty years insisting that protestors are rational actors behaving in politically salient ways. But I’ve got this nagging curiosity that I keep meaning to do something about: Maybe LeBon was writing about a fundamentally different time. Maybe protests and protestors were different. That’s not what this post is about, because I’ve ­not pulled LeBon back down from the shelf.

Anyway, it was with this general line of curiosity that an article from the Times of India struck me broadside: Protestors against a proposed nuclear power station were made to undergo psychological counseling.  What’s this now? Seriously? The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy has been protesting for some time, but as best I can tell from a quick perusal of the web, this is the first time there’s been an attempt to brainwash them. Maybe it’s not brainwashing, maybe it’s less sinister. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has demanded an explanation from the Indian government. No other details seems to be publically available at this point. Also noteworthy: this psychological intervention follows on the heels of a government investigation of the possibility that PMANE’s work is supported by “foreign funds.” The investigation led to the detainment and deportation of a German national.

There’s no need to belabor the analysis here. India is truly a social movement society. I’ve never been to India when there wasn’t a bandt or strike or sit in or walkout or protest that effected trains, taxis, rickshaws, airplanes, government workers, women carrying water, men breaking stones, and a thousand other activities and sectors. So a protest against a new reactor is nothing new. But at a time when western security forces are developing more and more refined responses to large-scale protests, it seems that the Indian government is moving LeBon-ward. Diagnosing the protestor as patient and administering the cure.

Which brings us back to The Crowd. I wonder if LeBon got some things right about the world he lived in. Maybe, like the Fantastic Mr. Fox tells Rat, “certainly she lived, we all did. But it was a different time; let’s not use a double standard.” But then when I see the Indian government treating protest like a disorder I settle back into the conventional wisdom: LeBon was crazy. I guess I really should read his book.

Stratfor Spies: For-profit corporations tracking movement activity

In 1984 a gas leak at Union Carbide’s facility in Bhopal, India killed 15,000 people in one of the world’s worst industrial disasters. In 2000 Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide, allowing it to jettison further obligations to the families of the 15,000 dead and hundreds of thousands affected. According to a spokesperson, Dow’s subsequent payout of $500 per victim was “plenty good for an Indian.” The gas leak remains a live issue in Indian politics, both at the community and national levels, and for reasons of national pride, as well as basic fairness. Yes Men, what?