Indian Idol Really Does Explain Everything!

So, I went to the gherao and all was fine. PowerPoint-friendly pictures obtained.

There was a little change in plans overnight, actually. The GLF decided that they would do two days of gherao now, then take a break for Diwali, then finish up after that. The break for Diwali is, so say the leaders, in deference to the tourist industry. (Lousy backpacking foreigners. Messing with my field work.) This further illustrates my point about Indian civil disobedience lacking a sense of urgency. By the way, if you do not know what Diwali is you may want to refer to the episode of The Office that explicates the holiday in full.

The sit-in part of the gherao never really happened. The plan was to march from the city center to the headquarters of the district and blockade that. But the police had three successive roadblocks (complete with batons, riot shields, tear gas, and assault rifles. Singing: “one of these things is not like the others...”) several hundred meters away from the marchers’ target. I arrived at the roadblocks about 30 minutes before the procession did and was waved through, and was able to watch what happened from further up the road. For awhile the police were chatting with me and asking how their guns compared to those of US cops (I made something up) but then a supervisor shooed me pretty far away. But I still had an okay view.

As it turned out, there was nothing for the police to worry about this time. The protest got to the blockade, the leaders made some speeches, and then the group turned around and went to a different meeting point where more speeches were made. Then they dispersed, although the whole thing is supposed to repeat tomorrow.

This gherao, by the way, was even less like a proper sit-in than the semester during my college years when a bunch of students camped in front of the president’s office demanding that no sweatshops be involved in the manufacture of the school’s paraphernalia. Similar to recent events in Myanmar, after a few weeks the Yale junta rolled out its ruthless strategy for breaking the resolve of the valiant protesters: mid-term exams. And that was that.

On the other hand, judged by the standards of a political rally rather than as a gherao, the GLF effort was thoroughly respectable. Lots of call-and-answer chanting, sign boards, flags, the whole works.

My sister asked why they are protesting if they want the same thing their current leader does. (For those of you waiting with bated breathe for my dissertation, be warned that there are several spoilers below). The deal is that Subash Ghising, the man who led the GNLF’s drive for a state in the 1980s, has dominated politics for twenty years now, has been putting off elections for the post he controls for about seven years, and was for a long time beyond criticism because of his role as head of the Darjeeling movement. Sort of the Yasser Arafat of Darjeeling. Sans head scarf.

These new protests are basically being organized by politicians who want to oust Ghising. It is interesting that they cannot just protest against him on the grounds that he is not particularly skilled as an administrator, a crook, and a murderer, and instead they protest for statehood. I think one part of it is that a separate state is genuinely popular and by taking a more extreme position than Ghising (statehood now versus eventually) they are hoping to win away part of his luster as father of the movement. And then there is the fact that most of these politicians were in Ghising’s party up until a few weeks ago. And are mostly incompetents, crooks, and murderers themselves.

These politicians didn’t suddenly see the error of their ways – they saw an opportunity to capitalize on Ghising’s all-time low in popularity. And, here’s the amazing part: this actually IS because of Indian Idol!!!! Simon Cowell should be so depressed at the irrelevance of his show by comparison with the Indian version!! Kelly Clarkson notwithstanding, I don’t think American Idol has a single social movement to its credit.

To be more specific, Ghising has lost the hearts of the Darjeeling folk for his failure to support Darjeeling’s recent Indian Idol champion, Prashant Tamang.

You see, Ghising was out of the country during most of the competition. By contrast: You remember runner-up Amit Paul of Shillong? The Chief Minister THERE donated a bunch of money to the phone companies so that his constituents could text in their votes for Amit for free. Politicians elsewhere made a big show of selling their assets to sponsor free SMS-ing or gave cars, land, houses and so forth to the local contender. Indian Idol is serious business: 370 million votes were cast this time around. And Ghising just totally dropped the ball.

The irony of someone surviving seven years of postponing elections and then falling on the sword of a musical talent search is amazing, don’t you think? I guess we know what would revive public interest in Indian politics, though: more ensemble dance numbers.