A car being burnt outside my window

Yesterday, someone in the crowd at one of the GJM's rallies was shot while protesting outside the house of a leader of the recently-deposed GNLF. That man's house and two cars were burned, and other GNLF-connected people also had their houses or stores damaged. I'm not clear on whose car I saw being burned. But, so far as I know, there were no people attacked.

A little visual meditation on the nature of the Indian state: Note the position of the police as the crowd rolls the car to where they are going to burn it.


Compared to what this area has been through in the past, this was really a pretty contained and limited episode of political violence. It was definitely obvious that (1) these guys were very knowledgeable about the safest and most effective way to burn a car. They had crowd control going and everything. And (2) the spectators were all quite calm -- there weren't even shouts of encouragement or solidarity, actually. They definitely seemed more like observers than participants.

And today things were very calm. The stores were open, the car removed from the road, the rallies back on.

Oof... I'll write something more complete about my take on the Gorkhaland movement later.

I actually only have 12 more days in India. I'm already supposing that I'll have to make a return trip, so I don't feel too panicked to finish things up. Nonetheless, it did sneak up on me.