RETURN OF STREET-FIGHTER

RETURN OF STREET-FIGHTER
19 october 2006

someone’s always demonstrating in Lucknow. today there’s some sort of mass rally going on just down the road. the main sponsor is the Bahujan Samaj Party, at least judging by the blue bunting draped over the bamboo arches over the roads, and all the little blue flags and the 6-foot tall white plaster elephants. but there are also strings of the Socialist Party’s cute red and green flags with white bicycles and Indian National Congress’s orange and green with upraised hands and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s saffron lotuses. i predict the latter will try to start a fight. there have been lines of people assembling since this morning, and music and speeches and chants blaring out of loudspeakers.

“Bara Sahab ka dusra nam?”
“Kanshi Ram! Kanshi Ram!”
[what’s the Big Man’s other name? KR...]

“Jab tak suraj-chand rahega...”
“Amar Kanshi Ram rahega!”
[as long as the sun and moon remain, KR, immortal, will remain...]

“Bacche bacche bheem hai...”
“Kanshi Ram ka bheem hai!”

at least it sounded like bheem. there were more verses but i either didn’t catch or can’t remember them. i also saw the slogans later, painted in Hindi on the walls across from Ambedkar Maidan [Ambedkar was the writer of the Indian constitution and kind of the Dalit version of Martin Luther King. Kanshi Ram was the founder of the BSP.] along with more quite artistically shaded blue elephants.

some things still in use are refreshingly low-tech, whether you prefer to call it classic or obsolete: such as the loudspeakers, which are basically giant flared trumpet bells mounted on roadside poles or moving jeeps. or the railway crossing system, which consists of a guy sitting in the dingy hut next to the tracks with interior walls the color of police khakis, that looks like it hasn’t been remodeled since 1947, cranking the barrier up and down whenever a train comes, all the livelong day.

the BSP controlled Uttar Pradesh government until recently, when the SP took over. as far as i know they’re the two main ones currently jockeying for position in this area. the BSP was founded for the purpose of uplift and empowerment for lower caste people, though nowadays the leader, Mayawati, often gets accused of just being in for her own aggrandizement, having betrayed a) the people she’s supposed to be representing, and b)the legacy of Kanshi Ram, whose memory today’s tamasha is lauding. she builds lots of ostentatious public monuments, including one big Luxor-via-Vegas-esque mausoleum that’s supposed to be more or less a temple to herself when she dies. it’s near our house. [in giving directions to where we live, it’s often enough to say “Mayawati ke aaspaas.”] the ruling Samajwadi [socialist] party is also supposed to have a program geared toward the needs of the poor, economic justice and development, you know, all that socialist type stuff. in practice, people complain that neither is ideological and both are actually about patronage, competing for the same bank of votes. then there are the BJP and the Communist Party of India-Marxist who hang their red or saffron banners out just down the street from each other across from the capitol building. those who know me can guess my thoughts on both of those.

which reminds of a conversation i had the other day with a colleague, who expressed the opinion that those people who really believe in something with fervour and conviction are scary and dangerous...to which a counter-argument is, are those people who believe in nothing, who are either apathetically self-absorbed, or who are amoralistically out for wealth and power, any less scary and dangerous? why can't we all just enjoy life and be happy and be nice to each other: is it ethical to just be happy and nice and no more, in an unjust world? i’m not being rhetorical, i'm interested to hear your thoughts on this: would you rather deal with someone who believes in something and is committed to an ideal, even if you don’t like their ideal...or someone whose commitments aren’t compelling enough to intrude upon daily life? is there a happy medium between fanaticism and apathy? are flexibility and integrity inversely proportional? are tolerance of others’ ideas and commitment to one’s own?

now there are people streaming up the road, getting off busses that ferried them here from neighboring villages. the women are in bright but well-worn saris and the men are in dusty dhotis and long kurtas, or trousers and short kurtas. some carry signs, some carry children. every so often a gleaming new SUV with BJP logos and lotus flags cuts through the line. they do look poor and in need up uplift and empowerment; they’re uniformly thin and weathered. but are they here because of party conviction, or because they were bussed in to beef up the crowd? are they true believers in Kanshi Ram, betrayed by Mayawati, as the editorials suggest? i lack the confidence [mine and theirs] to ask them.

then there’s also the lively crew over at Lucknow University, where student elections have been going on recently. some dude named Rajan Nayak must have an in with the transportation department or something, because he’s managed to get “Vote for Rajan Nayak” painted on the outside of lots of the buses and tempos. the thing is, these are bigtime events since the major political parties groom candidates in the universities as their own likely future rabblerousers. recently there was an attempt to pass a reform law on the student election process, including campaign spending caps, requirements that candidates must be attending a certain percentage of classes, and that they must be under age 25. in other words, that they be legit students. this caused an uproar: how could such ridiculous demands be placed? outrageous! so students shut down a major intersection in the middle of Lucknow, smashed car windows and set fires.

listen up, proud UCSC “vanguard”: so we shut down the entrances to campus a few times in the last couple of years? here it seems to be pretty standard on most campuses. no big deal. students are routinely up in arms. literally. many of them stockpile weaponry. they march on offices and occupy them, physically encircle or attack officials, shut things down, fuck shit up. sometimes people get killed. this is not always an accident. BUT, and this is a crucial but: we’re back to the question of convictions. this is all just tactics. none of it is necessarily linked to any discernible ideological justification or political analysis other than the calculus of power. student politics is a training and recruiting ground for the big leagues, and it’s a high stakes game. government power in UP is about who knows who and who’s in whose pocket, who promises what to whom in exchange for votes or muscle. corruption and thuggery are endemic.

i feel pretty isolated from the political stuff happening in the streets, unless of course it’s right outside, like today. often i only know something’s going on because the streets are blocked up or you can’t get through the city, and then i learn the specifics in the newspaper the next day. i’m still in watching and learning mode. that’s ok, i’ve got a lifetime, and this is not the sort of politics i’d care to be involved in anyway.