Sure you can protest, just plan months ahead

I want to put out a random checklist for first-time organisers of marches and commemorative rallies in Mumbai (and this is strictly a recent-resident’s point of view). If you plan to hold a protest/celebratory event that calls for peaceful walking, some slogans, some songs, a little bit of mild, non-drunken dancing in the streets, maybe an open-top car or a small float, here’s what you need to watch out for, when trying to get permission: 1) Do rounds and rounds and rounds of offices, till your feet create deep grooves in the marble-floored corridors of officialdom; 2) Be afraid, be very afraid, if everything goes smoothly, and you get a clean, no-strings-attached go-ahead from the powers that be; and 3) If there’s even a hint of some ‘unsavoury’ association (definition unspecified, and ever-changing), brace for many a flip-flop

I state all this with some authority. I was recently helping friends organise the Queer Azadi March (QAM), Mumbai’s first celebratory and public walk by its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community that will (hopefully) take place today.
After several days of being on tenterhooks about whether or not we would get permission, we were told - in the space of 36 hours -”no”, “maybe”, “yes”, “no”, and then, finally, “OK”. When I narrated this sequence to my out-of-town friends, their first reaction was: “Really? Why?” And then: “Is it the ___ [insert right-wing party of choice]?” And then, the kicker: “Can’t believe this is happening in Mumbai.”

That’s what I thought too. This isn’t a whinge about homophobia (though some would argue that in the case of QAM, there is a distinct whiff of it).

This is about Mumbai’s liberal, cosmopolitan, all-accepting, sab-chalta-hai image taking a mighty whack. At one of the early meetings, where a strategy to get permission was being worked out, I blurted out: “But what’s the problem? Don’t we have Dalit rallies, protests against North Indians, meets to have more Marathi signboards? And if Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata can have their Pride, surely it would not be a problem in Mumbai?”

My neighbour, a seasoned activist/protest-organiser gave me a pitying look. And said, very slowly, as if summoning all her patience: “This…is…not…Kolkata.”

In my hometown, where marches and protests were once a five-day week affair, holding up traffic, moving at snails-speed so that every passenger in every vehicle got a look at your placard and having a gathering of 50 spread out to simulate a three-km line of protestors was de rigeur.

At rallies I have been a part of, we were actually asked to spread out to cover the breadth of the road, even if there were only two of us in a row. And it was anathema to not allow you to seriously inconvenience daily commuters.

Nobody stopped you, nobody rushed you, and the traffic constable shrugged and wandered off to grab a paan. I have been stunned — and pleased — at the orderliness of the handful of processions I have caught in Mumbai. But it was only when I saw, up close, the work that goes behind organising one, that the irony hit me.

Mumbaikars can march, of course; they can have their free expression through protests — as long as it’s in a controlled manner. There’s room for spontaneous action — as long as you plan weeks ahead for it.
l_ghosh@dnaindia.net