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....Posted by Ishani
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The first time I heard of 'boycott' was in my Class XI. Our teacher was talking about how Gandhiji wielded the weapon of mass boycott of British cloth to make the Empire wince. After all, as Napoleon said, "England is a nation of shopkeepers" and Gandhiji knew where it hurt our rulers most. It was a brilliant stroke of political engineering.
Nowadays however every kid in India is hearing of boycotts, fatwas, bans, arrests, hate speeches, bandhs and water cannons.
We didn't hear the term but we knew as kids what social boycott was in our villages. Gandhiji's Harijans, now called dalits, were not allowed anywhere near the abodes of the upper castes except through their back doors to clear the night soil. Gandhiji was plain wrong there to ask everyone to participate in this manual scavenging task, instead of abolishing it by, not a fatwa, but technology.
Gandhiji was low-tech and wooly-headed in his ideas of village-centric upliftment. It is the advent of science and technology that changed the fortunes of the downtrodden, somewhat, rather than affirmative action on its own. It is said that there was no need of the American Civil War which was fought on the issue of abolition of slavery (captive farm labor). If only they had waited 20 years, mechanization of farms would have swept slavery away (to be replaced by its industrial cousin a la Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times ).
But the greatness of Gandhiji lay in realizing where he was inadequate and appointing Nehru as his successor. Nehru was of course pro-science and technology and massive heavy industrialization. But it was a pity that Nehru was a dreamy socialist and so his India turned into a license-permit raj stifling the so-called entrepreneurship of the Indian spirit.
But it is a paradox that the sudden liberalization of India that emancipated the many-headed with the advent of modern gadgets like TVs, computers, internet and mobile phones in profusion has also led to the illiberal intolerant fatwa-mindset of the nation. Perhaps it is a passing phase like the half-cooked Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani...you just wait till it is fully done.
The first time I was asked to participate in a social boycott was at IIT KGP in the heart of liberal Bengal. It was like this:
When I joined IIT KGP in 1965, there was no Teachers Association. Everyone was happy with their permanent heads willy-nilly. Then came a new Director with new ideas like rotation of headships. The permanent heads then instigated their faithful followers to launch a Teachers Association called IITTA to rebel against the new Director. Most teachers joined it as a matter of inertia...it is easier to please one HoD than several, one after unpredictable another. DB and I had also joined it as a lark.
But the second rung of professors, who wanted to dethrone the ruling Heads, launched a rival association called Faculty Forum (FF). We didn't like them because they were obviously power-hungry. But the Director liked them ;)
And so appointed them as Deans and Dons and Students' Gymkhana Chairmen. And they egged the students on to come out overnight with a roster of Assessment of all their 300-odd teachers giving each teacher marks out of 100; which the students overdid in their delighted enthu.
Then shit hit the fans in the IITTA Office. Because it was an unethical, immoral, unprecedented, irreligious, satanic, and hideous thing to do. So, the leaders of IITTA issued a fatwa to all its paying and non-paying members to do a 'social boycott' of students. When this was announced, the students laughed heartily. What social and what boycott? Chee chee chee...
But, within a fortnight, IITTA announced that the social boycott of students involved also a Reco Boycott.
Then shit hit all the fans in all the rooms in all the Halls of Residence...and the students groveled.
So much for the IITians' capacity for revolt those days...I guess things are different now and IITians are more conscious of their social obligations.
Of course DB and I (among many others) refused to participate in the Hall Day and Reco Boycotts and we were promptly snubbed...it soon fizzled out however.
There was another call for boycott at IIT KGP:
In the beginning, the students' Spring Fest was a stodgy affair. I think it was an Inter-College Culture Fest...confined to things like clay-modeling and its cousins.
But as liberalization hit IIT KGP, there came a day when KGPians felt that they should move on and join the mainstream student bodies like perhaps the St Stephens (I don't know).
And so they launched an event called Fashion Parade and the ramp-walk or whatever it entails.
Suddenly there was an uproar among the senior faculty who condemned it as un-Indian, unethical, immoral, irreligious, chee chee chee. And issued a fatwa to one and all who listened to them to boycott the event.
And they kept away from the Spring Fest.
But not their wives and kids...
To help popularize the event, students installed a huge Closed TV Screen outside the Open Air Theater so that those who participated religiously in the boycott of the mean event going on inside can happily watch from outside how mean it really was...
....Posted by Ishani
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