Development etc.

Hey Maia, what a great article that was. Even as I write here, right outside my office off Parliament Street, activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan are on hunger strike on the streets. Medha Patkar has been arrested and taken away to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, but Bhagvatiben on her 9th day is still going strong. This after the Home Minister told them to their faces that he doesn't have land to give them where they can relocate. Yet the dam's height is being raised. Despite the Supreme Court's order that people need to be relocated at least a year in advance of a possible flooding. The monsoons are a month away, and the dam is being raised. And a bunch of strong, stubborn, heroic people are fighting it out with the various governments of India to gain control of the land into which they were born. Ironic, isn't it?
Our little band of kids and adults will perform for them tomorrow evening. Because that is all they asked us to do and we don't have much more to give. We turn out on the streets to show solidarity. But what else do we have to give?
It is worth more than a thought though, what we are willing to sacrifice in the name of development. In Manipur some women demonstrate in the nude, in Andhra and Vidharbha the farmer who feeds the country registers his protest by giving up his life and in front of a centuries' old time piece and observation centre, some tribal women from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh vie for space with the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy to have their rights by the most legal means possible. They have been fighting for twenty years.What more can we do?
I often think theatre should be the media through which I can register my protest and yet I wonder--do i have the ability, or the voice, to be heard? That is why Swar's effort is so laudable. She is speaking not only from her heart, but for her people and the injustices they suffer every day at the hands of givers of the law. She has the strength and clarity of voice to speak up. I am yet to find it. But I am searching, now with new tools to aid expression. I hope I will be able to speak someday, the way that I want to be able to speak. To say the things that ring in my head and make it almost impossible to breathe, at times. I don't know honestly if that will happen by June, but I see this as a strong step taken in the right direction. And its wonderful to know that you guys are with me as I stumble along.