Jallikattu - Battle is won. What Next?

This post is a continuation of my previous post, Jallikattu and Tamil Culture - Revolution or Hypocritism? (My Immediate emotional ourburst)

As always starting with a Disclaimer:

  1. My limited view in my very limited knowledge. Open to genuine discussion and inputs, based on my available time.
  2. It's well known that History is always written by winners and the actual truth is deliberatly lost. So I am trying to preserve the lost truth here, collected from my first hand experience. Since I am posting only lost truth (negative stuffs), it's not a actual reflection of reality. Mainstream media covered all good stuffs.


Victory for the `so called` Tamil Culture!

It's all settled now. The requirement is met. Jallikattu ban is lifted temporarily now and promises are made that permanent PCA amendments will be made.

Protestors are so happy, but I am afraid. Very very afraid.

Yes. We have this bad habit of disregarding the judgement of High Court and Supreme Court in various cases. Usually it's because of bureaucratic friction and political reasons.

But this time, it happened again in a Unique way.

  1. A Large number of protestors, who have absolutely zero knowledge on the reason for protest, but attracted by kindling their Ego of Culture, which is actually lost. But their Ego have blinded them enough that can't see that it is lost.
  2. The number of protestors has reached a large enough number to make the world world watching at us.
  3. Now to make the Crowd happy, the Politicians are running from Central to State and making Amendments.
Are we effectively asking for lawlessness?

I just hope, no one starts a protest next month saying Devadasi is our Culture. All true Tamils should come to Marina to save our Culture and to bring back our tradition of Devadasi.

For those, who have no idea of what Devadasi is (just like u had no idea of what Jallikattu is, before u joined the protest). It's a caste/profession, where girls born in that family will be married to the God of temple, live in temple, and do prostitution in temple itself.

Different reasons of Protest and my thoughts

  1. To save Tamil Culture - My whole previous post is about that. Link at top.
  2. To save Native breed - Cows and Bulls are part and parcel of ecosystems of farmers. They are taking care of it for centuries. But now the farmers themselves are dying. Stop worrying about the pet in home and start worrying about the Family head. When farmers economy is strong, they will take care of their Bulls, regardless of Jallikattu is happening or not. Only stuffs that have competitive economic value, will survive in this world. Things that dont have economic value, but rely on other factors like Culture, Rituals will eventually perish. Unfortunately, it applies to people as well!
  3. Vent out for all Social Frustrations - I guess this is a major reason. We are all frustrated with the current system. We see social Injustice everywhere in TV, News, in Road, everywhere and didn't know what to do about it. We were all very active online (Whatsapp, Facebook) about all Social issues. The NGOs still run in their own world. The general public and the NGOs are not connected yet. Maybe, just maybe, NGOs speak of Activities, Events, Govt, Act, but not of Emotions, Identity, Language, Culture. I dont know. But this protest is a big stage for anyone to come and vent out their anger, frustration on our Ruling class. A Big Stage for everyone to be a hero in the street. This is what I clearly seen in there. Our greatest depression is our lives and Marina is a stage for everyone to become a Rockstar.
And I am very very happy to see some 5% of crowd there with Agendas of Saving farmers and other social issues.
Fight Club Tyler Durden <3  Thanks to all Hollywood movies, which had taught me a lot about this world.

History repeats itself

Thanks to myself for chosing to read `India's Struggle for Independence`. It is an eye opener for me, in various things.

Before 1885, before the formation of mighty Indian National Congress, 1000s of protests happened all over the landscape. Most of them are not intellectual, but emotional as it happened here in Marina.

But unfortunately people (at most places) lost to British that time and 1000s of lives lost. The protestors didn't even have the picture of driving away British and self-governance. Those are all highly advanced concepts introduced very later. Initial protests were all emotionally driven, for a smaller cause on a localized region. They didn't get the bigger picture of British's rule causing all social troubles and the solution is to drive them away. Some examples,

  1. Santhal Tribe - 1854 - One of the massive Tribal Revolt @ Rajmahal hills (in present day Jharkhand). 60,000 tribal people organized a revol against British. Their weapon was Bows and Arrows, but they believed they are blessed by their god and Bullets wont hit them. The rebellion was crushed ruthlessly and 15,000 killed! The tribes vision was not about India, but about their Rajmahal hills.
  2. Mangal Pandey - 1857 - He is an army man, who shot at his Superior for religious reasons, triggered a 2 year Mutiny within British Army. But the mutiny is crushed and order is brought back. Pandey's vision is not Independent India, but out of his emotional agitation as the jawans religious beliefs and the army practises conflicted.
1000s of other such stories are there. They all tried to reverse the newly introduced social conditions and go back to their old traditions, rather than thinking forward. 

But my point is, People go aggressive out of their emotions and do all sorts of foolish things, that even costs them their lives. 

It should be the responsibility of the Intellects to guide them forward in proper path, as later done by INC.

Going Forward - My appeal to Social workers, NGOs and Volunteers

There are 1000s of NGOs, started by both Intellectuals and Emotional drive, working for Social welfare in their free time. There are hard core volunteers, casual volunteers. I am part of this group of people.

Most in this group will agree there are more pressing Social issues than Jallikattu, as we are all already working to fix them. But you know what?
  1. We failed to capture the Imagination of Public.
  2. We failed to give them a proper stage to come out and strength us in our struggles.
Wait. I know we did our best to do above. We do so many awareness sessions, so many social activities. But in the scale of 10-100 people. So let's take this as a big Chapter to learn. How to motivate people to get to ground. No I dont still understand that now. But we need to think on this line and move forward.

Idea 1: Maybe evolve our boring, dumb even posters. Maybe create memes.

My best design years back
On the pic: It brought me ~ 10 people (who are already volunteers), but this sort of design is not enough to capture 800 hearts. Now a new idea based on current trend. Take a snap from the film Joker, Mudhalvan or Ramana, where hero speak of Corruption, Govts not working and overlay it with texts as `The hero is calling the reader to attend the event`. Just a thought! Guess we should think in these lines.

2. Keep Evolving!

Yes. We made sacrifice by starting/joining an NGO, coming out of our comfort zone, reducing our family time, reducing our personal space, giving up on our hobbies and putting our precious time on Social welfare.

A group of like minded people then joined, we made a vision, created a roadmap, designed activities and projects, started executing it. More than everything, we evolved. We evolved from a complaining Citizen to Active Volunteer. But then, we settled with that flow. A comfort zone was formed there and we keep repeating same set of activities, with same set of people. The same impact we created in 1st year is incremented by 2-3 times in the 5th year. We settled down.

If all NGOs had put the same exponential effort, getting out of comfort zone effort each year, for past decade, we might had made a revolution in last 10 years.

In my understanding, u can only evolve to a certain point as a Volunteer, after which the same role Volunteer will limit your social Impact. Then to exponentially grow ur Social Impact you need to jump to different boats.

  1. A Politician
  2. A Social Entrepreneur
  3. Full time Activist (Like Anna Hazare, Julin Asanage, etc.,)
  4. Any other ideas, other than Terrorism? Pls post in comments.

3. Keep learning

This is a very very key factor of Evolving urself. Be it books, online articles, learning through experience, watching documentaries (my favorite). You only evolve by learning and doing.
Some Hints
  1. Documentary on Gene Sharp - How to start a Revolution? - Gene Sharp is a bloody brilliant legend, who studied non violent movements across the Globe, made Revolution into a systematic process and summarized them into steps, which anyone (with some brains and skills) and take up and do.
  2. Read Gene Sharp's book, From Dictatorship to Democracy, which was instrumental to the leaderless movements in Middle East, including Arab Spring. HE IS A FKING LEGEND.
I was studying all this and more years back, as I was thinking of evolving as an Activist. But now, I chose the route of Social Entrepreneurship. That a separate story.

ok. Enough theory. Sharing some snaps from Ground Zero.

Barbaric Slogans and Posters - Other side of Truth

No comments!
Vote kekka vantha, Otha Ommala nu solluven. lol. Solli paaru. Vidoda thookiduvanunga! #Mob #Mentality
Lol. The Orange checked shirt on right is so interested in removing Modi's Trouser. Ivan avana, iruppano!
I heard this line almost everywhere. However unparliamentary, I loved this lines, that too, when people said in chorus:

  1. Anchu rooba Mutta, Modi oru Potta.
  2. Engal madu, engal madu. PETA yaar da, echa madu and more were there.
Guess we have a very long way to upgrade this souls to a higher level (Internally).

And some really Good, Touching Pieces

Best of the best. I didn't get opportunity to fight in 1947, but got my chance in 2017. Guess he missed IAC 2011. My Salutes, Dear Soldier!

Our Protest wont stop till we see Permanent solution for Farmers, Jallikattu and Fishermen. I salute you, Soldiers (y)

Surprised to see My dear Friends, Social workers Ranjith and Ela vendhan. And even more excited to see பல "வேடிக்கை மனிதரைப் போலே - நான் வீழ்வே னென்று நினைத் தாயோ?" Look at their innovate idea of getting hand prints of supporters. Namba pasanga, always Creative :-) Guys, If u had read this post and the previous, I guess u ll understand why I didnt' print my hand that day! I was just a spectator not a supporter.
Support by a Non Tamil girl. #Touching
Funny Creatives
:-D
My Fav Silambattam

Finishing Touch

Selvi Aunty on left and My Mom for Jallikattu in center :-P

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