Guest Column Anjan Dutt

I have always felt uncomfortable walking in rallies and protest marches. I have always believed in the individual as opposed to the collective. I never belonged to any political party. If there be any agenda that I have it is to live and work in a democratic space where the voice of the individual registers. My decision to join the silent protest march on November 14 stemmed from a terrible sense of fear. The fear of losing my democratic space.

Lots have been said and written about the politics of violence at Nandigram and the complete lack of transparency, responsibility and morality in the way my government has gone about the issue. To me it is a fight between David and Goliath, where, unlike the fable, David lost out to Goliath purely because of size and shortage of gunpowder. But what has made me truly insecure is the realisation that I, or for that matter any average citizen, is losing the space to question our establishment. That perhaps my government has taken its electoral majority for granted. It has forgotten that it cannot function only for those who have voted for it and not take care or listen to those who have not.

As far as development of society is concerned, I would like to share a little information. Continuous nonchalance and neglect on the part of the Assam government led to the Bodoland uprising. Spearheaded by the All Bodoland Students’ Union (ABSU), it translated into a savage civil war for the last 20 years, leading to the complete destruction of the environment. Professional poachers and fellers took advantage of militancy and the Manas Tiger Reserve was ruthlessly plundered. The Unesco declared it a red zone. Finally and inevitably both parties realised that it was not benefiting either and a peace pact was made.

Goutam Ghose, Mrinal Sen and Anjan Dutt take part in the rally on November 14. A Telegraph picture

A section in the ABSU decided to bring improvement in the region and through the field director of the Manas Tiger Project invited a small Calcutta-based eco-tourism organisation called Help Tourism to engage the locals in a dialogue. A huge open meeting with the villagers resulted in a people’s plan to protect their environment through tourism. Today over a 1,000 locals, including ex-militants and ex-poachers, are running a tourism project called Mouzigendri Eco-tourism Society, protecting almost 1,000 acres of forest area at eastern Manas. It took 250 locals and ex-militants and seven days to build a kachha road to facilitate the entry of two environment scientists from Unesco who drove down and declared Manas to be a model for rural development in south-east Asia.

No matter how small the whole effort may seem compared to our crises, to me it is one of the most transparent and beneficial ways to development where the government works as a facilitator along with NGOs to ensure development where locals feel involved and not betrayed. Where 20-year-old militants end up as voluntary forest protectors.

The more I think of the Manas project the more the civil society movement in Calcutta becomes relevant and I end up believing that the killings at Nandigram could have been avoided.

As I walked in the rally alongside 60,000 others, the transparency of my fellow walkers, the sheer willingness to come together, the energy of being engaged kept reminding me of those who have worked and are still working for the Manas Project.

I know that my walking in the rally will not bring peace in Nandigram. It is for myself that I walked. For the sheer joy of being involved from within. And it is that same “self” that felt uncomfortable going to the film festival when many of my colleagues and other fellow citizens stood away for a human cause. I do not want to know their political belief. I only know that they stood up for democratic voice. And I didn’t want my name to stand apart from that desperately needy democratic voice. “Because”, in the words of John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, “it is my name. Because I cannot have another name. Because if I am silent I sign myself to lies. Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of those who are killed and hanged. How may I live without my name!”