My Experiments with Facebook Activism

My father was a freedom fighter, a Gandhian, and after Independence, a social worker. We were from Meerut, but I often accompanied my father during his many padayatras. On one such journey in Central India at the beginning of the 1990s, I decided that this was where I wanted to work. In 1992, I got married. My wife was also involved in social issues. Within a month of our marriage, we moved to Bastar to work with tribals. We focused on making them aware of government welfare schemes and getting them implemented. I even mastered Gondi, their language. Slowly, along with my wife and people I had befriended, I set up the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada.

Maoists had a presence in the area, and they found support from impoverished tribals because vast acres of their ancestral land were being signed off to mining and steel companies. In 2005, the Chhattisgarh government formed the Salwa Judum (or ‘Purification Hunt’ in Gondi) to fight Maoists. The Salwa Judum suddenly became all-powerful and violent. When I began to raise questions about its functioning, the government demolished our ashram in May 2009. We took up space in a rented house to continue our work there.

But with sure and certain steps, the local administration started cutting off our access to villagers. My colleagues would tell me that special police officers (SPOs) of the Salwa Judum and police were not letting them enter any of the villages where we had earlier worked. The police surrounded the house where I was living on the pretext of protecting me from ‘violent tribals’.

The truth was that the State wanted to keep an eye on me. Reports went up to the higher authorities on all those coming to meet me. My colleagues were arrested under false charges, some as serious as murder. There was fear in the air.

Four girls from a village called Samsetti were raped by SPOs and then held captive so they couldn’t talk about it. The number of violent reprisals kept increasing. I began to feel my strategy had backfired—instead of protecting them, I had made the area’s tribals more vulnerable. There was not a single independent institution under whose aegis I could shield them. Continuing to work in Dantewada would only bring more harassment, more rapes, more arrests of people I was trying to help. I decided to leave Dantewada to talk about this war zone. I wanted to garner support from across the country. Shifting to Delhi seemed to be a pragmatic option.

Human rights abuses happen because they are kept from public knowledge. The only way to stop them would be to expose the horrors. That was the strategy I had adopted while in Dantewada. I was making various government schemes accessible in the remotest of villages. I had also managed to develop a wide network of activists and journalists interested in the goings-on at Dantewada. I would send out bulk emails informing them about incidents of violence. I had already begun operating a Facebook account on the internet while still in the forest, but sporadically.

Over the last year-and-a-half since I took refuge in Delhi, I have had nothing but disappointment. I have seen many people offer lip-service to tribal welfare. There were times I felt acutely depressed. I thought I was wasting my time in Delhi, when I should be among my people in Dantewada. I realised that I had slowly become an urbanite and began to feel like an escapist for not doing anything. This sense of guilt led me to embark on a cycle yatra in 2010. I wanted the sense of doing some real work. I decided to ride across India to witness firsthand the many battles being fought over resources.

I posted my plans  and a rough itinerary on Facebook. There was an overwhelming response and many encouraging words. It gave me a sense of the anger people felt over what was happening in Chhattisgarh and across the country. I was confident that at least 10-15 people would join me for the yatra.

I had been optimistic. It was just my nephew  and I through 85 days on the road, from Punjab to Rajasthan, Gujarat and finally Maharashtra. One man from Mumbai joined us for a few days while I was in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Two others from Rajasthan travelled with me for a couple of days. But that was it. The experience smashed the myth for me that an angry Facebook voice will translate into meaningful action.

I have noticed a few things about Facebook activism. There are very few updates on the site on weekends. So most people, it seems, use their office computer to practise this ‘activism’.

Along with these part-time activists, there is a new breed of ‘online activists’. I also notice that comments on one’s Facebook status or news posts are not given much attention—‘debates’ never go beyond the first comment.

I know from personal experience now, only too well, that the internet can at best supplement action on the ground, it cannot take its place. The internet can also give the impression that thousands of people are committed to a certain cause. There are pages with titles like ‘One Million to Stop Operation Green Hunt’ on Facebook. But where are those million people? The same few people update those pages all day, and ‘like’ the posts between themselves.

These people may empathise with an issue in all honesty, but they rarely ever act on their convictions. They may put up a demonstration, shout slogans for about an hour, and distribute pamphlets, but then they return to their regular lives. Recently, in March, there was quite an uproar after cases of arson, murder and rape were reported in Dantewada. A demonstration was planned in Delhi outside Chhattisgarh House, and going by the response on the internet, I thought there would be vociferous protests against the atrocities. But again, to my utter dismay, there were just about 20 odd people who turned up.

After the recent revolution in Egypt, people have started looking at the internet with great hope. It may have some hidden force that I am unaware of, but it is not my medium for activism that aims to achieve anything. I have to work among the people in Dantewada—I have to talk to people, explain issues to them, get them to work together. I was not and still am not against the use of social networking sites. You won’t hear me say that just because there was no Facebook in Gandhi’s time,  we too shouldn’t be using it. Gandhi used the printing press in his days; we ought to use the internet. Activists can use the internet as a platform, but if people begin to mistake an internet rant for real activism, then it’s a disservice to the cause.

Ironically, my activism today is restricted to posting updates on the internet, and that leaves me unhappy. I am restless and I want to get on the road again. But will any of those who offer online solidarity care to join me?

Since returning to Dantewada would only lead to my arrest on false charges, perhaps my only way to stay connected with my work and people across the country is via Facebook. 

My mind, however, is busy conjuring real ideas and plans. Offline. It’s what offers me hope.  Real hope.

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As told to Priyanka Borpujari