Whats in a Name? Or Why Clicktivism May Not Be Ruining Left Activism in India, At Least For Now

Among thosewho consider themselves activists in a more traditional fashion,critical debates on what it means to be an activist certainly remainalive and well. Among Indias social movements, perhaps mostprominent, over the past decade, have been those that protest againstlarge-scale “development” projects and the displacement they tendto cause – projects of which especially Indias tribal people, oradivasis,often are the victims. In these circles, arguments against the useof the Internet for activism often focus on the elitist character ofthis tool: in a country where Internet penetration rates continue tohover around a meagre five percent, frequently neither the peopleaffected nor the wider groups that need to be mobilised have accessto this resource. Clearly then, organising online is neversufficient and, perhaps not surprisingly, debates about what iscalled “armchair activism” consequently are both common andintense. In a recent videoposted on YouTube, for example, the respected Himanshu Kumar – whoeveryone will recognise as a grassroots activist –called on the nation to support the adivasisand their causes. In the same video, he also explicitly requestedpeople to get off the Internet:

Isme jo shehero me rehne wale log hai, mujhe unse khas tor se kehna haiki aap sheher me baithe rahenge, net par thoda sa likh denge – ussesarkar ko koi farak padne wala nahi hai. Na janta Internet padthihai na sarkar Internet padthi hai. Hum jo activist hai wohi aapasmein Internet par pad lethe hai. Usse sarkar ki koi policiyan nahibadal payenge, sarkar par pressure nahi create kar payenge. Jab takham aam janta ke beech mein nahi jayenge, na to hame desh ki problemspata challenge, na ham desh ke logon ko jaga payenge.

[Tothe people in the cities, I want to especially say that, you keepsitting in the cities, you write something on the Internet – itdoesnt make any difference to the government. Neither do people readthe Internet, nor does the government read the Internet. Onlyactivists like you and me read on the Internet. Through that, wecannot change the policies of the government, we cannot createpressure on the government. As long as we dont go among/approachthe common people, neither will we come to know the countrysproblems, nor will we be able to awaken the people].

Noteverybody I spoke to would have agreed with Kumars argument. Theimportance of mass mobilisation and the need to be in touch withgrassroots realities are recognised by all movement activists, as isconsequently the requirement to get active offline as much as online. But whether mass mobilisation at the grassroots is the onlyway forward is not something that everyone is convinced of. In thecontext of the Free Binayak Sencampaign, for example, there is considerable recognition that thewebsite was a vital complement to a well-organised offline campaignto free Dr. Binayak Sen from jail, which kicked off in the spring of2008. Sen is a community health doctor and civil liberties activistwho had worked for more than twenty five years among the adivasisof Chhattisgarh, the heart of the current Maoist conflict, when hewas arrested on the basis of what many considered completelybaseless, yet non-bailable charges of being a Maoist himself, andleft to languish in jail for two years. A regularly updated website,and related Facebook group and email list, soon became the focalpoint for a massive outpouring of support for Sen from differentparts of the world, including in the form of a letter from twentyNobel Prize winners, as well as an important source of information onthe campaign for activists within the country. In May 2009, theIndian Supreme Court finally released granted bail to Dr. BinayakSen. The Doctors trial is currently ongoing.

Inthis context of critical debates, how do those who do see themselvesas activists, yet draw on the Internet as a significant tool topublicise struggles, justify themselves? If the Internet can play arole in changing matters at the grassroots, and has proven to do soin the past, does it become possible to intensely use this tool andstill be recognised as an activist in a more traditional reading ofthis word? The fact that most middle-class English speaking cadresof movements are online, despite their protestations against onlineactivism for being elitist, may well play in the favour of advocatesof online protest: it does open up a space to argue for the relevanceof this medium, even if for a limited group, and for the importanceof its responsible use. Indeed, it may well be for this reason thatit is possible to watch on YouTube a number of videos in whichHimanshu Kumar shares his experiences at the grassroots, his owndiscomfort with the medium notwithstanding. But it is not thisambiguity that is at the heart of the claims to credibility ofadvocates of online activism. Rather, as has always been the case,it is their continued connectedness to the grassroots. How much youare in the know of what happens at the grassroots; whether you havephysically joined struggles; to what extent you get your hands dirtyoffline and show up for meetings, rallies, poster pasting, ratherthan limiting your engagement to the online route – these are thekind of elements that determine whether you are an online activist. What you do offline remains as important as ever. To onlywork online is not sufficient.

Importantly,such readings are frequently mirrored by those who do not have suchconnections to the grassroots. In my research, I have more than oncecome across “online activists” who started their conversationwith me by stating that they were not, in fact, activists at all. Interestingly, Maesy Angelina has observed a similar reluctance toidentify as an activist among participants in the BlankNoise project (personal communication and Angelina, forthcoming),a campaign to combat street sexual harassment and, with its extensiveuse of online tools over the seven years of its existence, one of theparagons of online activism in India. While Maesy herself will blogmore about how Blank Noise participants understand activism later onhere, (earlierposts are available as well) at least in my research, the reason whypeople refused the “activist” label was generally not becausethey disapproved of what it might stand for. Rather, they saw aclear difference between their own contribution and that of thefull-time activists who ceaselessly mobilise and organise people onthe ground, those who in many cases draw on a distinct andeasily-recognisable language of protest that infuses everything fromthe shape protests take to activists dressing sense in the process –the “jholawallahs”, asone person I follow on Twitter calls them, after the trademark cottonbag that they often carry around. Those who refused the namecard ofan “activist” were clear that they would never have chosen such afull-time activists life; what new technology allowed them to do,however, was to nevertheless make a contribution, even if often on asmaller scale, of their own. As one person put it quite movingly:

I believe that, I think that ordinary people, and I am convinced,that they can do, can use this medium to actually make a difference,you know or bring about change, to change the world. You know, thesedreams that you have sometimes, “I want to change the world in someway” [laughs]. You know? I do believe that… its possible. Andyou dont have to be an activist or working in an NGO. You can beworking anywhere, you can be doing anything as your day job, youknow, or your regular job. But, you can contribute.

Clearly,then, critical readings of what it means to be an activist are commonnot only among those who are activists in a more traditional sense,but among those who focus on exploring the use of new tools forsocial change as well: the kind of credibility, based on offlineexperience, that attaches to more traditional activists is notsomething they claim for themselves. But what they understand isthat new technologies have facilitated a qualitatively new kind ofengagement with movements, with activism, with social change. Andwhat such “not-activists” do claim is that this has made itpossible for ordinary people to now also make a difference, eventhough small that difference often may be.

Inmany ways this type of involvement is actually not new, ascontributions of non-activists have always played an important rolein the survival and evolutions of movements, especially at times ofgreat urgency: doctors who are ready to treat patients for free;lawyers who supply legal advice without expecting anything in return;people with comfortable jobs in the private sector who one knows onecan rely on for donations when required (most movements in Indiasurvive financially by relying solely or mostly on donations byprivate persons). What is new with the introduction of the Internetis that the possibility of contributions by people who are notactivists are now extended into new areas, as it has become mucheasier to contribute to publicising and building community aroundissues that are close to movements heart as well.

Sohow to evaluate Whites claim that clicktivism is ruining Leftactivism in the Indian context then? For one thing, it is importantto remember that we simply do not – or not yet at least – haveplatforms such as MoveOn or Avaaz,that draw, as White explains, on market ideology to convenientlybreak down a seemingly endless number of political campaigns intolittle bites for easy individual consumption with the click of amouse button. Left activism in India, even online, remains firmlyembedded in communitiesof engagement. Surely e-petitions, for example, are popular here asmuch as elsewhere. But the point to remember is that they rarelycirculate in isolation. Instead, they emerge from the email lists,from the postings and repostings as well as conversations onFacebook, from the blogs around which much Left activism onlinerevolves. And crucial to these uses of the Internet as a tool forsocial change is not clicking, but engagement and conversation. Perhaps it is for this reason that even a landmark campaign such asFree Binayak Sen has hardly received any attention in theinternational online activists arena: campaigns such as this do notrevolve around the number of clicks they get, nor around flash-pointsor events shaped to satisfy the hunger of the international media,valuable as some may argue these can be; rather, they are intendedfor the long haul, as they attempt to build on existing collectivesto extend the communities of solidarity around issues that move anddrive the Left in this neoliberal age. Even online, the politics canand does infuse the method, at least for now.

This,then, gives something to ponder over. It is true that working amongpeople, offline, remains of crucial importance if Left movements inthe country are to achieve their goals. But perhaps it is worthconsidering more seriously the value and role of this pool of peoplewilling and available to help building such communities in a more orless sustained fashion online (I am not talking about the accidentalactivist here), without necessarily wanting to take on a core“activist”s role. Yes, perhaps their work does not amount toactivism as we know it. But nevertheless, it may well be that inmany cases the efforts of these committed individuals do not amountto distractions, but to gravy: extras that help ensuring that moreand more people start to care as the message of social movements isamplified to a much larger audience than might have otherwise beenthe case, perhaps even getting many more people involved, while alsoacutely aware of their own limitations when it comes to achievingfundamental, lasting social change. In fact, perhaps the Left wouldalso do well to wonder whether it can afford to lose this valuablesupport: as I will document in a future blog post, with the rise ofthe Internet in India, online initiatives have also emerged that takeneither of the stances described above, but that instead explicitly,and at times aggressively, seek to present themselves as aforward-looking alternative to the existing progressivepolitics in this country. A lack of engagement on the part of theLeft with supporters online would effectively entail a ceding of thespace to such challengers.

Thepoint to remember for now, however, is that many of those active inonline campaigns are acutely aware themselves not only of thepotential of their work, but also of its limitations. What we doneed to do, however, is to keep firmly alive this tension and debatesurrounding what it means to be an activist, as well as to remainvigilant that the dazzling charms of the tools do not, in the longterm, blind us to our politics. At the moment, it seems to be thecontinuing vibrancy of the Left in India that makes it difficult foranyone who wants to get seriously involved with movement politics toconsider online activism a sufficient replacement. It is theendurance of these attitudes of continuous critical inquiry that willensure that, clicktivism or not, Left activism will remain firmlyalive in this country in the future as well – in the hearts andminds of activists and non-activists alike.

Withthanks to Prasad Krishna for assistance with the translation.

References

Angelina,M. (forthcoming). Beyond the Digital: Understanding ContemporaryYouth Activism in Urban India (working title). MA thesis. The Hague,International Institute of Social Studies – Erasmus University ofRotterdam.