How Indian is the Indian Idol? The relationship between national sentiments and regional stakes took a bizarre turn in north Bengal on Saturday. Some residents of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong disrupted normal activity in these towns by venting their rage at apparently not being able to vote for their favoured contestant, Prashant Tamang, to send him to the finals of Sony’s Indian Idol singing contest. The three towns went through a bandh-like situation for an entire day. The protesters assumed that their text messages had not got through in time for the closing of the votes. Reliance and BSNL outlets were vandalized, billboards torn down, rallies jammed the streets, shops had to be closed and police stations were gheraoed.
Two elements in the situation make it particularly startling. First, Mr Tamang did, after all, make it to the finals and most of the text messages had reached. So the fracas was built on rumours and apprehensions. And right from the beginning, sabotage theories were in the air. So, whose were the stakes in not letting a Darjeeling contestant get to the finals? The supposed answer to that would lie in the fact that the agitation, together with the sabotage theory, was publicly endorsed by the Gorkha National Liberation Front legislator from Darjeeling and by senior members of the All Gorkha Students’ Union. Their active involvement had instantly politicized the situation. Fierce, but ultimately good-humoured, competition is essential to these contests, and a great deal of the emotions released in the process is inflected with regional pride. But the protests in this case show how quickly such an issue can absorb into itself pre-existing hostilities and perceptions, instigated by local political leaders and activists. So who, in the eyes of the protesters, were trying to sabotage the voting and why? The service providers or the Indian ‘nation’ itself? In the perceived answer to this question lies the seed of much that complicates the idea of ‘India’.
Top
No comments:
Post a Comment