Monday, April 6, 2009

The Rally

We had been a part of the rally conducted by the 'Binayak Sen mukti samiti' for precisely the same reason. Dr Binayak Sen as people know has been wrongly accused of being naxalite and incarcerated in chattisgarh for 22 months now. He has been denied bail by the supereme court for reasons best known to it alone. 8 of us  - me, ashwini, neerja, mukta, sagar, amrut, vedvyas and prayag participated. 

I had been to a rally for the first time and i must say i really enjoyed myself. I initially wondered why the rally took place in seemingly unimportant areas like mandai and laxmi road .. I mean it should have been outside the BJP regional office ( BJP rules in chattisgarh)  or the collector office or the police head quarters, but then realised that the purpose of the rally was only to make people aware and generate media hype ( i do not use these words in a negative sense). Following are the observations made -

1. The boards were a little small in size and the font too was small for people to read from a distance.
2. The overall management was good. We did not create problems for the traffic inspite of it being crowded.
3. The photographer only took pictures of a foreigner  :)
4. Mr. Bhai vaidya who was invited to speak on the subject digressed to telling how BJP was biased and how even varun gandhi could get a bail etc .. he thodassa khatakla
5. Lack of 'good' loudspeaker made synchronisation of the slogans difficult especially for people at the extreme end og the rally
6. They also distributed pamphlets describing the problem to people in the streets which was good.
7. We generated  quiet a bit of curiosity in the people standing by. Some people even came forward to ask for the pamphlets


Over all we really liked the experience in the sense it was fun and yet could be quiet effective in generating attention to the topic you want.


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