The power of insisting gently

In recent days, a word has been restored to the vocabulary of Indian politics. That word is ‘resistance’. Whether resistance should be rendered in Hindi as pratirodh (resistance) or satyagraha (nonviolent resistance rooted in truth) is open to debate. The prefix prati can also carry negative connotations. But beyond that, there is something else — something deeply soothing.

What could possibly be soothing about resistance? The question is a legitimate one. Many episodes associated with resistance come to mind. There is resistance in Mirabai’s songs, in Andal’s verses, in Soyarabai’s abhangs, in Avagha Rang Ek Zala — but there is also love. After all, even today, the establishment is afraid of love, isn’t it? What greater form of resistance could there be than love?

When resistance emerges from the womb of lived reality, it transforms into a struggle for one’s rights. That is satyagraha. It is vaster than the idea of rights. And it is impossible without practice.

Resistance cannot be carried out through old methods alone. It is not a one-day programme. It is not a sensational news story. It is forged through years of blood, sweat and tears. And even then, something like Chauri Chaura can happen. At such a moment, the seeker of truth has to admit: we weren’t completely prepared. This preparation is itself a practice.

Over the past few years, we have encountered new practices of resistance. They were not discovered through deliberate search; rather, the wires simply kept connecting. These practices are not really new. They were not invented for the first time. They have begun to reappear on the political terrain.

In 2021, the practice of spinning the charkha began again. At the time, no one imagined that it would spread across the country, or that it would be used so extensively as a feminine, entirely nonviolent practice of political resistance. Again and again, the thread would break; the yarn would turn out too thick or too weak. Everyone thought we would spin a little cotton, make a garland, and that would be that.

Then the story changed.

One day, a woman comrade from Maharashtra began spinning the charkha at a public sit-in. The police told her, “Do whatever you want — shout slogans, do anything you like. But don’t spin.” Had the habits of colonial rule still not changed, that the baton-wielding police were frightened by a charkha?

In faraway Himachal Pradesh, a movement was underway against the suspension of MGNREGA work. A statue of Bapu stood a short distance from the protest site. A woman who had once served as the village sarpanch was given no particular recognition, despite the fact that during her tenure, MGNREGA work in the village had been carried out on an unprecedented scale.

The woman said nothing to anyone. She picked up her charkha and quietly sat beneath Bapu’s statue, spinning yarn.

After a while, the media, the administration and, gradually, the comrades at the protest came and sat around her. All she said was this: the yarn comes from the sweat of workers and farmers. This is my resistance for the restoration of MGNREGA.

The charkha was spun in thirty towns across the country against electoral malpractice and the nexus of power. One may ask: what changed? What was gained? The Election Commission did not change. But a new practice of change was discovered.

The conduct of political movements changed. A movement and protest site that had always been steeped in an overwhelmingly masculine, muscular culture began, in some measure, to acquire a feminine character. Women could sit as equals at protest sites and spin yarn. Attention was paid to their natural needs.

A similarly beautiful practice is slowly taking shape at Kranti, a women’s camp.

In Tamil Nadu, there is an instrument somewhat like a tambourine. It is called the parai. It may well be one of the world’s earliest musical instruments. It is made from the hide of dead cattle. For centuries it was played only by members of the Dalit community. It was played before temples, at public festivals and when someone of social standing passed away. The people who played the parai were called paraiyar with contempt.

That community was not allowed to enter the main village. They could not climb the steps of a temple. They could not use the public well. Even their funeral processions could not pass through the main village. Even today, the situation is more or less the same, although such discrimination is a legal offence.

Several reformers and people’s organisations have begun playing the parai as an instrument of resistance. It is still not used in political circles. At this camp, women from different regions, castes, religions and classes were participating, and so the experience was different.

The woman teaching the parai was a revolutionary comrade from the Dalit community. She spoke Tamil. Most of the participants could not understand Tamil at all. So there was a linguistic barrier. There was another difficulty: in a caste-dominated society, it is not easy to learn from a Dalit woman.

Then, the murmurs began. The parai was made from cattle hide — how could one touch it? It was impure. Without practice, a woman who is forced to label herself impure for three days every month can still fail to be sensitive to communities that have been deemed impure for generations.

For two days, excuses were made: “My hands hurt.” “How can I hold such a heavy instrument?”

The woman teaching them simply continued to play, with affection and patience.

On the third day, after watching a video on the story of the parai, something melted. On the same day, there was a conversation with Devadasi women. All those accumulated feelings of impurity turned into tears. The heart was cleansed.

That evening, everyone picked up the parai and the air reverberated with its sound. Everyone also learned a two-step dance. It was as though one group struggling with one form of discrimination had reached out and held the other.

That day, the woman teaching them felt no linguistic barrier. The parai had found its own language. It had moved beyond language. She said that when the women held the parai with both hands, she felt as though they had pushed aside centuries of discrimination and embraced it. Accepted it.

That day, everyone’s eyes stayed moist. Discrimination, awareness, everything kept flowing. A folk singer from Karnataka sang the song ‘Kattuteva’ — whose lyrics challenge the fear of inner slavery and say, come, let us make ourselves fearless.

Fearlessness awakens through love. That is the eternal form of resistance. A new culture of resistance is taking shape. It is becoming a practice.

The most powerful country in the world celebrated its 250th anniversary. But can it really be called free? Not without ढाई आखर प्रेम का, those two-and-a-half letters of love.

Love is returning to politics. Through the practice of resistance.

Read more by Meenakshi Natarajan here