Opinion: An Elegy of Activists

The issues taken up by the award-winning activists have an underlying theme of harming India. Finally, our voters started seeing through these games

Sandeep Singh
Irom Sharmila, the activist and winner of several  international Human Rights awards, who had been on a hunger strike for 16 years demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act from Manipur won just 90 votes. The ‘None of the Above’ i.e. ‘NOTA’ option got 143 votes.
Feb – March 2017 Assembly Elections have been elegy for Indian activists as well as for the credibility of their international awards. The electorate was happy to give a huge majority to criminals and strongmen in the fray but not to the activists. And it happened across India.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a collection of opportunists, turned international award-winning activists gets the credit for elegy of Indian Activists. Indian voters voted them to power not once but twice in Delhi and second time with almost hundred per cent mandate but they are so used to activism that they failed to govern. The Indian voter is smart enough to see through the games of AAP type activists. In Goa, 39
candidates of AAP out of 40 lost their deposit. In Punjab they did manage to win few seats, but that was more to do with lack of option rather than a vote for AAP.   
The activism industry consists of organisations and individuals engaged in activism. Activism is performed full-time, as part of an organisation’s core business. It is called industry because it is run like an industry with complete marketing paraphernalia i.e. brand management, marketing, public relation and advertising. And to achieve the same they won’t hesitate to opt for wrong means.
For example, AAP Government had allotted a whopping Rs 522 crore for advertisement and publicity in 2015-16 budget, which was later revised to Rs 134 crore. Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report tabled in the Delhi Assembly observed that in its first year, the Aam Aadmi Party government spent Rs 29 crore in releasing advertisements outside Delhi which was “beyond” its responsibility. It also stated that an expenditure of Rs 24.29 crore was incurred on advertisements and publicity
campaigns that were not in conformity with the generally accepted principles of financial propriety or the guidelines on content regulation approved by the Supreme Court.
And most importantly international award winning activists and activism both are always negative in their approach. One can’t recall a single instance when they have opted for something positive. There is an Indian way of activism too, which can be termed as Positive Activism and is practised by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Positive activism (PA), as opposed to conventional activism, focuses on the bright sides of things and seeks to leverage them. The term Positive Activism refers to positive causes like achievement and excellence or positive approaches such as love and compassion, positive methods of expression like art, and sport. However, Positive Activism does not mean ignoring the pain and suffering but rather balancing them with positive emotions. Positive Activism mainly calls for and drags people towards something rather than calling against or dragging people away from
something. This represents hope and fear, or “Appeal and Appal”… Positive Activism is based on a premise that activism must be driven by love, hope, excellence, pride and passion in order to establish a constructive activism that seeks constructing concepts and practices rather than destructing.  (tagalsh.com).
The international award-winning activists and the activist organisations, they represent, take up only those issues which will be harmful to India. The issues they take up have a wide range but the underlying theme remains common i.e. harming India. For example they oppose
building of dams for irrigation and generating electricity to construction of nuclear plants again for electricity
generation all in the name of environment but without providing a solution. These are the same people who will go in the villages and fan anger sighting lack of electricity and other related developments. Their objective remains common and constant i.e. to create chaos in society and drag India from the growth path.
Finally, voters in India have not only started seeing through games of activists but have been showing them their place in most democratic manner i.e. by casting their vote. Sign of Acche Din.     
(The writer is the founder www.swastik.net.in)