Posted on 22/09/2023 (15:59 hrs)
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What is a Social Movement?
A social movement can be defined as an agitational expression of collective behaviour. It targets some aspect or the whole of the social structure and the functioning of that structure through various institutionally-sanctioned norms, mores, customs, processes etc. The elements of a social movement are a certain group of people showing their solidarity on the basis of a common, shared goal. It has a certain we-feeling. A key feature of all social movements is coordination both at the intra-movement as well as inter-movement levels, i.e., expanding the connections is essential to the success of the movement. Moreover, one has to possess a sense of commitment in terms of the membership to such a movement-space.
Collective behaviour in crowds, panics, and elementary forms are of brief duration or episodic and are guided largely by certain set of impulses of “unrest”. When short-lived impulses give way to long-term aims, and when sustained association takes the place in the situational groupings of people, the result is a social movement.
The resource -mobilization theory asserts that social movements form when people who share grievances are able to mobilize resources and take action. This theory places resources at the center of both the emergence and success of social movements.
Deprivation theory was first described by sociologist Robert Merton and states that social movements arise among people who feel relatively deprived, compared to the attested privileged group, which may be a class, caste etc. According to this approach, when people compare themselves to others, they may feel that they are at a disadvantage. They join social movements with the hope of ending their state of psychological cum other forms of deprivation.
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In this context, we can revisit the Gramscian understanding of the relation between the public sphere and the state, where the civil society acts as a mediator or intermediary to voice the concerns of the day through a sustainable elitist reception of both the public domain discourse as well as the governing class’s discourse. However, this mediated, indirect connection between the governor and the governed seems to have withered away with the loss in the culture of the intellectual elites, i.e., the absence of the politically conscious civil society that can serve as an accountable communication chain amidst the two extremes. Civil society is increasingly at stake. However, this narrative could be overturned if and only if we can raise our argumentative voice by hitting the iron when it is hot.
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Pressure Groups may play a great role in transforming an organized agitation into a social movement. A pressure group is a group of people who work together to try to influence the decision makings of authorities. This can also in turn challenge the legitimacy of those authorities and force them to shift their positions or leave the positions, as in a political revolution. Pressure groups engage in a sort of metaphorical coercion with the aid of public pressure.
Interests groups with a common set of interests can turn into pressure groups if they can use the element of compulsion as part of their upsurge.
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What can we learn from previous social movements, especially in India?
IF we move on to the history of social movements, both on the theoretical plane and also on the plane of practicality, we can witness the beginnings of civil disobedience movements specifically- since that is our point of emphasis in the present live. Civil disobedience stems from Henry David Thoreau’s idea of a section of society openly coming into terms with the people in power by means such as wilful tax evasion, wilful non-participation or non-cooperation in the legitimized activities of the power-structures. In this manner, one can turn down the heat and whims of the authoritarian systems as well as the thought-control mechanisms they are involved in. This sort of civil disobedience has been used by Gandhi explicitly in the course of Champaran, Dandi, Kheda etc. Tolstoy and Ruskin’s forms of anti-establishment philosophies also played a key role in shaping the socio-ontological basis of such movements, i.e., by relating the individual being with the macro realm of participatory movements against the established order of things by sabotaging (or destroying from within) the basic institutional apparatuses of the said system.
We can see Bhagat Singh in the context of India who used various “Propaganda through deed” techniques to voice the concerns of their revolutionary consciousness. He used multiple methods that were intentionally non-violent in nature in order to subvert the British Imperialism from the perspective of its institutions, viz., the police, the militia, the parliament/legislature, the prison system etc. This way of carrying out a social movement by exploiting a consciousness of the way the established power express itself across various domains seems to be a relevant issue in discussing the method of pursuing social movements in general.
Initiators of social movements such as Ambedkar and Periyar often tried to attack the symbolisms or imageries of their attested enemy or opponent, e.g., destroying Ganesha idols, openly taking water from the place where Dalits are not supposed to take and so on. Ambedkar believed that the beginning of all social reform is when the individual takes an assertive stand against the multitude of prevalent opinion or state of affairs.
This way of doing social movement is similar in essence to Bhagat Singh’s institution-centric stance in carrying out attacks that would consequently lead to, in Singh’s understanding, a collective awakening or the upsurge of public opinion on a large scale autonomously unaffected by the manufactured lies of the systemic apparatuses.
We cannot at all forget to mention Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s strategy to come up with a military coup to topple down the imperialist system. Such a method of doing social movement is based on getting inside the quarters of the militia, garnering support and moving ahead with full abilities cum implements into the attested enemies’ literal and metaphorical headquarters to storm it down with the power of revolutionary exertion sharpened in the whetting stone of revolutionary ideas where the old order changeth, yielding place to the new!
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In recent years in post-Independent India, we have seen the movement against the Ram Mandir issue, the Anti-CAA NRC movement, the Singur-Nandigram movement, The JNU Students’ movement that was tagged “anti-national”, the Farmers’ movement, the Bharat Jodo Yatra etc.
Moving on from that, I am now going to delve into a much contemporary matter. The idea of social movements as an “open-road” agitation where people literally get together with slogans, posters and other mediums of signifying dissent has shifted in the past decades. This is what general people also understand by the term “movement”, i.e., michil, dharna, protest marches, candle marches, hunger strikes etc. etc., by choosing significant spaces that can have the maximum impact on the targeted authority’s attention, e.g., in India: Jantar Mantar, Parliament Square etc.
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However, in the cyber epoch during the cyber explosion, the need for carrying out a social movement through the medium of the internet has also surfaced in the mainstream. One cannot simply be physically active anymore since there are various problems or impediments in organizing physical protests at the moment. Physical movements tend to get subsumed or sponsored by the ideological state or the corporate. See Greta Thunberg’s subsumption by the big corporate houses that promote Green Capitalism.
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What is the new kind of social movement?
This new kind of social movement is thus the web-based social movement, the online social movement- which utilizes, at an optimum level, the cyber-space to voice the concerns, mottoes, objectives of the programme. We can take a few examples to understand this kind of performing social movements:
Arab Spring Uprising
In the Arab spring uprising in 2010-2011, though there were open agitations in the roads— but the use of social media also became very central. Research from the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam found that online revolutionary conversations often preceded mass protests on the ground, and that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring in the dissemination of information regarding the uprising. Although the impact of the social media seemed to be often uneven and uncoordinated across various geographical locations in Arab, yet its role was very important in shaping the movement itself. In this way, they also garnered international support in a globalized world.
Occupy Wall Street
The Occupy movement from 2011 onwards against the financial bourgeoisie system of share markets used the internet in a great manner, too— they used it as a medium of communication- a medium for dispersing their central ideas of “we are the other 99%”. They used hashtags on Twitter, online graffiti, blogs— that had a massive impact in spreading their propaganda. Even the use of internet memes to sarcastically subvert the capitalist complex could also be seen.
The use of “camouflaging” techniques to take part in the movement was also exemplified in the Occupy movement in order to move towards a more extended, non-individuated understanding of collective consciousness through anonymity of personal identities. The use of Guy Fawkes Masks, Dali Masks, Joker Masks point to the same in the case of physical movement in the Occupy as well as the use of proxy servers, VPN technologies in the online space.
Egypt Internet Revolution
Internet Revolution Egypt (IRE for short) is an Egyptian cyber-protest against the internet services provided in Egypt on which Telecom Egypt has monopoly.[when?] The main Facebook page has about 1 million followers and continues to expand. This significant expansion resulted in a widespread media attention. It claims to have no relation to politics in response to some media accusations. The slogan used is “The internet services in Egypt; are very expensive, very slow… The customer service is terrible”. It mainly takes place on Facebook through a page created by a few Egyptian youngsters. Some activity is also seen on Twitter. The most popular age group of the protest is the 18-24 group. It thus attached technological monopoly, infrastructural shortcomings etc., through the social media—THE FIFTH PILLAR OF MODERN DEMOCRATIC AGE.
Stop Adani Movement
The Stop Adani movement in Australia against Gautam Adani’s coalmine project from the perspective of ecological concerns as well as economic grounds used ONLINE SELFIE CAMPAIGNS, HASHTAG CAMPAIGNS to resist the encroachment of the monopoly corporate by creating a grassroots network.
It can also be viewed in relation to the Deocha-Panchami Coalmine project of Adani in West Bengal, India.
One may also go through the examples of the Green Socialist movement or the Moneyless society movement in the recent years and how they have utilized the social media.
Thus, after going briefly through each movement— Without the noticeable presence of pressure groups, the three pillars of democracy (Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary) cannot function & would be “crippled”. When one of the rest of the two pillars, Media has become “Godi Modia”, funded by the crony ruling party, you have to take your recourse to another pillar, viz., Social Media, which could create tremendous effect on the governmentality. However, you have to know the techniques of #art_of_resistance_against_autocracy. We have to learn that art of resistance.
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OCCUPY INTERNET TO RESIST PIRAMAL’S ADVERSE POSSESSION OF DHFL
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