Sunday, September 14, 2003		Ulta-pulta

Tall protests!
Jaspal Bhatti

TO be heard by the authorities is getting more and more difficult day-by-day. Whether the demands are legitimate or not, no one is ready to listen. A few days back two sweepers in Delhi climbed a 35-foot-high pole near the Yamuna Veledrome. They were demanding that they be brought under the daily wages scheme.

Before this, on August 14, an Assamese newsreader of Akashvani created a sensation when he climbed atop a tower. He threw a list of his demands lied around a stone from the top of the tower.

Today protestors have to find novel ways to air their grievances. Gone are the days when agitators collected outside the factory’s gates, stopped and ghereoed the MD’s can and raised slogans against the management. Even rail roko and sadak roko campaigns have lost public support.

Every city should have eight to ten big towers from where union leaders can address protestors and also throw down a list of demands. In fact, there should be a Supreme Court ruling that protest rallies should not be held at heights less than 50 feet. In this way all the commotion on the ground can be avoided and law and order can be easily maintained.

If this happens, we might soon find Mayawati atop one tower and Pravin Togadia on another. Mayawati might be heard threatening that if Jagmohan doesn’t resign, she would jump off the tower. Pravin Togadia will be pondering, "Now that I am on the top of the tower, how in the hell am I going to climb down?"

There would be a massive increase in the revenue of Prasar Bharati because they have many such big transmission towers in all major cities of India. They wouldn’t be able to make as much money if they sold TV and radio software as they would make if they rented their transmission towers to protestors. Every man will then think,

Bata teri demand kya hai ?