Common Ground

Those of you who have been keeping up with my blog might remember my post, “Day One,” which touched a bit on organizing and demonstrating in India. The latest struggle in Bangalore is to make public parks available to the public rather than just an elite few.

Recent demonstrations are in response to Karnataka Horticulture Minster Umesh Katti’s proposal to restrict access to public parks to only those with ID cards, excluding huge pockets of the population (mainly marginalized groups).

What really impresses me is that this rights violation and terrible exclusionary tactic has brought together so many diverse groups to protest in solidarity—street and working children, Dalits (a re-appropriated political term for those formerly known as ‘untouchables’), GLBT activists, civic societies, sex workers and those who support their rights, environmental groups, law firms, migrant workers, etc.

If these groups—many of whom have never before worked together—can find common ground on this issue, who knows what else they are capable of ?!?

In this dark cloud of an issue, they give me hope :-)