Leadership failure

Leadership failure

Peaceful movement for jallikattu didn't have to erupt in bloody clashes after achieving goal.
The jallikattu protest has finally drawn blood. After remaining peaceful and apolitical for six days, the movement with Chennai's Marina beach as its epicentre turned violent on Monday. At least 60 people, half of them policemen, were injured in clashes. In Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu life came to a standstill, with roads blocked and communication disrupted. The turn of events on Monday exposed poor leadership of both the government and the jallikattu movement.
Having promulgated an ordinance on Saturday to facilitate the traditional sport, the government failed to explain its implication. In fact, it kept details of the ordinance a secret, leaving protesters suspicious. Barely hours before the assembly was to introduce a bill to replace the jallikattu ordinance, the police used force to evict the campaigners from Marina beach. That backfired. On their part, jallikattu fans had no idea how to end the show. A people's movement often takes birth through a combi nation of factors and garners strength spontaneously. But when a leadership fails to emerge, the end game becomes tricky. Had the protesters been guided properly, they would have seized the golden moment on Saturday when the ordinance was promulgated and ended the struggle.
But with virtually no one to make sense of the ordinance, and some vested interests spreading the idea that it was but a temporary permission that could be overturned sooner or later, the campaigners asked for a `permanent solution'. What that solution was, nobody knew. Even the saner voices in the crowd failed to drive home that a state ordinance ¬ and the expected bill ¬ would have the strength and legal validity of any other legislation, state or central. Midway through the protest, some Tamil nationalist groups as well as Islamic hardliners eager to do some Modi-bashing joined in. In the initial days, their secessionist noise was drowned by the chorus for Tamil culture. But once the jallikattu goal was achieved, and some of the thought leaders sympathetic to the movement appealed to call off the protest, the vested interests instigated participants to stay put. The police action became a tool in their hands to get the campaigners to discard peace and turn violent. Anyone who supported the core cause of Occupy Marina should be sad with the bloody end. For both the government and campaigners, it should be a lesson in leadership and clarity of thought.