Other online activists talk about their initiatives following the Pink Chaddi campaign success
Other online activists talk about their initiatives following the Pink Chaddi campaign success
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| Nisha Susane, the girl who initiated the Pink Chaddis campaign |
A month ago, pink chaddis would have been the stuff that dirty SMS jokes were made of. Today it's a symbol of female emancipation. Like the thousands of causes that flood cyber space every minute, Delhi girl Nisha Susan's campaign could have been lost in your spam folder. However the success of the same is proving again how a strong online campaign can result in significant offline reactions. Sunday MiD DAY showcases just some of these crusaders who chose the internet highway over the placard-and-dharna route to get their voices heard.
The Pink Chaddi Campaign that began on February 5 has already drawn over 38,000 members. Susan said that she had been overwhelmed by the response. "In Delhi, a volunteer told me that she had gone to a store and the shopkeeper asked her why everyone was asking for pink chaddis. Amul Butter used our campaign as inspiration for their new hoardings. School kids wanted to give their underwear. Grandfathers did too. Lyricist Swanand Kirkire has written a song about it. I'm just glad that we were able to make our voices heard," said Susan, who's confident that their online campaign will not die now that Ram Sena leader Pramod Muthalik has received the underwear.
But Susan isn't the only one nor was she the first. Online activism, a trend gaining currency on popular networking sites, has been around for some time and is only growing with increased internet coverage and use.
Take the example of Anuraddha Tandon, Thakur College of Engineering lecturer who started a website,
www.helpgaurav.com, in December to help raise funds for her husband's illness. "My husband Gaurav suffers from acute myeloid leukemia and when he was doing some online research on the disease, we came across two fundraising sites set up by friends and family of the patient. We thought it would be a good idea since funds were hard to come by," said Tandon who has managed to raise more than 50 per cent of the funds required for Gaurav's treatment since the website went live. Support has flooded in, especially from her students who have raised Rs 15 lakh in the last week alone.
Speed is the greatest advantage of this form of sloganeering. "Even a low cost dharna takes time to organise," said blogger Dina Mehta who's been part of online activism circles since she began blogging in 2003. Mehta has been part of 'blogathons' and helped mobilise information around help for tsunami victims in 2005 "Cyber activism has always been around but it's been concentrated to a niche audience. Nisha's chaddi campaign is probably one of the first that was able to generate such a strong offline response," said Mehta who is also on the advisory board of Global Voices Online, a non-profit organisation of bloggers and journalists who keep track of interesting things happening in the global blogosphere.
Are they genuine?
Online activism comes with its problems though, the chief being doubt over authenticity. Tandon herself received innumerous calls from strangers asking whether her site was a sham or the real thing. "It felt awkward to prove that my husband was ill. However I put myself in the shoes of the callers. How were they to know that we were being genuine? We decided to upload all of Gaurav's medical reports as well as pictures on the site to corroborate our story. There's a lot of good in people but they are completely justified if they want to know where their money's going to," said Tandon.
Interest wanes
Another challenge is how to keep interest alive. A case in point is AIDS campaigner Korak Kahaalee's Mumbai 26/11 terror attack cause group on Facebook that lists over 30,000 members. According to Kahalee who's been associated with several online causes since 2006, the initial response to the site was overwhelming. "For a month until December 26, there were online discussion boards and talks of action groups being formed. As of today though, I have only five active participants," he said.
It isn't the first time when interest fizzling out has been a problem for Kahaalee. In 2006, he and a friend in USA set up an AIDS awareness site www.aidsawarenesskolkata.org that even resulted in an offline offshoot NGO called Swapno. However over the past year, the duo weren't able to maintain the site because of the response that slowed down. "We still get requests but the response wasn't as much as initially. It's the biggest challenge for an online activist to keep interest alive because every other person can do what you're doing but to channelize that energy in the right manner and to keep a steady flow is the hard job," he said.
The skepticism isn't stemming the flow though. Mehta who is attending an information activism campaign this weekend said that while online activism has its share of problems, it's picking up. "A year ago a campaign like Nisha's on Facebook might have not been able to generate the response it got today. As for problems, what medium doesn't have it? The cost and time benefits of the internet outstrip others by a mile."
