People are fighting back, though capitalists and the State have joined hands to deprive people their constitutional rights.
This was observed here on Saturday by Shimoga-based Kuvempu University’s English Professor Rajendra Chenni and Hampi University’s Kannada Professor Ramamath Tharikere.
The two speakers at a seminar on a decade of analytical and intellectual literature organised by Sahitya Samudaya and other organisations highlighted the successful fight of people in Gadag against land acquisition for Posco and tribal people’s struggle in Odisha against Vedanta as being representative of people’s voice against globalisation.
Prof. Chenni said though State itself was speaking the language of the capitalists and joined hands with them to suppress the intellectualism, there were also some positive signs now and all along the history.
Labour class, agriculturists and tribal people had spoken against the powerful.
Prof. Tharikere described those who fought against big companies in Gadag and Odisha as the “real heroes of our time”.
He, however, pointed out that intellectuals spent their energies more in denying or negating what the “enemies” were doing. He said one needed to rethink this strategy.
Lecturer in Government PU College in Haleyangadi Jyothi Chelyar said matriarchal families in the coast were increasingly becoming patriarchal. Multi-culturalism was being replaced by an environment of confrontation.
