Activism and Wonkery Are the Yin and Yang

by Ajay Shah The first element of achieving change is a dissatisfied public that is able to speak up. In places like China, freedom of speech is circumscribed and it is not that easy to express dissatisfaction with the way things are going. In India also, freedom of speech is under attack, and particularly when it comes to our problems of crony capitalism, the threats that we face are dire. But in some other fields - e.g. the protests against the events in Delhi - there are no real barriers to speaking out. When does democratic outrage genuinely change the republic? Everyone is against rape. Shouldn't our outrage about rape immediately yield a world where women are safe? Unfortunately, the safety of women comes from the functioning of the complex machinery of laws, police, lawyers, judges, courts. To fix the problem, we have to modify this machinery. Read more »