YES, Didi did! Most often battles are won by valiant and brave fighters who give up their lives to win a war. An army advances but from a particular vantage spot a sniper shoots relentlessly at the same forces, pushing them back, and gunning down their best, one at a time.
At that anxious moment, some brave trooper steps out, walks up to the commander and says, “I’ll take that sniper down!”
“You’ll lose your life!” says the general shaking his head sadly. “But we’ll win the battle sir!” The troops watch with baited breath as the valiant warrior rushes in where angels fear to tread, and even as he shoots the sniper, the sniper shoots him dead. But with a roar, the rest of his comrades rush in, take the fort, and win the battle.
Didi did just that! Faced with an army of deserters, she decided to take on their chief in his own bastion, which was Nandigram.
A place where there was very little chance of her winning, because her opponent’s family was quite entrenched there.
Her troops couldn’t believe their ears. For decades after Independence they’d watched leaders, starting from the Gandhi family, standing from two constituencies, to play safe.
They had never seen a leader giving up her safe seat to move into enemy territory and take an opponent head on.
They knew how powerful the adversary was, but as they realized what she was doing, their own war cries became louder.
They suddenly knew their general was leading from the front, and with new power in their wings they soared high, to fight what the rest of the country thought was an impossible fight against an undefeatable foe.
They watched their Didi battle the traitor, then turned their eyes to their own battles. They won and how, all because one little woman on a wheelchair, decided to lead the way and get the sniper! She was felled by his bullet, but not before seeing, she had won, and by a two-thirds majority!
There’s a lesson for us weakhearted here. Very often seeing injustice happening in our offices or where we live, we keep quiet because we feel the sniper’s bullet will fell us.
That’s when we have to decide whether the cause we stand for is bigger than ourselves.
Didi could have stood from a safe seat, after all that’s quite a tradition among our leaders isn’t it?
But she didn’t. She led from the front, galvanized her army single handedly and stands victorious even as the lone bullet found it’s mark! And as the sniper yells with glee he sees his victim get up and wave at her victorious troops and realizes that what he thought was a victory, was actually Didi winning through his Nandigram..!
