I am very closely associated to the city where protests against retailing industry had taken a very violent form one year back. I have seen some of the part of 'bell shaped' life of this protest. Extending views of Anand, I feel there are few more reasons for the inability of people to carry the baton to national scale.
The section of people who were protesting was mainly constituted of small retailers, hawkers, mobile vendors etc and is largely unorganised. Since there were no any institutional channels for free flow of messages, rumour became one of the major processes in defining collective action. As retailing industry had affected the livelihoods, the people had a strong incentive to protest together so it added to the process of rumour. The people came together for the first time to protest, all having their own reason to come forward. Probably this was one of the important reason for the failure. They were not knowing each other so the collective action, generated by rumours, was for a very short period.
Also the protests were not followed by establishment of any institution which could incite a feeling of cooperation among them, which could establish communication networks linking populations whose interests were at stake.
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The situation seems very similar to revolt of 1857 : All people are fighting for their own reasons without a strong central leadership.
Apart from protesting against retail industry another good step would be organising themselves to beat the private business house in their arena of trade. This is one constuctive way to address the situation. But the possiblity of such a situation is remote due to bounded rationality. A strong leadership is required to let it happen.
As i have mentioned in the Anand Post as well that Retail protest are against the business principals like in the sense in this competitetive world question is survival of the fittest. Consumer wants quality products at cheapest possible rates and irrespective of who provides that product. In no circumstance they will purchase same quality product at higher price from Mom and Pop store just because they have some sympathy towards them. So these protests lack the support of masses.
In my opinion it is not about Rumour per se but about the fundamentals of reasons behind any movement to succeed. and larger section of middle class society will never support any movement which will bring loss for them in the long run. And moreover organised retailing is a proven success formula in any developed country.
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