Differentiate between issue-specific movements and generic movements. Give an example of an issue-specific movement and explain.
Answer:
Issue-specific Movements:
- They achieve a single objective within a limited timeframe.
- There is clear leadership.
- They have some sort of an organisation, i.e., organisational features of order, stability, leadership, etc. are visible in them.
- Their active life is usually short, e.g., the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Generic Movements:
- They are more general movements that seek to achieve a broad goal in the long term.
- They have independent leadership.
- There is no single organisation that controls or guides such movements.
- General movements are environmentalists’ movements or the women’s movements.
In India, Narmada Bachao Andolan is a good example of this kind of movement.
- The movement started with the specific issue of the tribal people displaced by the creation of Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River.
- Its objective was to stop the dam from being constructed.
- Gradually, it became a wider movement that questioned all such big dams and the model of development that required such dams.
- Movements of this kind tend to have a clear leadership and some organisation. But their active life is usually short.
- Another strike followed in April and the government imposed the martial law.