Tech at Occupy Kolkata
By Yasmin Ahmed

What was a buzz is now the roar of an ocean. Occupy Wall Street, which started as a movement to protest the excesses of capitalism, now resounds in Kolkata, India too. As is the trend, the bugle call to Occupy Kolkata sounded on Facebook. And many well educated and socially conscious Indian techies have put their shoulders to the wheel.  There are no organisers here but the Facebook group has 3175 members as I write this. And many of them are IT (Information Technology) professionals, with the D-day declared as Friday November 18, 2011.

On the designated day they plan to gather at the Metro Channel, Esplanade and show that Kolkata and India are not far behind when the world marches onwards towards a more balanced global financial system. A token protest has already been held last week and the group holds youngsters, mostly students who have caught the wind of the protests being held worldwide from their cyber familiarity. Popular media actually took time to catch on to what had been happening on Wall Street. 

Declaredly apolitical so far and designated anti-capitalist, the movement has gathered volunteers from all walks of life.  And the members are not all from Kolkata, but all over India. But what colours that do show are red. Left-wing activists have come out in support of the movement. Mumbai is also showing signs of joining the wave, but the momentum is still to gather.

Contrary to popular belief that techies are too comfortably placed to mingle with the protesting public; there are a number of techies showing up on the Facebook group. In a run through the member list, I found more than a spattering of techies. Anirban an IITian, Diptak still a tech student with the usual angst of a young man with a conscience, Shubho who is with an MNC as IT consultant, Paresh who is a Systems Admin at another MNC, Dip who is SAP Consultant at yet another MNC, all gather under one umbrella to protest against the unfairness of some of the world’s financial industry tycoons. Check the group at this link