Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Squatters gear up for civil disobedience in India

Kolkata's Gobindapur Rail Colony squatters are ready to engage in civil disobedience in their fight to avoid being summarily evicted next week, according to his report from The Statesman.

Though I can certainly imagine what the words mean, if anyone out there is fluent in Hinglish (Hindi-influenced English), could you please help me pin down the exact meaning of the two things the squatters say they are going to do: rail roko and dharna.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Rail roko" comes from "rokna," which means "to stop" - that is, they plan to stop or disrupt the trains. My Oxford Hindi-English dictionary says that dharna means "sitting constantly at the door of a person whose attention one is demanding (as that of a debtor, or of one from whom a favour is sought)." It can also mean picketing, and it has a religious use parallel to its secular meaning.

rn said...

Many thanks, David, for the great clarification. I continue to suffer from having given up on learning Hindi.