Earlier this week we had an impromptu office meeting. (Well, it wasn't really impromptu, I guess--it had been scheduled for about a week prior, but just delayed a bit. Yep, that's how we roll on Indian Standard Time). The first half of the meeting was quite usual; my boss filled us in on some of the meetings and conferences he'd been to lately and other folks talked about recent accomplishments or setbacks in their projects. However, just when I thought the meeting was about done my boss stopped us all from leaving the room.
He said, "One more thing--we need to talk about security. We have a new government in power now, and that's not good for us because, as you may know, our organization has a lawsuit against Modi, personally, in the courts now." He then talked at length about the lawsuit, which was related to Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat race riots. "And at the last hearing for this lawsuit some of the government people were there, I think to see who we were. And now they know who we are--not like we're trying to hide. But, we must be careful. We don't want what happened to [name of some Indian organization here] to happen to us. You all know, right? The attack on their employees?"
Now as a matter of fact I have NO idea what he was talking about, but as everyone else did and my boss doesn't like to be interrupted, I let it slide.
He went on, "All of our financial paperwork is spotless, but we must also be careful with ourselves in case the government decides to come after us. So, no one is allowed to be here after 8pm any more. And no one is allowed to be here alone. That means if you are the second to last person to leave than the last person must leave as well. And we are changing all of the locks and instituting other security measures as well."
Now to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how much of this is well-founded concern and how much of this is paranoia; my boss is a very well-connected in India and abroad so I'm pretty sure that any actual attack on his NGO would be an international big effing deal that a new government probably wouldn't risk.
Having said that, I have to admit that my heart kind of jumped in my mouth the following morning when, upon a late arrival to work I saw that all of my colleagues were standing outside while smoke rolled through the windows and the building belched loud electric sparking sounds. But, I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to an overloaded fuse box with too many ACs going instead of government sabotage. (And in any case, we were back at work within 20 min).
Don't worry though, friends. If government goons do come a knocking I have an escape plan (bathroom window) and the American embassy on speed dial! Besides, silver linings--no work after 8pm-woohoo!
And hey, I guess you're not worth your salt as a human rights lawyer if there's no threat of intimidation by government goons, right?
He said, "One more thing--we need to talk about security. We have a new government in power now, and that's not good for us because, as you may know, our organization has a lawsuit against Modi, personally, in the courts now." He then talked at length about the lawsuit, which was related to Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat race riots. "And at the last hearing for this lawsuit some of the government people were there, I think to see who we were. And now they know who we are--not like we're trying to hide. But, we must be careful. We don't want what happened to [name of some Indian organization here] to happen to us. You all know, right? The attack on their employees?"
Now as a matter of fact I have NO idea what he was talking about, but as everyone else did and my boss doesn't like to be interrupted, I let it slide.
He went on, "All of our financial paperwork is spotless, but we must also be careful with ourselves in case the government decides to come after us. So, no one is allowed to be here after 8pm any more. And no one is allowed to be here alone. That means if you are the second to last person to leave than the last person must leave as well. And we are changing all of the locks and instituting other security measures as well."
Now to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how much of this is well-founded concern and how much of this is paranoia; my boss is a very well-connected in India and abroad so I'm pretty sure that any actual attack on his NGO would be an international big effing deal that a new government probably wouldn't risk.
Having said that, I have to admit that my heart kind of jumped in my mouth the following morning when, upon a late arrival to work I saw that all of my colleagues were standing outside while smoke rolled through the windows and the building belched loud electric sparking sounds. But, I'm pretty sure that can be attributed to an overloaded fuse box with too many ACs going instead of government sabotage. (And in any case, we were back at work within 20 min).
Don't worry though, friends. If government goons do come a knocking I have an escape plan (bathroom window) and the American embassy on speed dial! Besides, silver linings--no work after 8pm-woohoo!
And hey, I guess you're not worth your salt as a human rights lawyer if there's no threat of intimidation by government goons, right?
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