When Unity Mattered

Aurangabad's IT channel association, or Aurangabad Channel Traders (ACT)
has been dormant for sometime. There were some people who were driving it for a
while, then tired they decided to hand over the reins to others.

Egos crept it, complacency set in, clashes took place and slowly the
association slid to ignominy. But recently, when conmen and cops threatened one
of their own, all the dealers forgot their differences and came together to
stand by their mate.

A group of people accompanied by cops would barge into a small dealers shop
and announce that they want to search the premises for pirated softwares. One of
them would surreptitiously load some porn onto a machine in the shop through a
pen drive and then alert the accompanying cops. Then they would threaten the
dealer to cough up some money or face five-years of rigorous imprisonment and a
fine of Rs 5 lakh.

In most cases, the dealer would pay whatever he could to avoid this hassle.
And the sums vary from Rs 25,000 to 2 lakh.

These conmen ran out of luck when they tried to raid the shop of Sunil Lanke.
He promptly called a few other dealers who rounded up more dealers and a mob of
around 100 people turned up in less than 20 minutes. They hauled the conmen to
the police station and tried to get them arrested. But that is another story,
which you will read about shortly.

What was amazing is the unity shown by these dealers who were otherwise at
loggerheads and never showed the inclination to come together as a body. For
probably the first time, they realized what a force to reckon with they could
become, if they simply got rid of their differences.

The issue was grave, but the channel responded appropriately. But I am more
keen on seeing whether this will be a flash in the pan or will the city's finest
in the IT space come together and resurrect ACT. Will they finally give ACT the
backbone that it needs and try to work harder in resolving recurrent issues?

Or will this incident be just another wartime story, which they will keep
referring to while they backslap each other at some mutual meeting? It remains
to be seen.

vinita bhatia

vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in