By Nilotpal Basu
There are moments in history when time scampers. Many Indians who were in a dilemma over the lack of collective rage would now be relieved. With developments over the manner in which the executive, the legislature and eventually even the judiciary appeared to converge, it was almost a replay of the British colonial rule. The freedom struggle, the sacrifices and the democratic secular Constitution, all appeared to be under major strain. July 20 was the day when a protest and Parliament march call was given by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), but actually it became a confluence of both streams of organised and spontaneous student action that stunned the nation.
As we have observed earlier, the cyclonic growth of the CJP in the cyberspace surprised many. The centralised examination and admission policy flowing directly from the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, has created a situation where examinations were rigged under the National Testing Agency (NTA). That the NEP is a garb for a corporate-RSS takeover of our entire academic edifice is now starkly clear. The disastrous centralised entrance examination was perhaps the clincher. Resulting trauma and forced suicides by aspiring students have shaken the nation’s conscience. The proof of the fiasco was so overwhelming that the education ministry and the government had to finally concede a retest.
However, there was not an iota of accountability. The disbanding of the NTA and the resignation of the education minister were the minimum logical demands. But the RSS-corporate nexus, through the instrumentality of Narendra Modi government, doctored the political processes and governance and have sought to institutionalise refusal of accountability as the regime’s philosophy. There was a conspicuous silence. Bizarre ideas of Modi himself overseeing entrance exams and the Indian Air Force (IAF) transporting question papers were heard aloud!
The Chief Justice’s remarks that those who questioned and protested were all cockroaches was perhaps the last straw. The notion of a party of cockroaches spread like a wildfire. Therefore, those who thought that the meteoric rise of the CJP in the cyberspace will never replicate in reality, failed to recognise that a cockroach party was an idea of collective rage which had been looking for avenues to explode to force accountability. There can be no two opinions that the young people of the country who are at the worst receiving end, have been pushed to a wall such that there is no option but to burst out.
A few days back, Times of India reported that in Uttar Pradesh a B.Tech gold-medalist committed suicide after fifty failed attempts at securing a government job. The massive magnitude of the problem of unemployment is searing the young people, snatching even the slightest hope of securing their livelihoods. Even for those who are employed, their real wage is continuously getting eroded. Across all sectors and all levels, new technologies without any public intervention are threatening even those inadequate and substandard jobs.
In education the situation is no less horrific and the entrance examination itself has played the biggest fraud on the students. This was an extraordinary situation which warranted extraordinary responses. The organised student-youth movements in the country have been articulating and agitating over these issues for a protracted period of time. This string of organised activism recognised the immense potential of creating a broadest possible platform of resistance to the government’s policies.
The growing disquiet of workers with the new repressive labour codes have resulted in spontaneous outbursts of worker protests in and around Delhi. In areas where the traditional trade union movement is weak, the same restiveness is also being witnessed over the dismantling of the demand driven 100 days employment through the MGNREGA. The unjust tariff terror of Trump’s US and the union government’s abysmal surrender to protest them is also adding to the uncertainty of peasantry.
The helplessness of the young people is also getting exacerbated by the nauseating behaviour of the corporate owned godi media who are working overtime to establish the post truth narrative of the Modi regime. The absolute mockery of democracy with MLAs and MPs being sold and bought like cattle with the huge cash at the disposal of the BJP, has added to the sense of disquiet. Therefore, the situation has crossed that threshold. The right to question, the right to criticism, is a basic right that democracies have celebrated over the years. But in the current dark times, criticality is a proscribed idea.
Therefore, the young people did what they did on July 20, in Delhi. They overcame fear. Their actions spoke for themselves. Their collective courage was visible. The denial of dialogue and the brutality displayed instead was right out of Netanyahu’s playbook. The action in Delhi is not a standalone development. It has already acted as a trigger across the country where protests have taken place and will continue. The union government’s obstinate refusal to talk to the protestors had to give way to some gesture of conversation.
However, with the union government’s presumption that time will take care of its troubles to settle for a business-as-usual mode, chain reactions will explode with consequences which it cannot imagine and there will be no one else responsible but themselves. It has to be recognised that the situation has now gone beyond Sonam Wangchuk and assumed a collective ownership, notwithstanding his noble efforts to bring focus to an extremely important question. The godi media is also running for cover. They don’t know how they can push their fake narrative to put a veil over what has happened on the ground; the people will call out that the emperor is naked.
Finally, we have to recognise that democracy howsoever threatened is not dead. It is alive and kicking. As someone reminded ‘the beauty is in the street’, the iconic phrase which featured during the May 1968 student movement in France when students came out of stupor and created history in turning back the militarisation of the education process with the unholy war in Vietnam. Streets have that potential. In the coming days, spontaneous and organised elements among the young people will have to plan and coordinate to provide a direction to their legitimate anger. There is no doubt that democratic and secular parties will be there, in solidarity with their future actions and endeavours. (IPA Service)
