Specially Written for Vikalp Sangam
The final straw on the camel’s back was the NEET paper leak. It wasn’t the most important matter that concerns the country, but served the purpose of bringing the camel down to its knees, and to show that it can be done.
The few days I spent in Jantar Mantar in July were refreshing, especially since I was tired of seeing the steady erosion of all that I hold dear in India.
No need to go into details here, but it’s about human rights, about the environment, about corruption, about how we treat women, about how we treat people who don’t believe in the mainstream, the lies our leaders tell when they go abroad, and how all this has become the new normal for us who live here, unable to even cringe, as it has become as normal to see a bunch of men pissing on the street.
The crowd was overwhelming. But it was not a crowd in the ‘face-less’ sense of the term. There were many, many young people out there, and once one lost the initial apprehension when confronted with large numbers of people, one disolved into the circumstance.
But I was aware that it would take very little to create unrest. The violence that marked the 20th of July had just passed.
The youth I spoke to were in their mid twenties to early thirties, full of energy, and aspirations for themselves and for the country, to which they are an asset. They were too young or not yet born when the various acts of communal violence and other scandals made headlines during that period, and all of them children of bjp bhakts, brought up with the belief that all is well with the country, that they will all study and be employed, and take this country forward. Much had been promised and they had voted for the bjp, and nothing had happened. These young men were angry.
The young man from Haryana kept repeating that he could not believe how the bjp won in that state. Nobody he knew had voted for them. He knew of people in his village who had sold their land or jewellry to pay for their children’s education. They had lost everything when news came of the paper-leak.
The young man from UP was a post graduate from Delhi University, a student of political science. His voice was hoarse from shouting slogans.
Another man was a post graduate from Bihar, now working in a hotel in Goa as he could find no employment that suited his education. He’d taken a week’s unpaid leave to be in Jantar Mantar. Disillusioned, angry.
A youth from Bareilly sat by himself holding a placard with a message that was very vulgar, directed at the government. It was so vulgar that I could not get myself to take a picture of it. I asked him why he had to use such bad language, and he said that no language was worse than what the government had done to them.
The artist from Chandigarh had come on his motorcycle, parked it somewhere in connaught place, and walked over. I found him talking to a person from Kerala who had taken a train from Thrissur; he’d booked an inexpensive room somewhere near the airport, planning to stay for a week.
Approximately 65% of India’s population is youth.
As I moved through the people I heard a nihang sikh reprimand a young man for using bad language. The youth, who was just joking and laughing with his friends, fell silent, felt ashamed. The nihang told him to watch the words that leave his mouth, that it is good to control them, train himself to speak well, that this was a large gathering of people and we all need to behave.
Language has been important. Even the PM, when the whole thing blew over, forgave the errant youth for their bad language. We shall not pause to question the language some bjp leaders have used against those in the opposition. Or that the protest itself had been fuelled by calling the unemployed youth ‘cockroaches’, and that too by a judge. Not any judge, a Supreme Court Judge.
Over the last decade there have been few voices or words of dissent. The language used by the most observers of the country, who live in the country, has been guarded, cautious, never daring enough to say anything against the government. During those years conversations in public spaces remained in undertones, opinions guarded unless one knew who one was talking to.
The inabilty to speak ones mind supresses emotion. An inability that stems from two reasons: the fear of aggression from the authority and social ostracisation, or the inability to find the right words to describe what one wants to.
Individual words, like liar, or corrupt, or muslim-hater, or phoney, or arrogant, or illiterate, don’t seem to suffice, are not all encompassing enough to do justice to what the people may want to express. What they seek is a word or phrase that includes all these characteristics and qualities. There has been no luck in this search, causing linguistic frustration.
Kya bol rahe ho? Kya bolna chahte ho?
The atmosphere in the Jantar Mantar area, whether in the protest site or in the neighbourhood, was one of consideration and kindness. Despite the number of people I found a place to sit when I moved about, and showed an interest in a poster or placard, or wanted an explanation to a slogan. Usually when I sat someone passed me some water, someone fanned me to keep me more comfortable in that incredibly muggy air, the heat and humidity more than any Delhi year I could remember. Kindness made the stay and the walk bearable.
Not many people knew each other. What united us all was India’s future, and the youth who will inherit it. I heard many languages. There were people from all over the country. They looked out for each other.
The garbage was continuously collected and moved away. The few toilets were kept as clean as possible. People queued up for their food. The spirit of volunteerism prevailed.
More than the demands for the resignation of a minister, more than being asked for accountability of the actions, more than anything else, the government was disturbed by the kindness that was alive in Jantar Mantar. Kindness that created a bond between strangers, where consideration for others became the norm. Kindness that breaches walls built by religion and language, kindness that is spontaneous. That kind of ‘kind’ was what kept people anchored in Jantar Mantar, and that is what the other side did not like, and they tried to break that, first by force, then by deception.
Modern versions of democracy don’t function if the people are united, at peace with each other, where kindness becomes common currency. That kind of kind threatens the state.
What began as an agitation against an education minister spilled into other areas, the posters and placards calling attention to so many things that are wrong in the country. Our youth were aware of where India stood, and the vulnerability of their dreams in it. They had no problems with muslims or christians as the stakes were similar. They had all been let down by the leaders they had trusted.
The protest was called off abruptly. Quite soon after the demand for resignation of the education minister was accepted. There was jubilation in some sections of the crowd but it seemed premature, even immature. Many thought the stakes were higher, beyond just a minister. There was much more accounting to do, but people began to disperse.
The sit-in was like a prolonged chess game, where one player sacrifices a pawn to save the king, and to diffuse the pressure from one part of the board move to another. It worked, at least for the moment.
I felt sad leaving Jantar Mantar, leaving that bubble of kindness, into the world as we know it.
About the author
A student of adivasi languages and botany, author of Woodsmoke and Leafcups: autobiographical notes of the Durwa people, now grows coffee in a biodiverse farm and is a long-term witness of central India.
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