What the Cockroaches need to be wary of

Specially written for Vikalp Sangam

The youth movement led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has come as a breath of fresh air. In an increasingly stifled atmosphere, characterized by the BJP’s attempts to suppress dissent and demolish the pillars of democracy, CJP’s dogged resistance is like windows and doors of a prison bursting open. As in the case of the year-long movement of farmers in 2020-21, thousands of fearless youths have forced an authoritarian, arrogant government to bend. 

Having achieved its immediate goals, another phase of the struggle now begins. It recently announced that while its focus remains on educational reforms, it will also take up other issues of governmental, institutional and media accountability. But it will also face demands to take up other urgent issues by social movements that have supported it (farmers, women’s, workers, ecologists, and so on). 

At an online meeting between CJP and several other people’s movements in mid-July, the discussion ranged from the immediate issues to longer-term ones. CJP’s understandable response was to let them concentrate on the former for the time being. But now, in the aftermath of a victory, it becomes the responsibility of movements that have been around for a while, to help CJP envision what it wants to achieve over the next few years. This is crucial if it is to learn from the history of revolutions in India and elsewhere, especially the costly mistakes of not having a vision beyond the immediate tasks of bringing down a corrupt minister or even an entire regime. Regime changes have not necessarily brought fundamental shifts towards greater justice in economic, political, social systems, or towards rebuilding our broken relationship with the earth. Even the very recent experience of Gen-Z and other youth movements around India, or of revolutionary Leftist parties forming governments in Latin America and elsewhere, has many important lessons. These include: 

1. The dangers of getting co-opted by the existing regime, which will make an elaborate show of ‘giving in’ to the demands of a movement and then offering sops. For instance, positions of power in the government, where ostensibly one can bring in all the changes one wants to – but then finding that the system is way too powerful and set in its ways to allow any substantial changes. 
2. Getting swayed by opposition parties who have smelt an opportunity in a mass movement, or being visibly identified with one or more of them, which becomes a convenient excuse for those in power to categorise the movement as instigated by such and such party. People’s movements may last longer when, even if they take support from such parties, they avoid getting too closely identified with any, and rather retain their political independence. 
3. Transforming itself into a political party, in the belief that there is a widespread public base to win elections. The anti-corruption movement initiated by Anna Hazare and others morphed into the Aam Aadmi Party, with a lot of promise of bringing fresh air into the dirty atmosphere of Indian party politics. Notwithstanding some progressive steps it took where it formed the government, its overall abandoning of the ethics originally espoused by the movement led some of its most radically progressive members and supporters to leave. It seems to me that most substantial changes in society have originated in people’s movements, so remaining part of the ‘non-party political’ process may be more effective than becoming a political party. 
4. Becoming a rigidly hierarchical organization in which the voices of a few (founders, early leaders) become dominant. One of the impressive attributes of many youth movements is that they are dispersed in who holds power, and voices can come from multiple sources. But this can change rapidly into the concentration of power in a few leaders, and risk losing a genuine mass base. It is important remain genuinely democratic and broad-based. 
5. Losing focus, once immediate sharply focused demands are met. An absence of vision beyond the short-term can lead to vagueness and lack of coherence. This is related to the next point, and I’ll come back to both in some concluding remarks.
6. Remaining confined to ‘reforms’ within the current framework of governance, rather than also working for more fundamental transformations, even if only in the education sector. 

As mentioned above, one basic problem of revolutionary movements has been the lack of ‘prefiguration’, or some level of advance visioning of what kind of society we want after our immediate objectives have been fulfilled. The conventional Left’s pre-occupation with ‘taking over the state’ has certainly led to some much-needed reforms in social welfare, but done little to reduce the concentration of power in the state or in corporations (public or private sector), or to move away from the disastrous over-exploitation of nature. Gandhi had long ago warned that the simple transfer of power from white to brown men would not lead us to swaraj. As CJP is well aware, changing the minister or plugging gaps in examination systems will not create an educational system that can, for instance, bridge the immense gap between getting degrees and getting meaningful livelihoods. 

Within the education sector, massive overhauling is needed towards greater public support, away from the privatization that is forcing households into paying fees they cannot afford, quality and mother-tongue learning that reconnects children and youth with their own cultures and ecologies while learning about others, enabling kids to become self-learners and not merely passive receptacles of what teachers tell them, making education fun and creative, prioritizing experiential learning rather than only bookish knowledge, encouraging learning from nature and people with live skills rather than only those with degrees. Maybe even moving away from examination orientation altogether, towards more cooperative forms of advancing in knowledge and skills.  And through all of these, empowering the youth to explore, even create, diverse livelihood pathways beyond governmental and corporate jobs.

Of course, CJP alone cannot be responsible for such major shifts. Rather, I think its vision needs to include fundamental transformations, even if in education, towards more people- and nature-centred processes. Could the brave youths who have been part of the movement help their own communities and neighbourhoods, to assert more democratic and ecologically oriented learning in schools, colleges and outside classrooms? Several civil society groups have been advocating such changes, and there are many alternative learning centres who are even practicing them, which can be learnt from. 

In politics too, beyond seeking accountability, the CJP along with others could explore more direct forms of democracy in which communities in villages and cities are able to transform the spirit of the 73^rd and 74^th Constitutional Amendments towards local self-governance. 

From what I’ve seen of the astuteness with which CJP has carried out the current campaign, I believe that its facilitators will not fall prey to some of the traps listed above. I trust that they do have a more radical vision in mind, even if not yet articulated. From preliminary conversations it seems that they are open to collaboration with movements seeking substantial transformations in other spheres (health, nature and environment, gender, democracy, food and agriculture, creative livelihoods). The fact that one of their main spokespersons, Saurav Das, is also the founder of Climate Action Front, and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk’s involvement, provides such hope. Perhaps this could lead to a broad coalition of what has been called ‘non-party politics’. It’s a tall ask, and one that has failed on a number of previous occasions (e.g. in the aftermath of the farmers’ movement). But it is one that India (and the world) desperately need, it has to be attempted time and again, and perhaps youthful energy and innovativeness can make the difference. 

About the author

Ashish Kothari is an Indian environmentalist working on development – environment interface, biodiversity policy, and alternatives. He helped found Kalpavriksh, a non-profit organisation in India which deals with environmental and development issues.

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