akrishnarao

Tag: police

  • The Brahmastra of Power: Delhi’s Crucible of Protest and Suppression

    Hanuman initially destroyed the Ashoka Vatika, and later killed the Kinkaras. Jambumali, the sons of ministers, and army commanders all fell. He smashed Ravana’s son, Akshakumara, to the ground and killed him. Ultimately, Hanuman’s prowess only diminished after Indrajit deployed the Brahmastra. Watching the scenes unfolding in the national capital over the past two or three months brings to mind the episodes of the Sundara Kanda from Valmiki’s Ramayana.

    In July and August, Prime Minister Modi’s government was shaken by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP). It became inevitable for Modi to remove Dharmendra Pradhan—who has mastered numerous electoral battles—from the Union Cabinet. When the CJP announced that it would stage another protest at Jantar Mantar on October 10, demanding the resignation of Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the Modi administration went on high alert. Two days prior, Border Security Forces, armed police, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), paramilitary units, and the Rapid Action Force were deployed. It is estimated that private forces joined nearly 50,000 security personnel. Barricades were placed at every step, and police wielded lathis. For two or three days, the air in New Delhi seemed to come to a complete standstill. CJP leaders Abhijit Dipke, Saurav Das, and Ashutosh Rankas were arrested on flights and diverted to different locations. Nearly 10,000 people were arrested in Delhi alone. Numerous online commentators and activists were taken into custody. Majority metro stations were shut down, more than 250 trains coming to Delhi were cancelled, and internet services were suspended. Nevertheless, young men and women who pushed through to Connaught Place and Jantar Mantar were detained. The media was not spared either; to prevent people from escaping the buses, lockups made of iron rods were constructed right inside them. These actions made it clear that the government was terrified of what might happen if a youth wave erupted in the national capital.

    Surprisingly, banners under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) were put up even inside the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land. Security personnel entered the lawyers’ chambers in front of the Supreme Court and arrested lawyers as well. Lawyers marching in a procession from the Supreme Court to Mandi House were arrested and taken to the Yamuna Complex. Senior advocate Dinesh Dwivedi was one of them; he is the biological brother of Rakesh Dwivedi, who argues on behalf of the Election Commission. When senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan asked Chief Justice Justice Surya Kant, “Did you even take permission to impose prohibitory orders inside and in front of the Supreme Court?”, the CJI had no answer. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, the government’s chief law officer, stated that he too was unaware of these prohibitory orders. The Supreme Court Bar Association, High Court Bar Associations, and the Advocates-on-Record Association condemned the arrest of the lawyers. Eventually, with the intervention of the Chief Justice of India, the lawyers were released. Citing the 2020 judgment by Justice Ramana’s bench in the Anuradha Basin case—which ruled that suspending internet and telecommunication facilities in Jammu and Kashmir violates constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights—several lawyers compelled CJI Surya Kant to direct the Centre to lift the prohibitory orders in Delhi. The heat generated by the movement launched over Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation seems to have reached the Supreme Court, as the helplessness of being unable to intervene at the right time has put the apex court on the defensive.

    Against this backdrop, the INDIA bloc organized a protest march up to the Supreme Court on October 12. The government played a near-spectator role. According to Congress, despite prohibitory orders, nearly 2.5 lakh people participated in the four-hour protest demonstration in New Delhi. Connaught Place and its surrounding areas were packed with crowds as students, youth, and civil society members responded to the Cockroach Party’s call alongside workers from the Congress and partner parties of the INDIA bloc. For the first time, Congress fully centralized its strength, bringing thousands of leaders and workers from various states to Delhi. For the first time, a fear of incurring the high command’s wrath if they failed to show up in Delhi was visible among Congress leaders. It became evident that the march to the Supreme Court was merely a pretext, and Rahul Gandhi’s strategy was to ignite the spirit of movement and street-fighting resolve throughout the party. Careerist Congress leaders who live for positions and lobbying sweated it out for the first time. How could Congress workers not be stirred when Rahul and Priyaank argued with police, resisted them, and pushed past barricades? In a way, this was the moment that infused life into every nerve of the Congress party. Rahul and Priyaank appeared ready to fan this spark even further, first staging marches up to the Election Commission office and then to the Supreme Court. It remains to be seen with what revolutionary spirit Congress executes its announced action plan across the states. Unless this movement, initiated over vote theft, gathers momentum in raising voter awareness about their right to vote, desired results will not be achieved.

    At the same time, there are currently no metrics to measure how much damage the controversy surrounding EVMs and the credibility of institutions has inflicted on Modi and BJP’s prestige. It is impossible to say how long the deadlock surrounding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar will continue. Forcing Gyanesh Kumar to resign would amount to the government conceding the opposition’s criticisms regarding vote theft. However, top BJP leaders do not appear to have lost confidence that, regardless of how much noise the opposition makes or how intensely they escalate their fight, they can still secure victories in elections through their machinery, strategic planning, emotional appeals in campaigns, and social coalitions. They have adopted the strategy that as long as they win elections, the opposition will wither away.

    There is no doubt that public life will be thrown into disarray during this period of crisis. Unseating Modi has become a life-and-death matter for Congress and other forces. As these forces intensify their struggle, the government is likely to resort to even harsher measures. Train cancellations, metro station closures, prohibitory orders in public spaces, traffic jams, and internet restrictions are bound to cause severe inconvenience to thousands of ordinary people. Political and public movements are expected to expand not just in Delhi, but primarily across the 22 NDA-ruled states. Far from the government being in a position to hold a special session for delimitation, even the winter session scheduled for November and December risks being disrupted. There are no signs of the crisis subsiding; rather, it threatens to intensify right up to the five state assembly elections coming up next April.

    The government failed in its attempts to thwart the protests and could not control the agitators despite imposing prohibitory orders. Making Jantar Mantar inaccessible as a hub for protests was easy, but it could not stop the lava flowing from the volcano of public anger—that flow simply found another path. Furthermore, shifting public opinion by tying protest demonstrations to patriotism, nationalism, and foreign conspiracies is no longer easy. The current generation may not know the days of the Emergency, but the perception is growing among them that an undeclared Emergency is currently in place. Rulers must ponder what impression the younger generation forms in this social media age when suppression and violence are enforced by the government itself. To achieve a major victory, those in power cannot avoid being prepared for minor setbacks. The chapter of the NEET paper leak ended with Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation; now, any action taken against Gyanesh Kumar—who is becoming an increasingly heavy and burdensome liability for the government day by day—must be weighed carefully, lest it turn into a trap of having a tiger by the tail.

  • The Uncontainable Anger of India’s Disillusioned Youth

    “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history,” said Mahatma Gandhi. India now seems to be moving toward an indefinable change. The siege of Parliament on the first day of the Monsoon Session in the national capital on Monday by activists of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)—who have been protesting for a month demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, holding him responsible for the NEET question paper leak—must be called a monumental development in recent times. Despite setting up four-tier barricades, deploying large-scale forces of the Rapid Action Force, CRPF, Delhi, and Tripura Police, closing metro stations, and shutting down the internet, the Cockroach army, thousands strong, charged up to the gates of Parliament. Even as the police beat them severely, the young men and women displayed sheer daring. The young people lying with injuries at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital are direct witnesses to Monday’s brutality.

    It is clear that the Modi government, which remained unmoved despite a decade of attacks and criticism from the opposition, has been put on the defensive by this incident of the cockroach rebellion. A BJP MP said that it is not important how many people participated in the movement launched by the Cockroach Party, but how much impact it had. “My father is a very important leader in the BJP. However, the unfolding developments are not very healthy…” said a youth who participated in the Jantar Mantar protest. “Where politicians fail, children will question,” said a student.

    In reality, the Cockroach Janata Party is not an organization. It is a crowd of directionless young men and women in the country’s contemporary history. Those who came to the protest at Jantar Mantar or participated in the procession did not come because someone paid them. No one arranged buses or trains for their arrival. The discussion happening merely on social media made them set out for Delhi. They did not come raging only over the NEET question paper leak. The young men and women who came were simply fed up with the problems faced by youth—especially unemployment, meager salaries, systemic flaws, and the machinations of political parties. Those who came to the Jantar Mantar protest site did not have a specific goal. Youth aged between 14–28 cannot be fitted into the mold of Left or Right ideologies. The Emergency is not part of their experience. They do not know about Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, who once united the opposition. They lack even the experience of the Mandal and Kamandal movements. They have no memories of events that happened three decades ago. Struggling with contemporary issues, unable to decide what to do, with an uncertain future, and arriving with various questions… they are not bound by any traditional rules. Over the past four weeks, this protest platform served as a space where they asked their own questions and provided their own answers. That protest was widely publicized on social media. Examining alternative media sources makes one understand how concerned the youth were about the health condition of environmental activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on a hunger strike for more than three weeks.

    Believing that the opposition lacked credibility, that there was no alternative to them, and that whatever they did would pass, the Modi government seems to have underestimated the emergence of the Cockroach Janata Party. The Modi government was easily able to deal with the long-drawn protests by farmers over farm laws and Muslims over the Citizenship Amendment Act. It did not listen even to the cries of female wrestlers who questioned the assaults committed against them. Whichever movement occurred in the country, it adopted various means to damage its credibility. It berated the protesters with various names. The Modi government thought it would be enough to treat the surge of youth protest as a law-and-order issue and suppress it. As the Cockroach Party protest was reaching its peak, Delhi Police Commissioner Satish Golcha was removed and replaced by Anurag Kumar, who until then served as Special Director (Intelligence). As the in-charge of the Jammu & Kashmir desk, he played a key role in dismantling terrorist activities in Kashmir. There is no surprise in such a person attempting to suppress the youth protest with the same mindset.

    During the UPA government’s tenure as well, young men and women flooded the streets against the Nirbhaya rape incident. However, back then, social media was not as influential as it is now. There is no doubt that social media today has become an alternative media for the public. In fact, when Modi came to power, the BJP IT Cell carried out various campaigns to mobilize people, especially to inflame the emotions of Hindus. In particular, it made extensive use of WhatsApp groups. Today, those IT Cell campaigns seem to fade before the social media in the hands of the Gen Z generation. This development proves that if any campaign is not aligned with the sentiments of the people, it will not last long.

    The current generation has not failed to notice that the promises with which Modi came before the people have vanished into the background, and emotional issues have become the main agenda. Leave aside the failure to create jobs; they are closely observing the inability to conduct even exams properly, the failure to provide quality education, and the resorting to numerous machinations and unrighteous wars solely for the sake of power. Nevertheless, there is no evidence to say that the current generation is placing the opposition, especially the Congress, on a pedestal. It is an undeniable fact that for a decade, the Congress and other parties have failed to ignite public anger against Modi. However, no one expected that youth would step up where the opposition failed. If the Congress party had acted as a strong opposition and reflected the aspirations of the youth, the Cockroach Janata Party would not have emerged. It is an interesting point that many forces that failed to confront Modi are now visible in the Cockroach army.

    Strangely, on the first day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session, people did not care about the bills the government intended to introduce or the issues the opposition wanted to raise. The ‘Chalo Sansad’ call given by the Cockroach Janata Party received immense publicity. In a way, this development questioned not only the existence of the government but also the existence of the opposition. Congress leaders, who had been silent all this while on the Cockroach Janata Party protest, making a hue and cry about the lathi charge on the youth, or Rahul Gandhi protesting in front of the Prime Minister’s residence, are all part of Congress trying to prove its own existence. Time alone will tell whether Congress will resurrect itself as a strong opposition learning from the experience of the Cockroach Janata Party. Even for Modi, it is fortunate for the opposition to exist at least to some extent. Otherwise, there are chances of more entities like the Cockroach Janata Party being born.

    Moral responsibility has become an unacceptable taboo in present times. Today, there are no leaders like NTR, who made the entire cabinet resign because the budget was leaked, nor are there ministers who take responsibility and resign for train and plane accidents. When Dharmendra Pradhan is constantly utilized to win elections for the party, how can he focus on his ministerial responsibilities? It is true that Dharmendra Pradhan, who efficiently strategized for the BJP’s victories in Bihar, Haryana, and Bengal, did not manage his ministry efficiently. However, that mistake is not entirely his. Treating their party’s victory in elections as a matter of life and death and diverting all energy and skill in that direction is the cause of the failure of leaders like Dharmendra Pradhan. Will the Modi government act with sincerity at least now to take responsibility for the mistakes committed and build public trust in system institutions?