In India, fear has changed sides Demonstrations

Twelve years, one month and 24 days after Narendra Modi was sworn in, the words “Modi should resign” was spoken clearly for the first time – without fear, in front of witnesses and cameras – in the streets of the capital of the country.

India’s Gen Z says no doubt.

For more than a month, students, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), camped at Jantar Mantar, a popular protest center in New Delhi, demanding reforms in education and the resignation of Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. This week there has been a sharp increase in the demands of the group as students are also demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Modi has announced fast-track courts to deal with cases that have sparked the test, but the government has not apologized for police brutality against protesters or said police officers accused of using excessive force would be investigated.

The CJP called for a march to the Indian Parliament on Monday, the first day of the monsoon session. The government made a mistake by forcibly taking child gangster Sonam Wangchuk to Safdarjung Hospital on the 21st day of her hunger strike. He has not eaten since June 28 to support the students’ demands. The forced hospitalization was very helpful for the students. “Unmoved” people – those who were not invited or ordered by any organization to participate in the protest – began to pour in again, trying to get to the parliament.

More than 100,000 “lightning protesters” flocked to the center of New Delhi, defying warnings from the Delhi Police or the government’s decision to close 16 metro stations leading to Jantar Mantar, blocking roads, disrupting the internet and bringing statues. However, people continued to water inside. Central New Delhi turned into a box, and students stood, armed with guns and batons, during the night’s heavy rain and clouds of tear gas.

By the end of the march to the parliament, about 200 people had been injured. Police filmed evidence, beat women and used batons and tear gas. The attack on the police in Delhi was done as an increase by the opposition parties in India holding their protest, this outside the Prime Minister’s residence.

The protests spread across India, like an oil slick, from Patna and Mumbai to Goa. The families of the children who died by suicide due to the exam leak joined the protest. The farmers who protested for a whole year on the borders of Delhi in 2021 came from Punjab with food, goods and additional volunteers. Social media was abuzz with ex-Modi voters of the Bharatiya Janata Party joining the protests.

Hours after the police cleared the protest site, the rain cockroaches returned to Jantar Mantar that night after a chaotic day that ended in an attempt to reach the parliament.

What started as an academic debate has turned into a moment of resistance. There can no longer be any doubt that Indian elections and politics are being manipulated through voter fraud, horse trading, hate speech, coercion of political corruption and misuse of public institutions. Fooling the voters alone makes even the Emergency period when democratic freedoms were suspended under Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977 look good by comparison.

The Minister of Education has refused to resign. Rajasthan’s health ministry has criticized parents for over-exposing their children instead of keeping the makers of the wrong whooping cough medicine responsible for the deaths of children in India and around the world. The oil minister says oil prices will not go down even though the world oil prices are falling sharply. And the finance minister has responded to complaints about the high price of onions by saying that he does not eat onions.

Modi has been leading a corrupt government that has lost its power.

In his three terms, he has not conceded a single point on any of the problems that have befallen the citizens of India on his watch: COVID-19, demonetisation, abrogation of Article 370, violence in Manipur and inflation. Whenever he is criticized, he moves away from the democratic principles on which India was founded.

In 2019, when he pushed the Citizenship Amendment Act through parliament without any debate, citizens were equally angry. The following shows are similar to the current ones, but were cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Modi’s administration imposed a nationwide shutdown as India reported more than 500 confirmed cases, arresting protesters and cracking down on protest sites.

This is the biggest challenge to his tenure as prime minister – and to his political career as a whole.

Modi has not lost an election since he first contested in 2002. He was elected, rather than elected, the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001. Since then, he has served three consecutive terms as chief minister, followed by three consecutive terms as prime minister, while repeatedly disrupting the electoral process in his place.

The first two days of the parliamentary session ended without Modi addressing the issue of education reforms. On the third day, as the protests intensified, Modi was no show. With him, everything is the problem of the Indian National Congress party. Or a citizen’s fault. Or strange influence. It’s always someone else’s responsibility.

But this time, that method won’t work.

They have never faced opposition as united, diverse, young and angry as this one.

The students hope that the education minister will be held accountable and, by extension, Modi too. The march itself is worthy of being presented by the organizers as a popular event in India. The demonstration, standing on the shoulders of Shaheen Bagh and farmers’ protests, has turned into chaos.

So far, every government decision, from imprisoning Wangchuk to cracking down on protesters, has backfired, strengthening their resolve.

This week, despite the turmoil, is a stark contrast to the Modi era, which has seen a breakdown in relations and genuine unity among citizens. It has baffled me all these years that we have always thought of ourselves as one nation. What is this country without Kashmir? Or not interested in students? Or without Mahatma Gandhi? Without understanding how the Mughals ruled and what the British did? A sense of unity, rooted in shared values ​​and lost in 2014, can also be seen at Jantar Mantar.

In contrast to the violence that happened to them, the students have returned to the area, where they are organizing space, helping each other and documenting the atrocities committed by the Delhi Police. Wangchuk continues his hunger strike in the hospital.

A month ago, a small group of students camped in New Delhi. Today, the whole nation stands with them. When the police blocked them, they stole the barriers. When the police used water cannons, they turned them into dance parties. After the police cordoned off the fence, the protesters started a game of tug-of-war.

Anonymous donors are using food distribution programs to send food and water to student protesters. Doctors are volunteering to help the injured. Others are making videos about what the protesters should do in the coming days, singing songs, reciting poems and reading to themselves what is to come.

Modi is still in office and still refuses to meet the opposition, apologize or fire the education minister. The court is giving a conspiracy saying that the protests are foreign. The Ministry of Interior has increased the police’s powers to arrest protesters by considering the protests as a “threat to national security”. There are reports of a large army and workers from Kolkata and Kashmir to clear the Jantar Mantar.

But for the first time since 2014, the fear has changed.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect Al Jazeera’s influence.