Vox Populi

The morning after, is an oft-ignored aspect of movements and revolutions. One can, in fact, argue that what happens after a movement is over is equally important as what happens during it. However, it is difficult to look past the veil of adrenaline and emotions that the present descends upon us when we are in the ‘moment’. I fell victim to this veil as well when I backspaced the original draft of this essay when the education minister resigned, and the student protests were called off. What’s the point? I thought. It’s over. But while a certain sense of jubilation at the victory of a just cause dawned on me, it was accompanied by a sense of disappointment too.

A sense of longing for something beautiful that had just come to an end. Something felt amiss in the days after. It was then that I realized that hindsight and reflection are crucial to understanding a movement and the feelings attached to it. That a movement was always alive as long as it commanded reflection and thinking. That reflection would be my path of understanding what was these varied hues of feelings that drenched me. And so, I write to reflect.

The first question that I figured I had to answer before reflecting on the different aspects of the students’ movement was why did I miss it as soon as it was over? Why was there a sense of emptiness? While I agree that it might be something as trivial as a thing that was an intense part of the media cycle I consumed was ending that was the reason for this emptiness, akin to your favourite show coming to an end, I don’t think that was the entire picture. I think that longing had much deeper roots. 

It was a longing for a mirage that had momentarily come true. This democracy of ours, for those few days, actually seemed alive to me. For the first time in our living memory, it felt as if change would come. That we, and I am tempted to count myself as part of the young at the age of 27 when I write this, we the young were speaking. That we, who were always accused of and ridiculed for apathy and aloofness towards politics and our nation in general, too seeped into the algorithms, fashion trends, and the quest for newer terms to give our various levels of aversions to a committed relationship to ever care for the realities and practicalities of life, were out on the streets, trying to bend reality to our will. For those few weeks, the promise of democracy seemed real. A sort of ecstasy took over. While it is easy to put this in the box of the familiar romanticism of the “revolution” that has been typical throughout history, I believe this points towards a very real abyss in our public life. In that, we increasingly have very little of it. There are fewer and fewer spaces for people to have respectful political conversations in. Democratic power is too distant for the so-called common folks. The increasing corporate grind of those employed and the directionless of the swelling crowd of the unemployed leave little room for participation in intellectual activities. Our democracy is simply not direct enough. Political offices have become a game of musical chairs between the elite few with the barriers of entry impossible to cross. This ecstasy of the protests reflects an unquenched need of the young to have a say in politics, to blossom fully into the “social animals” that we are. It’s a gap that if left unfilled might manifest itself in forms that might be a lot more dangerous than memes and reels. Or maybe only slightly more dangerous in the math of the governing regime.

Reflecting on the protest itself, I would like to expound on a few things I found noteworthy. 

A frequent complaint that I heard the detractors of the protests make was that this is no longer about paper leaks; these people want the government to fall. This opposition was raised every time some guest speaker made a new demand of the government from the stage at Jantar Mantar. ‘They keep changing their demands’,’ their actual goals are much bigger and hence, much more sinister’, ‘ So many of them did not even give the NEET exam’, etc. were common jabs at the movement. What I ask in response is why should the movement confine itself to a single demand? Why can’t a movement have a general set of demands that gradually evolves? This argument that you get to ask for one thing and one thing only at a time denies the very anatomy of movements and revolutions. Movements always have and always will start with a very specific spark and then snowball into addressing bigger issues. Our very own national movement started as peasants and tribal uprisings over the British agricultural and administrative policies, but these specific grievances were mere manifestations of a much larger grievance with the foreign rule. Our national movement did not ask for the expulsion of the British for a very long time. Was eventually asking for complete independence then some sinister betrayal of principles? Was that an example of shifting the goal post? Or was it an example of the essential quality of movements that while they may start with opposing the symptoms of an unjust system, they are bound to evolve to expand into expanding the causes of the diseases itself. To deny this is as foolish as thinking that the American Civil Rights movement was about better bus services for African-Americans.

The rebuttal that most of the people there aren’t even students stands on even shakier grounds. It forgets the existence of the concepts of empathy and social responsibility and assumes that demands for justice should only be raised by the current victims of injustice. It shouldn’t matter where I come from or what my vocation is. What should matter is the strength of my arguments. Can we call ourselves a nation if no one can stand up for the other? If everyone is required to fend for themselves?

The rebuttal that came next was the ‘character’ of the protestors themselves. Of course, the nation transformed into a typical mohalla to delve into the perceived sexual lives, sartorial indecency, and choice of vocabulary of the protestors with almost a Sherlockian obsession. One fantasizes about the kilos of drugs and gallons of beer that must have been consumed at the protest site. Social media history was raked and connections were ‘discovered’. This from a nation that had no problems with 16 MPs and 135 MLAs with declared cases of crimes against women on their record. Expand your filter to MPs and MLAs with pending criminal cases for serious criminal offences like murder, hate speech, crimes against women, etc. and the number rises to 170 MPs in the Lok Sabha alone. That’s 31% of the strength of 543 in the Lok Sabha if strength is a word you would like to use. No, this is not to say that one wrong justifies the other. This is to say that a deep hypocrisy lies in this character assessment of the protestors. That the members of a movement need to have a so-called perfect character and past is a fallacy. What is expected of the members of a movement is the strength of their arguments and their conviction to do good in the context of their movement. While people in the public sphere should definitely be held to a higher standard than the rest, we must also accept people for who they are, warts and all. This Caesar’s wife yardstick for people who choose to protest is detrimental to dialogue and democracy. Would an argument become true if the person making it is a saint? Would an argument become untrue if it is made by someone we call horrible? Or would the merit of the argument be in itself, its own roots in the truth?

A phenomenon of this whole cycle of protests that piqued my interest was the bad rep that the word ‘politics has acquired. While one look at the state of the country and it would not remain that surprising in and of itself, but what is surprising is politicians denouncing each other for doing politics. That is the equivalent of an accountant being labelled as a bad accountant for accounting. An engineer being criticized for engineering. While baffling at first glance, this phenomenon is actually a confession by the ruling class of their failure to deliver. The term politics has come to denote rhetorical gymnastics and thirst for power. The very fact that the word ‘leader’ has been co-opted to mean an old man, clad in white and drenched in gold, moving around in an annoying motorcade is the biggest tragedy of Indian democracy.  Politics is the only profession in the country where you are denounced for fulfilling the job description. It is also the profession which promises the quickest increase of net worth. We need a second look at our political system. The system with which we govern our daily lives, and our future cannot be a dirty word. We need idealism in the profession of politics. That might sound like a contradiction because most idealists would argue that politics should not be looked at as a profession. Most politicians would parrot this ideal too. I would argue that it is in fact more idealistic to look at politics as a profession. Once we start looking at politicians as professionals, we stop letting them hide atop the pedestal of public service. We treat them like the service providers that they are. We become less susceptible to emotional appeals and cults of personality. We test them on the yardstick of performance, as you would an employee and stop taking them too seriously. Our ‘leaders’ are giving the game away when they criticize each other for indulging in politics. The questions is are we paying attention.

One aspect of the protests that have captured the popular discourse has been the debate around police brutality. The ‘need’ for violence to maintain law and order and the safety of the police personnel has streamed steadily across all media outlets. The family members of both sides, the protestors who were injured and the police members that were injured have voiced their demand for justice. While no one should argue that it is the job of the police to get hurt, there is something seriously wrong with the fact that there are two sides to this in the first place. The police exist for the safety of the people. There is a reason why despite its stellar record and almost universal popularity across the nation, the Army is not entrusted with law and order. The police forces exist to interact with citizens of the country, to ensure their safety. Two sides formed in these protests, the police and the protestors, and there were two sides because we have never been able to transition the ethos of our police forces out of the colonial era. The way I approach this debate of the protestors’ safety and police safety is simple: only one of the two sides had state-issued protection gear. Only one side was equipped with state-issued pellet guns, batons, water cannons, and tear gas canisters. Only one side underwent tax-funded training to minimise damage and deal with situations like these. Only one side signed up to a risk of bodily harm when they joined their duty. And only one side had taken an oath to serve and protect the other side. I believe that should settle the debates of accountability and responsibility.

I believe that the relevance of the questions that these observations pose extends far beyond a single protest or issue, even if the answers I give might seem lacking. These protests have shown us what is possible. They have also extinguished any excuse of futility that we would have otherwise made when called to action. It has thrust a responsibility on us to voice our concerns and opinions. To act. To continue the momentum and overhaul the existing system to build a better one. To build a system with accountability. A system where more and more people can participate and shape the policies that govern their lives. To build a better class of leaders that won’t treat what they do as a dirty word, not because they have killed their conscience, but because they got better at their job. We are being ruled by exactly the kind of people we deserve unless we change our idea of what we deserve and work for it. The question is pretty simple: do we deserve leaders who take responsibility for their actions and work towards building a better future for us, or do we deserve leaders who are kind enough to forgive us in unique camera angles for our anger at their demonstrated complacency?