In Jamia, Lit Young India Found The Spark It So Urgently Needed

¡°Shame, shame, shame¡± written above a picture of Septa Unella; ¡°Orange is the new black;¡± ¡°End of the fuc#ing democracy;¡± another protestor with a ¡®howdy modi, looking for this?¡¯ with a gas mask similar to the one on the Chernobyl poster. There were also the ¡°Hindu Hoon Chu*iya Nahin¡± and ¡°Swach Bharat Karney Nikle The, Sab Jagah Hag Diya.¡± You knew it was millennials protesting yesterday. If you could ignore everything else, you wouldn¡¯t have been able to ignore the singing.

World's largest democracy came to a virtual standstill, got over its work targets, got over its daily struggle and showed up. For many this was their first protest ever, some of them had only been to the Anna Hazare protests eight years ago, but they came anyway. They came through the day, they made WhatsApp groups and coordinated on Bridgefy, they parked their cars and hoofed it.

The protestors were musicians, stand up comedians, DJs, people who work in startups, and people who came despite being off social media. There was fist bumping, hugs, smiles, chai, aloo patties and a whole lot of witty slogans. These two are by far the funniest ones.

This spark was ignited in Jamia last weekend. A peaceful protest on Saturday, followed by violence and police action on Saturday inside the university lead to spontaneous protests all over India. The same night of the police action in Jamia, there were midnight protests in DU, JNU, AMU, BHU.

By the next morning, IIMs had joined in. Mumbai University followed soon. At last count, students of close to 30 universities were protesting. The larger sentiment that ignited the protests, after Jamia was ¡°How can cops do this to kids?¡±.

Home Minister Amit Shah tried to downplay this by saying ¡°We have 300 universities and out of them protests were held only in 22 universities. And out of that only in four universities the protests were more serious.¡± He concluded that because of this, the protests were not widespread.

The morning of the Delhi protest in a bid to make sure the situation didn¡¯t get out of hand, Delhi metro shut down 20 stations by noon, the roads in and out of the capital came to a virtual stand-still (there were 3-hour jams on NH8) and internet was pulled the plug on.

You could argue that less people would show up because transport and coordination was an issue. But a bit of the opposite ended up happening, people showed up because of this crackdown. ¡°Why is the govt so scared of peaceful protests that it has to shut down the metro stations and the internet?¡± Try arguing with that.

But what was brewing was something a lot more nation-wide. Something even beyond universities. This week saw protests in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and about a dozen other cities. The protests were originally started by students but elder millennials took a day off from work and joined in.

In Delhi, its estimated close to 50,000 people showed up through the day. The number in Mumbai was higher and estimates say close to 1.5 lakh people showed up at the August Kranti maidan. The venue is particularly important because this was where the Quit India movement kicked off..

So by all estimates, this cause was bigger than universities and political parties, or religions. The fact that they didn¡¯t belong to political parties was a sentiment echoed by and large by most people who were trooping in. The other thing that was common among the people was that they were actively seeking out protests since Saturday.

It wasn¡¯t a spontaneous outpouring of emotions, people didn¡¯t show up because it was a great place to take a selfie, people didn¡¯t show up because it was the weekend. It was a weekday, in Delhi it was particularly cold and the protests happened bang in the middle of the day - which meant you could either work or show up for the protests. A large number of people chose to show up. This showed people made a clear and conscious decision. They had prioritised.

The ground for this outpouring was set four weeks ago in Delhi. JNU students who were protesting against fee hikes were brutally lathi-charged. On some stretches, the street lights were switched off.

A specific story that caught the attention of people was a blind student who was beaten by cops despite being told about his disability. His name was Shashibhushan Pandey. He wasn¡¯t Muslim. He wasn¡¯t chanting about Azaadi from India. He was protesting for the rights of poor students to go to JNU. JNU for those on the fence wasn¡¯t quite so problematic anymore. And then Jamia hit home.

JNU didn¡¯t set the ground alone. A lot of this generation is born to parents who advised against going out for a protest and dubbed them problematic, this is their collective way of rebelling. They¡¯re growing up on the folklore of the protests at Tahrir Square and in Hong Kong. They relate to human suffering, CAA and Jamia have ended up becoming flashpoints.

If you take a step back from these protests, you will recognise common threads. You will see people distributing free food to the protestors, you will see hilarious signs which tap into pop culture - everything from Cersei to the viral 'I'm Very Upset', you¡¯ll see protestors making way for the ambulance and you¡¯ll see students cleaning the streets after the protests. It¡¯s almost like there¡¯s an entire generation which is learning from viral stories and transferring their knowledge to what¡¯s happening on-ground, and if a witty meme helps spread the message, why the hell not!