New Delhi: “They flocked to New Delhi by the thousands. Young Indians demanding accountability from their government for a flawed education system, hoping for a promise or a signal from those in power that would reassure them about their futures,” reads The New York Times as global media tracks the youth protest at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi.
According to global media reports, Monday’s police crackdown has only made protesters angrier and more resolute in demanding Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.
NYT, The Washington Post and BBC assessed the aftermath of the police crackdown as tens of thousands joined Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP’s) march to Parliament.
“As the crowd swelled, the police cracked down, striking people’s shins, calves and backs, swinging their staves overhead,” says the NYT report.
Security personnel also took down all the tents and part of the main stage Monday after Union minister J.P. Nadda “requested” all protesters to conclude the sit-in. However, later in the day, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke said the protest would continue until demands are met.
The report notes that although Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not directly responded to the protesters, parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju told the media that “the safety, security and future of our youth are our priority”.
“Mr. Modi rarely responds to critics, so the comments appear to be a sign of the importance the leader has placed on the youth protests and a tacit acknowledgment of the political risk of alienating young voters in a country where more than 40 percent of the population is under the age of 25,” it adds.
At the BBC, Geeta Pandey reported from the ground too. According to her, Monday’s turnout showed that even though the CJP is not a registered political party, it has evolved into a movement capable of drawing tens of thousands onto the streets.
“The movement has broadened into one of the most visible expressions of public dissent against Modi in recent years,” she states.
“During the day, I saw protesters bring injured people to Jantar Mantar, including a young man bleeding heavily from a head wound as volunteer doctors bandaged him, and another student with a broken leg,” Pandey writes about the police crackdown Monday.
“Leave now, this protest is over,” the police announced over loudspeaker as they cleared the protest site. “As protesters fled in panic, scrambling over police barricades to escape, I saw people fall to the ground, others struck with sticks, friends and siblings separated, and women in tears,” she adds.
The Washington Post in observations from the ground says the protest has gone far beyond angry youth, and is now attracting large number of professionals and families from across the country, representing “a rare public challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, reviving criticism over its handling of dissent and use of force to respond to protests”.
It reports that although the protest has been continuing for a month, it gained momentum over the weekend as activist Sonam Wangchuk’s health deteriorated due to his hunger strike, and he was forcibly taken to hospital Saturday.
Rabina Kashyap, a 26-year-old working professional who joined the agitation, talking to the Post, narrated her stakes in the protest: “I have nothing to do with this protest, But this is India, this is my country, and these are my people. So, I will stand by them.”
In The Wall Street Journal, a letter responds to columnist Sadanand Dhume’s 15 July opinion that juxtaposed China’s meritocracy with India’s quota system, and how it affects development in the two countries.
Dhume concluded in his argument that reservations are holding India back, while China’s “brutal merit system” gives its economic growth more teeth.
Countering Dhume’s argument, the letter says that China pulled ahead of India over the decades by pursuing an aggressive industrial policy, manufacturing-driven growth, rapid infrastructure expansion and state-led priorities in sectors such as semiconductors and AI.
“India’s slower trajectory owes at least as much to bureaucratic drag, corruption and the absence of sustained central planning around core technologies as to reservations, as India’s quotas are called,” it asserts.
It adds that there is “no honest way” to determine how much weightage could be given to reservations in the lag of the Indian economy. “Yet Mr. Dhume implicitly gives them nearly all of it.”
“The Indian talent-flight Mr. Dhume uses as evidence cuts the other way, too. India’s Physics Olympiad medallists emerge from brutally competitive exams at home; they leave for American research funding, capital markets and compensation. They’d likely leave even if India had zero reservations.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: ‘Cracks’ in PM Modi’s image? What global media said on CJP protest, Sonam Wangchuk’s fast
And nobody reported on attacks on police personnel ? Familiar script.