New Delhi: “Doobta hoga tumhare wahan chai me biscuit, hamare yahan toh chai me pura desh dub gaya (Your biscuits may be dipping into the tea, the entire country has drowned here,” read a hand-written poster at the protest organised by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
Soon after the Delhi Police whisked away activist and educationist Sonam Wangchuk from the site, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke had announced that he and his colleagues were determined to seek the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A profusely sweating Ravindra Kumar, who was holding the poster in a humid Delhi midnight, is unlike what many naysayers define a typical protestor: the resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr makes his living as a cook in the outer district of the national capital.
“I could not study due to family issues and situations, but I know the importance of education. Sonam Wangchuk and Abhijeet Dipke have raised the issues of education, which form the backbone of our future generations,” the 25-year-old told ThePrint, as he shrugged off the midnight humidity and lethargy with a passionate voice.
“We shall not allow the government to scare the common people like us in this manner. The issues are genuine, and we shall raise this irrespective of police action or any punishment,” he said.
Kumar stood alongside over 500 people who stood watchful as fear of a police crackdown and the forceful removal of CJP founding president Dipke loomed large over the Jantar Mantar complex. The fear of a police action among the protesters and the organisers of the movement was palpable ever since Wangchuk was removed under the shield of white bedsheets within minutes.
The indefinite hunger strike by Neha, Aameen, and Manish—members of the All India Students’ Association (AISA)—have entered their 21st day. Dipke has already announced that he would join their hunger strike on Sunday.
A looming threat
Akash Regar had already boarded the train to Delhi from his home district Kota in Rajasthan, when he saw the news of Wangchuk’s removal from the site of the protest. “It dented our morale to begin with, and we asked ourselves, will the protest last till we reach there?” he explained his journey and thought process of joining the protest at Jantar Mantar.
Like Kumar, Regar is barely educated, having only reached 10th standard, but the importance of education is not lost on him. “Whatever happened to us is past, but we want our children to prosper and not struggle like we are facing.”
The 24-year-old and his friend Vikram continued his journey to the national capital to join the protest Saturday afternoon.
“We realised that he (Wangchuk) was fighting for the cause of common men like us and not for his own family. Standing in solidarity with him in the face of such arrogant behaviour was the least we could do.”
Regar, a worker at a cement factory, added that there were strong chances that the government and the Delhi Police would adopt similar methods to remove Dipke and his ilk before the planned march to Parliament, and that hence he was spending a night at the protest venue, metres away from the CJP founder.
Several protesters, as well as CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka, have expressed confidence that their planned march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament on 20 July will proceed as planned.
“Sonam sir was picked up because he was the most credible face and the driving force of the protest,” Regar said, and urged the Delhi residents to mobilise in large numbers at Jantar Mantar.
The hunger strike of Wancghuk, he further said, reached villages including his in Kota, famous for its coaching institutes for the competitive tests such as JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) and NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test).
“Messages of the protest have reached the village, but not all are ready to come here. The demands raised by Wangchuk and all protesters have fallen on the deaf ears of the government,” he added.
Hope & fear
The crowd at Jantar Mantar kept swelling throughout the day in the wake of Wangchuk’s detention, ThePrint had earlier reported. While anger was written large on the faces of the protesters during the day, concern and apprehension about the fate of the CJP movement were palpable in the night.
A professor of cultural science, Ravikant Kisana was standing in a corner of the Jantar Mantar, where there was some space for people to stand. “I am here because I anticipate the police taking some action and removing the protesters from the site,” Kisana, who is currently on sabbatical and runs a podcast, told ThePrint.
The movement, such as the CJP’s, goes through different stages, he said, adding that he was not an optimist over its fate.
“I was not very hopeful. It appeared just like any other liberal pipedream. See, one can have 20 million followers on Instagram, but they can also go to a comedy show the next day. It would have fizzled out had it not been for Wangchuk’s hunger strike, which mobilised a massive support base in favour of the protest,” he explained.
He said that the hunger strike was a high-risk strategy providing impetus to the movement, and that Wangchuk’s credibility and clean image also added to the movement’s credibility.
The state missed its window to respond to Wangchuk’s hunger strike and his forceful removal when his health had started deteriorating had sent a wrong message among the youth and sympathisers, Kisana added.
“It might have weighed that Wangchuk’s removal would demoralise the spirits of youths, but there was huge untapped potential because of underlying problems such as shrinking jobs, quality education, and, hence, his removal has been met with an even larger number at the site,” he said.
“Had the state done this a week back, the protest would have petered out. But considering it has been done just two days before their planned march, the message has been seen as a challenge to the protesters.”
Kisana said that he was there apprehending a police action to stop the protest from becoming even bigger and wider from here on.
“If they (the protesters) succeed in holding their march on the 20th, it has a huge potential to become one of the biggest protests of the country in recent times, and hence a police action is imminent.”
The Delhi Police, however, had not initiated any such action as of Sunday morning, while Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) companies, including the Rapid Action Force, remained deployed at the site.
On their part, the organisers of the protest took measures such as detaching the staircase from the stage where Dipke was present to prevent any swift, covert operation by the police like in the case of Wangchuk.
Having passed the night without any action, CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka thanked all the protestors for turning up at night and requested them to stay at the site till 9 am, when more people were expected to join the protest.
“Stay here for two more hours, and we shall have enough people here that the police can’t carry out their illegal crackdown here,” Ranka told protestors, waking them up with a good morning message.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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