Stop targeting Galgotias University students. Focus on politicians instead

Going through their Instagrams and dissecting their ‘statements’ is not the astute political commentary you think it is—it is time for us to back off from targeting 20-year-olds.

File photo of the Galgotias University campus entrance

With every election season comes drama, unfulfilled promises, and ‘gotcha’ moments of political leaders across the spectrum. However, the attention of the Indian audience, for the past few days, seems to be transfixed not on fact-checking elected leaders or holding politicians accountable for allegations of crimes, but instead on a *squints* *adjusts glasses*  group of young university students. They’re apparently ‘exposing the real truth of India’.

The flashpoint was an interview of ‘protesting’ Galgotias University students who were unable to even string two sentences about why or what they were protesting. The handful of students, who gathered outside the Congress office in New Delhi to allegedly protest against inheritance tax, were not even aware of what was written on the placards they were holding.

But going through their Instagrams and dissecting their ‘statements’ and political leanings is not the astute political commentary you think it is—maybe it is time for us to back off from targeting 20-year-olds (however ignorant they are) and focus on the issues that hold importance in this election season.

A short video clip of the students fumbling and hiding from the camera was enough for social media to be set ablaze—they were dragged through the dirt and were admonished for spending so much money on a private university if they don’t even know what they’re protesting.

While it is true that the students were ill-informed and made fools of themselves, they aren’t involved in making decisions for the country nor is anybody getting influenced by their so-called protest.

There are bigger issues 

The Galgotias University student protest was a colossal misfire, and the students should be called out on their ignorance. They are, after all, adults who should be aware of basic political news. But that is where their accountability ends; they came out to protest for whatever reasons and under whatever circumstances and were quickly debunked as being ingenuine. Nobody took them seriously. End of story.

But letting things go is hardly a trait I’d ascribe to X users, who went so far as to find out the exact names and designations of the assembled students to chastise them in public.

An X account, allegedly belonging to one of the protesting students, Lakshmi Sharma, posted why they went for the protest. According to the posts they were unaware of the reasons for this protest and were coerced by university officials to participate in it. However, her picture and statement were instantly made viral and the hate continued.

My timeline is now filled with lamentations about the state of Indian education based on the sample size of 30-odd private university students in Delhi. These students don’t represent the Indian education system or the level of awareness of college students.

It would not have had any political, cultural or even social relevance beyond a few head turns by people driving down the road at the time if it wasn’t amplified on social media. News clips from the day show, very clearly, that the so-called protest was a muted affair, with some social media users commenting that they have seen bigger crowds at shawarma shops.

There still are no real consequences of such a ‘protest’. These students are a threat to nothing and are representative of nothing.

But now that the damage is done and we’ve all seen every shade of the “these kids are the future of the country” argument (they’re not), maybe we should get back to addressing the actual future of the country—our esteemed political leaders.

Views are personal.

(Edited by Theres Sudeep)