Aakar Patel | The Lessons That India Learns As Wangchuk’s Fast Scuttled By Govt
This year the government was compelled to accept that there was corruption in the matter and it cancelled the exam, inconveniencing over 20 lakh students. Add their families and it is one crore Indians we are talking about who are directly affected. All put through high levels of stress, anxiety and the insecurity that constantly plagues Indians
A few thoughts on the Cockroach Janta Party’s protest and the Union government’s comical reaction come to mind. The hunger strike by activists, including Ladakh-based climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, had just one demand: the minister of education should resign. Why? Because the minister failed at one of the most important tasks he was assigned: Holding the Neet exam without corruption. Readers may recall that in 2024 the paper leaked and the same minister was in charge, but clung on.
This year the government was compelled to accept that there was corruption in the matter and it cancelled the exam, inconveniencing over 20 lakh students. Add their families and it is one crore Indians we are talking about who are directly affected. All put through high levels of stress, anxiety and the insecurity that constantly plagues Indians.
Twelve young girls and boys killed themselves in the 37 days between the cancelled exam and the re-test. These are only the ones we know about. The government then conceded that the education ministry could not be trusted with the papers and gave them to the Indian Air Force to carry to the centres across all states. We can interpret this as a stunt or as a real threat to leakage. In neither interpretation does the government come out looking good.
But having accepted that his education minister had failed at stopping corruption in Neet, the Prime Minister rejected the idea of accountability. He chose to retain the education minister and we can tell ourselves stories about why. Those who dislike the Prime Minister will speculate that it was because autocrats shy away from admitting mistakes because of their arrogance. Or because it reflects poorly on them. Those who are fond of him will similarly make up some story about why Mr Modi retained Dharmendra Pradhan. Neither story is important. The fact is that Mr Pradhan has been retained despite the scandal and despite the demonstrable incompetence.
What happens from here on is that he will remain as a liability and a target for finger-pointing. India's problems of incompetence and corruption are real, structural and societal. Only the delusional believe that the Prime Minister waved them away with magic in 2014.
The second thought that comes to mind is that protest, even one that is peaceful, even one that does not inconvenience absolutely anyone, is forbidden in India because we are only partly democratic. This is something several indices have concluded and evidence of it appears before us daily. Over the years, peaceful assembly (Article 19) has gone from being a fundamental right, meaning something that enjoys a high degree of protection from encroachment by the State, to a nuisance, and then to an offence. The mother of democracy is extremely intolerant to her children when they disagree.
The judiciary and the executive have narrowed the physical space in which peaceful protest may be held. In Mumbai it is consigned to Azad Maidan, in Bengaluru it is in Freedom Park where protests go to die, and in New Delhi it is Jantar Mantar. Now Indians have been informed that even protests in these “designated areas” are unacceptable to this government.
The third thing is that when protesters have resolve and strategy, they often win and force the government to retreat. The farmers did that most spectacularly when they laid siege on the matter of the farm laws. The Prime Minister tried to sit them out, failed and then not only surrendered to them but also apologised.
It is not thought in the same way, but the success of the protests against the National Register of Citizens is the reason we do not yet have concentration camps with lakhs of Indians in them. Even in the most oppressive and tyrannical State, peaceful protest will make an impact that cannot be bulldozed over. There is a reason that the world knows about a place called Tiananmen Square. Those brave enough to put their heads above the parapet may bear the consequences, but will also have their stories heard.
This is of course the reason that the government scuttled the Sonam Wangchuk hunger strike. Those who had despaired that it was not achieving anything did not see that structurally the protest had everything going for it. It had attention and it had sympathy.
So what happens from here on? The problem for the government is that the protesters have not given it much room. The Cockroach Janta Party's demand is modest and reasonable: remove the minister responsible. The government’s response, as far as it can be understood, is: yes, there is a problem, but no, we will not act. That is not tenable and the protesters know this. The momentum is with them. In the language used by theorists, they have escalation dominance. The government stands to lose ground and credibility with each action intended to protect one minister.
The last thing that comes to mind is that there is an education that comes to those who are participants in these deep, weeks-long protests that those of us who are bystanders and onlookers will never receive. At the end of this journey, irrespective of how it ends, these youngsters will know something essential about the Indian government, the Indian judiciary, the Indian media, the Indian police, and indeed about Indian society. This knowledge cannot come to those of us on the outside, no matter how educated or old or even how wise we may be.
The writer is the chair of Amnesty International India. Twitter: aakar_patel