The ‘Personal’ is the ‘Political’

“The word ‘apolitical’ exists only in the dictionary” – Sushil Kumar, PRM 27J

It was a hot evening in July. I was in Delhi to attend a conference related to my research and was staying with friends at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University). Returning from the conference venue, I got down at the bus stop at Gangha Dhaba within JNU campus, not exactly knowing how to spend the evening. I bumped into an acquaintance, who I knew was part of a certain small but powerful leftist student’s union at JNU (within the broader JNU students union), a group wherein I had some friends. She was saying that she was waiting to catch a bus for a protest demonstration and rally from AIIMS and asked me to come along. I readily agreed because I knew that I could readily agree with whatever democratic cause that that particular students union would espouse. The bus came. It was chartered bus full of JNU students had been arranged by JNU students union arranged for ferrying all the students.

Throughout that evening, I was with the members of that small student’s union. They were singing some political songs in the bus. All 70-80 of us got down at AIIMS. It was amusing to see how all of us crossed the busy road in front of AIIMS. A particular chap will barge into the road and show his hand like a traffic constable and the traffic in one of the busiest roads in Delhi is supposed to stop. And it actually stopped for us to cross. Students out on a political purpose take the traffic laws into their own hands I guess.

The rally was for the cause of caste-based reservations in general and also against a particular set of anti-reservation policies followed at a at that time in a particular prestigious educational institution. We were supposed to go to AIIMS wherein we were supposed to join PMSF (Progressive Medicos and Students Front), a pro-reservation forum comprised of students and doctors within AIIMS and a forum of students from Delhi University called “Youth for Social Justice” were also supposed to join us there.

We crossed the road and entered the AIIMS campus. There was a policeman with a Walkie Talkie who, on seeing us said something like “Oo log aagaya” into the Walkie Talkie. It seems the police already knew that JNU students will be coming and were waiting for us. I admired the efficacy of the intelligence wing of the Delhi police. Inside AIIMS, we joined the batch of students from DU and a batch of doctors and students from AIIMS.

We all filed into two rows and started marching. Some guy thrust a placard into my hand. I was a bit shy of holding that but then I realized that there was nothing undignified in holding that. There were about 200 of us in total and when we came out of the AIIMS campus, we were joined by about 200 policemen armed to the teeth with machine guns. Those policemen also filed into two rows on both sides of our group and started marching in an orderly fashion. It was as if we had one police security for each one of us. At that time, I realized that I had become too dangerous that there was one paramilitary policeman armed to the teeth with a machine gun guarding me for the next few hours. I swelled with a sense of pride that at last the Indian state has realized my importance.

We marched through the busy roads of Delhi. Our aim was to go to the Prime Minsiter’s Office and submit a petition to him. Now, the real excitement started. Groups of students in different parts of the group started shouting slogans. And the small student-activist group of about 15 students from JNU of which I was a part were the most vociferous and militant of the lot. They will take turns in shouting slogans. The slogans were exciting and bordering on the soul-stirring. Something like “Manuvaadi Ko Ek Jawab.…. Inquilab Zindabad !”, “The People, United,…. shall never be defeated !! ” (which I remembered from my bookish knowledge, was coined by Bhagat Singh) and “JNUse Halla Bol !!” , “DUse Halla Bol !!” etc. I thought of shouting “IRMAse Halla Bol !” but then thought that mine will be a lone voice lost in the crowd and hence thought its better to keep mum.

Half of my group was populated by girls. The general crowd in the Delhi roads as well as the policemen accompanying us were staring at these vociferously militant girls with a look of quizzical respect. Probably they expected such kind of girls in modern dresses only in the luxury malls of Delhi and not in protest demonstration for a bigger cause out in the hot sun. It was funny to see the quizzical looks of the policemen turned into amazement when a couple of these girls started puffing some cigarettes in between their sloganeering. I thought that probably the protest was two-dimensional - one for reservation for lower castes and another, a demonstration that girls can also publicly storm a hitherto forbidden ‘smoky’ male bastion. The unofficial leader of my small group was a girl in her mid 20s. She was exhorting the group to shout some kind of slogans which I thought was bordering on the extreme, like say “Brahmanvaad Murdabad !” etc. Since I knew that girl, I realized (from her surname) that she herself came from the most elite sub-caste within Bengali Brahmins and my respect for her increased. We need more such people to de-class and come out of their class moorings out into people’s struggles and give these struggles the rich legitimacy that they deserve.

Before the rally started, I was having a headache and was tired and was not sure whether I’ll be able to fully participate in the protest march. But once I was a part of this group, I didn’t know where from my energy came. I felt that I can march with this group through the whole of New Delhi. I also realized how people manage to take risks for some bigger cause. Basically, as individuals we are all quite weak, insecure and vulnerable. The personal strength comes from the group or the movement that one is a part of. One feels that if one’s fellow comrades whom one loves and respects can take that risk, then he/she also can also can take that risk.

We marched through some flyovers (newly constructed for the fancy four-wheelers of Delhi) and after about a couple of hours, reached the PMO. The police stopped us a full half kilometer before the PMO through a barricade. There were two sets of barricades - one this barricade and another, just before the PMO about half-a-kilometer away. Some people from the crowd had been earlier shouting something which started like “Kada Karo, Kada Karo, Kada Karo Comrade….” and which ended with “Barricade!” and with my not-so-great knowledge of Hindi, I realized that it was meant to exhort the group to breach the police barricade.

Then, I remembered that, if someone from the rally breached the first barricade, then the police will only lathi-charge those protestors who did so but even if a single protestor out of a sense of “josh” breaches the second barricade, then the entire group of protestors will get lathi-charged. By the way, this piece of worldly wisdom, was told to me by a friend of mine who in his idealistic young student days, had the experience of getting lathi-charged by the police when he was protesting against some or the other large systemic imperfections. (By the way, this guy, later on came to his “practical senses”, cleared the Indian Foreign Service Exam and is now the Secretary in charge of Cultural Affairs in the Indian Embassy at Jordan, maybe a classic example of how the system co-opts the people who are opposed to it). Thinking of a possible lathi-charge, I, coming from my cosy, risk-averse, self-centered middle-class background, convinced myself that if at all anything like that was going to happen, then I’ll be the first to run away from the scene as fast as possible. I got reminded of something by Che Guevara, “Iam an adventurist who risks his skin to test his truths”. I was wearing a T-Shirt having a picture of Che Guevara but sadly, I realized that the similarity stopped abruptly at the T-Shirt level.

Anyway, our crowd stopped peacefully before the barricade and a representative from our group went to give the petition to the Prime Minister. He came back and said that the PM was not in the office which I thought was expected. Some us sat down on the road and some of were standing while one by one, the leaders from amongst us from AIIMS, DU etc started speaking to us. At last, the turn of the leader of the small JNU student group of which I was a part of came. She went and gave a speech about how the pro-reservation movement should not be looked at a movement by the not-so-elite for elite jobs and education but that it was an organic part of the wider peoples struggles across the Indian landmass at the grass-root level. The shocking part of that speech was that it was highly critical about the Indian State. I didn’t know what to admire, the guts of this girl, who gave this speech just before the PMO and being surrounded by about 200 policemen or the liberal democracy that India is, which permits such kind of a critical dissent under its very nose.

After sometime, we decided to wind up. And to me, political activism seemed to be a meaningful thing to do. Maybe my age of 30 was a bit late for getting into this activist kind of a mode. Again I got reminded of Che Guevara (may his soul rest in peace) who led a revolution in Cuba at the age of 30. But I got reassured that the philosopher Bertrand Russell who is known as an activist against nuclear weapons started his activist career at the age of 90. And so, filled with the happy hope that life has been armed with a brave new direction, I, along with my activist student friends boarded the DTC Bus No. 615 back to the JNU campus.

Post-Script: Nearly a year after this rally, when recently, the Supreme Court gave its order for OBC reservation in all central educational institutions, I felt that in a tiny way I had also done my bit for effecting this social re-engineering process.