🍋‍🟩 A c e 🪷

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Supporters of India's youth-led Cockroach movement said Tuesday they will continue their protest in New Delhi, refusing to leave their sit-in site a day after police used tear gas and batons to disperse thousands of them as they tried to march toward Parliament. Hundreds of protesters camped at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, under heavy police presence, saying they would stay until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns over alleged failures in India's examination system. "We are going to continue our protest," said Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, which emerged just two months ago. The movement, drawing students, professionals and families, marks a rare public challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's government in its third term, reviving criticism over its handling of dissent and its use of force to respond to protests. [...] Sona Bisht, a 20-year-old student who was part of the protest, said the confrontation strengthened her resolve. "If the government thinks that doing this with Gen Z, they can stop us, then that won't happen. We are here talking about education, talking about securing our future. And till the time our demands are not met, we will not move from here," she said.

"Definitions developed thus far about youth, like the Gen Z narrative, have largely been linked to roles attributed by the dominant system. The rulers have invented a whole range of terms — rebellious, irresponsible, apolitical, extremist, consumerist — not to understand youth, but to neutralize it. They know as well as we do that whoever wins over the youth wins over society. [...] Thus the question is not whether youth is powerful, but in whose interest this power is directed. Today’s uprisings — such as those in Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, and beyond — demonstrate that youth continues to emerge as a decisive actor. Young women like Deniz Ciya have proven this with their lives. These uprisings are not expressions of generational temperament. These „Gen Z uprisings“ are expressions of a social force confronting structural crisis inherent in the current system. [...] Recent youth uprisings — whether in the form of environmental justice protests, labor movements, or uprisings against authoritarian governments — are proof that youth worldwide are not only responding to a set of circumstances; they are consciously and collectively rejecting the narratives that seek to define them. Thus, it is crucial to analyze what transpired, and draw lessons from these uprisings, particularly in the context of building a global youth democratic confederalism. For the power of youth movements is interconnected, despite being geographically distant." — "Beyond "Gen Z": Defending Revolutionary Youth Spirit" by Lêgerîn

Like, if you go on meds and that happens, it's not because whatever's going on with you is jut Too Severe or that you're doomed or only people with Other Illnesses get to have meds that make them feel actually good and you have to settle for "miserable but somehow so hollow I no longer care about the misery" and be grateful you're no longer actively suicidal or whatever.

if i don't take this pill i spend the day as a dirty, inept husk, a sad sack of well-meaning but futile intentions just sapient enough to be dimly aware of everything im unable to be.

The person I was when I was very depressed did not feel like the real me. That was a version of me that was very ill. The "real me" is the me that is able to dance at stoplights and make art and enjoy food and laugh at jokes. And for now, I need pharmaceutical help to get back there.

there is always a different path. there is always another way. i had to try a few things. zoloft made me feel like the original poster described, a numb, angry, empty shell of myself. now, i'm on wellbutrin, because for me, the biggest block that i had was the internal sense of energy and drive to do the things i care about (hence the stimulant adjacent reaction).

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.