please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.
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.
reblog. share. don't scroll past.
The movement, which began as a satirical protest, has evolved into a nationwide challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
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
"The youth in general, and especially the young women, are the spark of every revolution.We can’t look at the history and found a revolution without the youth. We are a fundamental factor. We should be aware of this reality, we should take conscience of our historical role. By doing this we will provide ourselves with a plan that will allow us the unity of action and objectives. The Youth should not be condemned to be a slave of the capitalist system. [...] If we reject the labels and mentalities imposed by the system, taking consciousness as Internationalist Youth in a global level and organizing ourselves, is there someone who can stop us?" — "The youth is the spark of every revolution" by Lêgerîn.
Okay so i wrote a shitton of commentary in the tags but I can’t see anyone talking abt it on the post itself so:
The movement came as a response to rapidly declining education systems, rising unemployment and wealth gap, rising suicide rates and commercialization of education along with a lack of vacancies despite the shortage of workers in many fields. The CJI calling the unemployed youth "cockroaches" was the last straw. That's what birthed the idea of the movement.
As of 7 Aug, after negotiations with the govt, the movement has quieted a bit, i.e., there are no protests going on related to it. It's mostly just cleanup now and figuring out where to go after the mas outpouring of anger. I did hear muslim areas were under heavy surveillance by the cops. Per my recent visit to Okhala and Nizamuddin, that seems to decreased a bit as well.
The PM and his followers have been harassing a 15 y/o girl who allegedly used "foul" language for the supreme leader, to the extent that she and her family have had to relocate. Meta glasses and other surveillance tech has been used to track down the protestors. I haven't heard any updates about Mohd Junaid and if anyone knows how things are going with him, please do lmk.
The govt is trying to spin the narrative in their favour as much as they can. There is also a rise in the Reservation Hatao Movement that seeks to remove all forms of affirmative action granted to the oppressed castes. Some savarna supporters of the protest are also rallying behind that despite the fact that these very people whose rights they oppose were the ones to march beside them, to help them, and were the ones bearing (have been bearing and will continue to bear, under this regime) the harshest consequences of the protests.
They've rolled out comically evil propaganda ads and posters. I've spoken a lot about propaganda in media but this is just so fucking cartoonish that I no longer have words. Simply looking at them makes my BP shoot thru the roof quick enough that I think I no longer need my meds. Just look them up.
Let us not forget that to brand it a "Gen Z" movement and a generational movement alone is grossly reductionist and ignores that:
a) the foundation for the movement was laid by the earlier generations who have bled for what little we have claim over now
b) gained such traction and was allowed a (however paltry) existence because it started from a specific privileged section of people (middle to upper middle class, urban, English speaking). I will not deny that it gained traction with the more marginalized groups later but there is a stark difference between how this movement was received vs the anti-CAA protests. Caste, class, and religion does play a role
Let us not forget Wangchuk's support of NEP (which is part of the reason we're in this mess to begin with), his soft-right wing stance, etc. People much more informed than me have already spoken a great deal about that.
This is imo, first and foremost, a movement of the people. CJP may have called the protest but we are the ones who fasted, marched, spoke, acted. I have my issues with them, and believe me the issues are plenty, which is why I ask you to remember that the movement belongs not to the party but to the people.
The CJP has failed on many fronts: most notably when they called for an anarchic march knowing there will be crackdown and still insisted on their supposed legitimacy, insisted on peace and insisted on pandering to cops, demeaning the Bangladesh and Nepal protests for their use of violence, disallowing people from slogans of "azadi" (transl. freedom), their softening stance, their refusal to admit that what we're protesting against is a structural problem and resignations will not alone solve it. The institutions will need to be dismantled and rebuilt better/
But I do agree, the movement will have to be anarchic if we ever intend to get anywhere with it. What use is fasting, sit in protests, letting hunger kill us when they already want us dead?
Please please please try to donate to the mutual aid networks and support the protestors trying to get back home, fighting cases, getting bails (bc many were detained). Please save whatever news and reels you can find of it because they are being rapidly removed and the only reliable info is thru primary sources on social media. They're planning to pass an act to ban VPNs too which will make it even more difficult to access a lot of materials. There are already people archiving things; help them as much as possible.
