don't stop. the fight is not over yet.
dharmendra pradhan has officially released a statement; he's resigning. that is reason to celebrate. do not give the credit to the government for this, it's the student and the protestors and everybody that went out in the streets under scorching heat and faced the hooligans of this state headfirst with bravery and valiance. everybody who tried to help the movement even by giving a random protestor a water bottle as a show of solidarity. walk with your head held high, gen z, our country's freedom fighters are proud of us today.
but this is the bare minimum. dharmendra pradhan is not resigning because he made "one mistake," he's resigning because he committed a crime he could not hide from the citizens. he's resigning because he got caught.
if we're a law-abiding nation, then the logical conclusion would be to punish the actual anti-national criminal: DHARMENDRA PRADHAN.
DHARMENDRA PRADHAN IS A CRIMINAL!
the governement may or may not shuffle him over to a different tax-funded position, who knows? there is not just a single injustice we're demanding a punishment, there's litany of injustices we have to speak out against because who else will if we don't?
we need to move while we still have the momentum, the attention.
don't forget about the compensation to the bereaved families of the deceased student, about the money dharmendra pradhan made off of years of corruption and mismanagement, about the illegal detention of sonam wangchuk and other peaceful protestors at the hands of this fascist government, about their denial to let opposition MPs from meeting sonam wangchuk in the hospital, about the hundreds and thousands of students who were brutalized and terrorized by the goons of this fascist regime, about the uselessness and fecklessness and subjugation of this country's judiciary which couldn't even pretend to accept the petition regarding the police's disproportionate use of violence against lawful citizens who were simply exercising their democratic right of non-violent protest, about chief justice surya kant and the delhi high court that accepted a hindutva's mob's petition to allow an NIA probe into the possibility of the protest being "foreign-funded" in the very next days.
don't forget about the 13 students who lost their lives at the altar of dharmendra pradhan and this corrupt system's greed.
demand more. demand justice. demand actual accountability; there should be an independent investigation into this coaching mafia racket and dharmendra pradhan and every single instance of corruption, or leak, or mismanagement that he doubtlessly profitted off of (he couldn't be doing this just for the love of the game now, could he?). from the cbse paper checking blunders to the allotment of exam centres for neet in uae, everything needs to be thoroughly investigated. that is quite literally the job of the investigative agencies, not to run around and detain protesting indian citizens as "terrorists" as has been done to mohammad junaid who volunteered to provide the protestors at jantar mantar with free food and water, and was then detained by uttar pradesh's police in ghazibad alongside his innocent family members, their pan cards and bank passbooks having been seized during the illegitmate house raid. (the uttar pradesh police being led by yogi adityanath/mini fanta, unsurprisingly, denies this claim but also refuses to release an official statement pertaining to the crimes on the basis of which they detained mohammad junaid in the first place. because it's baseless. it's intimidation. it's to shut us up. and one thing you can't force gen z to do, is to shut up.)
keep fighting if you're able, please. for the people who were so severely beaten that they couldn't even continue protesting because these people are targeting us using mass surveillance systems. they know who we are, and they will find us to deny us visas, passports, communications through telecom service providers, the right to access information on the internet, legal litigation, bulldozer justice by calling our homes "unauthorized," unexplained encounters, and so much more cruelty that is beyond my imagination and ability to retaliate against. if everything settles now, they will come back for all of us with a newfound vengeance because they know who we are, where we live, and what we love. the crackdown would be unprecedented. i cannot retaliate against such severe actions and neither can you; aamir khan, with all his fame and money and power, had to bend the knee when the government went after him for tweeting once that the "anti-muslim rhetoric in india made him and his wife feel unsafe." that's it. that was his crime and every brand dropped their deals with him, media houses dropped projects with him, and the online sanghi hindutva mob campaign hunted him with full force.
but don't allow yourself the luxury to be scared.
because aamir khan didn't have back then, what we do now: NUMBERS.
together, we CAN fight back. and not just fight back, we can actually WIN.
we have already taken the first step, and we have already begun winning.
i entreat you to take my words into consideration, even a little bit, when you're thinking about your following actions and what to do next. please reblog and share if you're able, and thank you so much for caring about india.
