At the centre of the controversy are two distinct but intertwined developments:

1. AISA women leaders alleging verbal sexual abuse and threats inside and outside a police station. There are videos of this abuse circulating online
2. YouTuber Ruchi Tiwari claiming she was attacked by a mob of nearly 500 people while covering the protest.

As FIRs have been registered and political leaders have entered the fray, the struggle has increasingly shifted from what happened on campus to who controls the narrative of victimhood.

The Protest: UGC equity regulations and campus tensions

The protest on February 13 was organised by the All India Students’ Association (AISA) and allied groups demanding implementation of the University Grants Commission’s (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026.

The regulations — intended to strengthen safeguards against caste discrimination affecting SC, ST and OBC students — were recently stayed by the Supreme Court of India, which observed prima facie concerns of vagueness, particularly in the definitional scope of caste-based discrimination, and directed that the 2012 framework would remain in force pending further hearings.

Details may be read here.

Students supporting the regulations have emphatically argued they are essential to address structural caste bias within higher education. Opponents –many who have led aggressive and violent protests against their implementation –claim certain provisions are “vulnerable to misuse.”

This mobilisation was framed as part of a broader “Adhikar” campaign asserting dignity and institutional accountability.

The Flashpoint: Ruchi Tiwari’s presence and the confrontation

According to reports in The Print, tensions escalated when Ruchi Tiwari, who runs the YouTube channel Breaking Opinion, arrived at the site to cover the protest.

Tiwari describes herself as an “independent ground reporter”. Her channel, which has over 59,000 subscribers and more than 460 uploaded videos, frequently features a privileged caste lens depicting confrontational campus coverage, particularly around reservation, caste debates and identity politics. One of her recent YouTube Shorts is titled: “They want reservation but say don’t indulge in casteism.”

She has alleged that before she could begin reporting, individuals began calling out her name, asking her full identity and caste, after which a crowd surrounded and assaulted her. In statements to ANI (an agency that has increasingly been called out for its right-wing bias) , she claimed nearly 500 people attacked her, that she was held by the neck and arms, subjected to rape threats, and that there was an attempt to push her into a vehicle with its door open — which she described as an attempted abduction and “mob lynching.”

Videos online show pushing and scuffling. However, the full sequence remains disputed.

AISA’s Counter-Version: Provocation, altercation and selective framing

AISA has rejected Tiwari’s allegations as “false and motivated.”

According to statements cited by The Print, AISA leaders allege that the confrontation began when Tiwari engaged in provocative questioning and allegedly made casteist remarks referencing the Mahad Satyagraha led by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. AISA further claims she harassed a Dalit journalist named Naveen and attempted to snatch his camera.

Some circulating videos, according to AISA, show Tiwari striking Naveen and later pushing or punching AISA activist Anjali during the confrontation. Another clip shows activists holding Tiwari while attempting to escort her toward police presence.

AISA has argued that several clips being widely shared omit audio or preceding events and therefore reshape public perception.

It is at this point, AISA claims, that the narrative began to shift — from a protest demanding caste equity to a viral storyline of a “woman journalist attacked by Left mobs.”

Another video from the February 13 incident at Delhi University exposes the conspiracy of Sanghi-Casteist-Feudal goons against students demanding equity and social justice. These goons threatened AISA activists and DU students with vulgar abuses inside the Maurice Nagar Police… pic.twitter.com/ObROzq3H4r

— CPIML Liberation (@cpimlliberation) February 14, 2026

Condemn the right-wing assault and hooliganism against Comrade Anjali in DU! Today, AISA DU Secretary Anjali was physically assaulted by a right wing group. Despite the heavy presence of Delhi Police and CRPF, the attackers were given a free hand.

This violence is the clearest… pic.twitter.com/0AS2xYOyIZ

— CPIML Liberation (@cpimlliberation) February 13, 2026

Statement of Communist Party of India -Marxist Leninist- Liberation:

The Police Station Incident: Allegations of sexualised abuse

The most serious allegations, however, concern what happened later at Maurice Nagar Police Station.

AISA leaders Anjali and Neha allege that when they went to file complaints, a right-wing mob gathered outside the police station premises. According to AISA, the crowd swelled from dozens to hundreds, shouting slogans and issuing rape and death threats.

AAP MP Sanjay Singh publicly condemned the episode on X, sharing a video and alleging that in the presence of police personnel, AISA women leaders were abused with explicit insults directed at their mother and were told to “remove their clothes.”

देश की राजधानी दिल्ली में थाने के अंदर, पुलिस वालों के सामने AISA की महिला नेता अंजली और नेहा को मां की गाली देते हुए कहा गया, “कपड़े निकाल।” एक बिहार की बेटी, दूसरी उत्तराखंड की — दोनों सवर्ण हैं, लेकिन वंचितों के हक की आवाज उठाना उनका गुनाह हो गया। अगर यह घटना पंजाब या बंगाल… pic.twitter.com/JgRZ9cgf99

— Sanjay Singh AAP (@SanjayAzadSln) February 15, 2026

Singh questioned how such an incident could occur in the national capital and linked it to broader concerns about women’s safety. He alleged that the targeting of the two women leaders was connected to their vocal advocacy for marginalised communities.

AISA has termed the episode “state-sponsored hooliganism,” alleging that activists were effectively confined inside a room for hours while threats were issued outside. Anjali was reportedly taken for a medico-legal examination.

Delhi Police, according to ANI, has registered two FIRs — one based on Tiwari’s complaint and another based on a complaint by a female AISA student — under sections relating to assault, voluntarily causing hurt, wrongful restraint and common intention under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

UGC का समर्थन कर रही दिल्ली यूनिवर्सिटी कि छात्राओं को दिल्ली पुलिस के सामने थाने में भद्दी-भद्दी गालियां दी जा रही हैं। UGC के नए प्रावधानो का महत्व इसी बात से लगाया जा सकता है कि दलित और पिछड़ों के हुकूक का उलंघन ना हो… pic.twitter.com/Qs8e7eew71

— Ashraf Hussain (@AshrafFem) February 15, 2026

ABVP, DUSU and administrative responses

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has maintained that Tiwari was present in her professional capacity and was attacked for asking questions. Its Delhi state secretary described the episode as an attack on media freedom and characterised Left-affiliated campus politics as violent.

Aryan Maan, President of the Delhi University Students’ Union, condemned the alleged assault on Tiwari and called for a fair and impartial investigation. DUSU leaders have stated that violence has no place in campus politics.

Meanwhile, Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh described the incident as a matter of concern and urged the university community to maintain social harmony. He confirmed having spoken with student and teacher groups as well as police authorities.

मैं दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय के सभी शिक्षकों और विद्यार्थियों से अनुरोध करता हूं कि वह आपस में सौहार्द बनाए रखें। कोई भी ऐसा काम न करें जिससे आपसी मनमुटाव बढ़े और राष्ट्र व विश्वविद्यालय की छवि को नुकसान हो।

दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय में कल जो घटना हुई वह चिंता का विषय है।…

— University of Delhi (@UnivofDelhi) February 14, 2026

The Larger Question: When violence becomes a narrative weapon

What unfolded at Delhi University is no longer simply a dispute about who pushed whom in a scuffle.

It is a case study in how protests over caste equity are rapidly reframed into spectacles of disorder; how women activists alleging sexualised abuse must compete for credibility against viral video clips; and how digital ecosystems determine which injury becomes the “real” one.

At stake is not merely the credibility of AISA or the veracity of Ruchi Tiwari’s claims. It is the deeper question of whose victimhood travels faster, and why.

When allegations of rape threats and sexualised slurs inside or outside a police station struggle to command sustained outrage — while a competing claim of assault dominates headlines within hours — it reveals something structural about public discourse. Gendered abuse against politically inconvenient women often dissolves into “partisan noise.” Caste-based mobilisation is quickly recast as mob aggression. And campus politics becomes content.

This is not to prejudge the outcome of the FIRs. Due process must determine individual liability. But focusing exclusively on the procedural neutrality of “both sides have filed complaints” risks obscuring the larger asymmetry: narrative power in the digital age is unevenly distributed.

A protest demanding the restoration of equity regulations meant to protect SC, ST and OBC students has been displaced by a battle over viral footage. The structural issue — caste discrimination in higher education — has receded behind the spectacle of confrontation.

This shift is not accidental.

Related:

Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India

The stay of UGC Equity Regulations, 2026: The interim order, the proceedings, and the constitutional questions raised

Higher Education: How Centre is Undermining State Autonomy & Politicising UGC

‘Diluted Existing Rules’: Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi’s Mothers Slam UGC’s Draft Equity Regulations

Academic Freedoms at Risk: Federalism and autonomy challenged by UGC’s VC appointment guidelines

The post UGC Guidelines 2026: AISA Protest at Delhi University followed by sexual abuse allegations amid police presence appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Besides these killings, a staggering 1,143 documented complaints of physical and mental harm against Bengali speaking migrants have also been reported. The harassment includes illegal or irregular detentions by the police authorities and labourers threatened or brutalised. This Bengali newspaper has documented these here.

As far back as September 2025, Citizens for Justice and Peace, had submitted a comprehensive complaint to the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), highlighting what it described as an “alarming and coordinated escalation of hate speech” across India. The complaint documents how Bengali-origin Muslims, many of whom are lawful Indian citizens, are being systematically vilified as “Bangladeshis” and “ghuspaithiye” (infiltrators) in election rallies, public protests, and online campaigns. The details of CJP’s submissions to the NCM Chairperson may be read here.

In this complaint, the notorious chief minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma’s hate speeches, the speeches by Situ Barua of Jatiya Sangrami Sena and Milan Buragohain of All Tai Ahom Students’ Union, both accused of stopping buses and threatening Muslim labourers to “vacate Upper Assam,” that by Bir Lachit Sen, whose followers reportedly conducted door-to-door “document checks” and forced evictions were included.

Besides there were other such targeted speeches made in Bihar, Delhi and Maharashtra. Maharashtra that has seen four such murders happening has both in the state and local bodies now got the BJP firmly in the saddle of power. Only last week, the newly sworn in Mayor of Mumbai (sworn in close to a month after the election results) vowed “to crackdown on hawkers in the city and ordered birth certificate checks” as part of a “crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi nationals living in the city,” reported India Today.

Related:

Under Suspicion: Bengali Migrant workers face mass detentions, fear, and statelessness in Gurugram crackdown

Under Siege for Speaking Bengali: Detentions, deportations and a rising pushback against the targeting of Bengali migrant workers across India

Bengali Migrant Workers Detained in Odisha: Calcutta High Court demands answers, seeks coordination between states

The post 12 Bengali migrant workers murdered in 6 states, Maharashtra tops the crime list appeared first on SabrangIndia.

But another pattern has emerged alongside these flashpoints: ordinary citizens refusing to comply.

From Kotdwar and Nainital in Uttarakhand to Jaipur in Rajasthan, small acts of resistance are creating ripples that extend far beyond their immediate geography. These moments do not erase communal tension — but they complicate the narrative of inevitability.

Kotdwar: Republic Day, a shop sign, and a national ripple

On January 26, 2026, as reported by The Hindu (February 9, 2026), patriotic music echoed across Kotdwar’s Jhanda Chowk when a confrontation unfolded outside “Baba School Dress and Matching Centre,” a decades-old garment shop run by 71-year-old Wakeel Ahmed.

A group of young men demanded that Ahmed remove the word “Baba” from his signboard, claiming that Kotdwar — associated with Baba Siddhabali — did not permit a Muslim trader to use the term. Mobile phone videos later circulated widely, showing Ahmed visibly shaken.

The incident may have remained another viral moment of coercion had Deepak Kumar, a local gym owner, not intervened. When asked to identify himself, he responded: “My name is Mohammad Deepak.” The addition of “Mohammad” was deliberate — a symbolic rejection of rigid identity boundaries.

What followed, again reported by The Hindu, was swift escalation. An FIR was filed against Deepak, reportedly based on a complaint from members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. His gym memberships collapsed from 150 to 15. A crowd gathered days later outside his premises raising slogans. Police were deployed. His family reportedly received threats.

Yet this is where the story altered course.

As reported by The Indian Express, CPI(M) MP John Brittas publicly purchased a gym membership in solidarity. Fifteen Supreme Court senior advocates followed, each contributing Rs 10,000 as annual membership fees — deliberately structured as subscriptions, not donations, because Deepak refused direct financial aid. More than 20 lawyers pledged pro bono legal assistance.

Public figures such as Kaushik Raj, Raju Parulekar, Ramchandra Guha, Swara Bhaskar and Teesta Setalvad amplified calls for support.

A local confrontation thus transformed into a national solidarity campaign.

The Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), in its January 2026 report Excluded, Targeted & Displaced, contextualised such incidents within a broader pattern of communal narratives, economic boycotts, and displacement in Uttarakhand since 2021. Kotdwar was not an aberration — it was part of a documented trajectory.

And yet, the ripple effect from Deepak’s intervention shows that the story does not end with targeting. It can expand into resistance.

Nainital: “Why are you beating everyone?”

In April 2025, Nainital witnessed unrest following the arrest of a 72-year-old man accused of molestation. According to reporting by The Hindu, although the accused was swiftly detained, protests escalated into vandalism of Muslim-owned shops and attacks on property.

Amid the chaos, Shaila Negi — daughter of a traders’ association office-bearer — confronted a swelling mob. In a viral video, she asks: “Sabko kyun maar rahe ho?” (“Why are you beating everyone?”).

She refused to shut her shop during a bandh called against Muslims.

The backlash, she later told The Hindu, included online rape threats and abuse. But her action inserted dissent into what might otherwise have appeared as unanimous anger.

The importance of her intervention lies not in scale but in rupture — she broke the logic of collective punishment.

Purola: When an 83-year-old lawyer said “no”

The summer of 2023 in Purola saw boycott calls and intimidation after allegations involving two youths of different faith in a love jihad case. Posters marked Muslim homes. Tenants were pressured to vacate. Protests reportedly involved groups including the Bajrang Dal.

As documented in The Hindu’s coverage and referenced in the APCR report, fear spread, and some minority families left. But 83-year-old lawyer Dharam Singh Negi refused to evict his Muslim tenants despite threats and posters pasted outside his own house. His defiance reportedly encouraged other landlords to stand firm. This was not viral. It did not trend nationally. But it stabilised a town at a fragile moment.

Jaipur: Public reversal of moral policing

On February 14, 2026, a public park in Jaipur became the setting for a confrontation that quickly travelled far beyond Rajasthan. Videos widely circulated showed a group of men, reportedly linked to the Bajrang Dal, approaching couples in the park on Valentine’s Day. Dressed in saffron scarves and carrying sticks, the men were seen demanding identification cards and questioning the legitimacy of the couples’ presence. Such scenes have, over the years, become almost ritualistic in parts of India, where fringe groups position themselves as defenders of culture against what they describe as Western influence.

Tingus from Bajrang Dal were asking for ID cards from couples.

People saw them and asked THEM for their ID cards.

All Bajrang Dal tingus started shivering.

This is gold stuff.pic.twitter.com/LNRw55gqZ0

— Jawaharlal Nehru (@PMNehru) February 14, 2026

What made this incident different, however, was the reaction it provoked. Instead of dispersing or complying quietly, the couples — joined by bystanders — began demanding identification from the vigilantes themselves. Voices in the video are heard asking under what authority the men were conducting checks. One individual insists on knowing their names and addresses and warns that he would take them to court. The dynamic of intimidation visibly shifted. What had begun as an attempt to assert moral authority turned into a public challenge to that very authority.

The exchange quickly escalated into a tense standoff, but the significance lay in the reversal. Moral policing typically operates through spectacle and psychological pressure — the presence of a group, symbolic attire, raised voices, and the implicit threat of escalation. Its power depends on the assumption that those targeted will feel embarrassed, cornered, or fearful. In Jaipur, that script collapsed. By demanding accountability, the public reframed the encounter as a legal question rather than a cultural one: who has the right to demand identification in a public park?

The viral circulation of the clip amplified this reversal. Social media users described the moment as an “UNO reverse,” but beneath the humour was a serious civic assertion. Instead of the now-familiar images of couples being chased or shamed, the video showed alleged vigilantes on the defensive, being questioned about their authority. The spectacle of humiliation, so often directed at young people celebrating Valentine’s Day, was replaced by a spectacle of resistance.

The Jaipur episode is important not merely as a viral moment but as an indicator of shifting public thresholds. Unlike instances in Kotdwar, Nainital, or Purola — where individuals initially stood almost alone — the Jaipur confrontation reflected collective, spontaneous pushback. It suggested a growing unwillingness among citizens, particularly younger urban residents, to concede public spaces to self-appointed moral enforcers. In doing so, it signalled that while intimidation may remain visible, compliance is no longer automatic.

The Pattern: From isolation to contagion

These incidents, taken together, reveal an emerging civic reflex:

• A gym owner interrupts harassment.
• Senior lawyers institutionalise solidarity.
• A woman challenges collective punishment.
• An elderly lawyer defies eviction pressure.
• Couples publicly question vigilante authority.

They are geographically scattered. They are politically unaffiliated. They are socially risky.

But they share one thing: they disrupt the perception of unanimity.

Communal polarisation often depends on silence. It thrives when intimidation goes uncontested. What these incidents demonstrate is that public dissent — even by one person — fractures that narrative.

The ripple from Deepak Kumar’s Republic Day intervention is especially instructive. His stand did not remain local. It catalysed legal networks, political support, and social media amplification. It reassured others that resistance might not mean isolation.

Jaipur shows what happens when that reassurance spreads.

None of these incidents eliminate structural tensions. None reverse policy shifts or ideological mobilisation. The APCR report makes clear that displacement and targeting remain real concerns in parts of Uttarakhand.

But they demonstrate something equally real: civic resilience.

They show that:

• Names cannot be monopolised.
• Crime cannot justify collective blame.
• Landlords need not obey mobs.
• Vigilantes can be questioned.
• Solidarity can be structured, visible, and contagious.

Hate travels quickly — through slogans, rumours, and viral clips. But courage travels too.

And increasingly, it is not travelling alone.

Related:

CJP’s 2025 intervention against ‘Digital Hate’: Holding television news channels accountable before the NBDSA

Public Resistance and Democratic Assertion: India through protests, 2025

Law as Resistance: A year of CJP’s interventions against a rising tide of hate

The post Against the Script of Hate: How ordinary citizens are reclaiming public space appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The notice did not specify the grounds for the ban but The Wire’s founding editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, who attended the meeting, was informed orally before he was invited to speak that the grounds for blocking the cartoon were that it spread rumours/unverified information that would affect the defence, security, reputation of the country and India’s relations with foreign countries.

The Wire then presented its views to the IDC – which includes senior officials from the ministries of defence, home, information and broadcasting, external affairs, IT and law, as well from the MOD/army.

The Wire has also handed over a written submission to the IDC, which is appended below.

§

The Wire received a notice by email at 6:55 pm on February 10, 2026, purporting to be an “opportunity to appear and submit its comments/ clarifications” before the Inter-Departmental Committee with regard to a ‘request’ for blocking of certain social media URLs where a 52 second animated cartoon was posted by us.

We have been directly informed by one of the social media platforms that the blocking order they received explicitly cites Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.

No ground on which the blocking is permissible or sought or to be considered has accompanied the notice to us or to the social media platforms. Though couched as a hearing on a ‘request’ to block, the fact is that the blocking of the URLs mentioned in the Annexure to the notice has already occurred more than 22 hours prior to the notification to the Wire of this “opportunity”. In other words, this is an ex post facto notice.

At the hearing on February 11 2026 at 3 pm I was told orally that the grounds were – spreading rumours/unverified information that would affect defence, security, reputation of the country and India’s relations with foreign countries. Since this was brought up for the first time, I am placing my written submissions on record.

I was not informed which part was rumour, and how it affected any interest. Can a critical perception of the Prime Minister by a section of the people of his country be inimical to national interest? When has a cartoon video caricaturing a leader or the government ever been viewed in that light? Only a paranoid administration can even suggest this.

The content blocked is a 52-second cartoon clip, containing a humorous depiction of the Prime Minister, whose decision to absent himself from a Parliament debate on account of a purported physical threat from women Opposition MPs (including that they may use their teeth to bite him!) has been widely reported and commented upon.

The Prime Minister is a political personality answerable to the people. The manner in which he deals with questions raised by the Opposition or other issues is eminently a matter for the media and people at large to criticise, discuss – and even mock. To suggest that the Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy needs to be protected from a satirical 52-second video or that the nation needs to be protected from it is an insult to the Indian State.

The protection of an elected leader in a democracy from criticism or even mockery is not the function of law and indeed not contemplated by Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, under which the order to block access to our cartoon was purportedly made. The Supreme Court has repeatedly noted the importance of uninhibited public debate, even that expressed through “sarcastic and sometimes unpleasant sharp criticism of Government and public officials”. (D.C. Saxena v. Chief Justice of India, (1996) 5 SCC 216, para 30)

In any event, there is nothing in the video which can be said to affect even remotely the interests of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order. Neither the executive nor the IDC can direct the blocking of content on grounds not recognised by Section 69-A. There is no legitimate power to block the URLs and the blockage you have ordered is an abuse of authority.

The only power available to the executive for blocking of content under the Intermediary Rules, 2021 comes from and is also limited by Section 69-A of the Information Technology Act (IT Act). Rule 16 of the IT Rules, 2021 merely operationalises the manner of exercise of the power and cannot go beyond the limits of the IT Act.

Section 69-A(1) reads:

“(1) Where the Central Government or any of its officers specially authorised by it in this behalf is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so to do, in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above, it may subject to the provisions of sub-section (2), for reasons to be recorded in writing, by order, direct any agency of the Government or intermediary to block for access by the public or cause to be blocked for access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource.” (emphasis supplied)

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, (2015) 5 SCC 1 had upheld the constitutionality of Section 69-A upon the twin conditions that a block should be effected by a reasoned order relatable strictly to the limited grounds enumerated in Section 69-A, and a pre-decisional hearing given to the originator, where the originator is identified or identifiable. None of this has been done.

Your attention is also drawn to the fact that the cartoon only refers to issues already in the public domain and is a simple light-hearted presentation of the issues and use of words that the news media in India has been full of. Absence from Parliament of leaders of government has always been a matter of both comment and concern. Moreover, scores of news items, videos,TV debates and discussions in the social media have used the very words in the video in recent times and as such there is nothing in the cartoon clip that is not already in the public eye.

Since you are now saying that our cartoon has been banned for spreading rumours and unverified information that adversely affects national security, I have appended a list of several reports, including one going back to December 2023, which use words drawn from General Naravane’s book, which I imagine is the source of maximum concern/embarrassment for the prime minister. Not once have these words been denied, either by the government or the general, and scores of reports which reproduce these words – or rumours/unverified information as your IDC may call it – are currently in circulation. But it is The Wire’s 52-second cartoon which has been banned!

In the past, India’s leaders have welcomed and enjoyed satire at their own expense, and the mark of a confident leader is exactly that. This manner of blocking is as unfair to the ruling dispensation as it is to the media houses and to the very essence of freedom of expression.

You may recall that in the past when I have appeared before the IDC for post-facto hearings – first on the forced deletion of an extract from Caravan magazine and then on the blocking of The Wire’s website and the deletion of a story on CNN’s reporting about a downed Indian Rafale jet – neither the proceedings of the same nor the conclusions (reasoned or unreasoned) arrived at after the hearing, have ever been communicated to me, which again is a gross violation of the powers entrusted to the executive government by the IT Act and Rules.

While on the subject, I wish to bring to your notice that The Wire’s entire Instagram account was blocked for a period of time, and when I sought an explanation from the Joint Secretary, MIB, on February 9, I was told “We have not blocked your account.” Since the order to block content came from the MIB, triggering the blocking of the account itself for a while, a public official should surely have given a more transparent answer.

Since the point is a fairly obvious one, which is that the content blocked has no nexus with any of the stated objectives of Section 69-A IT Act, the blocking order must be rescinded with immediate effect. Also, it is only fair that the decision upon these proceedings should be communicated to The Wire, without delay, along with a copy of the order already issued under Section 69-A of the IT Act forming the basis for the blocking of the URLs mentioned in your notice.

LK Advani kept a diary during the Emergency which he published later under the title, A Prisoner’s Scrapbook. There is an entry from August 31, 1975, lamenting the closing down of Shankar’s Weekly, India’s premier satirical publication, that I wish to share with you.

The last issue, dated August 31, carries an editorial captioned ‘Farewell’, in which writes Advani: “Even the word emergency does not find a place in the editorial. But there can scarcely be a more devastating indictment of the emergency than this piece. Shankar writes, inter alia… ‘Dictatorships cannot afford laughter because people may laugh at the dictator, and that wouldn’t do’.”

In the end, I wish to say this. Democracies do not fall in a single dramatic moment. They erode slowly and quietly when those entrusted with power fear laughter and start taking action against it. Before you sign your names on to whatever decision you take, I ask only that you consider whether the Constitution you took an oath to serve was designed to protect authority from satire — or to protect citizens from the abuse of authority.

Thank you.

Annexure

Recent news items on the controversy in parliament

1. Lallantop
2. ⁠Jansatta 
3. ⁠National Herald 
4. ⁠Hindustan Times 
5. ⁠Deccan Herald 
6. ⁠The Federal
7. ⁠NDTV
8. ⁠Outlook 
9. ⁠The Leaflet 
10. The Organiser 
11. India Today (December 2023 report quoting the same words which were referred to in Parliament)

Courtesy: The Wire

The post ‘Democracies Erode When Those Entrusted With Power Fear Laughter and Start Taking Action Against It’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Protest in 2025 was neither exceptional nor episodic. It formed part of the routine functioning of a democratic society in which citizens repeatedly turned to collective action when institutional mechanisms proved inadequate or unresponsive. From workers and farmers to students, environmental defenders, and religious minorities, different groups asserted their claims through peaceful assemblies, strikes, marches, sit-ins, and, at times, confrontational resistance.

Farmers returned to the streets years after the repeal of the farm laws because core demands remained unaddressed. Workers mobilised because new labour regimes threatened job security and social protection. Students protested because universities were being reshaped without consultation, autonomy, or academic rationale. Indigenous communities resisted development projects that endangered land, forests, rivers, and cultural survival. Women-led care workers demanded recognition of labour that the state depends upon but refuses to formalise. LGBTQIA+ communities marched not for symbolic inclusion, but for tangible civil rights denied through legislative inaction.

Equally significant was the geographic spread of these protests. They were not confined to metropolitan centres or politically oppositional states. Demonstrations occurred in border regions, hill states, conflict zones, university towns, industrial belts, forest villages, and district headquarters. This dispersion reflected a deeper reality: that the pressures producing dissent were systemic rather than sectoral.

The State’s response formed a critical backdrop to these mobilisations. Increasingly, protest was governed through prohibitory orders, preventive detentions, mass registration of FIRs, denial of permissions, barricading of public spaces, internet restrictions, and aggressive policing. Laws originally framed as exceptional—such as national security statutes or public safety legislation—were routinely invoked against demonstrators, students, and organisers. The language of governance shifted decisively from negotiation to control.

This year-ender documents these protests chronologically, treating each mobilisation as a distinct political event rooted in its own context. It does not seek to romanticise dissent or frame protest as crisis, but to record how public action functioned as a means of negotiation, contestation, and constitutional engagement throughout the year.

January 2025: Fragmented beginnings, shared democratic anxiety

1. Universities push back against the draft UGC regulations, 2025

January opened with Indian universities acting as early warning systems for democratic erosion. Students and faculty across campuses mobilised against the Draft UGC Regulations, 2025, which proposed fundamental changes to the governance of higher education. The regulations sought to centralise power in the hands of the Union government by altering Vice-Chancellor appointment processes, diluting academic qualifications, and legitimising the induction of non-academic ‘industry experts’ into university leadership.

Left-leaning Students’ Federation of India (SFI) organised marches, classroom boycotts, public readings of the draft regulations, and discussions highlighting how these changes threatened institutional autonomy. Faculty associations warned that the proposals undermined peer review, disciplinary expertise, and the principle of universities as self-governing communities. The protests framed higher education as a constitutional public good linked to equality and freedom of thought, rather than as a market-driven enterprise.

2. Trade Unions place economic justice at the centre of the budget debate

Parallel to campus mobilisations, organised labour intervened in the Union Budget process. Ten Central Trade Unions (CTUs) submitted a joint memorandum to the Union Finance Minister ahead of the 2025–26 Budget. The memorandum foregrounded unemployment, inflation, contractualisation of labour, and the erosion of social security.

Workers demanded the filling of vacant public sector posts, expansion of MGNREGA to 200 days with enhanced wages, introduction of an urban employment guarantee, restoration of the Old Pension Scheme, and a halt to privatisation and disinvestment. The memorandum underscored that fiscal policy choices have direct constitutional implications for the right to livelihood and social justice.

3. Farmers reclaim Republic Day as a site of constitutional assertion

On January 26, farmers once again occupied public space through tractor rallies organised by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha across northern and central India. The rallies reiterated unresolved demands following the repeal of the farm laws, including a legal guarantee of Minimum Support Price, loan waivers, compensation for families of deceased protesters, and withdrawal of criminal cases against farmer leaders.

By mobilising on Republic Day, farmers deliberately linked their demands to constitutional promises of dignity, equality, and economic justice. The presence of tractors in urban centres challenged narratives of growth that marginalise agrarian distress.

February 2025: Labour, pensions, and the crisis of secure employment

1. Nationwide government employees’ protests against the new pension scheme

Throughout February, government employees across states organised coordinated demonstrations demanding the restoration of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS). Rallies, organised by 10 central trade unions and independent sectoral federations and associations, were held in state capitals, district headquarters, and outside secretariats, with participation from teachers, clerical staff, engineers, health workers, and employees of public sector undertakings. Protesters argued that the New Pension Scheme (NPS), which links retirement benefits to market performance, fundamentally undermines the principle of social security.

Many participants highlighted that deductions from salaries over decades no longer translated into guaranteed post-retirement income. Retired employees spoke publicly about sharp reductions in expected pensions, while younger workers expressed anxiety about their future in the absence of defined benefits. The protests framed pensions not as a fiscal burden, but as deferred wages and a constitutional obligation of the welfare state.

State governments responded unevenly. While some engaged in negotiations, others invoked prohibitory orders and restricted assemblies. The persistence of these protests throughout the month underscored the depth of discontent among salaried public servants.

2. Trade Union mobilisation against the four Labour Codes

February also saw intensified mobilisation against the four Labour Codes passed earlier but yet to be fully implemented. Central trade unions organised gate meetings, factory-level demonstrations, and citywide rallies in industrial belts and banking centres. Workers argued that the Codes diluted protections relating to job security, union recognition, collective bargaining, and workplace safety.

Union leaders warned that provisions allowing longer working hours, simplified retrenchment processes, and reduced inspection mechanisms would institutionalise precarity. The protests connected labour law reform to broader economic trends—privatisation, contractualisation, and informalisation—arguing that the Codes formalised employer dominance.

Police presence was heavy in several cities, and union leaders were briefly detained during demonstrations. Despite this, protests continued across the month, signalling organised labour’s refusal to accept the Codes without substantive revision.

3. Education sector protests in Kerala against draft UGC Regulations

In Kerala, February witnessed sustained protests by teachers and academics against the Draft UGC Regulations. Under the banner of the All India Save Education Committee, faculty members organised marches, seminars, and symbolic actions including the public burning of draft copies. These protests explained in detail how the regulations threatened academic autonomy by centralising appointments and diluting qualification norms.

Speakers at the protest warned that universities would be transformed into administratively controlled entities, undermining peer review and disciplinary expertise. The protests framed education as a constitutional instrument of social justice rather than a market-driven service. The sustained nature of the protests reflected deep concern within the academic community.

4. Samsung workers continue sit-in against union suppression in Tamil Nadu 

Workers at Samsung India Electronics Limited’s Kancheepuram facility continued a sit-in protest that entered its fifteenth day on February 19, following the suspension of three office-bearers of the Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU). The union alleged that the suspensions were retaliatory and aimed at weakening collective bargaining.

The protest centred on two demands: reinstatement of the suspended union leaders and an end to the company’s reliance on contract labour. Workers accused the management of acting without due process, including suspending leaders without issuing show-cause notices.

Family members of workers joined the protest, underscoring the broader social impact of the labour dispute. The union announced plans to escalate the agitation if negotiations failed, including serving a strike notice.

The standoff highlighted ongoing tensions in India’s manufacturing sector over unionisation, labour rights, and state labour department intervention.

March 2025: Gendered labour and environmental resistance

1. Anganwadi and ASHA workers’ indefinite secretariat protest in Kerala

March marked one of the most sustained women-led protests of the year. Thousands of Anganwadi and ASHA workers gathered outside the Kerala Secretariat, launching an indefinite sit-in. These workers—central to nutrition delivery, maternal health, vaccination, and disease surveillance—demanded minimum wages of ₹21,000, recognition as government employees, pension benefits, and retirement security.

Protesters detailed long working hours, expanding responsibilities, and stagnant honorariums that failed to reflect their workload. Many women spoke of debt, health issues, and the absence of social protection despite decades of service. The protest highlighted how the welfare state relies on feminised labour while refusing formal recognition.

Negotiations with the government remained inconclusive, and police barricading restricted movement around protest sites. The sit-in continued through the month, becoming a focal point of labour resistance.

2. University of Hyderabad students defend the Kancha Gachibowli Forest

Students at the University of Hyderabad organised sustained protests against the proposed auction of the Kancha Gachibowli forest for commercial development. Marches, sit-ins, poster campaigns, and night-long vigils framed the forest as an ecological commons vital to the city’s environmental health.

Protesters demanded transparency, environmental impact assessments, and public consultation. They warned that urban expansion without ecological safeguards would exacerbate climate vulnerability. The protests linked environmental protection to democratic planning and the right to the city.

April 2025: Preventive Laws and the Criminalisation of Dissent

1. Statewide Mobilisation Against the Maharashtra Special Public Safety Bill

April saw widespread protests across Maharashtra against the proposed Maharashtra Special Public Safety Bill. Civil liberties organisations, lawyers’ collectives, farmers’ unions, student groups, and political parties organised district-level marches and public meetings. Protesters warned that the Bill’s vague definitions would enable preventive detention of activists without adequate judicial oversight.

Legal experts explained provisions clause by clause at protest sites, transforming demonstrations into spaces of constitutional education. The protests stressed that normalising preventive laws erodes the presumption of innocence and chills democratic participation.

Despite heavy police presence and restrictions on assemblies, protests continued throughout the month, forcing public debate on the Bill’s implications.

May 2025: Indigenous Land, Development, and Militarisation

1. Protests against the Siang upper multipurpose project in Arunachal Pradesh

Indigenous communities in Arunachal Pradesh organised continuous protests against the proposed 11,000 MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project. Under the Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum, villagers held sit-ins, road blockades, and village assemblies opposing displacement and ecological destruction.

Resistance intensified following the deployment of armed forces to facilitate survey work. Protesters described the move as intimidation, particularly in the absence of free, prior, and informed consent under the Forest Rights Act. Women led many of the protests, asserting custodianship over land, rivers, and cultural heritage.

The movement framed development as a political choice rather than a neutral necessity, demanding community consent as a binding requirement.

2. Tamil Nadu sugarcane farmers demand higher FRP and revival of SAP

Sugarcane farmers in Tamil Nadu held protests in Chennai demanding a Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of ₹5,500 per tonne and the reinstatement of the State Advisory Price (SAP) by scrapping the revenue sharing formula introduced in 2018. The agitation was led by the Tamil Nadu Sugarcane Farmers Association (TNSFA), affiliated to the All India Kisan Sabha.

Farmers argued that the Union government’s announced FRP of ₹3,550 per tonne for the 2025 season was insufficient to cover rising input costs. They reiterated demands for implementation of the M.S. Swaminathan Commission’s recommendation of MSP at C2+50, warning that current pricing policies were accelerating the decline of sugarcane cultivation in the state.

The protest also highlighted long-pending dues of ₹1,217 crore owed by private sugar mills for procurements between 2013 and 2017. Farmers accused mills of delaying payments despite legal obligations under the Sugar Control Order, 1966, and demanded immediate disbursal of arrears.

Additionally, farmers called for the reopening of closed cooperative sugar mills, citing mismanagement and policy failures. They argued that reviving these mills would not only ensure fair procurement prices but also provide rural employment and stabilise the sugar economy in Tamil Nadu.

June 2025: Rights, Recognition, and the Limits of Constitutional Morality

1. Pride marches as claims to substantive citizenship

June 2025 marked a significant shift in the character of Pride marches across India. Held in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, and several smaller cities, Pride this year unfolded in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s refusal to recognise same-sex marriage, with the Court deferring responsibility to Parliament. This context fundamentally shaped the tone of the marches.

Participants framed Pride not as a celebration alone, but as a protest against legislative inertia. Placards, speeches, and manifestos articulated concrete demands: civil unions, inheritance and succession rights, joint adoption, medical decision-making authority, spousal benefits, and protection from discrimination in housing and employment. Protesters repeatedly emphasised that the absence of legal recognition translated into material precarity—particularly for queer persons estranged from natal families or excluded from informal social safety nets.

The marches also reflected generational differences within the movement. Older activists spoke of decades lost to criminalisation under Section 377 and warned against courts retreating from their role as protectors of minority rights. Younger participants highlighted intersections with caste, class, disability, and religion, arguing that queer exclusion compounds existing vulnerabilities.

Police presence was visible but restrained in most cities, though organisers reported heightened surveillance and bureaucratic hurdles in securing permissions. The marches collectively underscored a central contradiction: constitutional morality invoked in judgments remains hollow without legislative and administrative follow-through.

2. Mass mobilisation at Azad Maidan against Maharashtra Special Public Safety Bill 

Thousands gathered at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan on June 30 to protest the proposed Maharashtra Special Public Safety Bill, 2024, which critics described as a sweeping law aimed at curbing dissent. The protest brought together people’s movements, Left parties, and opposition formations under the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), marking one of the largest coordinated mobilisations against the Bill.

The demonstration was organised primarily by the CPI(M) and CPI, with participation from trade unions, student organisations, farmers’ groups, and civil liberties collectives. Leaders from the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress, and NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) attended, signalling a broad political consensus against the proposed legislation.

Addressing the gathering, CPI(M) state secretary Ajit Nawale characterised the protest as a decisive stand against what organisers viewed as an authoritarian expansion of state power. Protesters travelled from across Maharashtra, responding to calls to oppose provisions that allegedly allow for preventive action against vaguely defined threats to public order.

With the Bill expected to be tabled in the monsoon session of the Assembly, the mobilisation underscored growing concerns about legal frameworks that, according to critics, could be used to target activists, political opponents, and marginalised communities under the guise of public security.

July 2025: Mass Mobilisation and the Convergence of Long-Standing Struggles

1. Adivasi resistance to Forest Department overreach in Chhattisgarh

In July, Adivasi communities across Chhattisgarh intensified protests against forest department actions that curtailed Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights recognised under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. Large rallies were held in Bastar, Surguja, Dantewada, and Kanker districts, drawing participation from village councils and grassroots organisations.

Protesters detailed how administrative circulars and evictions undermined Gram Sabha authority. Marches culminated in district headquarters, where memoranda were submitted demanding withdrawal of orders that violated statutory rights. The protests were marked by repeated assertions of the constitutional principle that development and conservation cannot proceed by dispossessing Indigenous communities.

Police monitored demonstrations closely, and in some areas, prohibitory orders were imposed. Despite this, mobilisation continued throughout the month, reflecting deep-rooted resistance to bureaucratic encroachment.

2. Nationwide Bharat Bandh of July 9

On July 9, a nationwide Bharat Bandh called jointly by Central Trade Unions (CTUs) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha brought together workers and farmers in one of the largest coordinated actions of the year. Banking services, transport networks, coal mining operations, steel plants, and manufacturing units were disrupted across multiple states.

The bandh opposed the implementation of the four Labour Codes, privatisation of public sector undertakings, rising unemployment, and inflation. Protesters emphasised that economic policy was being formulated without democratic consultation, disproportionately burdening workers and small producers.

Heavy police deployment, detentions of union leaders, and prohibitory orders were reported in several cities. Nevertheless, participation remained significant, underscoring the scale of economic discontent.

3. Protests by terminated school staff in West Bengal

July also saw repeated marches by thousands of teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal who lost employment following judicial scrutiny of recruitment irregularities. Protesters described themselves as “untainted” and demanded differentiated accountability rather than blanket termination.

Demonstrations in Kolkata included long marches, sit-ins, and symbolic actions highlighting the human cost of administrative failure. Families spoke of financial distress, interrupted education of children, and social stigma. The protests raised difficult questions about governance failures and the limits of punitive institutional responses.

4. Bipartisan protests over arrest of Two Keralite nuns in Chhattisgarh 

Protests intensified in Kerala and New Delhi following the arrest of two Catholic nuns—Sister Vandana Francis and Sister Preeta Mary—at Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh on July 25, on charges of kidnapping, human trafficking, and forced conversion. The arrests were made following a complaint by a Bajrang Dal member, triggering widespread outrage among religious groups, civil society, and political leaders across party lines.

The protests assumed a rare bipartisan character, with Members of Parliament from both the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) publicly denouncing the arrests outside Parliament. Leaders alleged that the charges were fabricated and reflected a broader pattern of targeting minorities, while also criticising the role played by right-wing groups in precipitating police action.

As protests gathered momentum, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding justice for what he described as the “unfair incarceration” of the nuns. Senior leaders from Left parties, including Brinda Karat and Annie Raja, travelled to Chhattisgarh to engage with local authorities and affected families. Opposition leaders in Kerala linked the arrests to a wider climate of hostility toward Christians in BJP-ruled states.

The Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs stated that the matter was sub judice, while noting efforts by BJP leaders to engage with church authorities. Despite these assurances, protests continued, reflecting broader anxieties over religious freedom, misuse of criminal law, and the growing role of non-state actors in triggering arrests related to alleged conversions.

August 2025: Electoral Integrity, Labour Precarity, and Agrarian Anxiety

1. Protests over electoral roll revisions and voter deletions

August 2025 saw sustained and coordinated protests across Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar, Karnataka, Telangana, and West Bengal over alleged irregularities in electoral roll revisions. Opposition parties, civil society groups, student organisations, and independent election watchdogs mobilised demonstrations outside offices of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and district election authorities.

The immediate trigger for these protests was the publication of revised electoral rolls in several constituencies that showed large-scale deletions of voters, particularly from urban poor settlements, minority-dominated neighbourhoods, migrant worker colonies, and informal housing clusters. Protesters argued that many deletions were carried out without due notice, verification, or accessible grievance redress mechanisms.

Demonstrations included marches, sit-ins, submission of memoranda, and symbolic actions such as mock voter registration drives to highlight procedural opacity. Legal activists addressed gatherings, explaining how disenfranchisement—whether intentional or through administrative negligence—directly undermines the basic structure of electoral democracy.

Police responses varied by region. In Delhi and Mumbai, heavy barricading and preventive detentions were reported, while in smaller towns protests were dispersed citing prohibitory orders. The protests foregrounded electoral integrity as a constitutional concern rather than a partisan issue.

2. Prolonged agitations by sanitation and municipal workers

Across several cities in August, sanitation workers intensified protests against privatisation, contractualisation, and delayed wages. In Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurugram, and parts of Uttar Pradesh, municipal workers staged sit-ins outside civic offices, undertook hunger strikes, and halted sanitation services for limited periods.

Workers detailed chronic issues: employment through contractors despite performing perennial civic functions, absence of social security benefits, hazardous working conditions, and lack of compensation for occupational injuries. Many protesters belonged to marginalised caste communities, underlining the intersection of caste and labour precarity.

Municipal authorities responded with threats of termination, police complaints, and selective negotiations. Arrests of protest leaders and forcible dispersal of sit-ins were reported in some cities. The protests highlighted the contradiction between celebrating cleanliness initiatives and eroding the rights of those who perform essential sanitation labour.

3. Farmers’ mobilisation against trade policy and import liberalisation

A joint platform of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) and ten central trade unions across Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and parts of Maharashtra organised rallies in August opposing trade agreements and import policies perceived to expose Indian agriculture to volatile global markets. Tractor rallies, village-level meetings, and district marches were held to articulate concerns over declining crop prices and rising input costs.

Farmers warned that tariff reductions and import liberalisation disproportionately harm small and marginal cultivators while benefiting large agribusiness interests. Protest speeches frequently referenced the unresolved demands from earlier farmers’ movements, including legal guarantees for Minimum Support Price (MSP).

Police presence remained significant, particularly near state borders, reflecting continued state sensitivity to agrarian mobilisation.

4. Farmers push back against scrapping of import duty on Raw Cotton 

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) strongly condemned the Union government’s decision to scrap the 11% import duty on raw cotton between August 19 and September 30, 2025, a move notified by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC). According to the CPI(M)-affiliated farmers’ organisation, the temporary removal of the duty would lower the price of imported cotton, thereby exerting downward pressure on domestic cotton prices at a crucial point in the agricultural cycle.

AIKS highlighted that the timing of the decision was particularly damaging, as cotton farmers across major producing regions had already completed sowing and incurred substantial input costs in anticipation of remunerative prices. With harvesting approaching, any decline in prices would directly impact farm incomes. Cotton-growing regions, the organisation noted, are already marked by chronic agrarian distress, indebtedness, and a history of farmer suicides, conditions that could be further aggravated by this policy shift.

The organisation also drew attention to what it described as a contradiction between the decision and the Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech, in which assurances were made about safeguarding farmers’ interests. AIKS argued that India’s inability to protect its textile sector amid tariff measures imposed by the United States had resulted in domestic farmers bearing the burden of global trade pressures, despite being the weakest actors in the supply chain.

Citing data from the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), AIKS pointed out that cotton farmers were already receiving minimum support prices far below the C2+50 formula recommended by the Swaminathan Commission. The organisation further underscored the stark disparity between state support to cotton farmers in India and the United States, warning that continued concessions under external pressure could extend similar policy measures to other crops. AIKS called for a united nationwide agitation to compel the government to reverse the decision.

September 2025: Incarceration, representation, and regional discontent

1. Families of political prisoners protest prolonged undertrial detention

In September, families of activists and students incarcerated under stringent national security and anti-terror laws organised prolonged sit-ins and demonstrations at Jantar Mantar and in several state capitals. Many detainees had spent years in custody without commencement or completion of trial.

The protests were marked by testimonies from parents, spouses, and siblings who described the financial strain, psychological trauma, and social isolation caused by prolonged incarceration. Lawyers addressing the gatherings highlighted systemic issues: repeated denial of bail, delayed filing of chargesheets, and the normalisation of long-term undertrial detention.

Placards and speeches reframed the issue as one of constitutional rights rather than individual guilt or innocence. Police permitted the protests but maintained heavy surveillance, occasionally restricting movement citing security concerns.

2. Protests against media narratives and communalisation in Kashmir

In Srinagar and other parts of the Kashmir Valley, residents organised protests against national television channels accused of communalising incidents of violence and erasing local contexts. “Godi media hai hai!”- this is what a crowd of locals chanted today as they gathered around ABP News anchor Chitra Tripathi in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk during a protest to condemn the Pahalgam attack. Demonstrators gathered near press clubs and public squares, holding placards demanding ethical journalism and accountability.

These protests took place under intense surveillance, with movement restrictions imposed intermittently. Participants argued that misrepresentation in national media contributes to stigma, collective punishment, and further securitisation of civilian life in the region.

3. Intensification of the Ladakh movement for statehood and safeguards

September marked an escalation in the Ladakh movement demanding statehood and constitutional protections under the Sixth Schedule. Youth-led marches, hunger strikes, and shutdowns were organised across Leh and Kargil districts.

Protesters argued that prolonged central administration without elected representation had led to policy decisions taken without local consent, particularly regarding land, environment, and employment. Heavy security deployment, clashes, and reports of casualties deepened regional alienation and drew national attention to unresolved autonomy questions.

October 2025: Universities, autonomy, and administrative centralisation

1. Panjab University students’ shutdown over democratic deficit

In October, students at Panjab University enforced a complete shutdown of academic activities protesting delays in Senate elections and increasing centralisation of decision-making. Sit-ins, teach-ins, and marches were organised within and outside the campus.

Students argued that prolonged administrative control without elected bodies undermined institutional autonomy and student representation. Faculty members expressed solidarity, framing the issue as symptomatic of broader governance trends affecting public universities.

Police presence remained restrained, but university authorities initiated disciplinary proceedings against protest leaders. Similar, smaller protests were reported in other central universities, indicating a wider crisis of institutional democracy.

2. Dalit settlement demolished in Gurugram 

Residents of Premnagar Basti in Gurugram protested after large-scale demolitions razed most of the 45-year-old Dalit settlement. Families alleged forced evictions carried out despite legal protections and promises of rehabilitation.

The demolitions followed long-standing litigation initiated by local commercial interests. Protesters argued that the action violated constitutional protections and land acquisition laws.

Police action against protesting residents drew sharp criticism, reigniting debates over urban evictions and housing rights.

November 2025: Public health crisis, environmental breakdown, and faith under threat

1. Mass protests against lethal air pollution in North India

November 2025 saw sustained public protests across Delhi and the National Capital Region as air quality deteriorated to hazardous levels, with Air Quality Index readings remaining in the ‘severe’ category for extended periods. Residents, environmental groups, parents’ associations, and medical professionals mobilised protests demanding urgent state intervention to address the public health emergency.

Demonstrations were held outside government offices, pollution control bodies, and public squares. Protesters highlighted the failure of short-term emergency measures and criticised policy inertia despite recurring annual crises. Doctors and health experts participating in protests warned of irreversible harm to children, the elderly, and those with pre-existing respiratory conditions.

Placards and public statements framed air pollution not as an environmental issue alone but as a violation of the right to life and health. Protesters demanded long-term structural solutions, including regulation of industrial emissions, vehicular pollution control, agricultural stubble management through state-supported alternatives, and accountability of enforcement agencies. Police presence remained visible but protests were largely peaceful, reflecting broad public consensus on the gravity of the crisis.

2. Flash protest at Lalbagh against Hebbal–Silk board tunnel project

On November 15, student and environmental collectives held a flash protest inside Bengaluru’s Lalbagh Botanical Gardens opposing the proposed 17-km twin tunnel road project between Silk Board and Hebbal. The protest was led by the All India Students Association (AISA) and Fridays For Future–Karnataka, who described the project as an expensive and environmentally hazardous intervention being pushed forward without adequate scrutiny or public consultation.

Protesters alleged that the Karnataka government was advancing the multi-crore tunnel project despite expert warnings and unresolved gaps in the Detailed Project Report (DPR). They highlighted that the estimated cost of the project—between ₹17,000 and ₹20,000 crore—would make it one of the most expensive transport infrastructure initiatives in the state. Activists questioned the prioritisation of such expenditure at a time when metro fares were being increased on the grounds of funding shortages, arguing that the tunnel would primarily benefit a limited section of private vehicle users.

A central concern raised during the protest was the absence of a mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). According to the organisers, no comprehensive geological, hydrological, or biodiversity studies had been conducted, despite the tunnel passing beneath ecologically sensitive zones. Environmental groups warned that large-scale underground drilling could destabilise soil layers, disrupt groundwater flow, and worsen Bengaluru’s already severe flooding and drainage problems.

The protest also drew political attention, with Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, R. Ashok, accusing the Congress-led state government of damaging the environment in the name of development. Speaking at a separate event near Sankey Lake, he alleged that the project was proceeding without approvals from key departments, including the Environment, Archaeology, and Forest Departments. Together, the protests and political interventions highlighted growing public concern over transparency, environmental governance, and urban planning priorities in Bengaluru.

3. Workers’ and farmers’ protests mark five years of the 2020 Farmers’ Protest

On November 26, hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers across India participated in coordinated protests to mark the fifth anniversary of the 2020 farmers’ agitation. Rallies and demonstrations were reported in over 500 districts following a joint call by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) and Central Trade Unions (CTUs), making it one of the largest nationwide mobilisations of 2025.

The immediate trigger for the protests was the notification of the four Labour Codes on November 21, which trade unions opposed as anti-worker and detrimental to long-established labour protections. Workers from coal mines, railways, ports, refineries, textile mills, banks, and other sectors organised rallies, strikes, and workplace protests, with demonstrators in several locations burning copies of the labour code notifications as a symbolic rejection of the reforms.

Farmers joined the protests in large numbers, staging demonstrations at local, district, and state administrative headquarters in solidarity with workers and to press their own unresolved demands. SKM linked the mobilisation to the earlier farmers’ movement that forced the repeal of the three farm laws in 2021, while also highlighting the government’s failure to fulfil its commitment to provide a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP), a key promise made at the time of the withdrawal of the protests.

The November 26 actions also carried constitutional significance, as the date coincides with Constitution Day. Protesters accused the BJP-led central government of undermining constitutional values through labour reforms, majoritarian politics, and policies that marginalise religious minorities. The participation of student unions, women’s organisations, agricultural workers, and civil society groups reflected a convergence of labour, agrarian, and democratic rights concerns across the country.

4. Goa mobilises against Coal Transportation corridors 

People’s movements in Goa, supported by the National Alliance of People’s Movements, organised mass protests against infrastructure projects facilitating coal transportation through the state. Protesters warned that rail, road, and port expansions threatened Goa’s ecology and livelihoods.

Demonstrations demanded the halting of port expansion, railway double-tracking, and denotification of rivers declared national waterways. Activists argued that public hearings had been ignored.

The Chalo Lohia Maidan protest highlighted sustained resistance to projects perceived as prioritising corporate interests over environmental protection.

December 2025: Workers’ rights, environmental resistance, and targeted violence

1. ASHAs, Anganwadi and midday meal workers’ day-and-night agitation in Hubballi 

December opened with a significant mobilisation of women workers in Hubballi, Karnataka, where hundreds of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Anganwadi workers, and midday meal workers launched an indefinite day-and-night agitation outside the office of Union Minister Pralhad Joshi. Workers travelled from Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Belagavi, Gadag, Haveri, Dharwad, and Uttara Kannada districts to participate in the protest, converging at Chitaguppi Park adjacent to the minister’s office.

The protest was centred on long-pending demands for regularisation of services, improved honoraria, and recognition as workers rather than volunteers or part-time staff. Protest leaders highlighted that despite performing essential public health, nutrition, and education-related work, ASHAs and Anganwadi workers remain excluded from basic labour protections, social security benefits, and fair wages.

As negotiations with officials failed to yield immediate results, protesters spent the night in the open, continuing their agitation into the following day. Trade union leaders, including representatives from Akshara Dasoha Noukarara Sangha, CITU, and the Anganwadi Workers Association, addressed the gathering, framing the struggle as one for dignity of labour and gender justice. The agitation was suspended only after assurances were given by both State and Central Ministers, including an offer for dialogue in Delhi, underscoring the persistence required even to secure negotiations.

2. Violent clashes over Amera Coal Mine expansion in Surguja, Chhattisgarh 

On December 3, tensions escalated sharply in Chhattisgarh’s Surguja district as villagers protested against the proposed expansion of the Amera coal extension mine operated by South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) in Lakhanpur block. Residents alleged that attempts were being made to expand mining operations without lawful land acquisition, consent, or adequate compensation, threatening agricultural land, water sources, and residential areas.

When villagers attempted to prevent officials and workers from accessing the mine site, clashes broke out between protesters and police personnel deployed at the location. According to reports, villagers used sticks, axes, and slingshots, while police resorted to force to control the crowd. Around 40 police personnel sustained injuries, and several villagers were also hurt during the confrontation.

The protest reflected deep-seated anger over extractive projects proceeding without community consent, particularly in tribal and rural areas. Villagers demanded an immediate halt to mining activities until land acquisition was carried out lawfully and livelihood concerns were addressed. The incident highlighted the volatility of resource conflicts and the consequences of bypassing participatory decision-making processes.

3. Farmers’ ‘Rail Roko’ protest against Electricity (Amendment) Bill in Punjab 

On December 5, farmers and farm labourers in Punjab, under the banner of the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM), staged a statewide ‘symbolic rail roko’ agitation to protest the draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025, and the installation of prepaid smart meters. Railway tracks were blocked at several locations, including near Amritsar, for a few hours.

Protesters argued that the proposed amendments would adversely affect the agriculture sector by increasing electricity costs and exposing farmers to market-driven tariff regimes. Farmer leaders accused the Centre of ignoring their concerns and warned that the policy would deepen agrarian distress. Several farmer leaders were reportedly detained by police ahead of the protest, though farmers continued to mobilise in large numbers.

The agitation was framed as part of a broader resistance to policy decisions perceived as undermining rural livelihoods. Farmer unions warned of escalating protests, including the removal of smart meters, if demands were not addressed.

4. Anganwadi workers’ statewide strikes in Andhra Pradesh and sit-ins in Tamil Nadu 

Between December 10 and 12, over one lakh Anganwadi workers in Andhra Pradesh went on a statewide strike, while workers in Tamil Nadu organised sit-ins and protests in Chennai demanding improved working conditions and recognition as full-time government employees. Clad in pink saris to symbolise unity, Anganwadi workers and helpers gathered in large numbers, raising slogans and submitting memoranda to authorities.

Key demands included twelve days of menstrual leave annually, twelve months of maternity leave, substantial pay hikes, travel allowances, and regularisation of services. Workers highlighted the contradiction of being classified as part-time employees while routinely working more than eight hours a day for meagre honoraria. Police removed protesters from protest sites in Chennai, underscoring the constrained space for collective bargaining.

The protests foregrounded gendered labour exploitation within state-run welfare schemes and drew attention to the emotional, physical, and economic toll on women workers delivering essential services.

5. Protests against threats to the Aravalli Hills in Rajasthan (December 23)

On December 23, protests intensified across Rajasthan against a new definition of the Aravalli hills accepted by the Supreme Court, which activists and Opposition leaders warned could leave over 90 per cent of the range vulnerable to mining and construction. Demonstrations were held in cities including Jodhpur, Udaipur, and Sikar, with protesters demanding environmental protection and review of the decision.

Clashes were reported in some locations, with police resorting to baton charges and detentions. Environmentalists, lawyers, and local communities argued that the revised definition threatened not only ecological balance but also the livelihoods and cultural sites of tribal and rural populations residing below the 100-metre elevation threshold.

The protests drew on decades-long histories of environmental resistance in the Aravalli region and framed the issue as a struggle to protect a fragile ecological heritage from renewed extractive pressures.

6. Kerala Protests After Attack on Children’s Christmas Carol Group 

Widespread protests erupted in Kerala after an alleged attack on a children’s Christmas carol group in Palakkad by an RSS-BJP worker. The incident, involving physical assault and damage to instruments, triggered condemnation from political parties and church authorities.

Youth organisation DYFI announced district-wide protest carols, framing the response as a defence of communal harmony. Political leaders across parties criticised attempts to justify the attack. Police arrested the accused, who was already facing charges under the Kerala Anti-Social Activities Act. The incident came amid heightened concern over communal violence in the state.

7. Protests against Christmas-time violence targeting Christian communities 

Between December 24 and 26, Christian communities and civil rights groups organised protests and solidarity gatherings across multiple cities in response to a wave of violence, intimidation, and disruptions targeting churches and worshippers during the Christmas period. Incidents included vandalism at Raipur’s Magneto Mall and disruptions of worship services in Jabalpur and Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar.

A prominent silent protest was held in Mumbai’s Goregaon West, organised by the Samvidhan Jagar Yatra Samiti and the Bombay Catholic Sabha. Participants held placards invoking constitutional values and freedom of religion, deliberately avoiding slogans to underscore the dignity and gravity of the protest.

Organisers described the attacks as part of a broader pattern threatening the constitutional right to freedom of conscience and worship. The protests demanded accountability, protection for religious minorities, and an end to impunity for perpetrators.

8. Women protest outside Delhi High Court over bail in Unnao Rape Case (December)

Women’s groups staged protests outside the Delhi High Court following its decision to grant conditional bail to former BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape case. Protesters expressed fear for the survivor’s safety and criticised the suspension of sentence in a case involving grave violence.

The survivor and her family publicly voiced distress and loss of faith in the justice system, stating their intention to approach the Supreme Court. Demonstrators demanded accountability and reversal of the bail order.

Police issued warnings to disperse, but protests continued over several days. Women’s rights activists described the agitation as a response to systemic failures in protecting survivors of sexual violence.

Following sustained public pressure, the Central Bureau of Investigation announced it would challenge the bail order, underscoring the impact of protest on institutional responses.

9. Nationwide gig workers’ strike against unsafe work conditions

The year closed with escalating mobilisation by gig and platform workers across India. Following a digital protest on December 25 that saw tens of thousands of workers log off delivery apps, unions announced a nationwide strike on December 31 under the banner of the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers.

Workers demanded the removal of 10-minute delivery models, restoration of earlier payout structures, transparency in algorithmic management, grievance redress mechanisms, and social security benefits. Union leaders highlighted unsafe working conditions, income instability, and intimidation of workers through account deactivations and deployment of bouncers near warehouses.

The strike underscored the growing collective strength of gig workers and marked a significant moment in the evolution of labour resistance within the platform economy.

Conclusion: Protest as the moral record of a year

The protests of 2025, as documented month by month, form a cumulative moral and political record of India’s democratic life. Far from isolated eruptions, these mobilisations reflected sustained citizen engagement across issues of livelihood, environment, identity, labour, and governance.

Throughout the year, people protested not only against specific policies but against patterns of exclusion, neglect, and impunity. Farmers demanded economic justice, workers resisted precarity, students defended institutional autonomy, Adivasi communities protected land and forests, minorities asserted the right to live and worship without fear, and urban residents claimed the right to clean air and dignified survival.

Importantly, 2025 demonstrated that protest in India is adaptive. When streets were policed or permissions denied, dissent moved to courts, documentation, digital spaces, and symbolic action. When large mobilisations were curtailed, smaller local protests sustained democratic pressure. This adaptability reflects a deep-rooted commitment to constitutional values rather than episodic outrage.

The year also revealed the costs of dissent—surveillance, arrests, delayed justice, and social stigmatisation. Yet these pressures did not extinguish public mobilisation. Instead, they underscored the centrality of protest as a corrective mechanism when institutional responsiveness falters.

This year-ender records protest as democratic labour: the continuous work undertaken by citizens to make constitutional promises meaningful. In doing so, it affirms that the strength of a democracy is measured not by the absence of conflict, but by the presence of people willing to publicly contest injustice, month after month, across the country.

Related:

Defending Citizenship, On the Ground | CJP Assam 2025

A Cultural Burden: The ascending hierarchy of caste warfare and the crisis of the Indian republic

From Fringe to Framework: How AHP’s hate ecosystem reconfigured law, society, and electoral politics

2025: On the ground, the bulldozer still arrives before the rule of law

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On 8 February 2026 following the Thai general election, there was a paradigm shift ushering in a new era of Southeast Asian politics as the ultra-right Bumjaithai Party took control of every organ of Thai state power, democratically or otherwise. The party are relatively new comers to Thai politics but are the clear successor of a long line of monachal-military-capitalist-ultra-nationalists who have long served as a vanguardist nexus of deep state power. They had already allegedly rigged senate elections in the upper-house in 2024 winning a super majority in the supposedly party neutral chamber- an investigation into these charges of vote rigging are now certain to go nowhere. The judiciary, which have long been in the pocket of the aforementioned monachal-military-ultra-nationalists, are also firmly on team Bhumjaithai (BJT), and due to the kingdom’s centralised government structure little to no opposition remains in any state institutional form.

For the past two decades, and even going back to the 1960s, Thailand has had a relatively well organised peasant and workers movement, particularly given the highly reactionary nature of the state, which has been a US vassal ever since their war on Vietnam. Up until the 2000s this movement was largely extra-parliamentary, with the poor organising around the Farmers Federation (1970s), the insurgent Communist Party (1960s-80s) and subsequently a web of trade unions and localised peasant groups. In 2001, however, the left-agrarian-populist Thai-Rak-Thai party (today Phue Thai) emerged as the parliamentary representative of the poor, winning landslide elections, countless policy victories and experiencing mass state repression in the form of military and judiciary coups, extrajudicial killings, arrests and disappearances. Despite Phue Thai’s successes, over the past two decades, the reactionary state has developed a complex system of weaponised lawfare, as documented by researcher Tyrell Haberkorn in her book Dictatorship on Trial. In short, the reactionary elite learnt how to bar the poor from parliament, and at the time of writing, appear to have successfully neutralised the threat for the indefinite future.

In the aftermath of the 8 February election, many of those on the left are nervously looking to a future that resembles Hun Sen’s Cambodia (CPP) or Modi’s India (BJP). While these examples operate in vastly different political landscapes, they share striking tactical similarities in neutralising opposition through legal, administrative, patronage network, and state institutional means. A new reactionary playbook is rapidly being developed and exported across the region. One by which the ultra-right are able to capture state institutions, weaponize ultra-nationalist grievances outwards, and crush opposition. The much touted “rule of law” is stripped of its liberal pretences to serve as a naked instrument of class rule and state capital. Which brings us to the question of what the opposition—what the poor—can do to recognise and challenge this.

The repeated playbook in all of these cases rely on three basic pillars, judicial neutralisation, opposition absorption & ethno-nationalist redirection:

Judicial Neutralisation
In these cases, the state was built on Western ideas of liberal democracy. The judiciary, once framed in liberal theory as an independent check on power, has been effectively hollowed out and repurposed. It functions as an open and concentrated administrative force dedicated to safeguarding the interests of the dominant economic class, operating as a tactical instrument for enforcement of economic and political monopolies, ensuring that the legal system actively facilitates the accumulation of wealth and power for the ruling elite rather than providing a check on state power.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India: Have repeatedly used law enforcement agencies (Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation) to file corruption or money laundering cases against the opposition, often leading to pre-trial detentions that paralyses opposition leadership during elections, bogging them down in judicial procedure.

The Bhumjaithai Party (BJT), Thailand: Benefits from a “Judicial Coup” model where the courts protect the interests of the aforementioned reactionary vanguardist nexus. They benefit from a judiciary that dissolves major rivals and removes opposition leaders, like the judicial coups against Phue Thai Prime ministers and the dissolution of the Move Forward Party, on constitutional grounds. BJT itself rarely initiates these cases but relies on their dependable ultra-nationalist allies to press the charges.

The Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), Cambodia: Perhaps the most ‘advanced’ form, where the distinction between the party and the state has completely withered away. This is the closest we have to Caesarism, in that the judiciary is simply a department of the CPP used to liquidate the political competition, ensuring that the means of production (land, timber, and factories) remain in the hands of the elite class loyal to the CPP project.

Absorbing Opposition
In India, the “BJP Washing Machine” is a mechanism for the centralisation of political rent. Localised political/landowning elites with their existing patronage networks join the BJP to protect their accumulated capital from state seizure and further cement their position locally, while strengthening party hegemony nationally. Former opposition figures become allies and any investigations into their past wrongdoing are washed away by the power of the BJP “Washing Machine”.

In Thailand, the BJT’s absorption of existing “Baan Ya” (local elites) into the party allows for the consolidation of provincial capital and votes. When the judiciary threatens to investigate non-BJT elites, they simply move their assets (votes and influence) to join BJT, moving from a position of weakness to strength and allowing them greater access to state contracts, legal protections and a seat at the table in Bangkok.

In Cambodia, the CPP’s “Golden Handcuffs” are a form of patronage-based feudalism. For opposition figures, or those who wish to challenge CPP hegemony, instead of challenging the party, joining the CPP is the only way to access markets, votes, state contracts, etc., and avoid liquidation. Once tied or ‘handcuffed’ to the CPP they are richly rewarded and protected, providing they adhere to the party’s hegemony.

Ethno-nationalist Redirection
So as to most effectively legitimise their regimes and justify their extraordinary use of heavy handed judiciary, all three cases have relied on stoking ethno-nationalist grievances against outside forces. Ironically, Thailand and Cambodia are mutually dependent on this, given the recent border war, which was instigated by both sides, so as to create this very outcome. As we wrote at the outbreak of the fighting, it was a war of elite consensus on both sides of the border, which served only to strengthen the elites on either side, to justify their militaristic policies, which ultimately are vested in domestic interests, using the military as an internal repressive state apparatus rather than an external—as is the case with the US and Great Britain for example. The same is also true of the BJP, who have used the longstanding conflict with Pakistan to justify crackdowns on domestic opposition who fail to show sufficient fealty towards India’s army in its conflict with Pakistan. In Thailand too, this tactic was used against the left opposition as a means of discipline and control, forcing them to back the reactionary consensus of the ultra-nationalists like BJT or face charges of treason, as was the case with the aforementioned left populist PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra who was evicted from office for this very reason.

The Way Out
The election of Bhumjaithai this month is the most recent country in the region to fall to an ultra-right government using the very same playbook mentioned above. Reactionary forces across Asia are watching closely, taking notes, learning and adapting. It is at this moment that those of us on the left, the poor, must do the same, take time to analyse how reactionary powers operate and where their weaknesses are.

The answer, is of course, not the liberal politics that have been sold by the Western funded NGO’s and think tanks that for decades have portrayed themselves as the vanguards of democracy against fascism. Indeed, they are, in the best case, completely ineffective, as is the case with the Cambodia National Rescue Party, and in the worst case actively harmful, as is the case with The Peoples Party Thailand.

As bleak as the situation may feel in Thailand today in the aftermath of this defeat, there are lessons and examples we can look to as means of resistance, as well as recent moments of such reactionary consensuses breaking—the case of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, albeit currently in a state of flux. Even within the reactionary consensus, liberatory spaces can be created like the incredible achievements of the left coalition in Kerala.

For the poor of Thailand, we are in the first days of a new paradigm, a new reactionary consensus, where parliamentary political organizing may need to be abandoned for several years. While this particular paradigm is fresh, it is one that the poor have faced many times before. We have seen our comrades dead in the street, we still live with their empty bedrooms in our homes. We heard these stories from our grandparents, who in turn heard them from theirs.We have bounced back before and we inevitably bounce back again, as will the poor of India and Cambodia, such is the nature of class struggle.

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Kay Young is a writer and editor at DinDeng journal (Thailand). He has a forthcoming book on Thai revolutionary history with LeftWord Books (India)

Courtesy: CounterView

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Predictably, on February 11, the Centre issued a nationwide protocol prescribing how the national song, written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, should be sung. At one level, the move may appear innocuous—after all, what harm can there be in honouring a patriotic hymn? Yet, when placed in the larger political context, it raises troubling questions about the direction in which the Narendra Modi government is steering the republic.

The protocol makes it clear that Vande Mataram is to be given precedence over Jana Gana Mana, written and composed by Rabindranath Tagore and adopted as the national anthem. If both are sung, the national song must come first. It also mandates that everyone present must stand in respectful attention when it is sung, with an exception only when the song forms part of a film or documentary. Symbolism, in politics, is never accidental.

This development must be viewed alongside a broader pattern. When the Prime Minister “consecrated” the Ram temple at Ayodhya—on the very site where the Babri Masjid once stood—he blurred the constitutional line separating state and religion. Today, he appears more occupied with temple visits and meetings with religious figures than with addressing the anxieties of citizens grappling with unemployment, inflation and social discord.

There was a time when visiting dignitaries were taken to Bengaluru’s Infosys campus to showcase India’s strides in information technology—a confident, forward-looking nation presenting its modern achievements. Today, they are escorted to Varanasi, the Prime Minister’s constituency, to witness the Ganga aarti. Civilisational heritage has its place, but when spectacle substitutes substance, the message to the world changes.

I have heard Vande Mataram sung at functions organised by RSS veterans such as R. Balashankar. I was once invited to a function hosted by the builders of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, where the chief guest was RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. On such occasions, only the first two stanzas were rendered—the very portions historically accepted as inclusive.

The February 11 circular, however, insists on singing the entire poem, including portions that were consciously set aside to accommodate the sensitivities of religious minorities. During the parliamentary debate, the Prime Minister asserted that Vande Mataram was the one song that united Indians during the freedom struggle. This is simply not true.

The freedom movement resonated with a chorus of slogans and songs, each reflecting diverse ideological streams and regional energies: Jai Hind, popularised by Subhas Chandra Bose; Inquilab Zindabad, immortalised by Bhagat Singh and his comrades; Quit India; Bharat Mata ki Jai; Jai Bharat; and yes, Vande Mataram. To claim that a single chant alone stirred the nationalist soul is to rewrite history through the lens of contemporary politics.

Modi had accused the Congress of “mutilating” Vande Mataram by adopting only its first two stanzas. The charge is historically untenable. Tagore’s Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata, originally comprising five stanzas, was similarly abridged when the Constituent Assembly adopted only the first stanza as the national anthem on January 24, 1950. It was chosen for its brevity, inclusiveness and suitability for formal occasions. No one accused the Assembly of disrespecting Tagore.

Likewise, the Indian National Congress adopted only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram in 1937 because later verses contain explicit references to Durga, Lakshmi and other Hindu deities. Leaders of the freedom movement—deeply conscious of India’s plural character—feared that adopting the entire song might alienate non-Hindus. Tagore himself recommended these two stanzas for their “unobjectionable evocation of the beauty of the motherland.”

Nor was this the decision of Jawaharlal Nehru alone, as is often alleged. It emerged from a unanimous Congress Working Committee resolution passed on October 30, 1937, in Calcutta. Among those present were Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Maulana Azad, Bhulabhai Desai, Jamnalal Bajaj, J.B. Kripalani, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Rajaji, Acharya Narendra Dev, Jayaprakash Narayan and Subhas Chandra Bose. Mahatma Gandhi, though not a formal member, was a special invitee and assisted in drafting the resolution. Moved by Rajendra Prasad and seconded by Patel, it represented consensus—not mutilation.

It is also worth recalling that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, founded in 1925—half a century after Vande Mataram was written—did not adopt it as its anthem. Instead, it chose Namaste Sada Vatsale Matrubhume, composed by Narhar Narayan Bhide. Now, the RSS does sing Vande Mataram, but it does not sing Jana Gana Mana. Those curious may consult old issues of its mouthpiece, Organiser.

In its early years, the RSS and allied publications derided Jana Gana Mana as a supposed paean to the British monarch, misreading Tagore’s lyrics as loyalty to empire. This claim, long debunked by historians, ignored Tagore’s own clarification that the song hailed the divine guide of India’s destiny, not any earthly ruler.

I recently watched an RSS shakha meeting in Delhi. It began with the RSS anthem and concluded with Vande Mataram, followed by boisterous slogan-shouting. I am not sure whether they sang the full version or the historically accepted two stanzas.

This raises an interesting question. If the government now insists that Vande Mataram take precedence over all else, will the RSS accord it precedence over its own Namaste Sada Vatsale? Or will protocol, like history, prove to be selectively applied?

The deeper unease surrounding the present directive is not confined to Jana Gana Mana alone. The RSS had, for decades, objected even to the national flag, arguing that the Tricolour did not reflect India’s “civilisational ethos.” For years, it declined to hoist the flag at its shakhas. Only after the Modi government launched a hyper-enthusiastic flag-waving campaign did the saffron brotherhood warm up to the Tricolour.

Returning to Vande Mataram, it is important to recall that objections to it were not solely Muslim. The charge of idolatry—of venerating the nation as a goddess—troubled other reformist traditions as well.

I was reminded of this during the funeral of my former colleague at The Hindustan Times, Harish Bhanot, in Chandigarh. His daughter, Neerja Bhanot, remains etched in national memory. On September 5, 1986, during the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73, the 22-year-old flight attendant laid down her life saving hundreds. She became the first woman and the youngest recipient of the Ashok Chakra.

Bhanot was a follower of the Arya Samaj, and through him I had my first glimpse into that reformist tradition. It was the first time I entered an Arya Samaj temple. The walls bore inscriptions—Vedic verses rendered in bold script—but there was no idol, no sculpted deity, no ritual paraphernalia of worship. The austerity was striking, almost disarming. Swami Agnivesh, who belonged to this movement, was a friend. He later spoke at the Maramon Convention. We know who brutally attacked him for his views.

The point bears emphasis: opposition to idolatry is not confined to Islam. Arya Samajists, too, consider it a deviation from true monotheism. When the state elevates a song that personifies the nation as a goddess, it inadvertently places such citizens—Muslim and Hindu alike—in a moral quandary.

The Centre’s directive mandating the full six-stanza, three-minute-and-ten-second rendition of Vande Mataram at official occasions—during flag unfurling, the President’s arrival, and before and after her addresses—effectively pushes Jana Gana Mana to the margins. For all practical purposes, the national anthem risks being reduced to a ceremonial afterthought. It bears recalling that Sri Aurobindo, who rendered the song into English, viewed it as an anthem of a united Bengal in its struggle against colonial rule, not as a national song for the whole of India.

The text itself is rooted in a specific historical moment: its landscape is regional, its imagery sectarian to many, and even its demographic references belong to an era when India, as we know it today, did not exist. Protocol, once a matter of dignified brevity, now threatens to become an endurance test. Elderly citizens, people with arthritis, and those unable to stand for prolonged periods may find patriotism measured not by feeling but by stamina.

A word about the poet, Bankim was among the earliest architects of the Bengal Renaissance—scholar, novelist, satirist, administrator. His prose reshaped Bengali literature and stirred cultural self-awareness among Hindu Bengalis. Yet his nationalism was not the inclusive vision later articulated by Mahatma Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru.

His 1882 novel Anandmath forms the backdrop of Vande Mataram. It depicts ascetic warriors—the Sannyasis—fighting Muslim rule. Muslims are portrayed as foreign invaders and oppressors; the narrative closes not with reconciliation but with ascendancy.

Historians S. M. Burke and Salim Al-Din Quraishi, in The British Raj in India: An Historical Review, note that even colonial authorities viewed the song with suspicion. Sir Henry Craik objected that it originated as a hymn of hate against Muslims and had become a war cry of militants in Bengal. In one exchange from Anandamath, a character declares that Hinduism cannot survive unless “the bearded drunkards are expelled”—and, when asked how, replies: “By killing.”

Given such a history, the Congress leadership’s decision to adopt only the nonsectarian stanzas was not cowardice but statesmanship.

Bankim himself was not always a nationalist in the modern sense. In his early writings, he admired Europe’s scientific method, governance, and culture, describing it as a “more perfect type of civilisation,” while lamenting India’s “arrested development.” He praised Europe’s inductive method—systematic observation, experiment, and application of knowledge into power. By the time he wrote Anandamath, he had transformed into a cultural revivalist.

That transformation mirrors our own national journey: from self-doubt to assertion, from reform to revival, from pluralism to a more brittle uniformity.

My grandson Nehemiah once had an unusual hobby. In Class 2 or 3, he delighted in listening to national anthems of different countries. He could identify them by tune and lyric. Among his favourites was the Russian anthem; he admired its martial music.

He informed me—authoritatively, as only children could—that Greece had the longest anthem but uses a shortened version; the Netherlands had the oldest; the American anthem was the most difficult to sing; and Japan’s could be rendered in under 45 seconds. The only anthem he could sing flawlessly, he said, was that of Bahrain. Why? Because it had no words—only sound.

His innocent observations carry a profound lesson: an anthem’s power lies in its brevity, clarity, and inclusiveness. Over three minutes is an eternity when symbolism overshadows sentiment.

Vande Mataram proclaims:
Mother, I praise thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams…

One cannot help asking: Is today’s India—where rivers like the Yamuna in Delhi run dark with sewage and foam—the landscape Bankim praised? Should not the government focus first on making the country worthy of such hymns? Clean rivers, breathable air, and dignified living conditions would inspire spontaneous patriotism far more effectively than mandated recitations.

Instead, we risk compelling citizens—particularly Muslims and Christians—to sing praises that resemble devotion to a Hindu goddess. Patriotism, when coerced, curdles into compliance; when inclusive, it blossoms into belonging.

Nations are not sustained by songs alone. They endure through shared values: justice, dignity, equality, and mutual respect. Symbols matter, but they must unite rather than divide. The framers of the Republic understood this when they chose Jana Gana Mana—brief, inclusive, geographically expansive—as the anthem, while according Vande Mataram an honoured but limited place.

To elevate one by diminishing the other is to reopen settled questions and unsettle fragile harmonies. The real test of nationalism is not how loudly we sing, how long we stand, or how many flags we wave. It lies in whether every citizen—Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, believer, reformist, or atheist—feels equally at home in the Republic.

If a song must be sung, let it be one that all can sing without hesitation. If a flag must be waved, let it be one that all embrace without qualification. And if a nation must be worshipped, let it be through service—clean rivers, just laws, and compassionate governance—rather than through enforced hymns. Only then will patriotism cease to be performance and become, once again, a shared and silent pride.

Courtesy: Indian Currents

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Video of the General Strike

From the paddy fields of Punjab to industrial belts in Tamil Nadu, from tea gardens in West Bengal to transport hubs in Uttar Pradesh, and across the National Capital Region in New Delhi, workers and peasants converged in a rare display of coordinated dissent. Coal miners downed tools. Electricity employees joined demonstrations. Banking and insurance services reported disruptions. In ports, transport depots and manufacturing clusters, protest meetings and road blockades signaled a shared disquiet.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) described the strike as “one of the largest ever General Strikes in the history of Independent India,” arguing that it cemented worker-peasant unity as the backbone of resistance to what it termed corporate-driven policies. Congratulating the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions, the SKM said the action had instilled confidence among working people to resist “exploitative, corporate-oriented measures” and warned that if the Union government persisted with its trajectory, “more intensified, continuous, united pan-India struggles” would follow.

At the heart of the mobilisation was opposition to the four labour codes. But the anger spilled far beyond them. The SKM pointed to resentment against Free Trade Agreements, the proposed Electricity Bill, and the Seed Bill. Rural participation, it noted, was not symbolic but structural. “There was much more effective and widespread coordination than ever before,” the statement said, highlighting the large-scale involvement of women and rural workers. The issue of scheme workers — denied worker status and statutory minimum wages — figured prominently in protest speeches across states.

For the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the strike was a “historic success,” with demonstrations reported at more than 2,000 locations nationwide. The organisation characterised the mobilisation as a warning to the ruling dispensation: withdraw what it called anti-people laws or face prolonged resistance. Participation, it emphasised, cut across organised and unorganised sectors, underlining the breadth of social discontent.

AIKS leader Vijoo Krishnan framed the moment as one of political clarity rather than episodic protest. “This unity of workers and peasants is not accidental,” he said. “It reflects deep anger against policies that privatise profits and socialise losses. The government must withdraw the anti-worker labour codes and anti-farmer measures. If it fails to listen, today’s strike will only be the beginning of a longer and stronger struggle.”

Significantly, the mobilisation was not confined to physical spaces. Social media became an extension of the protest ground. Hashtags trended across platforms, live videos from picket lines travelled instantly between states, and infographics explaining the labour codes and farm-related legislations were widely circulated in multiple languages. Leaders used digital tools not merely for publicity but for political education — simplifying complex policy questions into accessible, shareable content.

Farmers gather at Freedom Park in Bangalore on February 10 to launch an indefinite strike. Photo: Vijoo Krishnan/FB

Vijoo Krishnan and other SKM leaders conducted regular live briefings  in real time and amplified ground reports from district-level actions. Short video messages from protest sites in Punjab, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal created a sense of simultaneity — of a nation rising together rather than isolated pockets of unrest. In an era where narratives are shaped as much online as on the streets, the strike demonstrated that digital platforms can be harnessed to deepen organisational coordination and expand the moral reach of collective action.

Video of strike from Tamil Nadu

In Haryana’s Kurukshetra, where the SKM is scheduled to hold its National Council meeting on February 24, the emphasis is already shifting from assessment to escalation. The coming phase, leaders indicate, will be shaped both independently and in coordination with trade unions and agricultural workers’ platforms.

If the Modi led BJP – NDA government reads February 12 as a routine disruption, it may be misreading the mood. What unfolded across India was less a stoppage of work than a consolidation of resistance — an assertion that the grammar of economic reform cannot be written without the consent of those who labour in fields, factories and public services.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

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— Rohith Vemula

It has been ten years since Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder.^[1] That emptiness is not his alone. It is the lingering feeling many from marginalised communities carry with them when they enter India’s so-called “elite” institutions –- IITs, IIMs, NITs, and Central Universities.

A 2022 survey in the Quint conducted at IIT Bombay following the Institutional Murder of Darshan Solanki found that one in every three SC/ST students had been asked about their caste identity.

Faculty spaces in these institutions reflect a similar imbalance. Despite constitutionally mandated reservations for SC, ST, and OBC communities, faculty positions continue to be dominated by those from the general category, as reported by The Hindu.

Under representation in these institutions

Under-representation is not incidental; it is structural. In at least two IITs and three IIMs, nearly 90% of faculty positions are held by individuals from the general category. In six IITs and four IIMs, the figure ranges between 80–90%, according to a report by The Wire, based on an RTI filed by Gowd Kiran Kumar, National President of the All India OBC Students Organisation.

The culture of exclusion within India’s elite institutions is not declining. It has been firmly entrenched.

Source: MHRD Data and a report in Quint, November 28, 2019

Faculty recruitment across IIMs has witnessed a significant decline between 2019 and 2026.

OBC, SC, ST – FACULTY IN IIM’s

This was first put out on social media. Verifying this we found that, according to a report in The Print on “The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports titled “2025–26 Demands for Grants of the Department of Higher Education” as of January 31, 2025, 28.56 percent of the total sanctioned teaching faculty positions (18,940) remained vacant across IITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), Central Universities, and other higher education institutions.

The data further reveals that 17.97 percent of the 11,298 Assistant Professor positions (entry-level posts) are vacant, 38.28 percent of the 5,102 Associate Professor positions (mid-level posts) remain unfilled, and an alarming 56.18 percent of the 2,540 Professor positions are currently unoccupied.

The question then is stark: Why are SC, ST, and OBC positions left unfilled even when institutions have vacancies and eligible candidates are available?

When questioned about their recruitment processes, many institutions claim to follow a “flexi” system. When asked why reservation policies are not implemented, some have anonymously stated that hiring is done purely on “merit”. This raises a troubling question, does “merit” imply that candidates from marginalised communities are deemed intellectually unfit to teach in elite institutions? It is also frequently argued that an “adequate talent pool” is unavailable.

The experience of Subrahmanyam Sadrela illustrates the deeper structural problem. After completing his M.Tech and PhD from IIT Kanpur, Sadrela joined the institute as an Associate Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department in January 2018. Soon after his appointment, colleagues reportedly remarked that his selection was “wrong”, that he did not deserve to be a faculty member, that his English was inadequate, and that he was mentally unfit. In April 2019 nearly a year after he raised allegations of caste-based discrimination on campus, he was accused of plagiarism in his thesis and threatened with the revocation of his PhD degree, as per a report in ­the Times of India. A detailed investigation by the Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement (DCRE) and reported by the Mooknayak said that the corroborated allegations of caste based discrimination inside IIM – B made by an associate professor Dr Gopal Das were vaild.

A significant portion of the 2025 data is not available online. Most publicly accessible information is from 2023–24, with limited material from early to mid-2025. This absence itself is telling, particularly as the pace of erosion of transparency –by institutions under the union government–appeared to accelerate in 2025, as per a report in the Wire.

RTI data from 2024 revealed that no SC, ST, or OBC faculty members were recruited in 2023 at IIT Bombay. Further, 16 departments at IIT-B did not admit a single student belonging to the ST community in the 2023–24 academic year. Shockingly, in five departments at IIT-B, no ST student had been admitted in the last nine years. This data was shared by the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), a student group at IIT Bombay, based on an RTI response received on February 6, 2025. In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on 9 April, the group alleged that IIT Bombay “Is violating reservation norms despite the MMR (Mission Mode Recruitment) announcement.”

Notably, no information was put out by the Circle regarding 2025 data on PhD enrolments or faculty recruitment. The Circle, which had consistently been active in raising questions of injustice, appeared to fall silent on these figures. Speculations can be made that the voice of the student group was curbed by the institute. Established in 2017, the Circle had positioned its X account as a strong voice responding to issues affecting students within and beyond IIT-B. 

The death of Darshan Solanki, a Dalit student at IIT-B, further intensified concerns. His father claimed that caste-based harassment led to his son’s suicide. However, the committee constituted by the institute concluded that the suicide was linked to poor academic performance, stating that none of Darshan’s close associates had reported instances of caste-based harassment. It must be noted that the committee did not include a single external member; it comprised only IIT staff. The inquiry was entirely internal. To many, it appeared a complete white wash.

Similar patterns of hostility have surfaced in other premier institutions. Students at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, reported that casteist messages such as “SC/ST leave the campus” and “Jai Parshuram” were circulated by fellow students on unofficial WhatsApp groups. Memes targeting Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar were also shared.

When anonymous complaints were submitted, the institute’s director and faculty reportedly responded that since the complaint had been made anonymously, it could not be entertained. This was conveyed by a senior official on the condition of anonymity.

If students are made to feel this unwelcomed within these institutions, why would they not drop out? Why would faculty members not resign? 

The dropout rates of SC, ST, and OBC students in these elite institutions are often attributed to financial difficulties or “excessive academic pressure.” Yet, the lived experiences of students suggest a far more troubling reality.  Following Darshan Solanki’s death, a survey was conducted at IIT Bombay. Students were asked a series of questions about campus climate and discrimination. One such question, along with several responses, is reproduced here. These responses reveal the brutal reality of a systemic failure—one that institutions attempt to downplay or conceal, even when exposed by the deaths of students like Darshan.

1.  What Has The Survey Revealed?

• On being asked if anyone has hurled “caste/tribal slurs or abuses or discriminated against you on campus,” 83.5 percent students said ‘No’.
• While 16.5 percent students said that they had, in fact, witnessed such instances, 70.4 percent students said that they had not witnessed anyone else being discriminated against on campus
• Nearly 25 percent, or one in every four students, said that the fear of disclosing their identity has stopped them from joining an SC/ST forum or collective.
• As many as 15.5 percent of students said that they have faced mental health issues arising from caste-based discrimination.
• Nearly 37 percent of students said that they were asked their Joint Entrance Exam (JEE)/ Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE)/ Joint Admission Test for Masters(JAM) /Undergraduate Common Entrance Examination for Design (U)CEED rank by fellow students on campus in a bid to find out their (caste) identity.
• 26 percent of students were asked their surnames with the intention of knowing their caste.
• 6 percent, or one in every five students, said that they feared backlash from the faculty if they talked back against caste discrimination.
• 2 percent, or one in every three students, said that they feel SC/ST Cell needs to do more to address casteism on campus.
• Nearly 25 percent of the 388 students, that is one in every four students, did not attend an English-medium school in class 10.
• Nearly 22 percent of students are first-generation graduates from their family.
• Nearly 36 percent of students foretell that open category students perceive their academic ability as ‘average’. This is in contrast to 51 percent SC/ST students perceiving the academic ability of open category students as ‘very good’. (Source: the Quint)

There is a powerful story from the Solomon Islands that when people wish to uproot a tree, they gather around it and hurl abuses at it until the tree withers and dies. Whether or not this myth holds true for plants, its metaphor is painfully relevant in the context of India’s elite institutions.

An unwelcoming, hostile environment does not merely push students to drop out; it drives faculty members to resign as well.

Vipin V. Veetil resigned from IIT Madras in July, 2021. He had joined in 2019 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) in August the previous year. In his resignation email to the institute’s authorities, Veetil stated that his sole reason for quitting was caste-based discrimination allegedly faced from senior Brahmin faculty members within the department. However, the committee constituted by IIT Madras concluded that there was “no evidence of decisions being biased due to caste discrimination,” reasoning that most faculty members had “hardly interacted” with Dr. Veetil.

This was not the first instance. In January 2022, Veetil had also resigned after rejoining the institute in August 2020.

In another case, K. Ilanchezhian, a senior assistant director at the institute, filed a complaint alleging that his office space had been shifted to a students’ hostel, while his original office was allotted to an ‘upper’ caste research assistant.

Similarly, the Director of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Chennai, was booked at the Taramani police station under the SC/ST Act following allegations of caste discrimination against a colleague.

In 2024, an FIR was registered under various provisions of the SC/ST Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita by the Bengaluru Police in a case alleging caste-based atrocities and systemic discrimination at IIM Bangalore. Eight individuals were named, including the institute’s Director and seven professors. The Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement (DCRE), in its investigation findings dated December 20, 2024, confirmed systemic caste-based harassment faced by Associate Professor Gopal Das, a globally acclaimed Dalit scholar at IIM Bangalore, as per a report in the Mooknayak.

These cases represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Data on PhD enrolments in these institutions reveals that only a small number of students from SC, ST, and OBC communities have been able to secure admission into these prestigious doctoral programmes

Source: Table showing the 2022 PhD admission data of 13 IIMs obtained by RTI filed by APPSC IIT Bombay, The Wire

Scholarships for SC, ST, and OBC students are delayed and the students often get the amount after the end of their semesters. It has become an annual tradition for students to receive their scholarships after the end of their academic semester as reported in The Hindu. Minister Subhas Sarkar in this winter session of the Lok Sabha presented statistics that reveal the harrowing figures about dropouts by marginalised students studying in central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology, and Indian Institutes of Management.

In response to a question raised by BSP Member of Parliament (MP), Ritesh Pandey in 2023, the government disclosed that over the preceding five years, a staggering 13,626 SC, ST, and OBC students had discontinued their education.

The data further revealed that in Central Universities alone, 4,596 OBC students, 2,424 SC students, and 2,622 ST students had dropped out during this period. In the IITs, 2,066 OBC students, 1,068 SC students, and 408 ST students discontinued their studies. Similarly, in the IIMs, 163 OBC, 188 SC, and 91 ST students dropped out, reported SabrangIndia.

As stated before, no data for 2025 is accessible as of now, online.

Background

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the nodal central government agency on matters relating to reservation, issued an order in 1975 exempting certain scientific and technical posts from the reservation policy.

Siddharth Joshi, an IIM Bangalore doctoral alumnus and researcher who co-authored a paper with IIMB Professor Deepak Malghan on caste bias in IIMs, noted: “In 1975, an exemption was granted to IIM Ahmedabad by the Department of Personnel and Training with respect to reservation in faculty positions. While IIM Ahmedabad had expressly sought this exemption, other IIMs simply assumed that they were also exempt and began not implementing reservations in faculty recruitment.”

Institutions have frequently justified the marginal representation of SC and ST faculty by arguing that there is a lack of a sufficiently qualified applicant pool, as reported by the Quint.

However, marginalised communities remain underrepresented in these institutions both as students and as faculty. They are subjected to grave mental harassment on the basis of caste identity, by peers, by authorities, and by colleagues. At the same time, institutions routinely deny the existence of discrimination and attempt to curb voices that raise these concerns.

The deeper truth is this: people from marginalised communities are seldom truly accommodated within these spaces. They are rarely made to feel that they belong. They are otherised – their culture, language, and food practices subtly or overtly looked down upon. In these elite institutions, they continue to remain “they,” never fully accepted as “us.”

UGC Guidelines: Context, Counter-revolt and protest 

It is in this overall context of entrenched exclusion and othering that recent developments around the much-needed UGC guidelines 2026 need to be understood. Brought in following a rigorous human rights battle in the courts –spearheaded by the mother of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi—they evinced visceral reactions from sections of the privileged caste elite. The union government, without putting up a spirited defence of its own enacted guidelines capitulated in its arguments of caste elite organisations in the Supreme Court. The Court too was prompt to stay implementation of these measures that would go a long way in addressing entrenched exclusion. Dozens of campuses across the country have seen spirited protests against this capitulation. Chandrashekhar Azad of the Bhim Army party even held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar on February 11 demanding that the 2026 Guidelines be implemented without change. Read references to this issue here, here and here.

Conclusion

“One out of three SC/ST students reported being asked about their caste,” revealed an IIT Bombay survey conducted in 2022.

Many students from the general category have reportedly hurled casteist abuses at SC/ST students. These elite institutions increasingly resemble exclusive spaces of savarna dominance. Yet, reports such as Caste-Based Enrolment in Indian Higher Education: Insights from the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) are published, claiming that nearly 60% of seats in higher education institutions are occupied by students from marginalised communities (p. 11 of 26).

While the AISHE data indicates a rise in enrolment from marginalised communities in recent years, it fails to answer a fundamental question: which institutions are being counted? Are these Tier 2 and Tier 3 colleges in urban peripheries, or institutions located in remote rural areas? Or are we speaking of IITs, IIMs, NITs, AIIMS, and Central Universities, the institutions that command prestige, resources, networks, and opportunity?

The distinction matters. A BSc degree from IIT Bombay can open doors to high-paying corporations and global opportunities. A BTech degree from an under-resourced college in a remote district often cannot. Access to elite institutions translates into access to power.

Meanwhile, over 13,000 SC, ST, and OBC students have dropped out of higher education in recent years. In Central Universities alone, approximately 4,500 OBC students, over 2,400 SC students, and nearly 2,600 ST students discontinued their studies. In the IITs and IIM’s, India’s premier institutes of learning — renowned not only for academic excellence but increasingly for caste discrimination and student suicides – around 2,000 OBC students, 1,000 SC students, and 408 ST students dropped out. At the IIMs, 163 OBC, 188 SC, and 91 ST students discontinued their education reported SabrangIndia.

The disbursal of fellowships and scholarships is frequently delayed, often reaching students only after the semester has ended. Students are made to feel undeserving and unwelcome—by faculty and by peers alike. They are shunned for their caste identities. They are made to feel like outsiders, as though these institutions belong only to certain classes and castes. Even their food practices are policed and mocked, as has been reported in several IITs. Sabrangindia has frequently reported on this alienation and discrimination.

Faculty positions in these institutions are overwhelmingly occupied, often 80 to 90 percent—by those from the general category. Those who dominate these spaces frequently go on to hire within the same social circles, reproducing exclusion in the name of “merit.” It becomes a vicious cycle. Even when scholars like Gopal Das or Subrahmanyam Sadrela manage to reach the other end of this black hole, the system finds ways to pull them back.

Nearly 79 years after Independence, sections of our people continue to be treated as second-class citizens within spaces that claim to represent the pinnacle of knowledge and progress. India prides itself on constitutional morality, yet its elite institutions often operate within what increasingly resembles an internal apartheid.

How long will this continue? How long will students like Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi, Darshan Solanki, and countless others be pushed into a system so steeped in humiliation and mental harassment that death appears to them more bearable than a life stripped of dignity?

That is the question we must confront.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Natasha Darade)

[1] A suicide born of distress, mental and other torture and alienation at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) on January 17, 2026 inspired the Dalit students movement to coin the term “institutional murder” as this was the last of many and the beginning of several such deaths with institutions of higher learning in India

Related:

Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India | SabrangIndia

A Long Battle, A Swift Stay: The Fight for Equitable Campuses | SabrangIndia

My birth is my fatal accident, remembering Rohith Vemula’s last letter

Rohith’s death: We are all to blame

To Live & Die as a Dalit: Rohith Vemula

The post Cementing exclusion: What the numbers say about SC, ST, OBC presence in India’s elite institutions appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Roughly handmade diyas—uneven, cracked, some leaning like a quiet congregation of forms waiting to be acknowledged—sit upon a mat. Beside them lies a dense, unmoving hump of raw clay, holding within its silence the memory of the ground from which it was taken. At the far end stands the chak, the potter’s wheel. It does not announce itself; it simply exists, anchored and patient, flanked by a bowl of water catching the light and a thin cutting thread coiled like a secret.

This is the sanctuary of Dr. Sangeeta Jawla, a researcher, potter, and storyteller who has spent the last seven years excavating the stories trapped within India’s soil. To attend her session is not to watch a demonstration; it is to enter a rhythm that has pulsed through the subcontinent for millennia. At a young age, she has evolved into a storyteller who serves as a bridge between the academic study of folklore and the tactile world of ceramic art. Her journey began with a childhood curiosity in her ancestral village in Haryana and evolved into a rigorous seven-year research project documenting the oral traditions of India’s potter communities.

Through her practice, Sangeeta seeks to fill the “gaps in the archive,” exploring how Hindu, Muslim, and Tribal narratives differ in their spiritual and physical relationship with the earth. Her work is a rare blend of artistic reclamation and sociological inquiry, specifically challenging the gendered norms of the craft. By placing herself at the wheel and performing the arduous labour of clay preparation, she brings visibility to the millions of unnamed women whose hands have sustained the rhythm of Indian pottery for centuries.

A central theme in Sangeeta’s work is the etymology of the name Prajapati, a title used by potters across India. While the word translates to “Lord of Procreation” or “Creator,” the communities bearing the name often live at the margins of the social hierarchy. Sangeeta uses her performances to highlight this “indispensability without status,” asking the audience to reconcile the divine origins of the craft with the difficult socio-economic realities of the craftsmen.

In her mesmerising presentation this evening, which the writer attended, Sangeeta entered without ceremony. There are no heavy credentials offered, no academic posture. What she carries instead are journeys—across regions, communities, and lives shaped by earth. Her storytelling begins not with a greeting, but with the tactile reality of labour.

Her hands reach for the clay. It meets the mat with a soft, damp thud. Fingers press, release, and hesitate before finding trust in the material. As the chak begins to turn, it produces a low, continuous hum. To the untrained ear, it is ambient noise; to the potter, it is the “rhyme of everyday survival.” It is a cadence that women across rural India recognise because it mirrors their own lives—constant, patient, and largely unnoticed. It is the music of the unseen.

Sangeeta’s narratives are not the romanticised, picturesque tales of “craft” often found in coffee-table books. Her stories are gathered from years of visiting potter communities—initially Hindu, and increasingly Tribal and Muslim potters—to understand the vast, differing frameworks of their existence.

She explores a fascinating paradox: the potter is indispensable to Indian social and cultural life, shaping the vessels for births, rituals, and deaths, yet remains pushed to the lowest strata of society. “Clay carries a paradox,” she notes. “Indispensability without status, skill without recognition.”

In Hindu traditions, tools are often described as divine gifts from Shiva or Vishnu. In contrast, tribal tales can be “graphic,” detailing a more visceral, raw acquisition of tools from the natural world. By engraving these stories onto her pottery, Sangeeta ensures that the clay itself becomes an archive, recording not just folklore, but the politics of identity and survival.

To look at Sangeeta’s finished work is to see a visual tapestry of these oral histories. Her process is one of deep patience and technical care. Unlike contemporary potters who might reach for commercial glazes or vibrant synthetic paints, Sangeeta stays true to the rustic roots of the craft. She emulates rural artisans by applying a layer of khadiya mitti, a white chalk clay, over the damp terracotta. This ivory-hued slip acts as a canvas of depth. Using fine tools, she cuts through the white layer to reveal the rich, burnt-orange earth beneath.

“I heard the stories; I didn’t see them,” she explains. “The visualisation is purely imaginative.” Each line she etches represents a character from a potter’s folktale or a movement of a woman’s hand. She describes the process as “nurturing a child,” often staying up all night to monitor the drying process, ensuring the tension in the clay does not crack the narrative she has so carefully carved. The result is a striking contrast: a dark, earthy line singing against a bone-white surface, making the stories of the community “pop” with visual urgency.

At the heart of Sangeeta’s practice is a sharp, necessary gender lens. In the world of pottery, labour is strictly—and often unfairly—divided. Women perform the most arduous and foundational tasks: they trek to collect the clay, they sieve the soil for impurities, they fetch the water, and they spend hours kneading the earth into a workable state. Without their labour, the wheel cannot turn.

Yet, a traditional boundary exists: women are often kept away from the chak itself. The wheel—the visible symbol of creation and mastery—remains a male domain. Sangeeta’s performance is an act of reclamation. As she moves through the space, her hands and feet immersed in soil, she performs this “invisible” labour. She kneads the clay with her legs, grounding herself fully, allowing her body to become part of the material. She uses tools as metaphors: the sieve speaks of filtration and control; the act of kneading speaks of endurance; the wheel speaks of authority and access.

As the audience is drawn in—no longer spectators, but participants touching and shaping the soil—the atmosphere thickens. Time stretches and folds. In the midst of the labour, Sangeeta recites a couplet from the mystic poet Kabir, allowing the words to rise naturally from the movement of her body. She recites, “Maati kahe kumhar se, tu kya ronde mohe, Ek din aisa aayega, main rondungi tohe.” The meaning: the clay says to the potter, “Why do you trample me now? A day will come when I shall be the one to trample you.”’

The lines arrive not as literature, but as a prophecy. It is a moment where labour confronts power and mortality answers control. The room grows still; the only sound is the whisper of water and the breath of the participants. For Sangeeta, who also carries this “embodied approach” into the classroom as a teacher, pottery is a way of knowing that bypasses the intellect and speaks directly to the nerves. In a world obsessed with speed and digital detachment, her work insists on the “slow answer.”

When the workshop ends, there is often a profound silence. People forget to clap, their hands still stained with the grey-brown dust of the earth. They remain bound not by the spectacle they have seen, but by the realisation of what the clay has revealed.

About Author: Anu Jain is a Doctoral Scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her research examines the intersection of Gandhian philosophy and Gender with a particular focus on the crucial role of Elected Women Representatives (EWRs).

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post Listening to the Soil : Dr Sangeeta Jawla’s Lyrical Revolt in Clay appeared first on SabrangIndia.