A Bench comprising Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev allowed Chaudhary’s habeas corpus petition and held that the detention was founded on what the Court described as a “concocted story” by the State. The Court directed that she be released immediately if her custody was not required in any other case. The Court also directed the Noida authorities to pay her ₹5 lakh in compensation. The detailed order is awaited.

However, Bar & Bench has reported that Chaudhary is likely to remain in custody for the time being because she has not yet secured bail in the other criminal cases registered in connection with the Noida workers’ agitation. The judgment comes after the Bench subjected the State’s version of Chaudhary’s arrest and alleged involvement in the violence to close scrutiny, particularly the chronology of her arrest and the notices issued under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

Court questions sequence of arrest and BNSS notices

During the hearing, the State told the Court that Chaudhary had been arrested at 10:56 a.m. on April 12, 2026 and that a notice under Section 130 of the BNSS had been issued to her. The State’s case was that Chaudhary had instigated protesters to engage in stone-pelting and arson. The Bench, however, questioned whether the procedure prescribed under the BNSS had actually been followed.

Justice Sreedharan specifically asked whether Chaudhary had first been served a notice under Section 126. The State acknowledged that no such notice had been issued and that the notice under Section 130 had instead been served. The Court then examined the chronology of the documents and the General Diary (GD) entry. Justice Sreedharan questioned how a notice could have been prepared after Chaudhary had already been arrested.

As reported by LiveLaw, the Court observed in court: “Ab ismei GD entry dekhiye, usko arrest karliya fir notice banaya.”

The Bench further pointed to the apparent inconsistency between the arrest record and the notice, observing that the record indicated that Chaudhary had already been arrested before the notice was prepared. The Court’s questioning went to the heart of the legality of the detention: whether the State had followed the statutory sequence required before taking the drastic step of arrest and subsequently placing Chaudhary under preventive detention.

‘Whatever violence has happened is after her arrest’

The Court also closely examined the State’s claim that Chaudhary had played a role in instigating the violence during the workers’ protest. The State relied on the events surrounding the workers’ mobilisation and alleged that Chaudhary had encouraged protesters to resort to violence, including stone-pelting and arson. But the Bench drew attention to the chronology of events.

According to the State’s own account, people had gathered for the protest on April 11. Justice Sreedharan pointed out that the significant violence relied upon by the prosecution occurred only later.

“Yani 11 ko koi violence nahi tha. Whatever violence has happened is after her arrest,” the Court observed, according to LiveLaw.

The observation was significant because the State’s case depended on establishing Chaudhary’s connection to the violence. If she had already been arrested before the violence that formed the basis of the allegations, the Court was evidently questioning how the State could attribute subsequent acts of violence to her.

Where is the video evidence?

The Bench had already expressed concern about the evidentiary basis of the State’s allegations during the previous hearing. On September 1, the Court had specifically asked the Uttar Pradesh government to produce video footage showing Chaudhary allegedly instigating protesters to throw stones or set vehicles on fire. The State sought additional time to obtain and produce the footage. The Court refused.

Justice Sreedharan noted that Chaudhary had already spent approximately five months in custody and said, “I won’t give time. She has been in jail for 5 months.”

The Bench had also warned that if the record ultimately showed an arbitrary exercise of power, costs could be imposed on the officials concerned. The issue resurfaced during the final hearing when the State relied upon witness statements that allegedly named Chaudhary. The Bench, however, sought something more specific: where was the material showing that she had actually instigated the violence?

The Court also questioned the State’s reliance on the chargesheet, asking where the witnesses had specifically implicated her and where the videographic evidence demonstrated the alleged acts of instigation.

From workers’ protest to NSA detention

Chaudhary’s detention stems from the Noida workers’ protests of April 2026, which began over demands for higher wages and improved working conditions and later escalated into violence, arson and clashes with the police. The protests began peacefully but turned violent on April 13. Police subsequently arrested a large number of workers and activists and registered multiple criminal cases.

Chaudhary, a Delhi University history graduate and activist, was among those arrested. The Uttar Pradesh government subsequently invoked the NSA against her and journalist and activist Satyam Verma on May 13. The police alleged that the two had played a significant role in the violence and disruption associated with the workers’ agitation.

At the time, Gautam Buddh Nagar Police Commissioner Laxmi Singh claimed that the police had “strong electronic and videographic evidence” against Chaudhary, Verma and others arrested in connection with the protests. The police’s version was that the violence was not spontaneous but part of a wider organised effort.

Detailed report may be read here and here.

Related:

Noida Protest 2026: A labour uprising the state refused to understand

No ‘Pakistan conspiracy’ in Noida labour unrest: Fact-finding report

NSA slapped on journalist, DU scholar in Noida workers’ protest case amid allegations of crackdown on dissent

The post Allahabad HC quashes NSA detention of Aakriti Chaudhary, questions ‘concocted’ State narrative in Noida workers’ protest case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In its memorandum dated September 2, the organisations have collectively argued that the incident cannot be dismissed as an isolated administrative lapse. The memorandum has called for a comprehensive investigation into how thousands of original election documents came to be outside official custody, why they were being reproduced at a commercial establishment and whether the breach points to wider vulnerabilities in the handling of voter information during the SIR exercise.

The Kharghar incident assumes added significance because of the scale of the ongoing revision process. According to figures cited by the Chief Electoral Officer, around 2.07 crore Enumeration Forms have been classified as uncollectable in Maharashtra at the draft stage. While the Election Commission has clarified that being classified as uncollectable does not automatically mean that an elector has been permanently excluded from the electoral roll, CJP has argued that the sheer magnitude of the figure makes the integrity of every stage of the verification process a matter of exceptional public importance.

3,404 original forms found at private photocopying centre

The controversy emerged on August 27, when election-related forms were reportedly found at a photocopying centre in Sector 19, Kharghar. According to reports cited in the memorandum, the recovered documents were original SIR Enumeration Forms relating to multiple polling stations under the 188-Panvel Assembly Constituency. A revenue team subsequently examined the documents, and election authorities reportedly confirmed that they were genuine election forms. Reports have stated that the forms related to 11 polling stations.

The incident reportedly came to light following a complaint concerning the photocopying of the forms. A person identified in media reports as Suraj Patil, described as a BJP functionary, was allegedly found handling the forms. The police subsequently seized the documents and an FIR was registered. Five Booth Level Officers associated with the forms were also suspended, with a departmental inquiry initiated into how the documents reached the private premises.

In the memorandum, the groups state that culpability must be established through an impartial investigation. At the same time, the memorandum argues that the reported political connection makes it particularly important for the State Election Commission to establish whether access to the forms was authorised and, if not, how such access was facilitated. The central question, according to CJP, is therefore not simply who was found with the forms, but how the forms travelled from the official election machinery to a private establishment in the first place.

Where did the documents leave the official chain of custody?

The memorandum places particular emphasis on the chain of custody (chain of command in law) of the Enumeration Forms. SIR forms are part of an official electoral exercise and contain voter-related information. Their handling therefore requires safeguards that ensure that the documents remain accessible only to persons authorised to use them for election-related purposes.

The discovery of thousands of original forms at a commercial photocopying centre raises questions about every stage of their movement. CJP and others has therefore called for the reconstruction of the entire chain of custody, beginning with the collection of the forms from electors and continuing through their storage, transportation, access and eventual recovery.

The organisation has also stressed that the inquiry should not automatically end with the suspension of the five BLOs. If the evidence points towards supervisory, administrative or other responsibility, those aspects too must be investigated. The issue is particularly significant because of the sheer number of documents involved. The presence of 3,404 forms cannot be explained simply as an isolated document inadvertently carried outside an office. The authorities must establish who had access to them, who authorised their movement and why they were taken to a private photocopying facility.

A voter-data security concern, not merely a paperwork lapse

The memorandum has also raised concerns about what may have happened to the information contained in the forms. The organisation has urged the authorities to determine whether the documents were merely photocopied or whether they were also scanned, photographed, digitally stored, transmitted or reproduced in any other manner.

This is an important distinction. Physical recovery of the original forms does not necessarily establish that no copies remain elsewhere. CJP, VFD and BCS have therefore called for relevant CCTV footage, electronic records and equipment used in the photocopying process to be preserved and examined as part of the investigation.

The memorandum argues that once voter-level information leaves the controlled environment of the election machinery, the potential risk extends beyond the physical documents. Copies could potentially be retained or disseminated without the knowledge of election authorities.

For CJP, VFD and BCS, citizens who provide information to the State as part of the electoral process are entitled to an assurance that such information will be used only for legitimate electoral purposes and handled through secure procedures.

The 2.07 crore figure makes the breach more consequential

The memorandum has linked the Kharghar incident to the wider concerns surrounding the SIR exercise in Maharashtra. The Chief Electoral Officer has stated that approximately 2.07 crore Enumeration Forms have been classified as uncollectable, comprising categories including voters who were absent or not found, those who had permanently shifted, deceased persons, duplicates or persons already enrolled elsewhere.

The Election Commission has emphasised that these classifications are provisional and that the draft electoral roll is not the final roll. Eligible voters whose names are missing can participate in the claims and objections process and seek inclusion or correction. The memorandum has acknowledged this position but has argued that the availability of a remedy does not, by itself, eliminate concerns arising from the scale of exclusion. An elector who does not know that their name has disappeared from the draft roll may not necessarily approach the authorities. Similarly, an elector incorrectly classified as shifted, deceased, duplicated or absent may face a significant administrative burden in establishing that they remain eligible.

In this context, the Kharghar incident raises a broader question: can the public have confidence in the accuracy of the electoral roll if the documents on which that roll is being prepared are not demonstrably secure? For CJP, this is why the Kharghar episode cannot be treated merely as a local dispute.

CJP and others seeks statewide audit

The organisation has called for the Kharghar incident to trigger a statewide audit of the custody and handling of SIR Enumeration Forms. Such an audit, CJP argues, should establish whether similar instances of unauthorised possession, removal, reproduction or mishandling have occurred elsewhere in Maharashtra.

The memorandum also calls for the Election Commission to strengthen and publicly disclose uniform safeguards governing the custody, movement, reproduction, storage and disposal of SIR documents. This, CJP says, is necessary not only to identify wrongdoing after it occurs but to prevent vulnerabilities in the system from being repeated.

Transparency is essential to restoring public confidence

The memorandum has also called for the findings of the Kharghar inquiry to be made public, subject to legitimate restrictions relating to personal information or an ongoing criminal investigation. The organisation argues that the public should not be left to choose between competing political claims about what happened. The State Election Commission, as the institution responsible for the electoral process, must establish the facts and communicate them transparently. For CJP, the issue ultimately extends beyond the Kharghar photocopying centre.

An electoral roll determines who is recognised by the State as entitled to participate in an election. Its preparation therefore forms part of the foundation of the democratic process itself. The discovery of thousands of original SIR forms outside the expected chain of custody, followed by the suspension of five BLOs and the registration of an FIR, has already exposed a serious administrative vulnerability. When viewed alongside the 2.07 crore forms classified as uncollectable, that vulnerability assumes greater significance.

The memorandum therefore calls upon the Election Commission to treat the episode as an institutional matter rather than merely an isolated breach. Its demand is ultimately for something fundamental to any electoral exercise: that every eligible citizen’s place on the electoral roll be determined through a process that is secure, transparent, impartial and capable of independent scrutiny.

The credibility of an election does not begin on polling day. It begins with the integrity of the electoral roll—and with public confidence that the machinery preparing that roll is not vulnerable to unauthorised access, administrative failures or partisan interference.

The complete memorandum may be on the CJP website here.

Related:

Maharashtra’s schools are struggling to survive as students protest, infrastructure crumbles and Marathi-medium institutions disappear

Maharashtra SIR: 2.08 crore (20.8 million) voter forms “uncollected” hence may not be listed in August 24 draft electoral roll

Maharashtra SIR extension keeps teachers away from classrooms as unit tests face delays

SIR Maharashtra: CEO details schedules for publication & verification of draft and final electoral rolls

SIR and the Making of a Stateless Citizen? | R. Rajagopal Speaks Out | Teesta Setalvad

The post 3,404 SIR Forms Found at Kharghar Xerox Shop: CJP, VFD and BCS demands answers from Maharashtra SEC appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In the 1970’s and the 1980’s for leftist activists and researchers looking for risen-from- the-ranks left-oriented but independent trade union leaders, white-collar D Thankappan, president of the Kamani Employees Union (KEU) was the go-to man in Mumbai (then Bombay). This period also saw the raise of Dr Datta Samant the militant trade union leader whose reputation was spreading all over the industrial pockets of Bombay and Thane. Samant’s bargaining tactics was unique. He simply refused to look at the balance sheets and account statements prepared by the management and demanded pay increases which to some sounded “ridiculously high”. Yet, faced with prolonged strikes, the man managements did pay up. The fact that the same industries continued to grow and prosper was proof in retrospect that the balance sheets drawn up by the management had something to hide.

Every success of Dr Samant attracted workers from factory after factory, who deserted their existing union leaders to join Dr Samant in the eastern suburbs of Bombay. However, the Kamani Employees’ Union stood unmoved by this growing tide. The reason was simple: D Thankappan. If Samant relied on raw militancy to get workers a better deal, Thankappan’s approach combined brain with brawn. If Samant refused to look at balance sheets, Thankappan was adept in beating the Kamani management in their own game.

Thus it was that while factory after factory around the Kamani establishment in Kurla, Kamani workers kept their faith in Thankappan and the union he led. While other union leaders were losing out to Samant, Thankappan not only rode a steady ship, but felt unthreatened and always appreciated the better deals that Samant was able to gain for his union workers.

Left activists who kept constant touch with Thankappan as they learnt a lot from him not only about his own negotiating skills but also about the state of the working class movement in the country. A particularly endearing aspect of Thankappan’s character was his inclusive, non-sectarian approach. He regularly engaged with activists who ideologically were often at daggers drawn against each other.

At the union level, while Thankappan’s union was limited to Kamani he was never insular, always among the first to joint action.

While Thankappan could look back at much of the achievements of the union led by him, of one thing he remained regretful. The man who devoted his entire life to working class solidarity, was deeply saddened by the fact that when the communal fire raged in Bombay in December 1992-January 1993 in the after math of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, even the workers of Kamani turned out to be Hindus first and workers later.

Ashok Choudhary, ex-General Secretary & Working President of the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP)

Comrade D. Thankappan was fully committed to uniting diverse sections of working people’s movements. Although he belonged to the Kamanis Employees Union (KEU), an organised sector union, he was simultaneously very engaged with the Kamani Construction Workers Union which was a Union in the unorganised sector. He was also instrumental in organising several other unions from this sector into the Unorganized Workers Federation and linking them to individual unions in the organised sector. He was also a firm believer in the independence of trade unions from company managements, government and even political parties. For Comrade D Thankappan, any trade union leader or member could individually belong to any political party but the union itself should not function under the control of any political party. This principle is very important for the working people’s movement.

On behalf of the Presidium of the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP), Roma writes:

It is with deep sorrow that we share the news of Comrade Thankappan’s passing today.

He was the architect and a founding member of our union. It was he who spearheaded the campaign starting in 1992 to raise awareness about the concept of forming a union for forest workers (Van Shramjeevi). He also established the National Centre for Labour (NCL)—a coalition for the country’s unorganised sector—of which our forest workers’ organization was a part. It was through the NCL that we connected with other unorganized sector unions across the country.

Back in 1992, at his initiative, we prepared a document titled “Comprehensive Legislation on Forest Rights”—a draft law concerning forest resources. In a sense, it was through his initiative that we, for the first time, worked to secure the status of “forest workers” for forest-dependent communities across the nation and brought their numbers to public attention.

Later, in 2006, he played a founding role in the formation of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), in which our union played a pivotal part. His tireless contributions can never be forgotten; our union exists today because of his ideology.

His greatest dream was to see the union led by women. He used to spend hours discussing women’s leadership with Sokalo-ji and me. When we formed the union in Odisha and elected Jarjum Ete-ji as its president, his joy knew no bounds. As women gradually took on leadership roles, he told me that his dream had been realized.

To us, he was truly like a parent—a guardian of the organization, even more than our own parents.

We are proud to have been associated with Comrade Thankappan; it is a matter of great honor for us.

Red Salute to Comrade Thankappan.

Roma (On behalf of the Presidium) AIUFWP

Teesta Setalvad, senior journalist and secretary, Citizens for Justice & Peace adds:

D Thankappan, an icon for the trade union movement, especially for his novel approach and pioneering the concept of co-operative ownership by the workers who ran Kamani, was unique in so many ways. My first close association with him was over the wider mobilization and collective that emerged countryside after the Bhopal Gas disaster, where his articulation of corporate and state accountability for the ghastly irresponsible and murderous leak of the deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC), a highly dangerous chemical used to make pesticide took the articulations of sustained action against first Union Carbide Corporation (then Everready, MP government and finally Dow Chemicals). Patient and thoughtful, Thankappan, comrade Thankappan was willing to engage in creative and new methods of articulation, protest and organisation.

History will decide whether the Kamani workers struggle with comrade D Thankappan at its helm was ‘successful’ or not, path-breaking it certainly was. He gained nationwide prominence for pioneering a historic experiment in workers’ self-management and cooperative capitalism at Kamani Tubes Limited (KTL) in Mumbai. As the leader and working president of the Kamani Employees Union (KEU), Thankappan spearheaded one of India’s most significant labour-led industrial turnarounds during the late 1980s His close association with my father Atul Setalvad, senior counsel to pursue the legal battles for the union in India’s constitutional courts brought together two interesting persons from two sides of the intellectual and ideological spectrum.

Understanding the brief trajectory of that struggle is significant. In line with the pattern followed by several ‘family-owned’ companies, following internecine family disputes and financial mismanagement by the original promoters, Kamani Tubes Limited was abandoned and shut down in 1985. Instead of silently accepting their fate, and the liquidation, D Thankappan as working president of the KEU moved the Supreme Court of India under Article 32. A master strategist, he realised and valued the counsel of Setalvad, and together worked and thereafter presented a comprehensive scheme under the Sick Industrial Companies Act (SICA) to restart the factory using a workers’ cooperative. The landmark judgment delivered in September 1988, had the Supreme Court approving the scheme. The court ordered banks and the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) to back the cooperative, establishing that the “right to livelihood” extends to workers taking over management to revive a company. This was a first, and though finally the initiative stumbled, it remains a turning point in the history of the working class movement of the country.

His sustained involvement and articulation of Adivasi ownership on cultivation and forest produce resulted in sharp and in-depth articulations for the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP) at whose annual and bi-annual meetings we met—and deliberated, despite his failing health. My dear friend and colleague Roma has articulated D Thankappan’s close mentorship of the Forest Worker’s Movement best.

Related:

AIUFWP’s second National Conference to discuss land, legal, constitutional rights and more

AIUFWP submits letter LoP Rahul Gandhi, calls for action as forest rights remain in limbo

Struggle for forest rights, not an isolated movement: AIUFWP

The post Adieu Comrade Thankappan – Javed Anand, Roma, Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Dalit, Adivasi, rural and economically disadvantaged communities have repeatedly raised these concerns, often from the sharpest end of the crisis. For children in remote villages and tribal settlements, the loss of a neighbourhood school can mean a long and unsafe journey to another village. For students in government and municipal schools, a vacant teacher’s post can mean months or years without instruction in crucial subjects. For children living in government hostels and Ashram schools, inadequate sanitation, food, security and medical facilities can turn access to education into a question of basic safety and dignity. Moreover, for families seeking education in Marathi, the steady weakening of Marathi-medium institutions raises questions about whether the State is preserving meaningful choice or allowing an entire public education network to wither.

The Maharashtra media and even some sections of the “national legacy media” have reported these failures repeatedly, but largely as separate episodes: a school without teachers here, a dangerous building there, a protest over toilets or hostels elsewhere, a proposed school merger or closure, a dispute over Marathi-medium education, or a new policy promising modernisation. The result has been a fragmented public conversation about what is, in reality, a connected and longstanding crisis. These issues crucial to access and participation in a democracy have never been the subject of a sustained media campaign. Successive governments have announced schemes, reviews, reforms and infrastructure programmes, while the underlying questions of staffing, access, funding and accountability have remained.

What is equally striking is how little political space this crisis has occupied as a sustained issue. Despite Maharashtra’s large network of government, Zilla Parishad and municipal schools, and despite repeated concerns raised by teachers, parents, educationists and marginalised communities, the condition of public schooling has rarely been made a central political question. Opposition parties have criticised individual decisions, school closures or government policies, but the broader deterioration of the public education system has not consistently been treated as a major political issue.

It was against this backdrop that the recent School Thik Karo campaign brought the condition of government schools into a more concentrated public spotlight. The campaign led by Cockroach Janta Party convenor Abhijeet Dipke has sought to document basic deficiencies in schools across Maharashtra and place them before the public. Its significance lies in something larger: it has attempted to connect problems that have too often been reported, protested and debated separately. The crisis, however, predates the campaign by years.

The evidence is now difficult to dismiss as a series of isolated incidents. Maharashtra’s own education data records schools without electricity, internet connectivity, functional computers, accessible toilets and adequate teaching staff. Students have protested because teachers are missing. Adivasi students have gone on hunger strike over hostel conditions. Parents and activists have opposed school closures, mergers and relocations. Marathi-medium schools have steadily declined. Teachers are being pulled away from classrooms for non-academic duties, including prolonged election-related work. At the same time, governments have explored cluster schools, school adoption and Public-Private Partnership models even as large parts of the public system continue to struggle with basic infrastructure and vacancies.

This is therefore not simply a story about a few poorly maintained schools, nor is it only about the latest government policy or the latest student protest. It is a story about what happens when the State’s responsibility to provide public education is repeatedly addressed through piecemeal interventions while the structural weaknesses of the system remain.

Maharashtra now speaks the language of a “modern”, digital and future-ready education system. However, before asking whether its schools are ready for artificial intelligence, coding, smart classrooms and digital learning, there is a more basic question to answer: are its schools adequately staffed, safely accessible, properly equipped and capable of providing every child with a meaningful education? The answer emerging from the experiences of students, teachers, parents, marginalised communities and the State’s own data is far more troubling than the language of modernisation suggests.

Justice Varale questions education spending as Marathi-medium schools face closure

Nothing exposes Maharashtra state’s education policy priorities more than what was highlighted by a Supreme Court Judge recently.

Speaking about the condition of Marathi-medium schools weeks ago, Supreme Court Justice P.B. Varale on Saturday, August 22, reportedly questioned the State’s spending priorities, saying that even a fraction of the funds earmarked for the Nashik Kumbh Mela could have helped prevent the closure of hundreds of Marathi-medium schools. The Times of India reported that Justice Varale made the remarks during an event at his former school in Nashik.

Justice Varale reportedly referred to the Maharashtra government’s proposed expenditure on Kumbh infrastructure and a corridor project, while clarifying that he did not oppose such spending. However, he questioned whether a small portion of the allocation could instead have been directed towards education. He said that 0.1% of the Kumbh allocation, amounting to around Rupees 32 Crore, could have helped save more than 100–150 Marathi-medium schools from closure, according to the report.

The Maharashtra government has informed the Union government that a comprehensive development plan of Rupees 22,425.39 Crore has been approved for the 2027 Nashik Simhastha Kumbh Mela. The plan was approved at a meeting of the Apex Committee chaired by the Chief Minister on March 13, 2026, with the Kumbh scheduled to begin in October 2026.

Justice Varale also drew attention to the condition of residential schools, particularly ashramshalas catering to students from marginalised communities. Referring to reports of three girl students at an ashramshala who died after allegedly being bitten by snakes while sleeping on the floor, he reportedly said that the overall condition of several residential schools remained “pathetic”.

His remarks also pointed to a broader concern over the State’s changing budgetary priorities. Justice Varale reportedly observed that the share of the budget allocated to education, which had earlier ranged between 8% and 12%, had declined.

Modern education system cannot be built on disappearing schools

Perhaps the most significant development in Maharashtra’s education story is that students and their families are increasingly refusing to remain passive recipients of policy. Adivasi students have gone on hunger strike, Dharashiv students have sat outside the Zilla Parishad CEO’s office, villagers have locked a school in protest over teacher shortages, parents have challenged school relocations, and activists have documented failures in school infrastructure.

The protests differ in geography and immediate demand, but they share a common message: children and their families are being asked to accept gaps in a system that the State continues to describe as modern, inclusive and future-ready. Educationist Prabhu Mohapatra, commenting on the wider rise in student protests, told PTI that students were increasingly asserting themselves as stakeholders in education policy and that the protests reflected concerns over infrastructure, teacher availability and the quality of learning.

That assertion of agency may be the most important shift in Maharashtra’s education story. Students are not demanding luxury. They are demanding teachers, safe school buildings, functioning toilets, drinking water, adequate classrooms, accessible schools and the ability to continue learning in their own language. They are asking for the basic conditions necessary for education, and for the State to treat those conditions not as discretionary benefits but as public obligations. Maharashtra now has two competing narratives about education.

The first is the official narrative: smart classrooms, artificial intelligence, coding, digital platforms, teacher training, modernisation and a “mission mode” transformation of the education system. The second is emerging from classrooms, villages, hostels and protests: missing teachers, inadequate infrastructure, unsafe or unsuitable accommodation, inaccessible schools, unreliable or disputed data, and institutions facing closure or merger. Both realities have to be confronted.

The government can legitimately point to improvements and new initiatives, and its officials have disputed some of the broader allegations concerning infrastructure. But the State’s own U-DISE data, the Centre’s Project Approval Board review, the Bombay High Court’s intervention and repeated student and parent protests point to structural weaknesses that cannot be resolved through announcements alone.

The decline of Marathi-medium schools makes the problem even more consequential. This is not simply an infrastructure crisis; it is also a question of what kind of public education Maharashtra intends to preserve. If Marathi is to be protected, Marathi-medium schools cannot merely be celebrated symbolically. They must be adequately funded, staffed, upgraded and made capable of providing quality education without forcing parents to abandon the language in which their children have been studying.

If a school has low enrolment, the first question should therefore not automatically be how soon it can be closed. The more fundamental question is why enrolment is falling in the first place.

Is the school inadequately staffed? Are its buildings and facilities deteriorating? Are teachers being diverted to non-teaching duties? Is the school too far from where families now live? Has urban redevelopment displaced the community it once served? Are parents choosing other schools because the Marathi-medium option is perceived to offer poorer infrastructure or fewer opportunities? Has the medium of instruction itself become stigmatised? In addition, crucially, could targeted investment reverse the decline?

These questions become particularly urgent when the children affected are poor, rural, tribal or dependent on Marathi-medium government schools. For such families, the closure of a neighbourhood school is not simply an administrative restructuring. It can mean longer journeys, additional transport costs, greater dependence on private education and, in some cases, the eventual withdrawal of children from school altogether. And where closure is genuinely unavoidable, the State must be able to answer a more basic question: where exactly will every child go?

The Maharashtra government has now promised a time-bound transformation of the education system. The measure of that transformation, however, should not be the number of schemes announced, platforms launched, classrooms labelled “smart” or meetings conducted. It should be visible in the ordinary conditions in which children actually study.

It should mean a functioning fan in a classroom, a usable toilet, clean drinking water, adequate teachers, a safe hostel, a working computer, a laboratory that has actually been built and equipped, and a school that remains within reasonable reach of the children it serves. It should also mean a Marathi-medium school that is not forced to fight simply to survive.

Until these become ordinary features rather than exceptional achievements, the phrase “modern education system” will remain more aspiration than reality. A State cannot credibly claim to be building the schools of the future while allowing existing schools to become inaccessible, under-resourced or disappear altogether.

August 2026: Students on hunger strike for the right to study

The latest and perhaps most revealing episode came from Maharashtra’s Adivasi student community. In August 2026, tribal students in Pune and elsewhere in Maharashtra began protesting against a range of issues concerning government hostels and Ashram schools. Six students continued a hunger strike at the Adivasi Government Boys Hostel near the Hadapsar-Manjari border.

The immediate trigger was a Government Resolution issued on August 14, 2026, imposing a maximum age of 30 years for admission to tribal hostels. But the students’ demands went far beyond the age restriction.

The protest also brought allegations about the treatment of female students into focus. On August 24, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi wrote to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis raising concerns about the conditions described to him by tribal students. He alleged that hostels were unsafe and lacked adequate food, sanitation and medical care, and referred to claims that female students returning after an extended absence were subjected to pregnancy and other medical tests.

The Hindu also reported on August 24, the protesting students demanded the withdrawal of the August 14 Government Resolution and a revised order based on the earlier November 11, 2011 framework, with allowances linked to inflation. They sought greater protection for students living in tribal hostels and Ashram schools, ₹1 crore insurance cover for tribal students, ₹1 crore compensation for the families of three tribal girls who died following a snake-bite incident in Gadchiroli, a safe and properly equipped hostel for female students in Pune, and immediate filling of vacant posts including peons, security guards and sanitation workers.

The scale of dependence on these hostels is itself significant. As The Indian Express reported on August 26, the Tribal Development Department runs 490 government hostels across Maharashtra, accommodating between 58,000 and 60,000 students every year. The government ultimately backed down on the immediate issue. On August 25, following discussions with tribal legislators and MPs, Tribal Development Minister Ashok Uike announced that the 30-year age limit had been scrapped and that there would be no age restriction for admission to Adivasi hostels. The Indian Express reported that the decision came a day after Rahul Gandhi had raised the matter with Fadnavis. The government therefore acted. However, it acted after 13 days of hunger strike.

That sequence matters. It raises the question of how many of the other problems raised by the students — safety, sanitation, staffing, food, medical care and financial support — will require another protest before they receive sustained attention.

July 2026: “We need teachers, not promises”

The same pattern was visible in Dharashiv. On July 31, India Today reported that Class 10 students of a Zilla Parishad secondary school in Sonari village had begun an indefinite sit-in outside the Zilla Parishad Chief Executive Officer’s office demanding regular secondary-school teachers. Their complaint was not new. According to the protesting students, several teaching and staff posts had remained vacant for nearly four years. Repeated representations had allegedly failed to produce concrete action. A day before the sit-in, villagers had locked the school to draw attention to the shortage.

Students particularly objected to primary-school teachers being used to teach secondary classes, arguing that students preparing for the SSC examination required qualified subject teachers. The protest carried an especially pointed message. Students invoked the government’s “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” campaign and asked, in effect: what does saving the girl child mean if she is then denied the teachers required to complete her education? They also invoked Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s call to “Educate, Organise and Agitate”.

They said they had already approached the Zilla Parishad CEO, Education Officer, District Collector and Superintendent of Police on July 28, but claimed that no effective action followed.

This is not merely a question of staffing. For a Class 10 student, a missing teacher is not an abstract administrative vacancy. It can mean an incomplete syllabus, inadequate preparation for a board examination and, for poorer families, pressure to pay for private tuition that they may not be able to afford. Moreover, the state already knows that teacher shortages are a wider problem.

The Government’s own data exposes the gap

On July 17, the findings emerging from the Ministry of Education’s U-DISE 2025-26 data provided that Maharashtra had 108,139 schools, 21.6 million students and 750,272 teachers. But 3,201 schools had no electricity connection at all. Another 10,938 had electricity connections that were not functional. A further 23,855 schools had no internet connectivity. Of the 90,419 schools that had computer facilities, computers were functional in only 84,530. That left 23,609 schools without operational computer systems.

The contradiction is hard to miss. The state is speaking increasingly about artificial intelligence, coding, smart classrooms and digital learning. Yet thousands of its schools are still struggling with the infrastructure required to switch on a computer, let alone build a digital classroom. The problem goes beyond technology. U-DISE data showed that 9,269 schools were single-teacher schools, catering to 179,104 students. More than 32,000 schools lacked separate toilets for children with disabilities, while 16,341 did not have ramps with railings.

There were 2,019 unusable girls’ toilets and 3,280 unusable boys’ toilets, with the data attributing the problem to issues including water, maintenance and pending repairs. Another 3,932 schools lacked playgrounds and 1,099 lacked a library or book bank. Only 13,550 schools had digital libraries, leaving 94,589 without one. These figures matter because they are not merely the claims of opposition parties or activists; they come from the government’s own education database.

Teachers are being asked to do more with less

Teachers have also described the consequences of this system. Vijay Kombe, president of the Maharashtra State Primary Teachers’ Committee, told ETV Bharat that schools continued to face shortages of basic items such as mats, desks and benches. He said local-government schools lacked dedicated cleaning staff and that teachers in some places were consequently forced to clean classrooms and toilets, sometimes with students’ help.

Kombe also claimed that more than 75 per cent of primary schools run by local self-government bodies lacked headmasters, leaving teachers to combine administrative duties with classroom teaching. He criticised the staffing arrangement in low-enrolment schools, under which one primary teacher may have to manage multiple classes, while one teacher may be required to teach all subjects for Classes 6 to 8.

There is, however, an important official counterpoint. Divisional Deputy Director of Education Rajesh Kankal said drinking-water facilities were available in more than 100,000 schools, while more than 107,000 had hand-washing facilities and more than 102,000 conducted annual health check-ups. He said the administration was working to rectify the remaining shortcomings. The issue, therefore, is not that Maharashtra has no facilities.

It is that the existence of facilities in the majority of schools does not erase the thousands of schools where they are absent, dysfunctional or inaccessible. For a child attending one of those schools, the state-wide average offers little comfort.

SIR extension keeps teachers away from classrooms

The extension of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Maharashtra has prolonged the deployment of teachers as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and support staff, affecting regular classroom teaching, unit tests and other academic activities. Teachers who were expected to return to schools by August 8 had been assigned election-related duties until August 17, with house visits, voter verification and form-related work continuing even as schools prepare for examinations and work to complete the syllabus.

The timing has added to existing pressures on schools. Unit tests scheduled for August and periodic assessments meant to track students’ learning are being affected, while teachers are also required to cover new textbooks introduced for Standards III, IV and VI under the National Education Policy. In some government and civic schools, more than 70% of teaching staff has reportedly been deployed for SIR-related work, leaving schools with reduced staff and, in some cases, forcing them to operate for only half the day. Teachers and school heads have said the prolonged absence is making it difficult to complete teaching and conduct examinations as scheduled.

The impact extends beyond teachers formally appointed as BLOs, with other teaching and non-teaching employees being assigned to assist with the exercise. In one school, Headmaster Tanaji Mane said three teachers initially appointed as BLOs were later joined by teaching and non-teaching staff who were relieved of their regular duties. Data cited by Progressive Teachers Association president Tanaji Kamble from Mumbai’s Ghatkopar East constituency reportedly showed that 184 of 283 BLOs were from the Education Department, including 157 teachers. Teachers have also faced pressure to report for election duties, with police notices reportedly issued to some who failed to do so. Educationists and teacher representatives have consequently questioned whether such prolonged deployment is compatible with the State’s responsibility to ensure uninterrupted schooling.

The issue ultimately raises a larger question about how election-related administrative work is being balanced against children’s right to regular education. Teachers have described the SIR process as continuous and demanding, while educationists have warned that prolonged absence from classrooms can disrupt learning, assessments and syllabus completion. With the electoral exercise continuing even as the academic year progresses, teacher organisations have suggested using trained personnel from other departments or other mechanisms for election work instead of repeatedly drawing teachers away from schools. The concern is not simply about teachers’ workload, but about what happens to students when the people responsible for teaching them are routinely pulled away from the classroom.

Detailed report may be read here.

The Centre’s review makes the picture worse

The Ministry of Education’s Project Approval Board raised similar concerns while examining Maharashtra’s Samagra Shiksha plan for 2026-27. Of 22,416 eligible upper-primary, secondary and higher-secondary schools, 21,009 did not have ICT laboratories. Another 4,286 lacked smart classrooms. Nearly 60 per cent of primary and upper-primary schools had fewer than 30 students each, while 7,186 schools had only one teacher.

The Union also noted that more than 4,300 villages did not have a secondary school within the prescribed distance and more than 6,500 villages lacked access to a higher-secondary school. More than 80 per cent of approved science laboratories had not been completed, while toilets sanctioned for children with special needs remained pending. The teacher vacancy figures were equally concerning; around 17% of secondary teaching posts and 25% of higher-secondary posts were vacant.

The Centre approved ₹2,494.17 crore under Samagra Shiksha for Maharashtra for 2026-27 and directed the state to complete pending infrastructure and digital projects in “mission mode”. The Maharashtra government, for its part, said most sanctioned ICT laboratories were under installation and would be completed by the end of the year.

But this creates an uncomfortable policy contradiction. The government is being asked to modernise schools while it has not yet completed the basics.

Then there is the question of closing schools

Perhaps the most consequential issue is not what is missing from schools, but what happens when the state decides a school is no longer viable. In April 2026, the Maharashtra government issued two Government Resolutions declaring 433 primary schools and 324 secondary schools ineligible for grant-in-aid. The schools were directed to apply under the Maharashtra Self-Financed Schools Act, 2012. If they failed to do so, their recognition could be cancelled, effectively leading to closure. The Bombay High Court intervened.

On April 29, 2026, the Kolhapur Bench held that the government’s action could not proceed against the petitioner schools without giving them an opportunity to be heard. As The Hindu reported on May 19, the court found that the resolutions violated principles of natural justice and directed that the petitioner institutions be removed from the list. Nevertheless, the court’s observations went beyond procedure.

The bench noted that the affected schools were predominantly Marathi-medium institutions, particularly in villages. It pointed out the contradiction in the state’s position: on the one hand, Maharashtra was insisting that Marathi be given greater importance; on the other, the government’s action could result in the closure of Marathi-medium schools.

The judges also asked questions that should have been at the centre of the government’s decision before the resolutions were issued: Could the students actually be accommodated in nearby schools? Would the medium of instruction continue? What would happen in villages where alternative schools were not available? What would happen to teaching and non-teaching staff? Could teachers be absorbed elsewhere? And could poor families be expected to bear the consequences of the shift to self-financed education?

The court concluded that these considerations had not been adequately addressed and directed the state to conduct hearings before taking action. That intervention is crucial because it exposes the danger of treating school closure as a mere question of numbers. A school with fewer students is not automatically a redundant school as it may be the only school within walking distance, or the only affordable school, or the only school teaching in the child’s language. And if it disappears, the state’s responsibility does not disappear with it.

2023: From school closures to “adoption”: A changing model of public education

The debate over low-enrolment schools cannot be separated from another policy shift: the growing role being given to private entities in the management and development of government schools. Maharashtra has increasingly presented private participation as a means of improving infrastructure and educational quality, even as questions remain about why the State is unable to adequately fund and maintain its own public-school system.

In September 2023, the Maharashtra government introduced an “Adopt a School” scheme under the National Education Policy’s Vidyanjali initiative. As reported by the Times of India on September 19, 2023, the scheme allowed private and public sector entities to adopt government schools for five or 10 years. The State proposed making more than 62,000 government schools available for adoption. Corporate entities could use Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds for activities ranging from repairs, maintenance and painting to improving sanitation, health, enrolment and the use of technology.

Dalit groups strongly protested this move towards privatisation that would deny access to Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students especially in rural areas.

The financial commitments were substantial yet no audit of the scheme or the implementation have ever been held, nor demanded. According to the government resolution reported by The Times of India, entities adopting schools in “A” and “B” category municipal corporations, including Mumbai and Pune, were required to commit ₹2 crore for five years or ₹3 crore for 10 years. For “C” category municipal corporations, the amounts were ₹1 crore and ₹2 crore respectively, while other schools could be adopted for ₹50 lakh for five years or ₹1 crore for 10 years. The Business Standard, reporting on September 18, 2023, said the funds could be used for school-building repairs, painting, and toilets, infrastructure and sports equipment.

The government insisted that the scheme was not privatisation. In December 2023, then School Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar told the Hindustan Times that a major corporate house had expressed interest in adopting around 5,000 schools and stressed that the objective was to improve infrastructure and amenities, not to privatise schools. The government resolution also permitted an adopting entity to add its name to the existing school name for the duration of the agreement, although the original name was to be retained.

The distinction between “adoption” and privatisation, however, becomes more complicated when viewed alongside the State’s broader education policy. In July 2026, Frontline reported that Maharashtra was expanding public-private partnership models in school education, including the operation of five English-medium schools of the Pune Municipal Corporation through a PPP arrangement. The report said the same organisation that had previously operated the schools using CSR funds was subsequently awarded a contract worth ₹12 crore annually by the Pune civic administration. Frontline also reported concerns over proposals to hand over land reserved for Mumbai municipal schools to private entities under PPP arrangements.

This raises a fundamental question about the direction of public education. If private organisations are initially invited to improve government schools through CSR and are later given contracts to operate schools using public funds, the State’s role can gradually shift from being the primary provider of education to financing or facilitating private participation in its delivery. The issue is therefore not simply whether private money can improve a school building. It is who ultimately controls public educational assets, who determines priorities and whether access to education remains governed primarily by public obligations rather than the interests or capacities of private partners.

The question becomes particularly important in the context of Maharashtra’s low-enrolment and cluster-school policies. In September 2023, Mid-Day reported that the State had identified 14,783 schools with 20 or fewer students for consolidation into cluster schools. The proposed restructuring was expected to affect 1,85,467 students and 29,707 teachers. The government argued that very small schools could not provide adequate infrastructure, qualified teachers or opportunities for social interaction, and pointed to successful cluster models in Panshet and Toranmal.

Teachers and education activists, however, warned that consolidation could push students to travel longer distances and increase the risk of dropouts, particularly in rural and remote areas. Their concern was especially significant for young children, girls and students from economically weaker families for whom daily travel to a distant school may itself become a barrier to attendance.

The State subsequently sought to reassure critics. In July 2025, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde told the Maharashtra legislature, as reported by ET Education, that schools would not be closed merely because of low enrolment. He said the government would make adjustments to ensure that such schools continued functioning and that teachers would be redeployed only after appropriate adjustments were made. Yet the same report noted that around 18,000 schools had fewer than 20 students.

The policy trajectory therefore remains difficult to reconcile. On one side, the government says low-enrolment schools will not be shut and that every child must continue to have access to education. On the other, cluster models, school consolidation and private participation are being promoted as solutions to the perceived financial and infrastructural limitations of the existing public-school network.

The issue is not that private participation is inherently harmful, nor that every small school must necessarily remain open regardless of circumstances. The concern is whether the State is addressing the reasons behind low enrolment and poor infrastructure before declaring a school inefficient, relocating its students or inviting private entities to take over functions that should ordinarily be part of public educational provision.

A government school is not merely a building that can be repaired through CSR funding or managed through a contractual arrangement. It is part of the public infrastructure through which the State fulfils its constitutional obligation to provide education. When schools are under-resourced, the answer cannot automatically be to reduce the State’s responsibility by transferring greater functions to private actors. The more important question is whether Maharashtra is investing sufficiently in making its public schools viable before concluding that they need to be consolidated, adopted or operated through PPP models.

Marathi schools: Declining enrolment or a policy-created cycle?

The decline of Marathi-medium education in Maharashtra is particularly troubling because it cannot simply be reduced to a story of parents “choosing English”. The numbers in Mumbai are stark. According to BMC data cited by ThePrint on July 24, 2025, the number of Marathi-medium schools in Mumbai fell from 460 in 2019-20 to 421 in 2025-26 — a loss of 39 schools. Around 50,000 students had moved elsewhere from the 2019-20 academic session onwards.

The longer-term numbers are even more striking. Mid-Day, reporting on May 4, 2025, said Mumbai had 413 Marathi-medium schools in 2010-11, 368 in 2014-15 and only 262 by 2023-24. That is not a temporary fluctuation, but rather a sustained decline.

The government has attributed the decline largely to parental preference for English-medium education. Parents do indeed have reasons to make that choice. English is widely perceived as providing better access to higher education, employment and social mobility. But educators and activists argue that parents are also responding to the relative quality and visibility of the schools being offered to them. As ThePrint reported in July 2025, educators pointed to inadequate infrastructure in Marathi-medium schools and alleged that English-medium institutions received greater preference when it came to development.

Deepak Pawar of the School Education Action Coordination Committee argued that Marathi-medium schools should be upgraded without changing their medium to English. Teachers cited in the report similarly described a communication gap with middle-class families and said some Marathi-medium schools had modern facilities such as Atal Tinkering Labs and robotics labs, but that efforts to publicise and develop these came only after enrolment had already begun to collapse. The important point here is thus, if the state allows a school to deteriorate, then points to falling enrolment as evidence that the school is no longer viable, it risks creating a self-fulfilling cycle. One cannot ignore the vicious cycle of how poor infrastructure erodes parental confidence, leading to declining enrolment, reduced allocation of teachers and resources, and a further deterioration of schools, creating a cycle that ultimately pushes schools towards closure. The final closure can then be presented as the inevitable consequence of “parental preference”. But inevitability is not the same as neutrality.

The fate of one of Mumbai’s oldest Marathi schools

The uncertainty surrounding Dadar’s Nabar Guruji Vidyalaya brought this crisis into sharp relief. In May 2025, Mid-Day reported that the Marathi-medium school, which dates back to the 1940s, was facing an uncertain future amid falling admissions. Thirty-five students had appeared for its SSC examination that year, but only 17 students remained in Classes 9 and 10 for the new academic year. The management clarified that it had not decided to close the school.

Trustee Satish Rama Nayak said the institution remained financially capable of functioning because it offered free education and teachers’ salaries were supported through government grants. The difficulty was the collapse in enrolment and its impact on the teacher-student ratio. Nayak also described a social transformation.

Parents who had themselves studied in Marathi-medium schools were increasingly choosing English-medium or CBSE schools for their children, sometimes even taking loans to pay for them. That is the other side of the story. It would be too simplistic to blame the government for every parent who chooses English. But it is equally simplistic to blame parents for the disappearance of Marathi-medium schools without asking why government and aided Marathi schools have not been made equally attractive, well-equipped and aspirational.

As Sushil Shejule of the Marathi Abhyas Kendra told ThePrint, the decline had been visible for years and, despite the availability of data, neither governments nor political parties had taken meaningful action.

The irony of Marathi’s “classical language” status

In October 2024, Marathi received classical-language status from the Union government. Maharashtra has also repeatedly asserted the importance of Marathi in public life and education. The Maharashtra Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Marathi Language in Schools Act, 2020 made Marathi compulsory in schools across the state, including CBSE and ICSE schools. Yet the institutions that actually provide education through Marathi continue to shrink.

The Mid-Day report of May 2025 placed the decline against precisely this backdrop: Marathi had acquired classical-language status, but one of Mumbai’s oldest Marathi-medium schools was struggling with falling admissions. The contradiction was also noticed by the Bombay High Court in its April 2026 intervention.

The state cannot convincingly claim to protect Marathi while allowing the network of Marathi-medium schools, particularly those serving poorer and rural families, to become increasingly fragile. Protecting a language is not merely about official resolutions, signboards or declarations. It also means ensuring that a child who wants, or needs, to study in that language has a functioning school in which to do so.

Mumbai’s municipal schools: when “repair” means displacement

The infrastructure problem becomes even more complicated when schools are declared unsafe and children are moved elsewhere. In December 2025, Outlook reported on the closure and relocation of Mumbai municipal schools, including New Mahim Municipal School. Students were shifted from August 2025 to another municipal school operating from a few rooms on the first floor of a residential building.

According to the report, the replacement premises lacked a playground, proper drinking-water facilities and adequately supplied toilets. The concern raised by parents and activists was not that unsafe buildings should continue to operate. A genuinely dangerous school building cannot be defended in the name of access to education. The concern was about what children were being offered after their school was shut.

When a school has to close because its building is unsafe, the replacement should provide an equivalent educational environment. It should be sufficiently close to the children’s homes, have adequate classrooms, functional toilets and drinking-water facilities, and provide children with access to a playground. Parents and children should also have a say in decisions that directly affect their education. For Marathi-medium schools, relocation should not result in the loss of the medium of instruction. These are not peripheral concerns. They determine whether a “relocation” actually amounts to continued and meaningful access to education.

When official records themselves threaten to erase students

Another warning emerged in January 2026. On January 10, ETV Bharat reported discrepancies between Aadhaar-linked records and UDISE Plus data that had left thousands of students classified as “invalid”, “not provided”, “under verification” or “out of school”. The report said that of 2,14,68,288 students registered in the relevant Maharashtra UDISE Plus data, 5,78,433 were listed with invalid Aadhaar details and 4,98,759 had not provided Aadhaar details. Another 69,688 were shown as out of school. Educationists warned that such discrepancies could have consequences for school enrolment figures and, consequently, teacher deployment and funding. The concern was particularly acute for Marathi-medium schools.

Rajan Mahadeshwar, principal of Govandi’s Jagruti Vidyamandir, told ETV Bharat that his school had 430 students actually registered, while the UDISE system showed only 380 because 50 were marked invalid or pending verification. He feared that an artificially reduced enrolment could eventually affect the school’s viability. Officials disputed the extent of the danger.

Divisional Deputy Director Rajesh Kankal said only around five per cent of students in numerous schools did not have Aadhaar updated and said he did not expect grant-in-aid schools to face major problems. Yet the larger policy concern remains valid: when funding, staffing and school viability are increasingly linked to enrolment data, the accuracy of that data becomes an educational rights issue. A child should not become statistically invisible because a database has failed to correctly reflect their presence in a classroom.

The state is promising a transformation

The government has not remained silent. On August 22, 2026, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde held a detailed review meeting with School Education Minister Dada Bhuse and senior officials. As Deccan Herald reported on August 23, Shinde directed the Education Department to prepare a clear, comprehensive and time-bound action plan to modernise schools and bring about “real, visible and qualitative improvements”.

The proposed plan includes teacher training, capacity building, greater involvement of education experts and experienced teachers, health check-ups, nutrition, a review of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme and attention to students’ mental and emotional well-being. The state has also expanded digital education initiatives. Digital Learning reported on August 4 that the Vinoba Digital Education platform had been expanded to 45,000 government schools across 25 districts, reaching more than 31 lakh students and nearly 1.3 lakh teachers.

These initiatives may be useful. However, the timing of the government’s August review is telling. It came after weeks in which government-school conditions had repeatedly been placed in the public eye — including through the “School Thik Karo” campaign launched in Maharashtra by Cockroach Janta Party convenor Abhijeet Dipke.

On August 15, Telangana Today reported that Dipke had launched the campaign in Hingoli after inspecting a Zilla Parishad school where he alleged that toilets lacked water, windows were broken and students lacked adequate benches. He said the campaign would document basic facilities in government schools across Maharashtra. The campaign itself is not a substitute for institutional inspection or government monitoring. Its allegations must therefore be independently verified before being treated as established facts.

But its very existence points to a troubling question: Why are political and citizen campaigns increasingly having to inspect schools to make basic educational infrastructure visible?

When will policy on public education, access and representation actually be formulated with the stakeholders? Who are the stakeholders? They are communities that demand education for the young, the most marginalised and teachers who form the other crucial arc. All the policies hurriedly formulated are however top heavy and solely the creation of bureaucrats and politicians, often concealing blatant private interests.

This is not democracy but public policy turned on its head.

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The post Maharashtra’s schools are struggling to survive as students protest, infrastructure crumbles and Marathi-medium institutions disappear appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I am Malala: I believe in education! As a little girl, I loved to go to school. Life dramatically changed for the worse when the Taliban took control of my hometown in the Swat Valley. They banned many things, including television and playing music. Those who defied their orders were given severe penalties. They did not allow the girls to go to school. Sadly, I had to leave my friends in 2009 when I was just eleven years old. At that age, I became an activist. I spoke out publicly on behalf of girls and their right to learn and began blogging about my experiences for BBC Urdu. In a speech which was widely covered by the media, I said, “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” Yes, we must communicate; we must tell our stories loudly and clearly!

I am Malala: The Taliban, of course, did not like what I was doing. All fundamentalists have the same DNA; just look around you from the Ku Klux Klan in the US, to the Lehava in Israel, to the Hindutvadis. They are all the same! They feel threatened when someone stands up to them and is able to expose their heinous crimes. On that fateful day (9 October 2012), a masked Taliban gunman boarded my school bus whilst I was on my way home after writing my exam. He asked, “Who is Malala?” Recognising me, he shot me on the left side of my head. I woke up ten days later in a hospital in Birmingham, England. I was just fifteen then. My world had changed! My life given a second chanced I vowed never to look back!

I am Malala: Of the book ‘I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban’. It is the story of my life, from the time I was born till I was shot by the Taliban. It was co-written with Christina Lamb. Published on 8 October 2013, it became a bestseller all over the world. Though I know that it was banned in some places. The book has plenty of my own thoughts and insights.

I am Malala: So you can imagine my dismay when a prestigious school in Ahmedabad withdrew from its selection of additional reading, my book. ‘I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban’ together with the much-celebrated book ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank. It is certainly within the right of any school to prescribe the books for their children. The sad part about this case is that the books had to be withdrawn after orders from the educational authorities and a fine imposed on the school. Imagine to what a rotten state education has fallen. It is not about ‘my’ book; but the fact is that the students are deprived at an early age of experiencing pluralism in thought. Ironically, it will be the parents of these children who will be desperate to send their children abroad for higher education.

I am Malala: It is heartening to note that a civil society group comprising more than 150 citizens from Gujarat and elsewhere issued a strong statement condemning the withdrawal of these two books and demanded that there should be no external interference in providing the students with the much-needed holistic education. The statement said, “We believe that both these books remain very important and timely resources for students to access. Yousafzai’s memoir recounts her fight for women’s, children’s and girls’ education rights in Pakistan, while Anne Frank’s diary stands as a historically significant personal account of life under Nazi occupation and the Holocaust”.

I am Malala: The Student and Youth Collective Ahmedabad must be applauded and appreciated for organising in Ahmedabad on 27 August ‘A Silent Reading Session’ in a public park. The young organisers made a very meaningful poster for the event which said, ‘Ban the Censorship, Not the Books’, and adding ‘for education free from fear, interference and conformity.’ Several (mainly students and other youth) participated in this unique protest. They read books that mattered, demonstrating to others the significance of these books and why they must be popularised in today’s India. The power of the youth was simply amazing!

I am Malala: Then the goons of the Hindutva brigade came in! There are striking similarities between them and the Taliban. They were shouting and yelling, not willing to listen. Of course, their levels of comprehension are below average. They came armed with sticks and hockey sticks. They beat some innocent citizens. They were able to prove just one thing: they were fascist thugs determined to destroy the idea of a pluralistic and secular India.

I am Malala: The attack has naturally been condemned by all except by their mentors. The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (Gujarat) has issued a strong, unequivocal and detailed statement on this assault on democracy. The statement concludes, “The right to sit in a public garden and read a book is sacrosanct. People were hospitalized women were assaulted, and a young woman was threatened with disappearance for filming a crime. This did not happen because anyone at the reading broke the law, but because of the books in their hands and the religion the mob suspected they belonged to. A national anthem sung to calm a mob was answered with more violence, not less. PUCL Gujarat will closely monitor this case and expects the police to correct the record before this diluted version of events hardens into the official history.”

I am Malala: Because I am ME – I have dared to take on the fascist, fundamentalist, fanatic, feudalistic forces that tried to prevent my growth as a person! They did their best to put fear in me and in the lives of others! I fearlessly took them on! Today I tell them in no uncertain terms that I believe in freedom, justice and truth! I am not afraid to stand up to them. There is nothing that confines me! The world is my home. I have dignity, I have freedom!  I am inclusive and believe in the equality of all! We are all created in the image and likeness of God; we are all his children. I am yesterday, today and tomorrow. Remember, I will always live!

I AM MALALA:  but NOT the Malala you think I am. No, not the Malala who is a Pakistani or a Muslim. Though she is truly my inspiration and for millions of others too. I am Indian! I believe in the idea of India. I am the youth of India: The Gen Z and even the Gen Alpha. I am neither a coward nor violent. I do not hate; but yes, there is an honest rage in my heart and mind. Too much has been happening, and I am being throttled and excluded. You call me what you want: ‘cockroach’, ‘Dimagi Naxal’, ‘tukde tukde gang’, whatever. I am not afraid. You have destroyed our beloved nation with your corruption, communalism, casteism and crony capitalism. You have kept dividing, denigrating, discriminating, demonising us. I say ‘enough is enough’. Your time is up! I believe in the values enshrined in the Constitution: justice, liberty, equality, fraternity; unity, diversity, the rights and freedoms guaranteed to all! We will not stop! With the millions who are with me, I am convinced that ‘we shall overcome’! Satyameva Jayate!

August 29, 2026

(The author is a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist, writer & trainer.)

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The post I AM MALALA! Afghanistan or Ahmedabad why are fundamentalists wary of the right to education? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In this conversation, activist and journalist Teesta Setalvad speaks with Rhiya Ahir, whose act of standing in front of a police van carrying detained protesters during the July 2026 student protests became one of the defining images of the movement.

Rhiya reflects on what compelled her to step forward, where courage comes from and why fear cannot become a reason for citizens to remain silent. Teesta speaks about the resolve it takes to stand up to power in difficult times.

The post ‘We Cannot Be Afraid’: Rhiya Ahir in Conversation with Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to the Times of India, Vandan was still dealing with jet lag when he participated in the tournament. After completing his four games, he went to bed without immediately telling his parents that he had played Carlsen.

Father found the result later

Vandan’s father, Alankar Sawai, a former banker, later checked his son’s Chess.com profile and found the game against Carlsen. He then asked Vandan about the result. The teenager confirmed that he had played against Carlsen and won.

As reported that Vandan’s mother, Dr Madhuri Alankar Sawai, said her son had simply informed the family that he had finished his four rounds. The significance of the result became clear to the family only after his father checked the games.

Vandan himself was initially unsure whether the result had come because of an error by Carlsen. He reportedly considered the possibility of a “mouse slip”, referring to an accidental online move.

His school friends also learnt about the result the following day. According to TOI, some of them initially did not believe that Vandan had defeated Carlsen. Vandan subsequently shared screenshots of the game with them.

The 50-move game

Vandan played with the white pieces and opened with e4. Carlsen replied with e5. The game developed through a Giuoco Piano variation.

The game remained competitive during its early stages. The Times of India reported that a key moment came around the 26th move, when Vandan’s bishop put Carlsen’s king under attack. Carlsen moved his king rather than taking the bishop, after which Vandan gained material. Vandan continued the game and eventually won after 50 moves. Carlsen had a rating of 2,823 for the game, while Vandan was a Candidate Master with a FIDE classical rating of 2,288, as reported

He was initially reluctant to play

Vandan had not originally planned to participate in the tournament. His mother told the Times of India that she encouraged him to play after his return from Europe. He also did not inform his coach beforehand that he was taking part.

The tournament was organised online through Chess.com. According to the earlier TOI report, titled players participate in the platform’s events, where Carlsen also plays.

Vandan played his usual opening approach in the game rather than making specific changes because his opponent was Carlsen.

Started playing chess at eight

Vandan began playing chess when he was eight years old. According to the Times of India, his mother introduced him to the game after learning it from her brother.

He initially developed an interest in chess puzzles and later began participating in competitive chess.

Vandan has trained with FIDE Master Gurpreet Pal Singh and International Master Kushager Krishnater, according to the newspaper.

The Delhi report also stated that Vandan is a class topper. He has not yet decided whether he wants to pursue chess professionally, although he has set his sights on becoming an International Master. After the victory, Vandan’s family planned a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The family also planned to undertake sewa during the visit.

The family’s plans followed the online victory and the attention it received after details of the game became known.

Ambedkarite background

Vandan is being identified by his family and community as an Ambedkarite student. His achievement has subsequently been discussed within the Ambedkarite community in the context of education and academic development.

The details reported about Vandan’s academic record, chess training and family support form part of his background as he continues his schooling alongside competitive chess. His victory over Carlsen came in an online blitz game, while Vandan continues to compete and train as a young chess player.

From school and puzzles to international competition

Vandan’s chess journey began with learning the game at eight and solving chess puzzles before moving into competitive play. He has since obtained the Candidate Master title and reached a FIDE classical rating of 2,288, according to the Times of India.

The August 18 game against Carlsen was one of four games Vandan played that night. He won three of them and only later discussed the Carlsen game with his family.

His immediate response after completing the tournament was to go to sleep. As his mother told the Times of India, the family’s reaction came only after his father examined the games on Vandan’s Chess.com account and realised that one of his opponents had been Magnus Carlsen.

Related:

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Mahatma Gandhi on Caste: the Varna-Ashrama System

The Mechanism of Caste

The post The Ambedkarite Champ: 15-year-old Vandan Sawai defeats chess great Magnus Carlsen appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to his parents, Aditya was interested in joining the protest because he believed students were facing injustice. The couple decided to accompany him rather than prevent him from participating. The family travelled to Dak Bungalow Chowk by auto rickshaw and remained together during the demonstration.

Patna Police, however, have denied that the child was detained, saying he was rescued from a potentially dangerous situation at the protest site and later handed over safely to his family. The incident was reported by The Wire, which spoke to the child’s parents and the police.

Police say child was rescued

The Patna Police, in a press release issued on August 26, rejected social media claims that the child had been detained. According to the police, protesters had moved towards a restricted area and attempted to break through or remove barricades. Police said that amid the situation, they spotted a child at the protest site and intervened to protect him from the crowd and the possibility of a stampede. The police said the child was subsequently handed over to his family “safe and sound”. The family’s account differs.

Ranjit and Munni told The Wire that police first attempted to take Aditya away during the protest. According to them, media persons present at the spot intervened, following which the child was allowed to remain with them. Someone later gave Aditya a tricolour, which he began waving. When some protesters climbed onto a police bus that had reportedly been brought to detain protesters, Aditya also climbed onto the bus and continued waving the national flag. Ranjit said he subsequently took his son and attempted to leave the protest site.

According to him, police approached them and told him that his wife was waiting for him. He and Aditya followed the police and were subsequently placed in an ambulance along with Munni. The family says they were initially told they would be taken home. Instead, they were taken to the Kotwali police station, which is around 500 metres from Dak Bungalow Chowk.

Family alleges assault at police station

The parents have alleged that they were kept at the police station for several hours and assaulted by police personnel. Ranjit told The Wire that he and his wife were taken into a small room where around six police personnel were present, including four women police officers. He alleges that police personnel assaulted both him and his wife.

According to his account, officers instructed female personnel on how to beat Munni. He alleges that officers stepped on her legs and that he was beaten on the soles of his feet and hands with a baton. He also alleged that he was pushed to the ground, struck on his back and hit below the waist. Ranjit said the alleged assault lasted around 15 minutes.

“They treated us as if we were hardened criminals,” he told The Wire.

Munni separately alleged that police kicked her in the abdomen despite her having undergone a Caesarean-section delivery. Ranjit said he pleaded with the police to stop assaulting his wife.

The police have denied the allegations. Kotwali SHO Ajay Kumar told The Wire that no assault took place inside the police station. Responding to questions about injury marks on Munni’s body, he said the injuries could have been sustained during the protest itself.

Aditya kept asking about his parents

According to his father, Aditya himself was not assaulted at the police station. Ranjit said the child was offered biscuits and chocolates but refused them. Instead, he repeatedly asked to be allowed to stay with his parents. He also questioned police about why his parents had been beaten after seeing their injuries, according to Ranjit. The family says Aditya remained calm despite the situation.

His father told The Wire that the six-year-old has previously shown an interest in participating in protests. Aditya had also participated in an RJD-organised march in Patna on August 19, according to his parents.

Ranjit also claimed that Aditya’s actions during the August 25 protest had attracted police attention. According to him, police had lathi-charged protesters during the demonstration and some teacher aspirants suffered head injuries. Ranjit said Aditya asked in front of media persons who had ordered the lathi-charge. He further alleged that when a police officer was leaving the protest site, Aditya questioned him about where he was going after the alleged incident. According to Ranjit, police later asked the parents at the police station why their child had been asking about the injured protesters and the lathi-charge.

Mother taken to hospital

Munni reportedly became unwell while at the police station and complained of anxiety. Ranjit said he informed the police, who brought water for her. According to the family, she was subsequently taken to New Gardiner Road Hospital, a government hospital located around 500 metres from the police station. Munni told The Wire that two women police personnel accompanied her to the hospital.

She alleged that she was advised not to tell the doctor that she had been beaten at the police station. According to Munni, she did not tell the doctor about the alleged assault because she felt intimidated in the presence of police personnel. She was treated at the hospital and given a prescription. Munni alleges that the police took the prescription, telling her that it would later be given to her husband. She says the prescription was never returned.

The SHO denied the allegation that police had taken the prescription, saying that such a document normally remains with the patient. After her treatment, Munni was taken back to the police station. The family says they were finally released at around 8 pm and reached their home at around 9 pm.

Ranjit has further alleged that before their release, he and his wife were made to sign a written document. According to him, the document stated that strict action could be taken if Aditya participated in a protest in the future. He also claims that it stated that police could summon the parents for questioning at any time. Ranjit said he did not know the full contents of the document he had signed. The family also alleges that police instructed them not to speak about what had happened inside the police station.

Protest over TRE-4

The protest was organised by teacher aspirants who are opposed to changes announced by the Bihar Public Service Commission for the upcoming TRE-4 examination. Under the new pattern, the examination is to be conducted in two stages, while negative marking will continue in objective examinations. The protesting aspirants have demanded that the examination instead be conducted as a single examination and without negative marking.

On August 25, they began marching from Gandhi Maidan towards Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary’s residence. The protesters broke through police barricades during the march and reached Dak Bungalow Chowk, where police action followed. Aditya joined the protesters there with his parents.

Family now fears police harassment

Ranjit and Munni are a working-class couple. Ranjit has studied until Class 4 and works as a daily-wage labourer, earning around Rs 500 a day. Munni works as a domestic worker. The family lives in a single rented room. Aditya is their only child and studies in Class 1 at a private school. According to his parents, he enjoys Mathematics, Hindi and English and keeps a copy of the Constitution. The family says the events of August 25 have left them fearful of further police action. Ranjit told The Wire that he has stopped going to work for several days because he fears that police could arrest or assault him again. The family also says they did not eat or sleep properly after returning home that night. Munni said they kept wondering what they had done wrong. The family is now reportedly avoiding staying at home because of fears of police harassment.

Advocate Shivnandan Bharti, who is planning to file a writ petition concerning the incident, has described it as a case of illegal detention and questioned why the child was not simply handed over to his parents if the police intervention was solely for his safety.

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Address Discrimination & Hate Crimes India told: CERD, UN

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There is a detail worth pausing on before the argument even begins. The account’s bio carried a line from B.R. Ambedkar, “Educate, Agitate, Organise,” – before it was removed – which presented, evidently, as the spirit animating the campaign. It is hard to imagine a more complete inversion of what that phrase was meant to do. Ambedkar issued it to the very communities that reservation exists to protect, as an instruction for building collective power against a system stacked against them.

He was, not incidentally, also the principal architect of constitutional reservation itself. An account campaigning to dismantle his signature achievement, while quoting his most famous call to arms as its own mission statement, has not so much misread Ambedkar as run his words backwards.

That confusion turns out to be the whole story. RHA is being sold as something new – a fresh generation, fed up with a broken meritocracy, finally saying what previous generations were too timid to say. It is not new. The demand to “remove reservation” is one of the oldest, most recycled slogans in independent India’s political life, and it has failed, in more or less identical form, every single time it has been tried – against Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) quotas as much as Other Backward Classes (OBC) ones, in state after state, for nearly fifty years before Gen Z existed as a demographic category.

Before Mandal: A fight older than the word “OBC”

The template was set in the late 1970s. In 1978, Bihar’s socialist chief minister Karpoori Thakur implemented 26% reservation for backward classes, based on the Mungeri Lal Commission – the first major state-level rollout of its kind in north India. It triggered a destructive anti-reservation movement, with upper-caste protestors, including some allied to his own coalition partners, taking to the streets against him. The quota outlasted his tenure; Thakur lost the chief ministership within a year.

Three years later, in 1981, a movement erupted aimed squarely at SC and ST quotas rather than backward-class ones. Ahmedabad saw India’s first big anti-reservation agitation, triggered by a state government move to raise reserved medical college seats for SCs and STs. It turned violent quickly, with Dalit students and neighbourhoods bearing the brunt of the backlash – an early, ugly template for what “antireservation” mobilisation would come to mean on the ground: not abstract policy debate, but targeted intimidation of the communities the policy served.

In December 1989, a separate wave of protest broke out in Uttar Pradesh, this time against Parliament’s routine decision to extend reserved SC/ST legislative seats for another ten years – a renewal that had never before drawn street opposition. Both agitations fizzled without altering the underlying quotas.

Then, in 1985, Gujarat erupted again, this time over a further hike in the OBC quota under chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki. What began as boycotts and marches by upper-caste students spiralled into months of rioting between February and August, killing well over a hundred people, before curdling into communal violence against Ahmedabad’s Muslim residents, who had played no role in the reservation dispute at all. The army patrolled the city; curfews ran for weeks; Solanki was forced to resign. The quota hike stood regardless.

1990 and 2006: Bigger stages, identical outcome

Then came 1990, the moment anti-reservation politics entered the national bloodstream in earnest. Prime minister V.P. Singh’s implementation of the Mandal Commission’s 27% OBC quota in central government jobs set off an agitation that spread across north India, marked by the self-immolation attempt of Delhi University student Rajeev Goswami – his image still invoked today by both sides of the debate. Dozens of copycat attempts reportedly followed, some fatal. The reservation survived regardless. The Supreme Court’s 1992 verdict in Indra Sawhney upheld it, adding only a creamy-layer exclusion and a 50% ceiling as concessions.

Sixteen years later, the argument resurfaced almost unchanged. When the government moved to extend 27% OBC reservation to the IITs, IIMs and AIIMS in 2006, a new organisation called Youth for Equality sprang up almost overnight, drawing medical students, engineers and general-category doctors into one of the most disruptive protest waves independent India had seen.

AIIMS doctors struck work, reducing hospitals to emergency services only; nearly a hundred thousand people rallied in Delhi; blockades shut down roads and rail lines across three metros for weeks. The protestors demanded a rollback, a white paper, merit-based alternatives to caste quotas. The Supreme Court instead upheld the quota in 2008, with additional seats added to protect general-category numbers rather than shrink them. Youth for Equality still exists today, now largely as a legal and political lobby rather than a street movement – itself a quiet admission that the agitation route did not work.

Numbers don’t lie

There is a structural reason none of these movements – 1978, 1981, 1985, 1989, 1990, 2006 — have ever succeeded: reservation is not a policy preference that a hashtag, or even a riot, can talk a government out of. It rests on constitutional protection, a court-enforced ceiling upheld across decades of litigation, and a cross-party political consensus that no electoral coalition has found worth breaking, whatever its private sympathies. Every time an anti-reservation campaign has gathered visible pace, a far larger counter-mobilisation has followed within days, not years, because reservation is tied to the political identity and material stake of hundreds of millions of Indians. One popular response to RHA’s overnight follower spike put the arithmetic plainly: for every lakh who want reservation gone, crores will show up to defend it.

Counter-mobilisation arrived within a day

The 2026 instalment has now supplied its own case study, and it has run true to form. RHA had sought permission for a demonstration at Jantar Mantar, and on August 21, Delhi Police instead issued a no-objection certificate for the alternative venue of Ramlila Maidan, capping the crowd at 500 people until 4 pm. Organisers cried foul, calling it a deliberate attempt to shrink their numbers. Hundreds of protesters – drawn, by their own account, from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan among other states — showed up at Jantar Mantar anyway and refused to budge even after the Ramlila permission window lapsed. By evening the standoff had escalated: Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed, and over fifty protesters were detained, with traffic diverted around Sansad Marg, Tolstoy Road and Ashoka Road for hours.

The demands articulated at the site – laid out by Ajeet Bharti, who addressed the crowd – were a government white paper on nearly eight decades of quota policy, a “quota within quota” so benefits reach the most deprived within reserved communities, strengthening of Economically Weaker Section (EWS) reservation, and minimum qualifying marks for reserved-category candidates. Other protesters went further, demanding a “one family, one reservation” rule and withdrawal of the UGC’s 2026 caste-equity directives – closer, whatever the semantic hair-splitting, to the abolitionist reading the campaign’s own name invites.

The counter-mobilisation arrived within a day, exactly as the arithmetic above predicts. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav both framed the Jantar Mantar mobilisation as an assault on constitutionally guaranteed SC/ST/OBC reservation. By August 24, Union Minister Chirag Paswan had delivered the government’s own rebuttal in unusually blunt terms, calling reservation a constitutional right no power on earth can abolish, and pointing to continuing caste-based humiliation – Dalit grooms still barred from wedding-procession horses, a Dalit leader’s stage still “purified” after his visit – as evidence the underlying problem hasn’t gone away. RHA, for its part, claimed on August 22, that the government had agreed to talks and that a minister would meet protesters personally – the same face-saving off-ramp virtually every one of its predecessor movements eventually took.

RHA also skips over what actually brought people onto the streets in the first place, and that omission is the tell. The CJP’s protests were about something specific and recent – a NEET examination scandal, a minister seen as unaccountable, an exam system that today’s students experience as rigged by coaching-centre capital and administrative failure, not by their classmates from reserved categories.

Turning that anger toward reservation isn’t a continuation of the youth movement. It is a hijacking of it, substituting a fifty-year-old argument that has never once won for the fresh, generation-specific grievance that actually filled the streets, and doing so under the borrowed authority of a thinker whose entire political project was to make that argument impossible to win.

Viral campaigns rise fast and vanish faster when the argument underneath them doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. RHA has the follower count of a trending hashtag, a bio quote it has fundamentally misread, a single Friday’s worth of detentions and traffic diversions passed off as a movement, and the record of every decade since the 1970s standing against it. History suggests it will have the shelf life of both – a brief surge of shares and outrage, followed by the quiet realisation that nothing about the underlying arithmetic, legal architecture, or political coalition around reservation has moved even slightly.

The post The ‘Reservation Hatao Andolan’ Isn’t a Gen Z Uprising. It’s a Rerun appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Bharat Chodo Slogan was coined by none less than Yusuf Meherali, the historic venue for the launch of the Quit India Movement was the Gowalia Tank Maidan, thereafter named the August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai.
112 years ago, and 37 years before the Quit India Movement, the words and melody of the Rakhee Sangeet by Rabindranath Tagore filled the streets of Bengal and Hindus and Muslims poured out on the streets to say ‘No’ to the Partition of Bengal. The Partition was revoked and east and west Bengal were re-united on December 12, 1911 by the British. A new partition which divided the province on linguistic, rather than religious grounds followed, with the Hindi, Oriya and Assamese areas separated to form separate administrative units: Bihar and Orissa Province was created to the west, and Assam Province to the east. The administrative capital of British India was moved from Calcutta to New Delhi as well.

Rakhee Sangeet
During the swadeshi and anti-partition agitation people in both the Benglas took out processions in the streets of towns and villages and sang swadeshi and patiotric songs. An English version of one such song, originally composed in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, is reproduced below.

Let the earth and water of Bengal,
Let the air and fruits of Bengal, be sacred, be sacred, be sacred, my god.
Let the homes and marts of Bengal,
Let the forests and fields of Bengal, be full,  be full, be full, my god.
Let the promises and hopes of Bengalis,
Let the deeds and language of Bengalis, be true, be true, be true, my god.
Let the lives and hearts of Bengalis,
Let all the brothers and sisters in Bengali homes, be united, be united, be united, my god.

Excerpts from Gokhale’s Presidential Address
Bengal was at its peak of the united nationalist movement at the dawn of 19th century, which eventually emerged as a formidable threat to the British Raj. Divide and Rule has always been the policy of the rulers be it the British or those who rule from Delhi today.

To curb this nationalist movement, the Britishers decided to divide Bengal, a move vehemently opposed by various leaders of the time, including Rabindranath Tagore.

The decision was taken at a meeting between Lord Curzon and a Muslim delegation in Assam in June 1905, where the Muslims were convinced of the idea of a separate state to keep their identity. The plan was to divide the Hindu majority regions of West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha from Muslim-dominated areas of Assam and Sylhet. The British government passed the orders of partition in August 1905, which came into effect on October 16 of the same year. However, the date fell in the month of Shravan, when the festival of Raksha Bandhan was celebrated by the Hindu community.

Tagore masterfully used the concept of brotherhood, togetherness and ‘the thread of protection’ as a medium to protest against British’s partition policy by showing a picture of unity among the two communities.

Gopal krishna Gokhale’s Presidential Address at the Banares  Congress Convention (1905), where the made a detailed analysis of the question  of the partition of Bengal and the Swadeshi movement are worth a recall:
“Gentlemen, the question that is uppermost in the minds of all at this moment is the partition of Bengal. A cruel wrong has been inflicted on our Bengalee brethren, and the whole country has been stirred to its deepest depths in sorrow and resentment, as had never been the case before. The scheme of Partition concocted in the dark and carried out in the face of the fiercest opposition that any Government measure has encountered during the last half-a-century, will always stand as a complete illustration the worst features of the present system of bureaucratic rule-its utter contempt for public opinion, its arrogant pretensions to superior wisdom… Lord Curzon and his advisers… could never allege that they had no means of judging of the depth of public feeling in the matter. All that could possibly have been done by way of a respectful representation of the views of the people had been done. As soon as it was known that a partition of some sort was contemplated, meeting after meeting of protest was held…. The Secretary of State for India was implored to withhold his sanction to the proposed measure. The intervention of the British House of Commons was sought, first by a monster petition, signed by sixty thousand people, and later by means, of a debate on the subject raised in the House by our over-watchful mend, Mr. Herbert Roberts. All proved unavailing…. To add insult to injury, Lord C m n described the opposition to his measures as “manufactured”-an opposition in which all classes of Indians, high and low, uneducated and educated, Hindus and Mahomedans had joined, an opposition than which nothing more intense, nothing more wide-spread, nothing more spontaneous had been seen in this country in the whole course of our political agitation.. . .

The tremendous upheaval of popular feeling, which has taken place in Bengal in consequence of the partition, will constitute a landmark in the history of our national progress. For the first time since British rule began, all sections of the Indian community, without distinction of caste or creed, have been moved by a common impulse and without the stimulus of extend pressure to act together in offering resistance to a common wrong. A wave of true national consciousness has swept over the province…. Bengal’s heroic stand against the oppression of a harsh and uncontrolled bureaucracy has astonished and gratified all India, and her sufferings have not been endured in vain, when they have helped to draw closer all pasts of the country in sympathy and in aspiration….”

On July 19, 1905, British governor-general Curzon announced the partition of Bengal into two provinces-Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the rest of Bengal which included Bihar and parts of Orrisa.

The main political aim of the partition decision was a divide the Bengal population and to weaken the nationalist movement of which Bengal was the most important entre.

The British move was also to disrupt Hindu-Muslim unity by convincing upper class Muslims that the newly created province with its Muslim majority was in their interest. However, it only served to arouse and bring in all sections of the people in Bengal into an unprecedented mass movement which soon spread too many other parts of the country.

The anti-partition agitation assumed a militant from on August 7, 1905 when thousands of people at a meeting in Calcutta resolved to boycott British goods until the partition proposal was withdrawn.

The Partition of Bengal came into force on October 16, 1905 which day was observed as a day of national mourning throughout Bengal. It was during this movement that Swadeshi or use of Indian goods and boycott of British Goods became an integral part of the freedom struggle. At thousands of meeting people took the pledge of Swadeshi and boycott. Resolutions supporting Swadeshi and boycott were also passed at the Benares session of the Congress under the presidentship of Gokhle in December 1905, although the Moderates then and later tried to restrict their scope. The message of Swadeshi spread to the entire country and helped in promoting Indian Industries. A large number of educational institutions were also opened by nationalists and a National Council of Education was set up. The movement which had begun in Bengal over the question of partition was transformed into a wider movement for freedom of the country. The British rulers, in order to crush the rising tide of nationalism, unleashed naked repression.

Congress Resolutions on Partition, Swadeshi and Boycott Movement

At the annual session of the Congress held in 1906 in Calcutta, the resolutions passed at the preceding session (1905) against the Partition, were re-asserted and further resolutions were passed, supporting the Boycott and Swadeshi.

Some excerpts from the resolutions VI, VII and VIII read”

VI.       The Partition of Bengal-This Congress again records its emphatic protest against the Partition of Bengal and regrets that the present Government, while admitting that there were errors in the original plan and that it went wholly and decisively against the wishes of the majority of the people of Bengal, is disposed to look upon it as a settled fact….

This Congress, composed of representatives from all the Provinces of this country, desires earnestly to impress upon the British Parliament and the present Liberal Government that it will be not only just, but expedient to reverse or modify the partition in such a manner as to keep the entire Bengali speaking community under one undivided administration and thus restore contentment to so important a province as Bengal

VII.     Boycott Movement-Having regard to the fact that the people of this country have little or no voice in its administration, and that their representations to the Government do not receive due consideration, this Congress is of opinion that the Boycott Movement, inaugurated in Bengal by way of protest against the partition of that province was, and is legitimate.

VIII.    Swadeshi-This Congress accords its most cordial support to the Swadeshi Movement and calls upon the people .of the country to labour for its success by making earnest and sustained efforts to promote the growth of indigenous industries and to stimulate the production of indigenous articles by giving them preference, wherever practicable, over imported commodities, even at a sacrifice.

Widespread Protests at Meeting in Agra and Surat

Protest meetings against the Partition of Bengal were organised in all parts of the country on and after October 16, 1905.

From the Archives of the Amrita Basar Patrika.
AGRA CITY, Oct 22
At the Swadeshi Mass Meeting held in the Mankameshwar temple, over ten thousand people, both Hindus and Mahomedans, were present. Native Christians sent a sympathetic message explaining their absence that it was a Sunday. Lala Kedarnath Vakil was elected Chairman. The meeting commenced and terminated with singing national songs. A resolution was passed for the adoption of country-made goods….

Surat, Oct. 23…Public meeting of over 5000 people was held here-Parsis, Hindus, Mahomedans…. Israel and Native Christians attended. Lawyers, merchants, landlords, pensioners, artisans-in short, men of all classes and creeds assembled in the ball which was crowded to overflowing. Rai Bahadur Krishamukhram Mahata, retired Small Causes Court Judge, presided, supported by Divan Bahadur Ambalal Des     ai (Ahmedabad). Ali Mohamed Bhimji (Bombay) and Maulvi Abdul Halim Monghyr spoke in favour of the Swadeshi movement. Great enthusiasm prevailed. The proceedings lasted for three hours…. Handicrafts were exhibited A committee was formed to carry out the objects of the meetings.

Background of theBengal Partition and the Swadeshi Movement

What were Curzon’s  Aims  in Partitioning Bengal ?
The following  excepts from Curzon’s letter of February 2, 1905 to St. John Broderick, Secretary of state for India, give an idea of his aims in partitioning  Bengal.
“Calculation is the centre from which the congress party is manipulated throughout the whole of Bengal and indeed the whole of India. Its best wirepullers and its most frothy orators all reside here. The perfection of their machinery, and the tyranny which its enables them to exercise are truly remarkable. They dominate public opinion in Calcutta; they affect the high court; they frighten the local government and they are sometimes not without serious influence on the government of India.

The whole of their activity is directed to creating an agency so powerful that they may one day be able to force a weak government to give them what they desire. Any measure in consequence that would divide the Bengali-speaking population; that would permit independent centres of activity and influence to grow up; that would dethrone Calcutta from its place as the centre of successful intrigue, or that would weaken the influence of the lawyer class, who have the entire organization in their hands, is intensely and hotly resented by them. The outcry will be loud and very fierce, but as a native gentleman said to me-‘my countrymen always howl until a thing is settled; then they accept it’.

Partition Proclamation   
The text of the Partition of Bengal Proclamation issued from Simla on  September 1, 1905 is reproduced below:
The following Proclamation to which the sanction of His Majesty the King-Emperor of India has been signified by the secretary of state for India in council is published:
The governor general is pleased to constitute the territories at present under the administration of the chief commissioner of Assam to be for the purposes of the Indian councils Act 1861…a province to which the provisions of that Act touching the making of laws and regulations for the peace and good order of the presidencies of Fort St. George and Bombay shall be applicable and to direct that the said province shall be called and known as the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam…

2. The Governor General in council is pleased to specify the sixteenth day of October,1905 as the period at which the said provisions shall take effect and 15^th  as the number of councilors whom the Lieutenant Governor may nominate for his assistance in making laws and regulations.
3. The Governor General in council is further pleased and appoint that upon the constitution of the said province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, the districts of Decca, Mymensingh, Faridpur, Backergunge, Tippera, Noakhali, Chittagong, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Rangpur, Bogra, Pabna, and Malda which now form part of the Bengal Division of the Presidency of fort William Shall cases to be subject to or included within the limits of that Division, and shall thenceforth be subject to and included within the limits of the Lieutenant –Governorship of the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.

Calcutta in Morning
The first part of a news item, which appeared in the Amrita Bazaar Patrika of October 17, 1905 entitled “Calcutta  in Morning-A Unique Sight”, describing the situation in Calcutta on October 16, 1905, the day Bengal was partitioned, is given below.
Yesterday was one of the most memorable days in the history of the British administration of India. It being the day on which the Bengal partition scheme took effect, the day on which our unsympathetic government forced a measure by a proclamation in the official gazette against the wishes of the whole population, the day on which our rules tried to separate the Bengali speaking people of the East Bengal from those of the West Bengal, the people of Calcutta, irrespective of nationality, social position, creed and sex, observed it as a day of mourning. The leaders of the Bengali community-Hindus and Mahomedans-did not however silently mourn and weep. They did something more. They as a legacy to posterity and as a landmark to British administration laid the foundation of the Federation Hall. They also took a practical step towards the furtherance of the Swadeshi movement by opening the National Fund.

The Scene on the Bank of the Hooghly
From the small hours in the morning till noon, the bank of the Ganges from Bag bazaar to Howrah presented a unique spectacle. It looked, as if it were, a surging sea of human faces. From all streets, lanes and bye-lanes, leading to the bank a quick succession of streams of people all bare-footed-found their way to the bank to have a plunge in the sacred river.

As the day advanced, the gathering thickened more and more and by 10, about a lakh of the male population of the metropolis-all in mourning-thronged the bank and the Ghats of tender sex.

They cry of “Bande Mataram” now and then, broke the silence of the still air and reverberated through it imparting a chastening influence on the minds of those who gathered together there…innumerable processions consisting of scores and hundreds of men, after arriving at the bank of the sacred river and wearing Rakhi (yellow thread) proceeded in procession singing ‘Bande Matram’ all the way.

Several thousands of such processions passed all over the city especially the northern quarter of it from 8 am. To 2 pm. They accosted on the way everyone they met with “Bande Mataram” in embracing each other and putting on “Rakhi”. It was a sight for the gods to see….

Roads and Streets
The scene in the roads and streets of whole Calcutta was quite novel and was perhaps never before witnessed in any Indian city….No purchasers were there and thus no sellers had to exhibit their articles…All the mills were closed and the mill hands paraded the city in procession…The only cry that was heard was of “Bande Mataram” . Bands of Mahomedans and Marwari’s joined the processionists and greatly enhanced the enthusiasm.

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