Police recruitment

In 2025 alone, 60,242 candidates were appointed in the State police. Appointments to 32,679 posts of police constable and equivalent positions are ongoing in 2026. The Opposition states that such a large number of appointments signal that UP is moving towards a police state reports The Hindu.

Vibhuti Narain Rai, a retired Director General of Police-rank officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre and a 1975-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, said: “In nine years, the State under the governance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has utilised encounters as a means of crime control. It is limiting personal freedoms, uses extra-judicial methods of crime control like encounters and bulldozer actions; these trends of heavy policing and surveillance, with strict regulatory mechanisms, are indicators of a police state and hard state. The government is making the police uncivilised.”

“Such use of brute force will have long-term adverse consequences for the society at large. It is not that the previous government [before BJP came to power] was clean. They also used police force in a brute manner to target marginalised sections, but present circumstances have hardly had any parallel in recent history. The prevalence of encounters is rendering our society increasingly barbaric, which negatively impacts the development of our democratic system,” he further said.

Circumventing due process

Sulkhan Singh, a former DGP, said what U.P. is witnessing today is beyond the concept of a police state, adding that the State is normalising violence. “Uttar Pradesh is witnessing something beyond the concept of a police state, in a police state or security state. A kind of merit-based action may be harsh or regressive. But in U.P., presently we are seeing lawlessness and anarchy, where the police takes selective bulldozer-centric action or conduct encounters.”

The 1980-batch IPS officer, who also headed the State police force, added: “Encounters and bulldozer actions fundamentally undermine the criminal justice system by circumventing due process, cultivating a culture of impunity, and diminishing trust in law enforcement or police. These actions transform police officers into judges and executioners, infringing upon essential human rights and converting democratic accountability into autocracy. The State is normalising violence, ultimately fostering an environment where society accepts such violent actions as encounters and bulldozer justice as a form of ‘instant justice’. These actions infringe upon the right to life and security.”

The Congress has alleged that U.P. has been converted into a police state by using the pretext of law and order to unleash repressive actions impacting the policies and recruitment of officials in key sectors like education and health, which are prime movers of a civilised society.

Related:

Hashimpura a Blot and Shame, The Importance of Memory: Vibhuti Narain Rai

The Lemmings of Hashimpura – Vibhuti Narain Rai, retired officer of the Indian Police Force (IPS)

Hashimpura Aquittal, Tragic but not Unexpected : Vibhuti Narain Rai, IPS (retired)

The post Violence being normalised, U.P. moving towards police state, say retired cops appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Writer and researcher Anu Jain revisits Mahatma Gandhi’s closest political and personal bonds in this series which offers a timely reminder that transformative movements are built not only on charismatic leadership, but on the communities of conviction that grow around it.

For Gandhi, leadership was never a solitary endeavour. It was a collaborative, often demanding dialogue with a close circle of confidants who held up a mirror to him. 

This exclusive five-part series explores Gandhi’s deeply complex relationships with five remarkable contemporaries. Three visionary captains of industry who funded and anchored his radical socio-economic experiments, and two towering intellectual peers who served as his ultimate conscience keepers , who were willing to challenge his decisions when no one else dared. 

Together, these five bonds did more than just steer the course of the independence movement; they directly shaped the deeply personal, moral, and political choices of the Mahatma himself.

Read on the unique bond that Gandhi shared with Rabindranath Tagore here.

When the French philosopher Romain Rolland looked across the global landscape of the early twentieth century, he observed a magnificent, unprecedented spectacle unfolding on the Indian subcontinent. He described it as the simultaneous gathering of “two great rivers”, towering, majestic currents of human thought flowing from vastly different geographical and spiritual sources. Yet, rushing forward to nourish the very same civilisational soil. One river was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the other was Rabindranath Tagore.

Theirs was a relationship that defied the ordinary grammar of political alliances or personal friendships. It stands as one of the most remarkable intellectual and moral engagements in human history, a thirty-year “noble debate” that fundamentally expanded the moral vocabulary of freedom.

They did not always walk in lockstep, in fact, they disagreed on almost everything from the economy of the spinning wheel to the very meaning of a nation. Yet, their relationship was defined by a rare, luminous intellectual companionship where dissent itself became an act of profound love. They did not argue to defeat one another, but to refine one another.

In an era where differences so often degenerate into hatred, the story of Gandhi and Tagore reminds us that a nation’s soul is not built on a fragile, forced consensus, but on the capacity of its greatest minds to disagree with absolute dignity.

“Mahatma” and “Gurudev”

The very names by which history remembers these two titans are beautiful, poetic gifts they bestowed upon each other. To the world, Gandhi became the Mahatma (The Great Soul), and Tagore became Gurudev (The Divine Teacher). Yet, the historical roots of these titles reveal a far more fascinating, layered evolution than popular memory suggests.

The sacred title of “Mahatma” was not suddenly invented by Tagore in a vacuum. Long before it became a household word, Gandhi’s closest confidant and financial supporter, Dr. Pranjivan Mehta, had quietly used the term in private correspondence, most notably in a deeply perceptive letter to the moderate leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale, recognising the saintly quality of the lawyer returning from South Africa.

But it was Tagore who took this private whisper and transformed it into a thunderous national reality. Using the immense weight of his global literary authority, Tagore publicly crowned Gandhi with the title, giving the illiterate millions of India a vocabulary of reverence for the man in the loincloth.

Gandhi, in turn, bowed before the poet’s towering cultural and philosophical mastery, christening him Gurudev. This exchange of titles was a beautiful, public contract of mutual recognition: an acknowledgement that while one was the undisputed master of political action, the other was the sovereign ruler of the human mind.

Capital and Culture

Nowhere did this hidden current of solidarity manifest more beautifully than in the physical sanctuary of Santiniketan, Tagore’s legendary open-air educational experiment in Bengal. Founded on the romantic ideals of intellectual freedom, artistic expression, and global humanism, Santiniketan was a paradise of the soul but a recurring nightmare for the checkbook. The ashram-school was chronically broke, permanently burdened by debt, and dependant entirely on personal donations and the fading physical energy of its ageing founder.

By the mid-1930s, the crisis had reached a breaking point. Tagore, already in his frail seventies, felt compelled to pack his bags and travel across the country with a student performance troupe, staging plays in cities like Delhi just to collect a few scattered rupees to keep his school alive. Hearing of this, Gandhi was deeply shaken.

Though Gandhi had spent decades publicly criticising elite, literary, and urban-centred education, advocating instead for basic manual training (Nai Talim), he refused to let his ideological disagreements blind him to Santiniketan’s civilisational value. He recognised that if Tagore’s school died, a vital lung of the Indian spirit would stop breathing.

Gandhi immediately dipped his pen in ink and sent a deeply emotional letter to the poet, telling him that it broke his heart to see the great Seer of India begging for funds on the public stage. Gandhi vowed to strain “every nerve” to lift this financial anvil from the poet’s shoulders.

True to his word, Gandhi deployed his silent network of wealthy industrialists. Within a matter of months, he slipped a Rs. 60,000 bank draft, an astronomical fortune at the time, into an envelope and sent it to Bengal with a triumphant message:

“God has blessed my poor effort. And here is the money. Now you will relieve the public mind by announcing the cancellation of the rest of the programme.”

With characteristic moral delicacy, Gandhi never told Tagore where the money came from. He purposefully concealed the fact that the entire sum had been cut from the checkbook of his close supporter, the industrialist Ghanshyam Das Birla.

This single episode completely dismantles any simplistic caricature of Gandhi and Tagore as bitter ideological enemies. Here was Gandhi acting as the silent, invisible bridge between industrial capital and artistic culture, using the wealth of a billionaire to protect the independence of a poet who regularly criticised his political movements. Santiniketan was no longer just Tagore’s dream, it had become a shared moral investment for the entire nation.

Fault Lines of Two Minds

The grand public debates between Gandhi and Tagore were carried out in the pages of journals like Young India and The Modern Review. They were watched with bated breath by millions of citizens, offering a masterclass in intellectual integrity. Their arguments were not petty squabbles, they were foundational clashes between two completely different visions of human liberation.

For Gandhi, Satyagraha was the ultimate weapon of human liberation, a “soul-force” or “love-force” rooted in absolute truth and self-suffering. Gandhi believed that by fasting and absorbing suffering without retaliation, an individual could melt the heart of the most brutal oppressor.

Tagore, however, watched this with deep intellectual scepticism. While he marvelled at Gandhi’s personal purity, he terrified himself with the thought of what happens when Satyagraha is mass-produced for millions of uneducated followers. He feared that for the masses, Satyagraha would cease to be an active moral choice and would instead become a form of blind, hypnotic obedience, a mechanical ritual that substituted one form of conformity for another. Tagore argued that India’s deep disease was a “slave mentality,” and the cure was a sharp, intellectual awakening of the individual mind, not the emotional intoxication of mass rallies.

Gandhi defined Swaraj (Self-rule) as something far deeper than merely replacing a British governor with an Indian prime minister. He defined it as not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of the capacity of all to resist authority when it is abused.

For Gandhi, Swaraj was an exercise in rigorous self-restraint, localised governance, and decentralised village power. Tagore, conversely, was deeply suspicious of the very machinery of the modern political state. In his seminal essay The Call of Truth, he warned that an indigenous government could be just as cold, cruel, and oppressive as a foreign one if the minds of the people remained chained to dogma and superstition. To Tagore, true Swaraj was not a political flag flying over a parliament building, it was the total liberation of the human spirit, a mind that was completely fearless, creative, and open to the cosmos.

The Charkha

Perhaps no object symbolised their deep divide more dramatically than the Charkha, the wooden spinning wheel. Gandhi elevated the Charkha into a holy sacrament. He demanded that every Indian, whether doctor, lawyer, or peasant, spend at least half an hour every single day spinning cotton. For Gandhi, the Charkha was a brilliant economic weapon against British textiles, a direct link to the suffering of the starving millions, and a beautiful lesson in physical labour.

Tagore openly revolted against this directive in his provocative 1925 essay, The Cult of the Charkha. He argued that forcing a brilliant scientist, an artist, or an intellectual to spin a wheel for thirty minutes a day was an insult to human intelligence. He called it a monotonous, mind-numbing exercise that deadened creativity, pointing out that India’s crippling poverty could only be solved through modern science, agricultural machinery, and creative engineering, not by turning the entire population into uniform, spinning automatons.

Gandhi hit back with fierce, poetic passion, writing that to a starving man, God can only appear in the form of bread, and that spinning was a beautiful form of collective prayer for a broken country.

Clash of Reason

The most explosive and revealing confrontation between the two men occurred in the early months of 1934, following a monstrous, cataclysmic earthquake that ripped through the province of Bihar, flattening cities and killing thousands.

Gandhi, travelling through South India at the time, made a public announcement that stunned the intellectual elite. He declared that the devastating earthquake was not a random geological accident, but a direct, divine punishment sent by God to avenge the ancient sin of untouchability. He argued that the earth had literally fractured because high-caste Hindus had spent centuries fracturing the dignity of their Dalit brothers and sisters.

Tagore was profoundly appalled by this statement. He immediately published a blistering, public rebuke, accusing Gandhi of spreading dangerous, unscientific irrationalism. Tagore argued that physical laws operate blindly across the universe, entirely independent of human ethics. To tell uneducated villagers that a physical earthquake was caused by moral sins, Tagore warned, was to reinforce the very forces of blind superstition and fatalism that kept India backward.

Yet, even in this moment of raw, public collision, the exquisite tone of their engagement remained intact. Gandhi did not attack Tagore’s character, nor did his followers burn the poet’s books. Gandhi published his defence in Harijan, calmly stating that while he bowed to the poet’s superior scientific knowledge, he possessed an unshakeable faith in the mysterious connection between cosmic events and human morality.

Their public letters became a legendary historical archive: an unforgettable proof that two human beings could fiercely debate the laws of physics and God without losing a single ounce of mutual love.

Conversions at the Horizon

For all their spectacular public battles, if one travels down these two great rivers to their ultimate destination, they converge on the exact same moral horizon. Beneath the surface noise of their debates lay an absolute, unbreakable unity of purpose: a shared, uncompromising devotion to human dignity.

Tagore spent his entire life warning the world against the horrific, mechanical monster of aggressive nationalism, describing it as a soul-crushing apparatus that destroys human freedom. Gandhi, though the commander-in-chief of a massive nationalist movement, arrived at the exact same conclusion. He repeatedly stated that his vision of nationalism was completely inclusive, and that he supported independence only so that a free India could voluntarily surrender its sovereignty to a democratic world federation grounded in non-violence.

This deep spiritual convergence was recognised by Tagore himself during a quiet visit to the Sabarmati Ashram. Standing before the community, the poet remarked that the true meaning of the “Mahatma” was a man who had successfully realised his own inner self within the heartbeat of all humanity, completely melting away the artificial walls of nation, caste, and identity.

The Modern Verdict

The long, brilliant dialogue between Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore was never resolved. When Tagore drew his last breath in 1941, followed a few years later by Gandhi’s martyrdom in 1948, they left behind two completely distinct, unmerged blueprints for the liberation of the human race. Tagore passed away still sceptical of mass politics, Gandhi died still committed to it. Tagore remained the champion of intellectual cosmopolitanism, Gandhi remained the high priest of localised ethical discipline.

Yet, the ultimate significance of their relationship lies precisely within that unresolved tension. They proved to the world that harmony does not mean uniformity. In our modern twenty-first-century landscape, a fractured world deeply polluted by tribalism, echo chambers, cancel culture, and instant polarisation, their “noble debate” shines across the decades like a burning beacon of hope.

They leave behind an immortal, luminous standard for the intellectual life of global democracy. A lesson that true respect does not mean silent acquiescence, and that critique is the highest form of solidarity. Gandhi and Tagore remind us until the end of time that we can hold completely different versions of the truth, we can fight fiercely over the pathways of freedom, and yet we can still march hand-in-hand toward the liberation of the human soul.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post Gandhi and Tagore: Reverence, Argument and Intellectual Courage appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The poem opens with a startling metaphor that establishes its fundamental concern: “In my hands / there was a poem, and in my mind / an X-ray of the intestines.” Here, poetry becomes not aesthetic pleasure but clinical examination, exposing the biological reality of hunger that political rhetoric so often obscures. Language itself has fallen under the grip of market and power, transformed into “the trademark on a medicine bottle circulating in the bloodstream.” Words no longer root themselves in lived experience but have become commodities for consumption, a condition that Dhoomil exposes throughout the poem. When the poet steps outside and utters the word “freedom,” even his own voice sounds unfamiliar—an estrangement that reveals how the idea of freedom exists within consciousness while its social reality remains unfulfilled.

The poem traces the journey from post-Independence hope through disillusionment to the search for resistance. Dhoomil captures the initial euphoria when “new shoots in the fields resemble children exercising their limbs,” but gradually measures the distance between promise and reality. The repeated refrain “I kept waiting” exhausts hope itself as words like democracy, freedom, culture, and peace—initially radiant promises—are reduced to hollow incantations. The tragedy lies precisely in the growing gulf between language and lived reality, a gap that becomes the poem’s central concern.

Read through Raymond Williams’s concept of “structure of feeling,” “Patakatha” reconstructs the emotional world of a historical moment when the nation dreamed of reinventing itself, only to encounter the persistence of hunger, inequality, and political deception. Williams’s framework of dominant, residual, and emergent cultures illuminates the poem’s layers: the dominant culture of official democratic vocabulary, the residual culture of freedom struggle memories and moral values, and the emergent culture embodied in the restless spirit of the poet’s alter ego who urges him to “Rise and give shape to your boredom.”

Stuart Hall’s theories of representation and ideological construction further deepen our understanding of how Dhoomil exposes the machinery of power. Hall argues that language does not merely reflect reality but actively constructs it, and Dhoomil demonstrates how words employed by those in power become the terms through which society understands itself. Democracy, socialism, national interest—these terms gradually lose ethical significance and become ideological instruments serving power’s interests. When the people are persuaded they live in a democracy “where horses and grass enjoy the same freedom,” Dhoomil exposes the ideological construction that makes citizens accept their own subordination as natural.

Michel Foucault’s conception of power as productive rather than merely repressive proves exceptionally illuminating. Dhoomil refuses to confine power to government or state institutions, instead showing how it extends through Parliament, elections, administration, media, nationalism, development, education, and language itself. Every society constructs its own “regime of truth,” and post-Independence India appears engaged in manufacturing its own truth—that democracy has arrived, development progresses, elections celebrate the people’s will. Through constant repetition, these assertions acquire the status of social truth, but Dhoomil subjects this manufactured truth to the test of lived experience, dismantling the official regime of truth created by power. The celebrated line “For a hungry man, bread is the greatest argument” represents from a Foucauldian perspective not merely a social reality but a confrontation between fundamentally opposed discourses—the language of power speaking of development and nationhood, and the discourse of the hungry citizen speaking only of bread.

The Marxist reading of the poem reveals that Dhoomil analyses a society that attained formal independence while leaving fundamental social and economic relations largely unchanged. Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony becomes particularly relevant as Dhoomil repeatedly shows that the people do not support power solely through fear but because they have been persuaded this is democracy and national interest. The popular leader becomes not simply an individual but a political myth, and the people follow him because their hopes have become invested in him. Elections, generally celebrated as democracy’s greatest achievement, reveal instead the consciousness within which they operate—the people repeatedly restore the very system that fails to transform their lives. Louis Althusser’s concept of interpellation illuminates how the citizen is hailed as patriot, responsible voter, and nation-builder, gradually understanding himself through these prescribed identities, voting and trusting the system responsible for his own exploitation.

The deconstructive reading of “Patakatha” reveals its profound distrust of political language. Dhoomil demonstrates how words such as democracy, freedom, peace, and socialism, through endless repetition, lose ethical credibility. The apparent stability of these terms dissolves as the poem exposes the widening gap between words and the social realities they claim to represent. Democracy initially signifies hope, later becomes associated with electoral process, then the language of power, and finally the symbol of irony where people appear present while remaining absent. Freedom transforms from celebration into uncertainty and waiting. Socialism becomes not a political programme but a slogan, reduced to “buckets labelled ‘Fire’ but filled only with sand and water.” Dhoomil does not reject these concepts but demonstrates that their public meanings and lived social realities no longer correspond, exposing the internal contradictions through which political language performs the opposite of its claimed function.

The critique of nationalism in the poem redefines the nation not as abstract ideal or political symbol but as the lived experience of the ordinary citizen. Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community” is tested against Indian social experience, asking where within that community the hungry, unemployed, and humiliated citizen resides. Dhoomil approaches the nation not from pride but responsibility, recognising that nationalism cannot be merely celebratory but must acknowledge shared suffering. The nation is no longer Parliament or government policy but becomes a wounded body—the alter ego who declares “I am Hindustan,” relocating the idea of nation from state authority to the body and experience of the citizen.

The psychoanalytic dimension reveals that political crisis ultimately becomes psychological crisis. The poem’s structure reflects a mind incapable of stable conclusion, unfolding through memories, inner monologues, symbols, and unexpected shifts. The alter ego embodies the poet’s divided self, his repressed political consciousness, his moral conscience—that living presence within his unconscious compelling him to confront truth. The appearance of this figure follows the logic of dreams more than external reality, suggesting that resistance must first be born within consciousness itself.

In the context of contemporary “post-truth” politics, “Patakatha” appears remarkably prescient. Dhoomil had already anticipated a political culture where language’s purpose is no longer to express truth but to conceal it, replace it with politically manufactured reality. The poem establishes hunger as the most reliable form of truth precisely because it cannot lie while political words can. Throughout the poem, a continual conflict persists between political proclamations and the lived experiences of ordinary citizens, elevating the work beyond satire and transforming it into a poem in search of truth.

When situated within world political poetry, “Patakatha” stands alongside the works of Muktibodh, Faiz, Brecht, Neruda, Hikmet, and Darwish. Like Brecht, Dhoomil creates a critical language compelling readers to reconsider democracy, Parliament, and development. Like Neruda, he stands on the side of human dignity. Like Darwish, he defines the nation through human experience rather than state power. Yet Dhoomil’s voice remains distinctive—harsher, more sceptical, yet never abandoning democratic values even while criticising democracy, never losing faith in the language of humanity even while deconstructing the language of power.

Ultimately, “Patakatha” offers what is essentially a cultural biography of post-Independence India’s collective consciousness. Its enduring relevance lies in reminding us that democracy is protected not merely through institutions and elections but through preserving a truthful relationship between language and life, between power and the ordinary citizen, between the nation as proclaimed and the nation as lived. In the final analysis, Dhoomil’s poem is neither rejection of democracy nor celebration of it, but its most profound moral examination—a testament that the true test of democracy lies not in parliamentary proceedings but in the life of the hungry, fearful, and humiliated citizen who remains the measure of everything.

*Professor and former Head (Retd.), Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad. This is the abridged version of the author’s original paper

Courtesy: CounterView

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Scheduled for August 2 at the institute’s Mumbai campus, the convocation was called off barely two days before the ceremony. Students received an email from the Registrar shortly after midnight on July 31 stating that the event had been postponed due to “unforeseen circumstances.” No explanation accompanied the announcement.

According to The Indian Express, the decision was formally communicated to students through a late-night email from the Registrar, while the institute later issued a public statement saying only that the ceremony could not be conducted in a “conducive environment.” The administration has since maintained that the convocation will be rescheduled at the earliest.

The last-minute decision came after hundreds of graduating students and their families had already booked flights, train tickets, accommodation and made travel arrangements from across the country and abroad. For many, the postponement represented not merely an inconvenience but a significant financial burden and the loss of a once-in-a-lifetime academic milestone. 

Security concerns reportedly linked to CJI’s visit

Although TISS never officially announced the identity of its chief guest, The Indian Express reported that Chief Justice of India Surya Kant was scheduled to preside over the ceremony. The newspaper, citing institute officials and students, reported that discussions had been ongoing within the administration regarding security arrangements because of concerns that demonstrations linked to the continuing Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) movement could occur during the convocation.

One institute official, quoted by The Indian Express, stated that while the CJI’s visit had never been formally publicised, it was “common knowledge” on campus and there were concerns about possible protests targeting the chief guest.

Similarly, The Quint, citing graduating students and student representatives, reported that the administration had deliberately refrained from officially announcing the Chief Guest because it anticipated protests. One graduating student anonymously told the publication that “everyone knew” the CJI was expected to attend even though no formal announcement had been made.

Students also told The Indian Express that police personnel had visited the campus in the days preceding the ceremony as part of security preparations. The Quint further reported that a security meeting involving senior police officers was held on July 30, a day before the postponement was announced.

Administration offers little explanation

Following widespread criticism, TISS later issued a public statement asserting that the Institute had assessed that the ceremony could not be held “in a conducive environment.” 

The official notification can be viewed here.

The statement said proceeding with the convocation could have affected the wellbeing of students, faculty, staff, dignitaries, guests and campus life. However, it stopped short of explaining what precisely had rendered the environment unconducive. This carefully worded explanation leaves more questions than answers.

If the decision was based upon a concrete security assessment, the institute has not disclosed its nature. If there existed credible intelligence regarding potential violence, that too has not been shared. Instead, the administration has relied upon vague terminology while expecting students to accept the cancellation of one of the most significant events of their academic lives without meaningful justification.

The institute announced that it would examine requests for financial assistance arising from the postponement on a case-by-case basis and assured students that provisional degree certificates and other academic documents would be made available through the prescribed procedure. It also stated that the convocation would be rescheduled. 

While these measures may mitigate some practical consequences, they cannot compensate for the disruption caused by a decision communicated only days before the ceremony.

Allegations of intimidation on campus

The postponement also unfolded against a backdrop of increasing political tension on campus. According to The Indian Express, students said discussions had been taking place for several days regarding possible demonstrations during the convocation because the CJP movement continued to resonate with many students.

Meanwhile, The Quint reported allegations that WhatsApp groups associated with right-wing organisations circulated messages warning students that anyone attempting to protest during the convocation could face FIRs, arrest and disciplinary consequences. Screenshots of such messages were published by the publication.

One graduating student told The Quint that the atmosphere on campus had become increasingly hostile in the days leading up to the convocation, with students allegedly being warned that any form of protest could damage their careers and placement prospects.

Members of the Progressive Students’ Forum (PSF), quoted by The Quint, further claimed that when students questioned the Dean of Student Affairs regarding the postponement, they were informed that it was due to “security reasons.”

Student organisations demand accountability

The Progressive Students’ Forum criticised the decision, arguing that it reflected a broader pattern of administrative failures affecting graduating students. In a statement, the organisation noted that delays in declaration of final results and issuance of degree certificates had already adversely impacted students applying for employment and higher education opportunities. The postponement of the convocation, it argued, compounded these existing difficulties while damaging the institution’s credibility. Student representatives also questioned why degree distribution itself could not proceed even if the formal convocation ceremony was postponed.

As reported by The Quint, elected representatives met the Registrar seeking clarification after the announcement. Students present at the meeting alleged that the Registrar repeatedly referred only to “unforeseen circumstances” while declining to provide any substantive explanation.

The publication also reported that the administration later declared August 3 a non-instructional day without addressing students’ demands for greater transparency regarding the postponement. For many students, this reinforced concerns that the administration’s priority had shifted from engaging with students to preventing gatherings on campus.

Universities cannot function on speculation

Universities have historically served as spaces where disagreement, political engagement and democratic participation coexist alongside academic life. The possibility that some students may express dissent during a public function cannot, by itself, justify cancelling that function altogether.

Peaceful protest is protected under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution, subject only to reasonable restrictions. Administrative inconvenience or apprehension of embarrassment cannot become substitutes for concrete threats to public order. Where genuine security concerns exist, universities possess numerous less restrictive alternatives: enhanced security arrangements, controlled access, designated protest zones and coordination with law enforcement. Resorting immediately to cancellation represents the most restrictive response available and inevitably burdens the very students whose achievements the institution is meant to celebrate.

Equally concerning is the opacity surrounding the decision-making process. When an institution invokes vague “unforeseen circumstances” and point towards anticipated protests surrounding a constitutional functionary, the absence of transparency inevitably fuels speculation.

Students pay the highest price

Lost amid discussions about security and protocol are the students themselves. Convocation is more than a ceremonial event. For many first-generation learners and families from distant parts of the country, it represents years of sacrifice, financial struggle and academic perseverance. By postponing the ceremony at the eleventh hour without a clear explanation, the administration transferred the consequences of its decision almost entirely onto graduating students.

Whether the postponement ultimately stemmed from genuine security assessments or merely apprehensions about possible dissent, the episode reflects an increasingly familiar pattern within Indian universities. Across campuses, administrative responses to anticipated protests have increasingly prioritised pre-emptive restrictions over engagement. Events are curtailed, permissions withdrawn and public functions altered not because disorder has occurred, but because authorities fear that dissent might emerge. Such decisions risk transforming universities from spaces of intellectual exchange into institutions governed by precautionary control. Until the institute provides a fuller account of why the ceremony could not proceed, questions surrounding transparency, institutional accountability and the balance between security and democratic freedoms are likely to remain unanswered. The institution’s silence has not merely postponed a convocation—it has deepened anxieties about whether India’s universities are increasingly willing to curtail normal academic life in response to the mere possibility of protest, rather than uphold both security and the democratic values they are meant to foster.

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Gumiapal is a small village in Dantewada district that remained under Maoist control until very recently. I first visited Gumiapal many years ago when I was trying to meet the Maoist leader Ganesh Uike (not his real name), who exercised firm control over the region. There was no electricity then—and in parts of Gumiapal, that is still the case. I vividly remember Ganesh Uike telling me how solar power and LED lights had transformed his revolutionary life.

He was a voracious reader. “Earlier, I used to read beside a bonfire,” he told me. “During the day there was never any time, and nights without LED lights made reading almost impossible.” To reach him, we literally crossed the red-coloured waters of the Shankhini River, stained by iron ore dust from the nearby mines of the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC). The river, the principal source of drinking water for many villagers, had become completely unfit for consumption.

Aarti Sponge obtained a mining lease for the Tularmeta Hills in 2017, covering 31.55 hectares within Gumiapal panchayat. Yet it could not begin mining because of Maoist opposition. Following the Maoists’ withdrawal earlier this year, democratic protests emerged alongside renewed efforts by the company to commence mining. The Gram Sabha conducted earlier had been dismissed by villagers as a sham. About two months ago, however, reports began to emerge of a dialogue between the company and the villagers.

Earlier this month, villagers belonging to the registered Malla Moitor Gram Vikas Samiti—named after Malla Moitor, the tribal deity of the Tularmeta Hills—submitted a MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (MoU) between the company and the village committee to the District Collector. Mining operations have now commenced. At first glance, however, the MoU appears weak. It states that the company will provide 10 per cent of its CSR allocation directly to the village committee. CSR and royalty, however, are entirely different concepts.

I hope the district administration will help draft a stronger agreement—one that provides the villagers with a defined share of royalty or a production-linked share of profits to create a permanent Village Development Fund. While the present MoU refers to routine labour benefits, it makes no commitment to guaranteed local employment or skill development. A village committee has been constituted to oversee mining operations, but the agreement is silent on what happens if the company ignores its recommendations.

In short, the MoU appears amateurish and requires considerable strengthening. For the moment, villagers are pleased that employment has come to their doorstep, sparing many of them the annual migration to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in search of work. Yet the agreement does little to protect their long-term interests. Ironically, many social activists who could have contributed to strengthening the agreement remain occupied with protests and anti-mining padyatras (foot marches).

Somaru Kadti, an independently elected Zila Panchayat member from one of the affected villages, says: “Earlier, everyone opposed mining. Now, almost everyone in my area supports it. I don’t know whether they are right or wrong, but I could not join the protest rallies because I have to stand with my people. In fact, hardly anyone from the affected villages attended those rallies. Most participants came from outside our area.”

Soni Sori, one of the leading protesters, offers a different perspective: “When we opposed mining, we stood together. Now that some people support mining, that decision too should be taken collectively. Everyone from South Bastar—not just the people of Gumiapal—must decide because the Tularmeta Hills belong to all of us. People accuse me of taking money from the company, but what has really happened is that the company has succeeded in dividing the Adivasi community. That is the tragedy.”

The Gumiapal MoU should be viewed as a work in progress. Much remains to be improved. Yet it also offers a small ray of hope in the long-contested debate over mining reform in central India, where jhagra remains the defining reality. The current social and political context presents a historic opportunity—one that should be seized by building trust between Adivasi communities, mining companies and the state.

Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in China after the Communist Revolution. The campaign itself failed to deliver the economic transformation it promised during his lifetime, though China later emerged as a global manufacturing power under very different policies. Likewise, an absolute “no mining” position is unlikely to be a practical solution today. The Gumiapal MoU, despite all its shortcomings, may point towards something more achievable: better mining—mining that gradually expands ownership, benefits and decision-making power for local communities.

Can mining one day brighten the lives of Adivasis as dramatically as LED lights once brightened the life of Ganesh Uike? This question rings out alternatively loud and muffled in contemporary Chhattisgarh, even as the state copes with new social and political realities.

Courtesy: theaidem.com

The post A Small Leap Forward: Chhattisgarh, Mining, Democracy and Gumipal appeared first on SabrangIndia.

(O Lord Rama, soft rains drizzle down and flow, As Queen Radha swings where the monsoon breezes blow! With her Lord she swings in Vrindavan’s green shade, With dark Shyam she sways as the thick clouds pervade, Dark rain-laden skies overhead are displayed! O Lord Rama, soft rains drizzle down and flow, As Queen Radha swings where the monsoon breezes blow! Her anklets chime softly, her glass bangles ring, In the sweet woods of Madhuban, wild peacocks dance and sing! O Lord Rama, soft rains drizzle down and flow, As Queen Radha swings where the monsoon breezes blow).

This Kajri lyric captures the essence of the celebration that the folks collectively break into at the advent of Sawan, bringing the rains that wash the multi-coloured oleander, hibiscus and champa blossoms, and green leaves of Mahua, Peepal, Banyan, Mango and Guava trees dotting the landscape of Purvanchal, Western Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh along the Ganges.

The Kajri primarily emerged from the rhymes of life in the Gangetic belt. It’s hard to trace the time of its origin. It might have emerged with the pastoral people settling down as agriculturalists in the plains of North India. It chimed with the brass and copper bells around the necks of plough oxen, echoed against the grey, overcast skies, silver ropes of rain and mingled with the scent of earth—sondhi mitti—the features of a settled agricultural economy. It reflected life’s humdrum as well as merriment.

In the folk tradition of the Indo-Gangetic plains, Radha and Krishna were never distant, abstract deities. Radha became the village girl whose heart yearned during the long rains; Krishna became the dark, rain-bearing cloud (Ghanshyam) that promised bounty to the parched earth. To put Radha on a swing (jhula) was to invite grace into the everyday domesticity of rural life.

In the folk music of the Gangetic plain, the phrase “Hare Rama” acts as the traditional Tek (refrain or rhythmic anchor), providing the foundational beat, pulse, and vocal hook that sets the song’s tempo. By opening with this familiar spiritual invocation, the song grounds the listeners before gracefully shifting into the playful, intimate story of Radha and Krishna swinging in the Sawan rains.

Lived Experience

Yours truly was born, brought up and grew in the mud and soil of a typical village of Purvanchal along the river Saryu on the Bihar-Uttar Pradesh border. It was in the 1960s and 70s when oxen still were the pride of farmers at their doors. The villagers still had men and women—young and old—breaking into Kajri and Virha while sowing paddy seedlings and ploughing the muddy fields with oxen.

The peasants would create smoke at the doors to keep the mosquitoes away from the cattle and comfort the cows that returned from the grazing fields in the fading light of the setting sun. The village boys and girls would pluck oleander and hibiscus flowers to give them to their mothers, grandmothers and aunts and help them do Sawani puja of Kali Mai, who lived under a sprawling Neem tree in every village.

Every village had its share of Kajri singers who broke into the chorus of the lyric as they escorted their oxen to the field or sowed paddy seedlings.

The Genesis

The word Kajri itself stems from Kajal (kohl), mirroring the dense, dark, water-laden clouds of Sawan that gather over the Gangetic plains. Folk traditions deeply trace the geographical heartland of Kajri to Mirzapur (along the Ganges in UP). Legend speaks of a local princess named Kajali, who wept in deep separation (viraha) when her husband was sent away to war during the monsoon.

Her mournful songs resonated with local women and evolved into a ritualistic celebration. Another tradition links its origin to the worship of Goddess Vindhyavasini in Mirzapur, where devotees sang praises for protection before the rains.

In its semi-classical and urban folk forms, Kajri is almost always set to Dadra Taal (a light, swaying 6/8 or six-beat cycle: Dha Dhina / Na Tina). The 6/8 rhythm naturally matches the motion of a swing (jhula) rising and falling, as well as the gait of oxen in the mud.

Amir Khusrau’s innovation of early prototypes of the tabla and his development of Hindavi (Awadhi/Bhojpuri mixed with Persian influence) laid the foundation for secular, cross-community folk music in Northern India. Because Sawan is a seasonal and agricultural reality rather than a purely sectarian one, Kajri functioned as a shared cultural space.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Muslim and Hindu ustads and local performers alike composed, played, and improvised Kajris. The Dangal (poetic and musical duels) of Kajri in Mirzapur and Varanasi saw musicians of all castes and creeds competing side-by-side.

Men migrating for work left women to face the charged monsoon alone; the song became a vessel for viraha (longing) and emotional release.

The great courtesans and masters of the Classical Banaras Gharana, like Rasoolan Bai, Siddheshwari Devi, and Girija Devi, brought the rural, earth-scented Kajri into formal classical concerts.

In traditional villages, there are two distinct ways Kajri was performed: unaccompanied or accompanied only by a dholak or simple handclaps, sung in a collective chorus by women while swinging or transplanting paddy (roponi); or performed with harmonium and tabla in village gatherings or urban akharas, where male and female poets exchanged improvised couplets (Sawaal-Jawab). This dual nature—how a song born in the wet soil of paddy fields found its way into the formal baithaks with harmonium and tabla while preserving its inclusive, syncretic soul.

Era of Degeneration

Till the 1970s and the middle of the 1980s, the villages of Purvanchal had ubiquitous wells with oleander flowers and banyan trees canopying them. The villagers used the wells to bathe, drink water, and channel the water from them into their fields. The oxen and desi cows were still there, and so were ploughmen and cowherds. But the last three and a half decades have witnessed a metamorphosis in the village life of Purvanchal.

The smoke of diesel from pumping sets, tractors, and harvesters hits the nostrils when one travels in the villages of Purvanchal now. The oxen have vanished, and so have the singers of Kajri and Viraha. Of course, one can hear and even enjoy them in the videos and reels on Instagram and Facebook. But the people who lived with Kajri and Viraha have vanished from the villages.

And the village festivals, too, have degenerated into instruments of division and hate—the biggest example is the Kanwar Yatra, which, too, had its syncretic past and requires another column to explain its harmonious roots.

But the politicians—particularly those belonging to the Hindutva stream—have transformed the Kanwariyas into a band of rogues and have been using the Kanwar Yatras to intimidate minorities and attack their eateries and restaurants on the way in the name of maintaining purity and vegetarianism.

But be it Kajri or Kanwariyas—both emerged from the soil, adding to the rhyme of village life in Purvanchal. The purpose of writing this column is to preserve the stories, songs, and lyrics of Purvanchal that nurtured love, harmony, and co-existence for generations till the emergence of the Hindutva brand of politicians rewriting the story of India that is Bharat in their own diabolical ways.

O Generation-Z! You have every reason to be proud of your forefathers who lived singing the songs and lyrics of love and harmony for centuries before the despoilers took over. Get back to your roots to root out the merchants of hate who have taken over your cultures and traditions.

Nalin Verma is a journalist and author. He teaches at Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi. He has written multiple books. Nalin’s latest books include ‘Lores of Love and Saint Gorakhnath’ and ‘Sacred Unions and Other Stories: Tales from Purvanchal’.

Courtesy: The AIDEM

The post Kajri: When the Village Sang Together in “Sawan” appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to the notification, the SIR is underway across the state and every voter whose name is already included in the existing electoral roll is required to fill the enumeration form and submit it to the concerned Booth Level Officer (BLO). The BLO will visit voters at their residences to collect the completed forms by August 8, 2026.

The notification states that the names of voters who submit the duly filled and signed enumeration forms will be included in the draft electoral roll scheduled for publication on August 17, 2026.

Schedules for inclusion, corrections and objections

The schedule states that eligible voters whose names do not appear in the draft electoral roll, as well as new eligible voters, may apply for inclusion by submitting Form 6 along with the prescribed declaration and supporting documents during the claims and objections period from August 17 to September 16, 2026.

The applications will be verified by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) before eligible names are included in the final electoral roll.

The document further states that voters seeking correction of entries in the electoral roll may submit Form 8 during the claims and objections period. It also provides that any voter in the concerned constituency may seek deletion of an entry from the draft electoral roll by filing Form 7.

Provision on false declarations

The July 27 notification refers to Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, stating that any person making a false declaration or statement while applying for inclusion, correction or deletion of a name in the electoral roll is liable to imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or fine, or both.

Final electoral roll scheduled for October 19

The July 27 notification also re-affirms that the final electoral roll will be published on October 19, 2026.

It further states that publication of the final electoral roll does not conclude the process of updating electoral records. Referring to Sections 22 and 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, it states that entries in the electoral roll may continue to be corrected and eligible persons whose names are not included may apply for inclusion through Form 6 even after publication of the final roll.

It also states that correction of electoral rolls is a continuous process and that, under Section 23(3) of the Act, such corrections may be carried out up to the last date for filing nominations for any election.

Revised SIR schedule

Separately, the Election Commission has revised the schedule for the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra with October 1, 2026 as the qualifying date. The revised programme was communicated to the Chief Electoral Officer, Maharashtra through a letter dated July 15, 2026, replacing the schedule issued on May 14, 2026.

Under the revised schedule, house-to-house visits by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will continue from June 30, 2026 to August 8, 2026. Rationalisation and re-arrangement of polling stations has been fixed for August 8, 2026. The draft electoral roll will be published on August 17, 2026, while the period for filing claims and objections will remain open from August 17 to September 16, 2026. The notice phase and disposal of claims and objections will continue until October 15, 2026, and the final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on October 19, 2026.

CEO, Maharashtra’s official revised schedule dated July 15, 2026

Link: https://ceoelection.maharashtra.gov.in/Downloads/PDF/Notification/Revised%20Schedule%20-%20SIR%202026.pdf

The Commission has also directed that the revised schedule be given wide publicity through available media and that political parties be informed of the modified programme in writing.

Earlier schedule

The revised programme changes the schedule originally notified for Maharashtra under the nationwide Phase III Special Intensive Revision. Under the earlier timetable, house-to-house visits by BLOs were scheduled from June 30 to July 29, 2026, the draft electoral roll was to be published on August 5, 2026, claims and objections were to be accepted from August 5 to September 4, 2026, disposal of claims and objections was scheduled until October 3, 2026, and the final electoral roll was to be published on October 7, 2026.

Following the revision, the house-to-house enumeration period has been extended by 10 days, while the publication of the draft electoral roll, the claims and objections period, disposal of claims and objections, and publication of the final electoral roll have been rescheduled.

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The post SIR Maharashtra: CEO details schedules for publication & verification of draft and final electoral rolls appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Hindu reported that the Bill was passed by voice vote amid sustained Opposition protests in the Rajya Sabha. Opposition MPs continued to demand a statement from Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the police action against demonstrators protesting the alleged NEET paper leak, before eventually staging a walkout during the debate. Defending the legislation, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said Vande Mataram was inseparable from India’s freedom movement and accused the Congress of diminishing a symbol of national honour through “appeasement politics”, according to The Hindu.

The government’s decision to expand the law comes despite a decade-long record of low convictions and mounting case backlogs under the existing legislation. An analysis by The Indian Express, based on National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data from 2014 to 2024, found that 699 cases were registered under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act over the 11-year period. These cases led to the arrest of 1,102 people and the chargesheeting of 962 individuals, yet only 60 people were convicted, while 153 were acquitted or discharged.

The data also points to a criminal justice system struggling to dispose of such cases. According to The Indian Express, the number of cases pending trial rose from 85 in 2014 to 358 by the end of 2024, representing a more than fourfold increase. During the same period, police chargesheeting rates declined substantially—from 53.6% in 2014 to 36.5% in 2024. By the end of 2024, 53 cases remained under police investigation, while the overall trial pendency rate stood at 95.2%, continuing a pattern in which more than nine out of every ten cases remained pending each year.

The conviction record has been particularly weak. NCRB data cited by The Indian Express shows that acquittals exceeded convictions in every year between 2014 and 2024. In 2024, courts recorded six convictions, compared with 25 acquittals or discharges of accused persons. Across the entire period, only 44 cases ended in conviction, while 105 cases resulted in acquittal or discharge, highlighting the limited effectiveness of prosecutions under the existing law even as Parliament has chosen to broaden its scope to include Vande Mataram.

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Jakira Bibi and Naseruddin Sheikh

For Naseruddin Sheikh and Jakira Bibi, an elderly couple from Shernagar village under Agomani Police Station in Dhubri district, that question arrived in the form of notices from the Foreigners Tribunal. The notices did not merely initiate legal proceedings; they brought an extraordinary degree of fear into the ordinary life of a family that had spent generations rooted in Assam.

The allegation against them was that they had entered India illegally from Bangladesh on or after March 25, 1971. The consequence of such an allegation is immense. For a person of limited means, an appearance before a Foreigners Tribunal can mean confronting a legal system that demands historical documents, family linkage, oral evidence and a coherent explanation of one’s identity and residence, often going back decades. The burden is particularly heavy for those who are elderly, poor, uneducated or physically unwell.

Naseruddin was an ageing handcart puller whose life had been spent in physical labour. Jakira was an elderly woman suffering from several health problems who had spent her life caring for her family. Neither possessed the resources to comfortably navigate a prolonged legal battle.

The couple therefore faced something far larger than two legal cases. They faced the possibility that the country in which they been born and lived, could question their allegiance and their lives could suddenly become a question mark.

Their story, however, is also a story of legal intervention, documentary evidence and persistence. With the assistance of the intrepid para-legal and legal team of the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), the couple was able to place their evidence before the Foreigners Tribunal. After examining the materials and testimony presented in the respective proceedings, the Tribunals ultimately declared both Naseruddin Sheikh and Jakira Bibi “Not Foreigner.”

The two orders are significant not only because they brought relief to an elderly couple but also because they demonstrate how citizenship-related proceedings can turn on the careful reconstruction of family history, legacy linkage and documentary continuity—and how access to quality and sensitive legal assistance can be critical when ordinary citizens are required to defend themselves against allegations that challenge their very belonging. The final order in Naseruddin’s case is dated May 8, 2025, while the order in Jakira’s case was pronounced on November 1, 2025. It took the Assam team of Citizens for Justice and Peace, that provided this quality legal aid, eight months in accessing the order of the Foreigners Tribunal.

Foreigners Tribunal Court, Dhurbi

Naseruddin Sheikh: A man who spent his life pulling a handcart, now forced to defend his Indian identity

Naseruddin Sheikh is now close to 76 years old. His life has been shaped by hard work rather than privilege. Born on January 12, 1950, he belongs to Bidyadabri village in the Dhubri region and is the son of late Basaruddin Sheikh and grandson of Sukur Ali @ Khasar.

He never received an education and, from a young age, had to depend on physical labour for survival. For nearly three decades, he worked as a handcart puller in Agomani market, transporting vegetables, rice and other goods. At different times, he also worked as a daily wage labourer, taking whatever work was available to support his family.

His life was not one of comfort, but it was a life firmly rooted in the place he knew as home. Together with his wife, Jakira, he raised six children—three sons and three daughters. While he worked outside, she managed the household and cared for the family.

Today, Naseruddin’s body bears the consequences of decades of physical labour. Yet, even at an advanced age, he sometimes continues to pull his handcart because the economic circumstances of his family leave little room for retirement. It was against this background that the Foreigners Tribunal proceedings began.

The case against Naseruddin was registered as FT-9/113/GKJ/2019. The reference originated from the Superintendent of Police (Border), Dhubri, following a citizenship verification process and raised the question of whether Naseruddin was an illegal migrant or foreigner of the post-1971 stream or any other relevant stream. The Tribunal’s order records that Naseruddin appeared in response to notice, filed a written statement, produced documents and contested the allegation that he was a foreigner.

For Naseruddin, the proceedings were frightening not simply because of their legal implications but because of the practical reality of defending himself. A man whose daily existence depended upon manual labour was suddenly required to reconstruct his family history through documents and testimony. The cost of legal representation, travel to court and the loss of working days could have placed an unbearable burden upon him.

The legal system, however, required him to answer the allegation with evidence. That is where the intervention of CJP became crucial.

CJP Team Assam along with Jakira Bibi and Naseruddin Sheikh

When the CJP team came to his door: After receiving the notice, Naseruddin did not know where to turn. He was confronted with a legal proceeding whose consequences he could not fully understand and whose financial demands he could not easily meet. It was at this point that he came into contact with CJP Community Volunteer Ilias Sarkar, who connected him with the wider CJP team. State In-Charge Nanda Ghosh, Advocate Iskandar Azad and Community Volunteer Habibul Bepari became involved in assisting the couple.

The team visited Naseruddin’s home, examined the available records and began working to understand the documentary history of his family. This intervention was important because citizenship proceedings of this nature often require something that is not easy for ordinary people to provide on their own: the ability to transform scattered documents from different periods into a legally coherent narrative.

A voter list from decades ago may establish the presence of an ancestor. A later electoral roll may establish continuity. A land deed may support residence or possession of property. A witness may explain the relationship between generations. None of these pieces necessarily tells the whole story in isolation. Their significance emerges when they are connected into a credible chain of evidence.

For Naseruddin, the legal task was therefore not simply to produce an Aadhaar card or an EPIC card. The more fundamental challenge was to demonstrate the historical continuity of his identity and his connection to his family and to India.

CJP took responsibility for assisting him in the proceedings, and Advocate Iskandar Azad represented him before the Tribunal. The support gave Naseruddin something that he had been missing since the notice arrived: the confidence that he would not have to face the legal process alone.

As Naseruddin later recalled, “After getting the notice we did not understand where to go. Even with papers, people become foreigners here. So the fear remains, but after you came we got courage.”

His words capture the psychological reality behind the legal case. The presence of legal assistance did not merely provide representation; it restored a measure of confidence to a man who had suddenly been made to question his own security in the country where he had spent his entire life.

The legal strategy: The central challenge in Naseruddin’s case was to establish his connection with his family lineage and demonstrate the continuity of his presence in India. The evidence presented before the Tribunal therefore went back across generations.

One of the important pieces of evidence was a 1966 electoral roll of Bhamandanga Part-II, in which the name of Gerpu Sheikh, son of Sukur Ali, was recorded. Naseruddin identified Gerpu Sheikh as his paternal uncle and Sukur Ali as his grandfather. The Tribunal also considered a 1966 electoral roll from Jaldhoya, where the name of Naseruddin’s father, Basiruddin, was recorded.

The importance of these records lay in their historical character. They were not documents created for the purpose of the present litigation; rather, they were old electoral records that predated the proceedings by several decades. Their evidentiary value, therefore, arose from the fact that they could potentially connect Naseruddin’s present identity to members of his family who were recorded as voters in the relevant period.

The case was further supported by electoral rolls from 1994, 1997, 2005, 2015 and 2022, reflecting the names of Naseruddin and his wife in successive electoral records. The Tribunal’s order records these documents as part of the 13 exhibits produced by Naseruddin in support of his claim.

The defence also relied upon Registered Deed No. 473 dated 24 January 1976, together with Naseruddin’s EPIC, PAN and Aadhaar documents. A licence issued by the Agomani Gaon Panchayat for operating a push cart and certificates issued by the relevant Gram Panchayat were also placed on record.

The evidence was not confined to documents. Naseruddin himself appeared as DW-1 and gave evidence regarding his birth, his father and grandfather, the family’s movements between Assam and West Bengal, his father’s death, his subsequent residence and his own connection with the places in which he lived. His relative Yashomuddin Munshi was also examined as a defence witness.

The Tribunal therefore had before it a combination of historical electoral records, later electoral continuity, land documentation, identity records and oral testimony. Legally, the importance of this combination lies in the way the evidence was intended to work together. The case was not based upon the proposition that any single document, by itself, conclusively established citizenship. Rather, the defence sought to establish a consistent narrative of family lineage and residence through multiple sources of evidence spanning different periods. That approach was central to the Tribunal’s assessment.

Why the evidence was found sufficient in Naseruddin’s case: The Tribunal’s reasoning is particularly important from a legal perspective because it did not simply list the documents and declare the case proved. It examined the documentary record alongside the oral evidence.

The Tribunal scrutinised the 1966 electoral roll of Bhamandanga Part-II and the corresponding electoral evidence from West Bengal. It considered the oral evidence concerning Gerpu Sheikh and Basiruddin, whom Naseruddin identified as members of his paternal family. The Tribunal also noted that Naseruddin’s own testimony supported his existence in India from his birth in 1950.

The Tribunal also considered Naseruddin’s account of his father’s movements between Assam and West Bengal. His evidence was that his father had moved to Jaldhoya in Cooch Behar in the mid-1950s, remained there for a period and had cast his vote in the West Bengal electoral roll, before returning to Assam and subsequently residing in the Bhamandanga area. Naseruddin further described the circumstances following his father’s death and his own later residence in Shernagar.

This is legally significant because the Tribunal was required to assess not only whether individual documents existed but whether the overall evidence formed a credible and consistent account. The Tribunal ultimately found that the historical electoral evidence, together with the oral testimony, supported the existence of Naseruddin in India from birth and established the parental linkage relied upon by him. The evidence of his defence witness was also considered in support of his version.

The significance of the decision, therefore, lies in the Tribunal’s acceptance of a cumulative evidentiary approach. Historical voter records, family linkage, oral testimony and subsequent documentary continuity were considered together rather than in isolation.

The final conclusion was unequivocal: Naseruddin did not appear to be a foreigner of the post-1971 stream or of any other stream, and the reference against him was answered in the negative. In practical terms, Naseruddin Sheikh was declared “Not Foreigner.”

For a man who had spent his entire life working with his hands, the order represented the end of an extraordinary legal ordeal. It meant that the elderly handcart puller who had always said, “I was born here, my father was born here, my grandfather was also born here,” had succeeded in placing before the Tribunal the evidence necessary to support that claim.

The complete order may be read below:

Jakira Bibi: When an ailing elderly woman had to defend the home she had always known

While Naseruddin fought his legal battle, his wife, Jakira Bibi, was facing a Foreigners Tribunal proceeding of her own. Jakira is above 60 years old and suffers from several health problems. Her life, like her husband’s, has been one of family responsibilities and modest means. She was born on July 12, 1964 in Shernagar village, the same region where her family had long been rooted.

Her father was Bataullah Sheikh, also referred to in the proceedings as Batasulla Sheikh, and her mother was Jelmoti Bibi. Her family history, as presented before the Tribunal, extended through historical electoral records and NRC legacy data.

Jakira’s case was registered as FT-9/112/GKJ/2019. The reference alleged that she had entered India illegally from Bangladesh on or after March 25, 1971. The order records that the reference originated from the Superintendent of Police (Border), Dhubri, and that Jakira contested the allegation, asserting that she was an Indian citizen by birth and that her parents and family were rooted in Assam.

For Jakira, the proceedings came with a particularly heavy physical burden. She was an elderly woman living with health problems, while her husband was himself an ageing daily wage worker. The prospect of travelling, collecting documents and participating in litigation was therefore not merely inconvenient—it was a serious hardship. But the evidence in her case was substantial.

Her defence sought to establish her identity through her parents, her family lineage and her own long history of residence and participation in the electoral process.

The evidence in Jakira’s case: The legal case presented on behalf of Jakira was built around a combination of historical electoral records, family linkage, land documentation and oral evidence. The Tribunal considered a 1958 electoral roll of Shernagar in which the names of Jakira’s parents, Batasullah Sheikh and Jelmoti Bibi, were recorded. The defence also relied upon a 1966 electoral roll, which reflected the name of her mother along with her stepfather, Goher Ali. Later electoral records from 1985, 1994, 1997, 2005, 2015 and 2022 were produced to demonstrate continuity of the family’s presence and Jakira’s own electoral history.

The defence further relied upon 1951 NRC legacy data, which was cited in support of the family linkage, as well as Registered Sale Deed No. 456 dated 20 January 1983, relating to ancestral land. Jakira’s own EPIC, PAN and Aadhaar documents were also placed on record. Importantly, the case did not rest solely upon documentary evidence. Jakira herself appeared as DW-1, while her elder brother Jahir Ali appeared as DW-2 to support the family linkage and her account of the family’s presence in India.

The Tribunal’s order records that Jakira produced as many as 16 exhibits in support of her claim, including historical and subsequent electoral rolls, the 1983 registered deed, identity documents and the identity documents of her brother. The evidentiary structure of the case is important.

The older electoral records were relevant to establishing the presence of Jakira’s parents and family in the earlier period. The later electoral records helped demonstrate continuity. The land deed supported the family’s connection to property in the area. Her own testimony and that of her brother addressed the relationship between the generations. Thus, as in Naseruddin’s case, the legal significance lay in the cumulative effect of the evidence.

The legal significance of Jakira’s victory: The Tribunal’s order makes an explicit reference to Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946, observing that the burden was upon the proceedee to prove her nationality and that, accordingly, the liability of the prosecution was dispensed with.

In a Foreigners Tribunal proceeding, the legal question is not merely whether a person possesses contemporary identity documents. The person proceeded against must establish the case put forward regarding their nationality and status in accordance with the applicable legal framework. That makes historical evidence especially important when the allegation concerns illegal entry after the March 25, 1971 cut-off.

Jakira’s case therefore required her to establish more than her present-day identity. Her evidence sought to demonstrate her familial and historical connection to Assam, beginning with the electoral presence of her parents and continuing through her own life and electoral records.

The Tribunal examined the historical voter lists and the oral evidence of Jakira and her brother. It noted that her father and mother had cast votes in Assam and that the relevant electoral records supported the defence version. The Tribunal also considered the subsequent electoral rolls in which Jakira and her husband were recorded as voters.

The Tribunal further noted that the Election Office, Dhubri, had confirmed the authenticity of the exhibited electoral rolls. This was an important corroborative element because it strengthened the evidentiary reliability of the historical electoral records relied upon by the defence.

The Tribunal also considered the oral evidence of Jakira’s brother, Jahir Ali, regarding her paternal linkage. His testimony was treated as corroborating Jakira’s own evidence, and the Tribunal found that the parental linkage with Batasullah Sheikh had been established adequately.

The legal significance of this reasoning lies in the Tribunal’s reliance on multiple mutually supporting forms of evidence. The historical electoral records established the presence of the family; the later rolls demonstrated continuity; the land record supported the family’s connection to the area; and the oral evidence provided the relational bridge linking Jakira to her parents.

The Tribunal ultimately found that Jakira was a descendant of genuine Indian parents and that she had successfully discharged the burden placed upon her. She was declared “Not Foreigner.”

The complete order may be read below:

What triggered the proceedings against them?

The question of how a person first comes to be referred to a Foreigners Tribunal is an important part of every citizenship case. The legal battle before the Tribunal is only one stage of the process. Before that, there must be a basis for the initial reference and the decision to question the person’s nationality.

In the case of Jakira Bibi, the reference was originally forwarded by the Superintendent of Police (B), Dhubri, through SP (Border) I(M)DT Case No. 2389/98. The order records that the reference was made on the basis of a doubt regarding her nationality, with the purpose of determining whether she was or was not an illegal migrant. The matter was subsequently re-numbered before Foreigners Tribunal No. 2, Dhubri as F.T. Case No. 3494/GKJ/2011, under the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946, read with the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964.

In Naseruddin Sheikh’s case, the order provides a somewhat more specific description of the origin of the reference. It states that the case was originally forwarded by the Superintendent of Police (B), Dhubri, Assam, vide IM(D)T Case No. 2388/1998, on the basis of a report made by the Local Verification Officer for determination of his citizenship. The case was initially registered before the Foreigners Tribunal No. 2, Dhubri and was later transferred to the present Tribunal following the constitution of additional Tribunals.

The order further records that, upon consideration, the Tribunal found “sufficient grounds to proceed” and accordingly issued notice to Naseruddin, providing him an opportunity to show cause in respect of the matter. These details are significant because they bring the question of the “first cause of action” into focus.

In Naseruddin’s case, the order specifically refers to a Local Verification Officer’s report as the basis for the original reference for determination of his citizenship. In Jakira’s case, the order states that the reference arose from a doubt regarding her nationality. The documents, however, as quoted above, do not themselves set out the substantive contents of the Local Verification Officer’s report in Naseruddin’s case or explain in detail what specific material gave rise to the doubt regarding Jakira’s nationality.

Two Cases, One Common Lesson: Citizenship proceedings are often about reconstructing a life through evidence

The cases of Naseruddin Sheikh and Jakira Bibi are legally distinct proceedings, but their evidentiary journeys reveal a common pattern. In both cases, the defence had to reconstruct a family history that stretched back decades. In both, historical electoral rolls played an important role, electoral records helped demonstrate continuity, and oral testimony was used to establish family relationships and explain the documentary record. And in both, the evidence was considered not as isolated pieces but as part of a larger narrative of identity, ancestry and residence.

In citizenship proceedings, the strength of a case may lie not in one document but in the consistency between several independent sources of evidence. A historical electoral roll may establish the presence of a parent or grandparent. A later electoral roll may demonstrate continuity. A land document may reinforce residence and family connection. A witness may explain the relationship between individuals appearing in different records.

The value of legal representation, therefore, is not limited to arguing before the Tribunal. It also lies in identifying which documents matter, tracing family linkage, locating historical records and presenting them in a manner that allows the Tribunal to assess the evidence as a coherent whole. For Naseruddin and Jakira, the CJP team’s intervention helped transform a collection of old documents and family memories into a structured legal defence. That is where access to justice becomes particularly important.

The human cost behind the case numbers

Behind FT-9/113/GKJ/2019 and FT-9/112/GKJ/2019 were not merely two case files. There was an elderly man who had spent his life pulling a handcart to feed his family. There was an elderly woman who was already battling illness. There were six children whose parents were suddenly living under the shadow of a citizenship proceeding.

There was a family that had to search through decades of records to prove a history that had always been part of their everyday lives. The legal proceedings also reveal the disproportionate impact that such litigation can have on people living in poverty.

For Naseruddin, appearing in court could mean losing the day’s earnings. For Jakira, the physical strain of participating in proceedings was compounded by her health problems. For both, the financial cost of engaging a lawyer could have been beyond their means. This is why legal aid in citizenship proceedings is not simply a matter of convenience. It can determine whether a vulnerable person is able to meaningfully participate in the legal process.

A person may possess relevant documents but not know which ones are legally significant. They may have a family connection but lack the ability to explain it in the form required by a legal proceeding. They may have old electoral records but not understand how those records can establish a historical linkage. Legal assistance can bridge that gap. In Naseruddin and Jakira’s cases, that bridge ultimately helped them present their evidence before the Tribunal.

The day the order came home

On July 18, the CJP team visited the couple’s home to deliver copies of the order. The team included Advocate Iskandar Azad, Office Driver Asikul Hussain, Community Volunteers Ilias Sarkar (Rabbi), Habibul Bepari, Deep Ghosh and Ilias Rahman, along with State In-Charge Nanda Ghosh. This time, they did not arrive with another notice; they came carrying the order.

For the couple, the moment represented the end of months of uncertainty and fear.  Naseruddin had feared that the proceedings might eventually lead to detention. Jakira had endured the physical and emotional burden of litigation despite her health problems. Together, they had lived through the uncertainty of not knowing whether the country they had always called home would continue to recognise them as belonging to it. When the order were placed in their hands, the relief was overwhelming.

Naseruddin recalled the terror he had experienced when the notice first arrived and how the support of CJP had given him the courage to continue. Jakira expressed her gratitude through tears, remembering how the team had come to their home, helped organise their documents and ensured that they had legal representation. Their words reveal something that legal orders alone cannot capture.

A favourable order may end a proceeding, but it cannot immediately erase the fear created by the proceeding itself. The couple had won, but the memory of having been forced to defend their belonging would remain.

Beyond Two Victories: The larger citizenship question

The legal victory of Naseruddin and Jakira is deeply significant to them and their family. But their cases also raise broader questions about how citizenship proceedings affect ordinary people, particularly those who live on the margins of society.

A person may have lived in a village for decades and still be required to reconstruct their family history through records that may be more than half a century old. Historical documents may contain variations in names or spellings. Families may have moved between districts or across state boundaries. Electoral records may exist in different places. Land may have been acquired, sold or requisitioned. All of these factors can make the process of establishing continuity complex.

The two cases demonstrate why citizenship proceedings cannot be viewed purely as administrative exercises. They involve questions of identity, family history, dignity and belonging. They also raise crucial questions of maintainability, accountability and mala fide by authorities, unused to being questioned on these foundational aspects.

The legal orders also demonstrate the importance of the evidentiary process. In both cases, the Tribunals considered the documentary record alongside oral evidence and assessed whether the evidence, taken as a whole, was sufficient to discharge the applicable burden.

In Naseruddin’s case, the Tribunal accepted the evidentiary chain connecting him to his paternal family and his presence in India. In Jakira’s case, the Tribunal accepted the evidence establishing her parental linkage and the family’s historical presence in Assam.

The outcomes therefore underline the importance of access to legal assistance, preservation of historical records and the careful presentation of evidence. At the same time, the emotional experiences of the couple remind us that the human consequences of citizenship proceedings extend far beyond the courtroom. For the poor and elderly, the process itself can become a source of profound anxiety. The question, therefore, is not only whether justice can ultimately be obtained. It is also whether vulnerable people have the support necessary to reach justice in the first place.

From Fear to Dignity: The meaning of “not foreigner”

For Naseruddin Sheikh and Jakira Bibi, being declared “Not Foreigner” means more than winning a legal case. It means that the fear and uncertainty they lived with after receiving the notices have finally come to an end.

The judgments have brought them relief and restored their sense of security. The evidence they collected, the family records they preserved and the testimony they gave were accepted by the Tribunals.

Naseruddin is still the elderly man who spent decades pulling a handcart in Agomani market. Jakira is still the woman who devoted her life to caring for her family. But now, they can return to their home without the fear that once followed them. Their story is about belonging, but it is also about the importance of having the chance to be heard and to present one’s evidence before the law. For both, the journey began with fear. It continued through old electoral rolls, land records, family documents and witness testimony, supported by legal assistance and the determination to prove their history. And it ended with two words that brought them immense relief: “Not Foreigner.”

or CJP, the victory of Naseruddin Sheikh and Jakira Bibi is not the end of the struggle, but a reminder of why access to justice and legal support remain so important for Assam’s poor and marginalised communities. The CJP team says it will continue to stand with those whose citizenship and dignity are challenged, with the hope that no Indian will ever have to face the fear of proving that they belong to their own country.

Today, Naseruddin and Jakira can finally smile without the shadow of the notices hanging over them. After a long journey of fear, uncertainty and legal struggle, they can return to their home with renewed confidence and say what they have always believed: “We are Indian.”

 Related:

Another CJP Victory: Barpeta Tribunal declares Alam Khan ‘not a foreigner’

When a narrow reading of documents decide citizenship: GHC in Aminul Hoque

‘Fairness & reason ‘: SC rules that due process is a must for citizenship determination

Gauhati High Court upholds foreigner declaration, rejects mental illness plea

When a Spelling Error Can Cost Citizenship: Supreme Court stays deportation of five Assam women

The post The country they called home, the identity they had to defend appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Revolution has begun…But is it from the frying pan into the fire? The appointment of another hard-core RSS man, Prahlad Joshi, to succeed Pradhan is certainly no solution. Everyone knows that! In March 2022, in the height of the Russia-Ukraine war, when Indian students studying there had to be brought back. Joshi famously said, “Ninety per cent of Indians who study medicine abroad fail to clear qualifying exams in India.”  He hurt the sentiments of many then. When the rapists of Bilkis Bano and the ones who brutally murdered her kith and kin were prematurely released a few years ago, it was he who defended their premature release. The Supreme Court then annulled the remission period granted to these rapists and murderers. To think that this man now presides over the education and future of our youth is, for most, totally unacceptable.

The Revolution has begun…the youth protesting in Jantar Mantar and elsewhere were loud and clear. They would never allow xenophobia, exclusivism, sectarianism or any form of bigotry to permeate their ideals, their dreams, their hopes for a better future. They visibly and vocally demonstrated in no uncertain ways that they were first and foremost citizens of the country, students and youth. They were with one heart and one mind, transcending the confines of every religion. They belonged to every strata of society. No one could divide them and pit them against each other.  Not the fascist, fundamentalist agenda of the regime. They were determined not to fall prey to insidious designs. With the Constitution in hand, they chanted in unison, ” We are one, we shall overcome!” Hum Honge Kaaba!”

The Revolution has begun…Arundhati Roy is one of the most celebrated and renowned Indian personalities today. In a hard-hitting and incisive article in ‘The Wire’ (dtd. July 22, 2026) entitled ‘Cockroach Democracy: Unarmed and Dangerous’, she writes, “For the first time in years, it feels wonderful to be Indian. Just when hope seemed lost, they came. Young roaches riding in on the rain. The progeny of the unholy union between a judge and a joke…. The cockroaches took the capital city by storm. They came by train, by bus, by air, by metro, their numbers increasing by the hour. Hours before the first rays of sunlight lightened Delhi’s monsoon skies, they began to pour into Jantar Mantar in the tens of thousands. By sunrise it was clear that a generation of desperate and furious young people who have seen their future snuffed out before their eyes was going to reclaim what their parents and grandparents’ generations had conceded: our dignity as a people and as a country. Our rights as citizens of a democracy.

The Revolution has begun…thousands of students, youth and others have come out on the streets all over the country: in perhaps every big city and small town, in district headquarters and even in villages. This was not a paid mob mobilisation – as this current Government does so often!  It was a spontaneous uprising, giving rise to their angst, their sense of outrage at what is happening to them, to the whole educational system, to the fact that twenty-one students had committed suicide because of the NEET paper leakage. It reminded one of the ‘Arab Spring’, of what happened not too long ago in neighbouring Nepal and Sri Lanka, and they have come out in hordes everywhere in protest. Besides, in several countries across the world there have been protests in solidarity with what is happening in India. All major civil society organisations and movements have issued powerful statements of support to the students.

The Revolution has begun…in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, the sight was unbelievable. Something never seen in recent years. Groups of students walking together, singing as though they were on a picnic. There were droves of them. Shouting slogans, of course: “Modi hatao! Desh Bachao!” People were rubbing their eyes and ears! This in Ahmedabad of all places! Well, it is happening! Some were detained! There were thousands of police and security (with guns and armoured vehicles) in the Gujarat University area. They could do nothing. The students/youth were not ‘in assembly’ – just walking. And can anyone stop people walking? They were walking for change! The political masters, of course, will never forget the ‘Nav Nirman’ agitation of 1974 and how a Government was overthrown!

The Revolution has begun…Indian academic and social analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta, in an article, ‘Cockroaches’ have shown us what it means to be courageous citizens — not subjects’ (Indian Express dtd July 27, 2026), does plain speaking, saying, “The farmers’ agitation had made the government withdraw legislation. But this is the first time that the government has acknowledged the need for taking responsibility and being held accountable…There are glorious moments when the youth of the nation demonstrate that they are indeed the genuine trustees of posterity, to borrow Benjamin Disraeli’s phrase. A generation that has been catastrophically failed by their elders, who bequeathed to them authoritarianism, communalism, a failing education system, an administrative state marked by impunity, and an atmosphere of suffocating fear, decided to take their future into their own hands. They made a regime and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, intoxicated with fantasies of total power, look out of touch, small and ridiculous. By itself, the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan will not bring change. But India’s young have shown that the regime is vulnerable. We can still pull back from the abyss.”

The Revolution has begun… Rhiya Ahir courageously demonstrated the power of one: the power of youth, the power of women!  On July 22, she went to the protest rally in Shivaji Park, Mumbai.  As she was walking towards the venue, she noticed a police van packed with youth who were detained by the police. The sight immediately disturbed her, and she says, “The van was stuffed from the front to the back. There was no space to stand.” She did not know anyone inside. She plucked up courage to stand in front of the van, not allowing it to proceed. What followed was a heated exchange with the police. They knew they were wrong, Rhiya asserts. They finally relented and released all the youth they had detained. The defining pictures and videos of Rhiya preventing the police van from moving went viral!

The Revolution has begun… godimedia has been singing the tunes of the ruling regime to no end. The mainstream media has been bought up, corrupted, co-opted, and threatened. For several days, they did not take cognisance of the Jantar Mantar protest. The prestigious UK newspaper ‘The Guardian’ (July 26, 2026) in a lead analysis piece, ‘India’s Cockroach Janta party protest victory signals trouble ahead for Modi’, puts it succinctly, “Modi had also lost another medium critical to the BJP’s domination over the national narrative – the mainstream TV news channels widely acknowledged to have been co-opted by the BJP government over the past 12 years and turned into mouthpieces for its right-wing Hindu nationalist ideology. Initially, the channels ignored the protests, and when they did cover them, it was to suggest the protesters were being bankrolled by sinister foreign forces and Pakistani terror groups. In response, the protesters turned on the channels, using social media to expose their “lies”. When the protests escalated, Modi remained conspicuously absent from the airwaves. Interestingly, since times are changing, godified media, like a chameleon, is also changing colours. Foreign media have editorials and articles on this!

The Revolution has begun…the ‘Sansad Chalo’ march to Parliament on 20 July was proof enough of this fact! The fact that hundreds of thousands, from all walks of life, began this historic march was a breakthrough in the recent annals of the country. There was panic among the ruling regime. They spared no efforts to stop the march. All police and paramilitary forces were called out. Thousands of the marchers were baton-charged, beaten, and pellet guns were used against them. Many had to be hospitalised.  This ensured a groundswell of protests all over the country. On July 27, the Supreme Court said, “The right to peaceful, lawful protest absolutely guaranteed under the Constitution. So long as it is peaceful agitation, merely because there is agitation, there can’t be lathi-charge. Police excesses must be inquired into.” The Bihar youth are still under attack by the ruling regime. They seem to have forgotten that in 1974, the JP Andolan began in Patna, Bihar!

The Revolution has begun… The Jantar Mantar protest was about reclaiming shrinking democratic space in the country. And wow, it succeeded tremendously – with a profound impact everywhere. The right to dissent is back on the big canvas. People are out on the streets. It is significant that whilst delivering the fourth Justice GP Singh memorial lecture at the National Law Institute University in Bhopal on July 25, Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan referred to the right to dissent. He said, “It will not be an exaggeration to say that public space for expressing divergent opinion is shrinking in India. The right to express one’s views and to demonstrate peacefully are fundamental freedoms guaranteed to citizens. Debate and dissent are the essence of democracy…Unfortunately, even normal activities are being criminalised. Students protesting on campuses are arrested, and they do not get bail for 30 to 40 days. They are suspended, for which they have to go to court. It takes time. These issues raise serious questions.” The last thirty-five days are changing things! 

The Revolution has begun… against corruption. The youth are not going to take things lying down anymore.  Not only corruption in education, but which has permeated every strata of society. Beginning right at the top. There is a lack of accountability and transparency. Much has to be addressed, like demonetisation, electoral bonds, the PM Cares fund, and now the E20 (The E20 Janata Party is on the rise). More questions will be asked. Where did the RSS and BJP get the enormous amounts of money to put up palatial buildings everywhere? What about the crony capitalist friends who profiteer at the cost of the poor and by looting the country? What about electoral malpractices: the manipulation of the EVMs and the meticulous disenfranchisement, through SIR, of thousands of legitimate citizens everywhere.

The Revolution has begun …In a strongly worded statement on July 27, the Cockroach Janata Party said, “We are observing a complete breach of the agreement regarding no police action against the protestors. Hundreds of students have been arrested in Bihar and Bengal, and hundreds are being shrivelled/harassed in Delhi and other states. Multiple reports are emerging in Delhi around the detention of volunteers supporting protestors with logistics. We demand that all the FIRs against the protestors be immediately withdrawn, students be released, and no future FIRs be filed (in line with our agreement) by Delhi police / Central investigative agencies / Police in BJP-allied states, FAILING WHICH WE WILL BE FORCED TO SIT ON PROTEST AGAIN. We also demand that the written agreement around legal cases be shared with us by tomorrow, along with the aligned timelines with the Government of India.” Yes, the protests, are not a flash-in the- pan!

One has had enough of references to the past: from the French Revolution to the Quit India Movement! The Revolution has begun indeed…. And there is no looking back!

July 27 2026

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

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