The KhArab Uprising

Being A Baaad Liberal And Pissing Off Authorities On The Left And Right Alike

In 2 years, Delhi has gone from “Tu Jaanta Nahi Mera Baap Kaun Hai” to #NotInMyName. What is the reason for this particular ‘woke’ behaviour our everyday junta is displaying?

Are we suddenly more conscientious than we used to be? Has social media galvanised a coming together of people for protest that wasn’t possible earlier? Or has the political and administrative condition of the country become so fragile that individual citizens shall have to hold the government accountable at Jantar Mantar?

‘Lynching’ was named after Capt. William Lynch, head of a self-constituted judicial tribunal in America — land of the free and home of the brave. But what is this ‘paschimi sanskriti’ of foreign words? We shall Make in India and call it Modied.

Because lynching connotes lack of legal sanction, but modeification has the sanction of the pantheon of Hindu Gods and the cow. Moo. In a recent lynching (sorry Modied), the claim of ‘appearing to eat beef or smuggling cows’ was not found to be true.

This is not creating an environment of fear, this is fear itself — a cancerous system that does not take any opposition, any entropy and crushes all form of dissent. There are no scams in this government because whistleblowers are killed (cough…Vyapam?) and even a certain news house, the last bastion of media to rear its head against the authorities, despite their televised protests, are harmonising in tune.

This is how consent is manufactured. You can run the police, police the RBI, reserve the judicial appointments and justify political overreach but protests — that last bastion of democracy; that which cannot be stage managed by the party leadership — will be pooh-poohed by the right wing intellectual.

This is the plight of the protestor: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. They’ll call you a keyboard warrior if you don’t go and a perfumed privileged protestor (dented and painted) if you do.

Since when does the advantage of caste-class education de-legitimize the voice of a citizen, when it comes to standing together against murder in broad daylight? Shall we be protesting the murder or the nature of the protest against the murder?

Orijit Sen, who also designed the poster of this protest (mentioned in a different context), “I am Hindu, Male and Upper Caste, if I don’t speak out, who will.” Privilege makes it easier to be the first line of defense against atrocity, effective when shared and paid forward. This protest has shown that privilege may insulate you from the crimes of the state, but it does not make you immune.

On 28th June, 2017, in Delhi and cities across the country, and some overseas, people — liberal, visceral, guttural — all stood up together to be counted, against a government that has been quiet and complicit. We stood up as a population taking their agency back from those that claim ‘the largest mandate’.

A statement issued from the authorities reeks of Orwellian doublespeak. We can hear you say the words but we also see the discrepancy in the actions. How else is it that massive nationwide protests are barely covered on TV news? All of the information coming out is on social media! It took 12 protests for the leadership to declare a hollow-sounding statement, but what is it that’s going to take to get them to act?

#Notinmyname achieved quite a few things but most of all, it made us step out of our echo-chamber and kitchen politics into the streets for the ultimate confirmation; that we are not indifferent, or alone. One will stand up for the other. There will be witnesses, there will be versions of stories and vantage points; not one single truth that the nation doesn’t want to know anymore.

Published in mensxp.com on July 5, 2017