The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a satirical political movement founded in May this year, has tasted its first major victory. The protest it began over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) paper leak transformed into a spontaneous mass uprising culminating in the resignation of the Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. This is definitely an incredible feat. By strangulating the media and the constitutional institutions responsible for holding the executive accountable, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hitherto built an image of being invincible. The recent protests punctured that image, if not destroyed it completely.
Though the CJP has called off the protests that lasted for 37 days, the movement is very much alive. As Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of CJP, said in a recent video, ‘This is just the beginning; the CJP has a long way to go.’ Indeed, a long journey awaits us. So much has happened within a short period that it is time we, Dalits, reflect on the protests to clarify our stakes in the movement. I am sure what I am doing here will irritate many. I also anticipate being called a sectarian. Come what may, we cannot let our concerns be submerged within “larger” movements. Why should we keep snoozing on our grievances till society wakes up?
It is necessary to scrutinise spontaneous mass movements like the recent protests, as they often make us believe that “We are all in this together.” Spontaneity is never politically innocent. As Lenin warned us, ‘subservience’ to spontaneity will lead only to the domination of the ideology of the oppressor, whose means of dissemination are innumerable. Thus, the foremost task before us is to interrogate the supposed universality of spontaneous mass movements. What is at stake for us, Dalits, in this CJP movement? Is this our battle? Are we in this movement together?
The CJP movement, including the recent protests, is mysterious. It is like the balloon in Donald Barthelme’s fascinating short story The Balloon. In the story, a strange balloon suddenly appears over a neighbourhood. Expanding without a definite shape, it dominates the area. After some initial speculation, the residents begin interpreting and experiencing it differently without worrying about its meaning or purpose. The CJP movement, much like the balloon, dominates the Indian public sphere without any fixed shape, inviting multiple interpretations.
For me, I could never identify with the demands of the recent protests from the beginning. It was alienating and infuriating to see people turning out in huge numbers for these protests when the death of Anitha, a 17-year-old Dalit girl who ended her life because of NEET, could not mobilise such a crowd. What did the NEET paper leak do that the Hathras rape and murder of a Dalit girl did not? This frustration is directed particularly at those who suddenly discovered injustice through the paper leak. Where were these people so far? Why do certain injustices produce such urgency and mobilisation, while others fail to do so?
Lest it be misunderstood, my aim here is neither to downplay the suffering caused by the paper leak, including the reported suicides, nor to dismiss the movement as meaningless. The use of tear gas, pellet guns, and nail-studded lathis against peacefully protesting students must be unequivocally condemned. Their use demands the severest scrutiny in a liberal democracy like ours. Likewise, a spontaneous mass movement led by the youth that questions an authoritarian government is something to welcome. It does offer hope for a better future. Yet, strangely, I find some parallels between the recent protests and the anti-Mandal agitation despite the differences in their demands and historical contexts.
The anti-Mandal protesters primarily employed the language of merit to oppose reservations for the Backward Classes. They blamed reservations for rewarding the undeserving. Replace reservations with the NEET paper leak, and we arrive at a familiar language, a dominant strand in the ongoing protests: the upper-caste anxiety over “merit.” Here, merit is understood as an individual attribute rather than as a product of the historical accumulation of caste privilege. It is based on a formal conception of equality that requires treating individuals as individuals irrespective of their membership in particular groups.
Consider, for instance, the CJP’s examination reforms and the solidarity tweets of several celebrities who otherwise never open their mouths on such issues. They primarily focus on conducting “fair” and “transparent” public exams. Their major concern expressed in these reforms and tweets is not the disastrous effects of a centralised entrance exam like NEET on lower-caste and poor students who cannot afford expensive coaching classes. Rather, it is to ensure that entrance exams are conducted efficiently so that “meritorious” students secure admission. Underlying these concerns is a conception of fairness rooted in caste-blind formal equality.
Thus, it is not wrong for us to view these protests with some suspicion, particularly because they speak the universal language of fairness in the education system. Am I wrong to think that the recent momentum behind the anti-reservation movement (the Reservation Hatao Andolan) might have stemmed from the anti-Mandal strand reinvigorated by the recent protests? The mass mobilisation, its funny and provocative memes, and the courage shown by many young protesters in the recent protests need not distract us from asking hard questions about whose fairness the movement is fighting for. What appears fair from within the movement need not be fair to us.
Mere glorification of the recent protests will only strengthen the anti-Mandal strand discussed above. This strand requires no further propaganda, as it has long been part of the nation's common sense. Moreover, the CJP’s ideological hollowness allows such common sense to reproduce itself unchallenged. Of course, the paper leak affects us too. But it is not the be-all and end-all of the unfairness in our education system. Was it the paper leak that killed our Anitha, Rohith Vemula, Darshan Solanki, Muthu Krishnan, and Payal Tadvi? A Minister’s resignation or even the entire cabinet’s resignation will not, by itself, change much for us. Should we then dissociate from the movement?
NO. But we must be cautious. It is illuminating to think of those climate change movements that manufacture the notion of “togetherness”—that we are all in this together—as if climate change affects everyone equally and each of us is equally responsible for breaching the planetary boundaries. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thus, as the Marxist theorist and author China Miéville says in relation to environmental justice, we must begin with the ‘non-totality’ of the “We.” In other words, realising that “We are not all in this together.” We must constantly ask what is fair to us and not let it be subsumed by the artificial togetherness fabricated by spontaneous movements like the recent protests.
In doing so, we not only avoid bad hope and bad despair but also, as Lenin would have desired, direct the movement beyond its spontaneity, rather than allow it to remain as shapeless as the balloon in Barthelme’s story. Interestingly, what made the people in the neighbourhood admire the balloon was its indefiniteness and ability to change shapes. It was pleasurable to those living rigid and patterned lives, to those who desired change but found it unavailable. The CJP movement is much like this. But like the people in the neighbourhood, we cannot afford not to raise questions about meaning and purpose. Balloons can be purposeless, but not movements.
So, let us not stop asking the question: what is at stake for us, Dalits, in this CJP movement?