Should Modi-Shah be worried about anti-CAA protests across the country?

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 19

If the Bharatiya Janata Party thought anti-CAA protests would fizzle out “soon”, it has not happened.

While Delhi continues to witness the anti-CAA sit-in, currently several parts of country—including Chennai down south and poll-bound Bihar—are witnessing a string of anti-CAA protests with students and young people forming their backbone and this is precisely what the ruling BJP needs to be careful about as it approaches assembly elections in various states, including Bihar, in the next few months

Incidentally, Bihar is the state that gave rise to one of the most effective student agitations around 1974 that added to factors that eventually led to the fall of the central government led by a very powerful Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi

While the ‘Navnirman Andolan’, a socio-political movement initiated by students and middle-class people against economic crisis and corruption, was on in Gujarat, students’ protest against corruption and misrule also started in Bihar. Led by Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, the unrest was initiated by students against “misrule and corruption in the government of Bihar”. It later turned against Indira Gandhi-led government at the Centre and the rest as they say is history.

Incidentally, Gujarat’s ‘Navnitrman Andolan’, which also resulted in dissolution of an elected government in the state, also began with protests by students of a college, the LD College of Engineering in Ahmedabad, against hike in hostel food fees. Initiated by students, middle class and factory workers joined in, leading to violent clashes across the state. The Indian Army had to be called and Indira Gandhi made Chimanbhai Patel resign as the Chief Minister

Jayaprakash Narayan had a term for these student agitations against the then ruling Congress. He called it “yuvashakti”. This is one reason why observers believe the BJP, which tends to labels all anti-government voices as “anti-national/pro-Pakistan”, needs a re-think in strategy to deal with anti-CAA-NPR-NRC protests, more so after the Delhi Assembly results

The BJP may have been able to increase its Delhi vote share with “high voltage polarising” campaign but results have broken the “myth” about the “invincibility of PM Narendra Modi and 2IC Amit Shah”.

This is not the first time student agitations have been reported in its regime (in fact the BJP discovered its famous “tukde-tukde” phrase for describing “anti-nationals” from one such protest in 2016 when students from the JNU were also booked for sedition for shouting “anti-national tukde tukde” slogans), but this time, the situation appears to be different

Delhi’ statistics show a large majority of young voters supported anti-CAA protests in Delhi and in those terms attempts by Bihar’s young leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and Prashant Kishor to mobilise young people needs to be taken more seriously, they say.

They might be “little seedlings” but have the potential to spell trouble for the BJP-JD(U) alliance in Bihar. Apparently, former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha from Begusarai on a CPI ticket, is attracting a lot of traction in his ‘Jan Gan Man Yatra’.

“There may still be no alternative for Narendra Modi at the national level and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar may still hold the key of any grouping given the intricate caste combinations in Bihar. But the rising participation of youth in anti-government (read BJP) protests have the potential to erode support for the BJP-JD(U) combine among youth in Bihar which needs to addressed while there is still time,” the observers believe.