System Hilega!
The tale must be told in metaphors.
‘The Beginning of the End.’ By Tom Nairn and Angelo Quattrocchi.
(Students’ uprising. Wall graffiti. Sorbonne, Paris. May, 1968)
A child on the crowded stage is lovingly being called a ‘small cockroach’. There is a mother cockroach and her child cockroach. The mother is giving a speech. The child cockroach is listening.
One cockroach holds the hand of another. The independent reporter’s social media narrative: “I am here reporting from the protest site. You can see a crowd of cockroaches have gathered demanding the resignation of …”
A girl cockroach from Pune said that she sat through the protest rally in the middle of the crowd with around 6,000 or more peaceful protesters. Not once did anyone push her. That is, she felt totally safe.
Two slogans among others are highly popular. “System hilega” (the system will shake). And, “I am cockroach”.
Imagine the entire crowd chanting, “I am cockroach.” Sounds like a rap song in fast-forward-rewind. (A young rapper is now the prime minister of Nepal. So, why not!)
Besides, Dub Sharma’s famous ‘Azadi’ song, which peaked during the JNU protests in 2016, with lilting slogans, rhythmic drum beats, underground, unconventional sound effects, is part of the sound design of many of the videos made by ‘independent journalists’ including students.
Reporting from the ground.
Fighting on the ground.
On the spot. On the dot. Live.
Hum leke rahenge….
Tum kuch be karlo…
The simmering heat swells and subsides, only to swell again into a scorching cinema of sweltering summer sunshine. Sweat pours like honey. Sun-tanned, burnt by the heat and dust, dark bodies merge into the landscape of a stunning, organized protest. Shahid Smarak, Jaipur, the Pink City. They refused permission in the first instance. They relented, finally. They had no choice.
The city becomes pink.
They had to. As they did, soon after Abhijeet Dipke, as announced, landed at the Delhi airport from Boston, wearing a baseball cap, waving a copy of the Indian Constitution with Babasaheb Ambedkar on the cover, while a crowd of ‘independent media’ reporters cum anchors reached out to him. Live.
As if a freedom fighter has arrived from exile.
Parallel cinema becomes mainstream cinema. Parallel media becomes mainline media. Art house becomes house full. The parallel has now come full circle.
There was no ‘G-Media’. They were conspicuously absent. As they were at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, during the first cockroach rally.
So predictable!
And thankfully so.
(When a man bites a cockroach, its news. But when a cockroach bites a man, it is not news!)
The independent media of youngsters, women and men, were doing live stream reporting in social media with lakhs of followers. No one missed the stage-managed puppets of the Hindutva establishment.
The sold-out propagandists and loyalists and prime-time shouting match ‘pseudo nationalists’, the servile sycophants of the non-biological one, the specialists of non-news, fake news, feku news, half-news, bad-faith news, ‘hike-in-petrol-is-good news’, No-NEET leak news, No-CBSE botch-up news,
While India rocks. In city after city — Delhi, Lucknow, Patna, Bangalore, Jaipur, Pune, Amritsar – you name it.
(That is why the G-Media is so terribly discredited. The young have found them out. All news is bad news.)
Witness the bitter realism of the intense crisis in contemporary India, the daily ravaging of youthful aspirations, the destruction of budding academic careers, of teenagers in schools and the young in campuses; the frustrated army of endless job-seekers, on packed trains, hanging on at the doors, in front of the engine (as in Patna recently — exam for constables), suffocated, in thousands across the railway station.
The hardworking, dreamless, sleepless, nocturnal students, burning the yellow midnight bulb, sitting for this or that competition, with a dark, dark future ahead.
The tragic and heart-breaking suicides of the young, who should have lived, tasted happiness, fulfilled their dreams, fallen in love.
Do they think the young have short memories?
So what about teenage prodigies disclosing how the CBSE tenders seem to be rigged in favour of one company with a proven bad track record, or, how the scanned answer sheets were actually mobile screen shots, many of them smudged, if not fudged, so hazy for the eye to see that the beleaguered teacher-examiner would cry, silent saline tears.
How brilliant students were given below average marks, how answer sheets reportedly got exchanged etc, how months of hard labour was instantly wasted, how school students and their parents had to pay through their teeth at every step to get their answer sheets re-opened, or to get access to their own answer sheets.
How a school boy cracked the ‘formidable’ CBSE computer code, again and again, and pointed out the danger to them, and how they chose to be in eternal denial mode. Only to relent and finally dismantle the entire goddamned structure. But, then, it was too late.
Instead of celebrating these brilliant young minds as the future of the nation – they were trolled as Pakistanis, etc, and as Rahul Gandhi said, while listening to them patiently, and with great pride at their genius – why not ‘Deep State Agents?
Imagine teenagers being condemned like this who should have been invited by the prime minister himself, and hailed as role models and icons for the entire nation!
No, not in this country. Not under this one-dimensional regime which seems to care a damn for education or enlightenment. The latest is the ‘Dancing Girl’ of Mohenjodaro!
Bad habits die slow. The vicious cycle started against JNU continues to stalk and hound the talented students of the nation. Even kids are not spared.
Why is the mythical Vishwaguru so damn scared of its own Gen Z?
Instead, committed Youtube teachers, charging minimum tuition fees from thousands of poor and middle class students and aspirants sitting for competitive exams, were condemned as “Do kauri ke teachers”. So one woman teacher aptly replied: If we are “do kauri, she is phooti kauri”. (No English translation of these popular metaphors are available.)
Indeed, one particularly famous and highly respected teacher – “Khan Sir” in Patna (who has reportedly also built an inexpensive hospital for ordinary folks), with a following of thousands of successful and aspirant students, was suddenly being called – ‘Faisal Khan’. His religious identity became more important than his extraordinary work in impossible conditions. He was, predictably, hounded.
No wonder, his angry girl-students made a barricade in front of the police and shouted, in chorus – arrest us first, do whatever you want, we will not allow ‘Our Khan Sir’ to be taken away.
Peaceful. Non-violent. Young Abhijit Dipke, the founder and leader of the cockroaches, is slapped by a muscular, masculine, male in the Jaipur rally. Allegedly belonging to the RSS. He, predictably, brands Abhijit a ‘jihadi’. He, in contrast, glorifies himself as a ‘nationalist’ – — rashtrawadi.
Instead, Abhijit pleads – leave him, we will not hit anyone, we will continue our peaceful protest. Till the education minister is sacked.
There is thirst, passion, fury, angst, anger, the cry and longing for justice, the desire to be free and to fly, the need for a few coins more in an empty pocket, the need for optimism, trust, respect and dignity, for fair play, the quest for education, enlightenment, light, lightness.
It is indeed sudden, spontaneous, stunningly surprising. The ‘Metamorphosis’ of the cockroach as a symbol of resistance and struggle.
And hope. Optimism, against despair.
History repeats itself. Does it?
