In the midst of the mounting death toll and innumerable images of lathi charge, stone-pelting and torching in the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests, a placard from a Kolkata rally caught the eye. It had Shahid Kapur as Kabir Singh, riding a bike, asking: “ Kisne Constitution ko haath lagaya (Who touched the Constitution)?” The deliberate incongruity of deploying a ruthless, remorseless hero from contemporary Bollywood as the saviour of the Constitution didn’t just bring out the grave irony of the State tampering with the most important document of the nation, but also threw the accompanying violence and brutality of the last one week into sharp relief.
It’s also a pointer to a distinctive aspect about the anti-CAA/NRC protests — triggered by the young, they have been passionate and powerful, creative, civil and cheerful, all at the same time. There has been a sense of decorum and discipline in dissent, an attempt to bring a cultured engagement back into the public discourse, which has been getting steadily boorish and vicious.
In protest after protest, be it the slogans shouted or the placards displayed, there has been an overwhelming sense of inventiveness and irreverence in putting forth one’s beliefs, that too in the language of the millennials for whom “Sanghis = Boomers”, as per one poster. It has been about keeping the energy high, playfulness intact and the smile on without losing sight of the bigger battle. The semantics of a contemporary civil disobedience movement couldn’t have been cheekier: “ Bure din wapas de do (Give us back that bad days)”, as opposed to the delusion of achche din ; “I have seen better cabinets at Ikea”; “It’s so bad that even the privileged are here”.
Harnessing ‘wokeness’
“Campus and student politics has always been the domain of slogans,” says Flame University, Pune, professor Ravikant Kisana. However, the ABVP-SFI template has seen a sea change this time. “Most of these youngsters have not been regular street protesters. They don’t have union affiliations. It was the first protest for a lot of them,” he says. And so the freshness and novelty in their imagery and ideas as well.
Screenwriter Atika Chohan thinks it’s coming from a class of youth that has had a lot of exposure. “They are very well informed and that is guiding their spirit… There has been this tipping point, the need had arisen to get out, protest and make a show of it by grabbing whatever form and language you know.”
“They are not ignorant. They are social media woke,” concurs Mr. Kisana, adding that they have been aware of the Hong Kong protests, the U.S. politics, anti-Donald Trump campaigns and more.
“The savviness has magnified, almost become an art form,” says Santosh Desai, CEO Futurebrands, of the “act of mocking relentlessly” which has been much on display. And it also reflects the way this generation reacts to the world in general, through tweets, memes and emojis. “It’s a muscle built with time. They have been practising it [online], even when not on the streets… It adds to the movement even while showing them as cool,” he says.
“They have brought the vocabulary of the cool memes to the slogans,” says Mr. Kisana.
Mining pop culture
According to Mr. Desai, currency has always been the hallmark of political sloganeering for “built in memorability and circulation in social platforms”. No wonder a lot of the jibes at the political class have mined popular culture, doffing the hat to not just Bollywood and Hollywood but even international web series and shows. “Orange is the new Black,” said one placard with a saffron lotus. Another referred to the government not “sparking any joy”, as Marie Kondo (Japanese organising consultant and star of the popular Netflix series, Tidying up with Marie Kondo ) would say. Yet another, while evoking Game of Thrones , called Prime Minister Narendra Modi worse than Cersei Lannister.
Harry Potter inspired a fair share of its fans. “Dumbledore would not have let this happen,” said one, referring to the headmaster of Hogwarts wizarding school. “Teenagers took down Voldemort and you are not even half as smart. Expelliarmus,” went another, alluding to the villain and the magic spell.
The wit has turned the critique sharper, disarmed people in general and left the humourless right wing trolls groping for words. Actor Richa Chadha feels this irreverence was much needed and hopes the “funny posts and cute posters” would have made a dent. “The older generation has been giving too much reverence. People elected to administer have been behaving like rulers. There is an air of invincibility [about them]. We need to wake up and relentlessly take down despots and dictators,” she says.
For Ms. Chohan, the “syncretisation” of the newer with the older forms of protest has been the most heart-warming. The reading of the age-old Preamble while holding a new-age placard that elucidates a timeless appeal to humanity: “ Jab Hindu Muslim Raazi, To Kya Karega Nazi ”. Says she: “It has been about feeling alive, reinterpreting the feeling of being an Indian.”
Point is, would the ruling class even understand this creative self-expression to deign to react to it? Perhaps not. However, its hackles would be up for the sheer numbers, the lakh and more that gathered in solidarity at August Kranti Maidan, if not the slogans they shouted. “It has also led to a very rapid social media footprint that it would want to contain,” says Mr. Kisana. The tweets and Instagram stories have also had a ripple effect offline, with more and more youngsters wanting to join their peers in protests.
Place of privilege
On the flip side, Mr. Kisana points out the “privilege of the protest site”, how the new lexicon of resistance has been way more visible in the friendly Mumbai and Pune than even in the spunky Delhi, where State violence has been consistently hijacking the narrative. “There has been no administrative challenge thrown at the students from the police and the State here [in Maharashtra],” he says.
Would all the laughing and smiling and the “romanticised” gesture of offering roses to the police hold any meaning for those stakeholders who are caught directly in the crossfire in the protests in Uttar Pradesh or Assam? Can this small aesthetic then become a weighty voice? And in the fluid and volatile situation, how long would the young be able to sustain this engagement with politics? Are they in transit at the protest sites or here to stay longer?
Even as these questions beg for answers, lyricist, writer, comic Varun Grover’s new poem, “inspired by the spirit of every protester and India lover, with hat-tips to Rahat Indori saab and the Bangla slogans” says: “ Tum aansoo gas uchhaloge, tum zehar ki chai ubaloge ; Hum pyaar ki shakkar ghol ke usko gat gat gat pi jaayenge ; Hum kaagaz nahin dikhayenge (You blind us with tear gas, you poison our waters; That our love will sweeten, and we will drink it all in a go; The NRC papers we won’t show)”.
The ‘ Achche Din Blues ’ and ‘ Pehlu Khan ’ balladeer Aamir Aziz recites, “ Main zulm se inkaar karta hoon (I protest against oppression),” at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
Meanwhile, the pro-CAA rallies are sloganeering: “ Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko (Shoot the traitors of the nation)”.
The heart of a protest is ultimately reflected in the language it speaks in.
