Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.
The latest December 13 attack on India’s Parliament stunned the parliamentarians, the people and the media alike. As they reacted to piecemeal information trickling in the social media, immediate reactions were different. The parliamentarians called it a serious breach of security, which it was. The ruling dispensation reacted by treating it as a serious conspiracy, maybe not entirely spontaneous, but orchestrated by unseen ‘enemies of the State’.
Mediapersons swiftly began squabbling over a canister that the attackers had allegedly used to release yellow smoke. Amit Malviya, in-charge of Bharatiya Janata Party’s National Information and Technology Department, dubbed one of the security breaches accused Neelam Verma as a mere ‘Andolanjeevi’, a term popularised by his party.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Cut to the visuals. Two young men suddenly jump into the new Parliament while it was in session, yelling and waving canisters that released a noxious yellow gas, leap across seats and tables. The suddenness took everyone by surprise, and most of them chose to rush out, while a few stood on the sidelines with mouths agape before pouncing on the culprits. Outside, Neelam Azad (37), a woman protester, was dragged away while shouting slogans about the youth unemployment that haunted them. The term ‘Andolanjeevi’ thus gained young faces contorted with rage that should now frighten more citizens, anchors, reporters, and certainly the party’s national media handlers.
It seems the ruling dispensation is well-armed to handle such rage. Of late the ambit of old criminal laws the British used to punish revolutionaries is being expanded and used liberally. The fact is, all over the world, a certain kind of rebellion surfaces first among the young and can soon become a wave if times are ripe.
While the market has many flaws, the new social media it has launched has also made democratic functioning transparent. Young people are avid observers of political parties and their leaders, who are carefully and expensively ‘relabelled’ and ‘repackaged,’ and whose narratives are ‘reset’ by professionals.
Elections are no longer joyous occasions celebrating democratic freedoms. They are wars fought in cyberspace. The voters here are data. The faceless vote banks are wooed in rallies and on TV with ‘presentations’ and panel discussions on prime time TV. The upstart anchors, with carefully styled hair, no longer talk of national priorities, but ‘brand identity’, ‘core values’, state models, double-engines. Even the group ads boast not of viewers but of channels’ ‘market share’. Systems turn away again and again from the elephant in the room: unemployment.
Instead, we are sold old wine in new bottles and mutton parading as lamb, talking about India as a young nation, youthful dreams, and restoring the lost glory of the wonder that was India.
Before the nation hastily bulldozes these angry young voices, it must take a deep breath and face the real-time issues that will remain unresolved, regardless of the margin political parties may win. The basic flaw must not be allowed to get buried under ritual and spectacle. In this instance, it lies in a poor security set up for the new Parliament building. The building was inaugurated not too long ago in a ritualistic ceremony, with a horde of portly Sadhus carrying a gold mace, The Holy Sengol – an ancient symbol of divine authority – and planting it in the sanctum sanctorum of Democracy amid Vedic chants.
All the media buzz was good Vastu, holy Mantras and ancient rituals that protect our culture and democracy. There was not a whiff of the objective conditions many of our youngsters are growing in. Some will view this question as cynical. After all, they ask, such conditions exist in many countries, but a blatant attack within the Parliament building by half a dozen rank amateurs with personal grievances against the system, does not erupt there. Why did it happen here in the heart of the mother of democracy so suddenly?
Also read: What Yellow Smoke Signals Tell Us About the ‘Mother of Democracy’
It was not sudden, according to the latest reports. The educated but jobless individuals had met briefly in Mysuru over a year ago. Since then, they kept in touch on Facebook and recently reunited in Gurugram, the Maximum City of the north, to shape a plan that would draw attention to their plight. Facebook is a bubble created for their kind by a Harvard sophomore to whom ‘connectivity among the young’ was the Holy Grail. Interestingly, the Bhagat Singh Fan Club page, built around the celebrated rebel against British colonialism who had also hurled a dummy bomb at the highest authority, became the catalyst.
Net is where our youngsters live 24×7. And everything shrinks on Facebook; it’s a mini India for the young, with time on their hands that they can roam freely to meet like-minded people. Here is where a Neelam Azad, the jobless daughter of a halwai in a village in Jind who has an M.Ed degree, has passed the NET, HTET, CTET exams and still failed to get a job, could meet another disgruntled 26-year-old Sagar Sharma, son of a carpenter, who had to drop out of school for lack of money and drive an auto rickshaw in Lucknow for a living.
They also met a jobless engineer, Manoranjan (34) from Mysuru, the son of a farmer and Amol Shinde (25), a Dalit from Latur, Maharashtra, who failed to qualify for the army and was deemed too old for becoming an Agniveer.
On Facebook, Vishal Sharma and Lalit Jha promised to provide board and lodging to their out of town online friends. Thus, a Wild West of Facebook became home for the revolutionary fantasies of lost, frustrated, and angry souls. No wonder there is a haphazard and accidental quality to their attack. The younger ones, Amol and Sagar, entered the Parliament, courtesy passes provided by the staff of an unsuspecting MP, and created terror within, while the older ones, Neelam and Manoranjan, raised slogans and waved spray cans outside.
While the bystanders were petrified and revolted, the media vultures entered, fighting over a can of tear gas. Rich Black humour there, but also so much unspoken pain!
By evening, the general reaction had subsided as authorities and the ‘Godi’ media went into overdrive trying to find links with all deemed subversives: Maoists, Naxals, and the Opposition looking to draw blood.
Here is a moment when a nascent movement limited to some half a dozen men and women butted headlong in a structure they felt no longer cared for them. Like children throwing tantrums, they tried to destroy and de sanctify whatever they could to draw attention to their anger: chairs, tables, papers, files, a mic here and a bag there. But these acts were impulsive and short-lived, a poor theatre, if you will.
If the condemnable but puny revolt underscores anything, it is this: sometimes money and spectacles are not enough to sustain the grand illusion; hollow promises are no longer working. There is an Iranian proverb that says: Promises have value only for those that believe in them. The Parliament security breach incident on December 13 showed us a rare glimpse of what many did not see.
What seems to be a play gone bad could, if immediate remedial action is not taken, become a violent rapacious spectacle where characters will again invade the stage suddenly, looking for a new author.
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