Bharat Bhushan - Govt crackdowns on youth and NGOs betray fear of emerging leadership
NB: No country for young people? Or women? Or critics? Or journalists who refuse to behave as propagandists for the Sangh Parivar? The more it represses democracy the more will people resist. DS Except for the Emergency in 1975-77, no government has targeted political dissent as single-mindedly as the present one. While the state of Emergency was seen as exceptional, today the criminalisation of democratic resistance by the state has become a “normal” and continuous process. This is why the state’s attack on dissent appears far more egregious now.
The latest onslaught are the amendments to the Foreign
Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) to choke Non-Governmental Organisations
(NGOs). The government has targeted citizens’ movements like “United against
Hate” and Pinjra Tod as well as others who protested against the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA) and the state’s indifference to millions of urban migrant
workers having to flee to their villages because of its ill-planned national
lockdown.
The heavy handedness of the government in invoking sedition
and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) against these youngsters has been
shocking. The Modi government is not afraid of parliamentary Opposition parties
which its electoral success has effectively marginalised in legislative fora.
However, it seems fearful of the youth because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) see a potent
potential threat in this new crop of student and youth activists.
The recklessness and idealism of youth makes them brave and
confrontational in ways that parliamentary political parties cannot replicate.
They are at the forefront of the agitations against atrocities against Dalits,
against Hindutva’s cow vigilantes and opposed to the unfairness of the CAA.
They poured into the streets waving the Indian Constitution, organised public
readings from it and supported the hundreds of anti-CAA sit-ins that sprung up
across the country
The political motivation of these youngsters is lofty,
idealistic and transformative. Their aim is not to gain loaves and fishes of
elected office, but rather to shape a new India. Because of this they pose a
challenge to the BJP-RSS’s majoritarian project. After all, its future leaders
are recruited from the same age-group and pool. If their ideological crop is to
be protected, then potential challengers need to be weeded out.
What the BJP-RSS combine seems to dread is the emergence of
a coalition between rights activists with Dalits and Muslims. While Dalits
challenge the Hindutva nationalist ideology from within as being unequal and
Brahmanical in nature, Muslims challenge it for existential reasons. This
political cocktail is perceived to be even more potent if left-wing rights activists
are also involved, e.g. as in the Bhima Koregaon case.
During its first term in office the Modi government did not
seem certain about how to deal with the challenge of youth leaders– whether
left-wing, Dalit or Muslim – who were critical of its policies. It was largely
confined to campaigns of individual smearing such as “Kanhaiaya Kumar is
anti-national”, “Rohit Vemula was not a Dalit”, Chandrashekhar Ravan and
Jignesh Mevani are a threat to national security and Hardik Patel’s morals are
questionable, etc. However, the gloves are off after its huge Parliamentary win
in 2019. It seems to have a more comprehensive strategy to handle this
challenge.
Most of the recent arrests under the draconian UAPA have
implicated those active in the anti-CAA protests in organising communal riots
in North-east Delhi. They are all in their twenties such as Safoora Zargar
(M.Phil. student of Jamia Milia Islamia), Gulfisha Khatoon (recent
post-graduate of Delhi University), Devangina Kalita and Ntasha Narwal (JNU
students and activists of Pinjra Tod which came up to protest hostel fee
hikes), Asif Iqbal Tanha (Jamia student), Meeran Haidar (Ph.D student from
Jamia), Umar Khalid (former JNU student leader), and Sharjeel Imam (Ph.D.
student from JNU). Each one has shown prominent leadership qualities. So have
non-student activists from the peaceful anti-CAA protests like Shifa-ur-Rehamn
(President of Jamia Alumni Association), Abdul Khalid Saifi and Athar Khan
(members of “United against Hate”) and prominent faces of local anti-CAA
movement like Shadab Ahmed, Tasleem Ahmad, and Mohammed Saleem Khan.
Even their mentors have been put on notice. Civil liberties
ideologues and others who advised them to keep protests peaceful or assisted
them in various ways like Harsh Mander, Rahul Roy and Saba Deewan, Swarajya
Party leader Yogendra Yadav, Prof. Apoorvanand and office bearers of a
fledgling, largely Muslim political party, the Popular Front of India, have
been named in police charge-sheets. Now, NGOs and civil society organisations
that have provided idealistic youngsters a forum are sought to be controlled
through the FCRA restrictions.
In its first term, the Modi government cancelled the
licences of 20,000 NGOs in 2018 – some of whom had criticised the role of the
Gujarat government and its then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in the
anti-Muslim riots of 2002. Curbs on grassroots activism of NGOs have been
further intensified in Modi’s second term.
In serving the under-served sections of society, NGOs create
local support networks, foster local activism against mis-governance, instil
social awareness amongst Dalits, tribals, Muslims, women and other poor people
and provide them a step up in life. These roles bring them into direct
competition with the agenda of the front organisations of the RSS who also
address the same issues but within a majoritarian, Hindutva framework.
The recent amendments to the FCRA will
cut off the link between larger NGOs receiving foreign funds legitimately and
the smaller grassroots NGOs who collaborate with them in the fields of
education, health and other public policy domains. Activists claim that
limiting the administrative expenses of NGOs receiving funds from abroad from
50% to 20% of the grant will reduce the number of local youth activists they
can employ. Greater surveillance will become possible by the new directive
that FCRA accounts
may only be opened with the State Bank of India’s New Delhi branch.
In the “managed democracy” that India seems to be moving
towards, there is only space for a single political vision. However, the hegemony
of this vision backed by the Modi government is not going uncontested by youth.
This, the Hindutva forces cannot countenance.
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