With the recent success of the Gen-Z protests that led to the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, different reactions are being observed from different state players. While the BJP, police, judiciary, and media have all done their best to suppress and vilify the protesters, none other than the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has appeared in the form of the good cop.
Alarmed by the declining popularity of the RSS and rising discontent among the youth of the country, Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS sarsanghchalak spearheaded a pan-India campaign to win back lost ground. This campaign was launched on 6th August from
Mumbai, where a 2000-strong crowd consisting of
students aged between 15-19 years (Gen-Z and Gen-alpha) were made to listen to his pearls of wisdom at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre. His comments on treating protests as a legitimate form of dialogue that should lead towards building ‘consensus’ came as an open act of hypocrisy given RSS’s history in engineering riots and communal tension in the subcontinent. He went on to disagree on the rampant use of the word ‘anti-national’, a label often given to protestors by BJP leaders and Godi media. Despite sitting on top of a vast network of social media groups and pages that spread divisive pro-state propaganda day-in and day-out, Bhagwat warned on the misuse of social media stating, “We need self-imposed discipline in using social media. Once that discipline develops, regulations will work effectively.”
He also reiterated the progressive demand for increasing the education spending to 6% of the GDP. The same RSS hailed the National Education Policy 2020 saying ‘60-70%’ of their demands have been met through this policy that principally aims to commodify education. Irony died a thousand times.
The interaction also exposed a fault line between the RSS and its electoral wing the BJP, as Bhagwat made a barely veiled attempt to reinforce the status of RSS as the motive force behind the success of the BJP. He asserted that leadership is not about ‘delivering speeches’ or ‘winning elections’ but about working from behind the scene. This jibe has elicited reactions from an unexpected quarter. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke hailed this intervention by the RSS and warned the BJP from assuming itself to be bigger than its parent organisation. This tacit show of respect once again proves the hollowness of reformist politics that does not see the RSS as a direct actor in communal politics and an enabler of imperialist policies. As the RSS continues its ‘Gen-Z outreach’, student-youth must take this opportunity to expose the hypocrisy of the RSS and question its essentially anti-democratic ideology.
A phone call from ABVP is all it takes!
Mount Carmel University has reached a new low in institutional autonomy. An event scheduled for September 23 on “Gender Politics and the Media in the Fight for Equality”, featuring political activist and Spark editor Aratrika, Alex from Vimochana, and journalist-author Gita Aravamudan, was cancelled after ABVP objected to the event and threatened a protest.
If a phone call and the threat of a protest are enough to make an institution cancel an academic event, we have to ask: where is the autonomy?
Educational institutions must remain spaces for debate, dissent, critical thinking, and questioning dominant narratives. Fascist goons, in no way, should have the authority to decide which voices are acceptable inside a campus. ABVP’s repeated attempts to intimidate institutions and disrupt democratic spaces cannot be normalised as “student politics”. Students deserve campuses where ideas can be debated rather than silenced.
The issue is bigger than one cancelled event. It is about the impunity with which the saffron terrorists have repeatedly,and desperately tried to terrorise those who expose them!
Defend campus democracy! Defend academic freedom! Defend the right to dissent!
