The fear files: Despite feeling heat of government action, young activists say they won't bend yet

Recent arrests of activists by police unsettle socially conscious young Indians at risk of being labelled anti-national. But, motivation to speak up for equal rights and ethical policy will outweigh the fear, they say

Maitreya Sanghvi is a plucky 22-year-old from Mumbai. In the last two years, he has been noticed by the police thrice already. Out on bail, he believes that things could have been worse for him, had the Coronavirus pandemic not struck. 

The lockdown halted his activism. That also meant fewer run-ins with the law, which though, a relief, he sees as disheartening, because there’s so much he wants to do, instead of just “rant online”. “Sitting at home during the lockdown, while activists were being jailed, got me fuming. I felt helpless.”

A demonstration held outside the collector’s office in Thane on Thursday, in solidarity with arrested activists across the country. Pic/Sameer Markande

Sanghvi is on his own. He is neither affiliated to an NGO, nor a social movement, or political party. He believes in certain causes—the right ones—and he stands up for them. “This government is taking from the poor and giving to the rich. My blood boils, as everyone’s should.”  It’s why his feet have found their way organically to any event or gathering, where support is sought. 

His first serious run in with the law came in December 2019, when there were demonstrations across the country against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Violence at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia rocked the nation, and Sanghvi was detained—twice—while participating in vigils at Marine Drive. The one that struck a heavy blow, though, was in February last year, when he along with hundreds had gathered at the Veer Kotwal Garden in Dadar to show solidarity for the victims of the violence in Delhi. 

Activist-filmmaker Maitreya Sanghvi, 22, has been detained thrice by the police for participating in vigils across Mumbai. Out on bail, he says, “I am what the Prime Minister would call an ‘andolan jeevi’.” Pic/Suresh Karkera

Around 50 protesters, including Sanghvi, were detained. A case was filed against him, and he was released soon after. But, a few days later, he got a court summons. “I was surprised, and definitely nervous. I had to be bailed out, and for what? A peaceful candlelight vigil. It still seems unreal. If I hadn’t been able to afford the bail, I probably would have been in jail through the pandemic,” he says. 

Like several other young Indians passionate about a cause, Sanghvi is feeling the heat of government action. On February 13, 22-year-old climate change activist Disha Ravi was arrested for allegedly sharing an online “toolkit” on how to support the mass protests by farmers across the country, which turned violent on January 26. Charged with sedition, Ravi, after five days in police custody and two days in jail, was denied bail on Saturday.

Labour activist (right) Nodeep Kaur, 23, with her sisters, and mother Swarnjeet. Kaur was arrested on January 12. The family has alleged that she was brutally assaulted by the police, which left her bleeding. Pic courtesy/Rajveer Kaur

Has it put him off activism? “No,” he says unequivocally, “It is clear that this is being done to discourage dissent and keep us quiet.”    

The young filmmaker, who has just made his documentary debut with Gau Premi: For the Love of Cow, a film on cow vigilantes, says it was back in 2014 that his journey of social consciousness began. “I was still in school, and not old enough to vote, but I did fear for the secular fabric of this country. Even as I was thinking and debating this with friends and family, I saw that communalism was on the rise.” It bothers him that “no independent body is truly independent anymore”. Because he is privileged enough to miss a day of work to stand up for what he believes in, makes him responsible to speak up, he feels. “I am what the Prime Minister would call an ‘andolan jeevi’.”

Anmol Ohri, who leads the Jammu chapter of Climate Front, and only last week led an awareness march to save the Raika forest, says families are discouraging their kids from participating in more campaigns

Addressing the Lok Sabha earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had denounced “andolan jeevis”—people who are obsessed with agitation—accusing them of maligning the farmers’ protest. Differentiating them from the andolan kaaris (agitators), he said such protesters need to be identified, as they are misleading the country, by spreading misinformation.   

It’s on a similar pretext that 23-year-old Nodeep Kaur, a Dalit woman and trade union activist, who joined the agitation against the new farm laws, was arrested on January 12 from Kundli, an industrial area in Haryana. Kaur had three FIRs against her, and was booked under a range of Indian Penal Code sections, including rioting while armed with a deadly weapon, causing hurt to public servant, assault and criminal force, unlawful assembly, trespass. While her family and friends claim that all charges are untrue, what’s irked them most is her being labelled an “extortionist”.

Mumbai-based teen and award-winning filmmaker Neel Menon, 14, feels that young people should be allowed to speak up, and in “the medium they desire”

Kaur hails from a village in the Sri Muktsar Sahib district of Punjab. Hers is a large family—four sisters and two brothers—and though they weren’t economically well-off, being raised by an activist mother, Swarnjeet Kaur, gave them great courage, says Kaur’s elder sister Rajveer, who is also a student activist from Delhi University, associated with the Bhagat Singh Students’ Ekta Mandal. “We were raised in an environment of activism. Our mother always spoke out for women and Dalit rights. While I was in school, in 2013 or 2014, a Dalit girl had been raped, and my mother went all out to voice her protest. Because of the pressure she created, the three culprits were charged and sentenced in court. But, after that it became difficult for us to stay in the village. We were targeted, and had to leave,” Rajveer says, in a telephonic interview from Delhi. The Kaurs moved to Telangana, where Swarnjeet’s husband worked at a workshop. “Because of the shift, Nodeep and my brothers’ education took a hit. It was difficult to cope with studies, as the place was new, and they spoke a different language altogether.”

After completing Class XII from open school, Kaur took up a job at a factory in Kundli. “While in Kundli, she witnessed the unfair treatment meted out to labourers. Some of them hadn’t received their dues for months. She wanted to expose the corruption,” says Ravinder Singh, a friend of Rajveer’s, who has 
been struggling to secure Kaur’s release.

Zaid Sherwani, a 23-year-old student activist, who recently completed Master of Social Work from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), was slapped with “zila badar” expelling him from Aligarh, his hometown, for six months.  It ends on April 19, and he cannot be seen in the city until then. In November last year, students from AMU had written to President Ram Nath Kovind requesting that the charges be dropped against him. They even led a solidarity march for Sherwani

She joined the Majdoor Adhikar Sangathan (MAS) and demanded that their wages be given on time. While it cost Kaur her job, she continued her fight. When the farm laws became a sore point in November last year, Kaur mobilised workers and the farmers in the area, and joined the protest at Singhu border, and even in Kundli.

In one of the protests in December last year, Singh alleged that the Kundli Industry Association’s quick response team (QRT), a privately-appointed body, fired at the protesters. At the time, the police didn’t take action. On the morning of January 12, during a similar protest, Kaur was picked up and “beaten up brutally,” says Rajveer, adding, “We didn’t know about her whereabouts until evening [that day]. Later, we were told that she was taken to Karnal Jail.” “For days on end, she couldn’t walk properly, because she was bleeding from her legs.” The issue came to the forefront late in January, when poet Rupi Kaur shared Kaur’s plight on Twitter, alleging that she had been “sexually assaulted while in police custody”.

Climate change activists Disha Ravi, advocate Nikita Jacob and engineer Shantanu Muluk, are being probed for allegedly sharing a “toolkit” backing the ongoing protest by farmers against the Centre’s new farm laws, which turned violent on January 26

Rajveer has been in constant touch with Kaur all through February. “She is doing much better now. Her wounds are healing, and she can walk around, at least. I am hoping she is granted bail, and gets to fulfil her dream of studying at DU, like me.”

Kaur’s colleague, labour activist, 24-year-old Shiv Kumar, who is the president of MAS, is also currently behind bars. This Wednesday, which was Kumar’s birthday, members of his organisation, held a cultural evening to celebrate his birthday, and demand his release. Unbeknownst to his family or friends, Kumar was picked up on January 16 from a protest site. “We realised that something had gone wrong, when we didn’t hear from him,” says Ankit, his close associate and state president of Chhatra Ekta Manch in Haryana, who prefers to be known by his first name. “On January 24, we learnt that he had been produced in court, and the police was granted 10 days remand. All through that time, he wasn’t even allowed the right to legal representation,” he adds.

Members of the All India Students Association (AISA) use music as means of protest against the arrest of 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi, outside the Delhi Police headquarters on February 16. Pic/Getty Images

Ankit met Kumar during a film screening five years ago, and since then, the duo has been working for the rights of labourers. “He belongs to a Dalit family from Dhewru village in Sonipat. His mother suffers from a mental illness, and his father, Rajbir, works as a watchman at a government school. He has four other siblings. Because of the condition at home, he had to leave his education early on. He took up a tool and dye-making course, and later started working at a factory in Kundli, where he saw the condition of labourers first-hand,” says Ankit, adding that what happened with Kumar and Kaur was not just unjust, but also unconstitutional.

In Aligarh, Zaid Sherwani, a 23-year-old from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), says he faced similar backlash for doing his job. Late last year, Sherwarni, a former senior cabinet member of the student body at the AMU, was slapped with “zila badar” expelling him from Aligarh city, his hometown, for six months. He was charged for an anti-CAA protest that took place on December 15, 2019, at the university campus, and claims he was made one of the main accused. “As someone who has been active in student politics, it is my duty to raise issues that concern us. Demonstrating isn’t wrong, but the police attacked us with lathis. I was the only student imposed with a zila badar,” claims Sherwani, who recently completed his Master of Social Work at AMU. Sherwani, who wants to pursue a PhD from the university, says he has not been able to meet his family, as he is still on zila badar for another two months. “Sometimes, I go to Delhi, or stay with relatives in Bulandshahr [in UP]. This has been my life for four months. If I am seen in Aligarh, I will be charged for violation. It has also affected my studies. I am fortunate that because my father is a criminal lawyer, I have someone to fight my case. I am not sure why I am being treated like this.”  

Shiv Kumar, who is the president of Majdoor Adhikar Sangathan, was picked up on January 16 from a protest site. His family and friends claim they had no clue about his whereabouts for days on end

Closer home, a demonstration was held outside the collector’s office in Thane on Thursday, to show solidarity with Ravi, advocate Nikita Jacob and engineer Shantanu Muluk, and labour activist Kaur, who organisers say were wrongly implicated. “To dissent and disagree with government policies is a constitutional right and cannot be equated with seditious intent. To do so is to entirely betray the democratic character of our country,” the organisers shared in a WhatsApp message.

The Delhi Police had issued non-bailable arrest warrants against Jacob and Muluk in the toolkit case. While the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court has given a 10-day transit bail to Muluk, Jacob has been granted transit anticipatory bail for three weeks. Muluk’s school teacher, Raj Kumar Kadam of Shri Shivaji Vidyalaya, Beed, where he studied from Class V to X, says he remembers him as someone who was sensitive towards the cause of the poor. “He was a scholar… one of the brightest students in our school. And I always saw him reaching out to the underprivileged. He helped them in whatever way, he could. We lost touch after he left for the US for higher studies, but that’s something about him, which I found remarkable, and it stayed with me.” 

Thirty-year-old Assam-based Trinayan Gogoi (middle) says it was college students who led the campaign to save Dehing Patkai

What makes activism a “natural” for young people? Researchers Heather L Ramey, an adjunct professor in child and youth studies at Brock University, and Heather Lawford, an associate professor in the department of psychology at Bishop’s University, Canada, probably have the answers. The duo, in a piece published in the Greater Good Magazine for University of California, Berkeley, in February last year, shared how they used “positive psychology approach” to examine the motivations and capacities of youth in their research lab. They went on to discuss how, generativity—defined as concern for future generations as a legacy of the self—that otherwise, only considers people in middle age, is actually an important drive for the youth. “…young people do share a concern for the future and their contribution to it. Our research shows that young people between the ages of 14 and 29 show levels of generative motivation that are as high or even higher than adults’. Early generativity is also associated with caring friendships, community involvement, and healthy identity development in adolescence and young adulthood. So not only are young people interested and capable of caring for future generations, but doing so is likely good for them,” they wrote in 
the article.

It’s the desire to become a change-maker that led Anmol Ohri to start the Jammu chapter of Climate Front. Ohri was in college when he first heard the now viral Greta Thunberg speech from 2019, and her words “How dare you?” kept resounding in his head. “I was so inspired. Greta made me realise that the environment was important over all other issues concerning our country. What is happening today is going to directly impact us in the future,” he says. What started with clean-up drives, and awareness campaigns, even when curfew was imposed in Jammu, became much larger. On February 14, he rallied college students for an awareness march to save the Raika forest, which is rich in biodiversity, and where rampant development projects are being planned. “Before what happened with Disha, everyone, including our families and local police, was showering us with praise for our activities. Now, people are wary. Families are discouraging their kids from participating in more campaigns, and it is going to have a demoralising effect on the larger movement in the country.”

Student activist Fahad Ahmad, who is currently pursuing his PhD from TISS, says the arrest of his friends Umar Khalid and Meeran Haider, both booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), has been demoralising. “This is going to affect our future. Who will employ us, if we are labelled criminals?”  

For many, awareness begins in the early years. Mumbai-based Neel Menon, a 14-year-old whose film, Girls Should Stay At Home, recently won an award for best documentary at the San Diego International Kids Film Festival, says that it’s important to celebrate all kinds of activism. His film began as a social service project for his school, the Oberoi International School in Mumbai. “Education has enabled me to think about global issues. I have a strong desire to spread social awareness through films, and I want them to have a lasting impact on society,” says Menon, who is keen on pursuing subjects revolving around gender equality. He says that the current plight of activists has made him feel even more strongly about social equality. “Young people have a lot to say, and they should be allowed to say it through the medium they desire.”

Thirty-year-old Assam-based Trinayan Gogoi, who founded the NGO Green Bud eight years ago, says youth activism is the core of everything today. His social media campaign last year, I am Dehing Patkai, expressing outrage against coal mining inside the forest of Dehing Patkai, where he resides, would have been impossible without student participation. “It’s because of these efforts that the wildlife sanctuary was upgraded to National Park, two months ago. The demarcation is still going on, but this is a big hope for us.” A high-level commission has been instituted by the government over the allegations made by Gogoi and team, and he has been issued summons to be present on March 9. “We have to give our testament there. I have nothing to worry about, because we haven’t made up anything here. A lot of illegal activities are happening here, and someone has to speak about it.”
 
But, following your heart doesn’t come without a price. Student activist Fahad Ahmad, who is currently pursuing his PhD from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, says what happened with his friends Umar Khalid and Meeran Haider, both booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in a case related to communal violence in northeast Delhi over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, has made him feel vulnerable. “I had joined them on a couple of anti-CAA protests, so it shocked me that they could be charged for something like this. Both are Gandhians, who believe in peaceful protests, but their actions are being given a communal tint. 

Ek darr ka mahaul bana ke rakha hai. This is going to affect our future. Who will employ us, if we are labelled criminals?”  

An environment activist, who was arrested for protesting against the hacking of trees inside Aarey forest, Goregaon, in October 2019, on condition of anonymity alleged that the case against him, and a few others, had been fabricated. “When we were taken to the police station, one of the cops told us that we’d be charged for attacking public servants, when in fact, all we were doing was hugging the trees, and preventing them from cutting them. There was a young college student with me, and he was terrified by how things had panned out. It was a lie. We couldn’t believe this was happening to us.”

Members of Pinjra Tod, a collective of women students and alumni of colleges from across Delhi, are still awaiting the release of their friends, human rights defenders Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal, who were arrested on May 23 last year in connection with the protests against the CAA in North East Delhi. “In such a fertile ground of intolerance, any productive engagement for justice becomes impossible… It is [a] time of immense hopelessness, but also of holding courage because the road to truth will always be the pursuit of all these citizens,” Pinjra Tod said in a statement to mid-day.  “The strength with which those who have been jailed in recent history, be it Amulya [Leona], Disha, Safoora [Zargar], Nodeep and countless other citizens who have encountered repression, sends a strong message to the state that dissent will not be so easily crushed.”

7
No. of days Disha Ravi, 22, has been confined as of Feb 20, in the farmers’ protest toolkit case

"Exciting news! Mid-day is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!