A good time for a thought experiment: imagine yourself in Kashmir. The dead cold fingers of a political winter. Section 144. No internet. Communication black hole.
You badly want to say something to the world, but an iron curtain surrounds you ... Indeed, what people saw in the last few days is only a glimpse of what it would be like if that maxim came true: that it is not India that has gone to Kashmir, but Kashmir that has come to India.
For a world that watches with bemused fascination as unprecedented scenes of protest rage across India over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, the connection would be obvious.
No wonder India made global headlines: a country that deigned to sup at the highest table, that had dared to earn superpower status on the back of its democratic strengths, was shooting itself spectacularly in the foot.
As if to fulfil Neville Maxwell’s curse that India could not hold together, and was destined for balkanisation.
The heartening aspect of the civil unrest—which spread like wildfire, volcanic, organic, and not seen on this scale since the 70s—was the people.
They were standing against even a theoretical chance of balkanisation.
Against the idea that a law which had the power to bring about a million new partitions could even exist. The scenes of police brutality at Jamia Millia Islamia and AMU brought even IIMs, IITs, AIIMS and private universities out in solidarity.
Delhi saw a near-shutdown, but the roll-call of places where the streets are brimming with dissent is endless.
Everywhere, a groundswell, common people defying Section 144, standing as one to save India’s constitutional ethos.
Historian Ram Guha got roughed up, a library was ransacked. Cities were turned into fortresses, where no one with another opinion could be a citizen.
But the youth, who showed roses to unsmiling cops, are not destroying India. They are redeeming India.