When thousands of students gathered at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar this month demanding accountability over the education crisis, the protest site slowly turned into a space where anger began to be expressed through colour, music and performances. Many of the artists, rappers, poster-makers and student volunteers who were part of the movement are now reflecting on what the protest has changed for them.
“Art was the baseline of this protest,” says Harshit Singh, a queer poet and storyteller. “Instead of a long lecture about education policy, we turned it into slogans, poems or songs. People listened, enjoyed it and understood it immediately. Complex ideas need to be made accessible."
From screens to streets
Art also became the means of participating in the protest, even if from a distance. Atharva Mote, a Bengaluru advertising professional who loves making art, created a series of digital posters – that questioned the government’s handling of the crisis and condemned the lathicharge on protesters at the July 20 ‘Sansad Chalo’ march. One of his satirical artwork juxtaposes a heavily armed deployment of security forces against a tiny cockroach, whereas another work features model Rhiya Ahir who gained prominence for stopping a Mumbai Police van full of detained protesters. The posters went viral on Instagram, and were later printed by protesters and taken to Jantar Mantar. The artist says that the moment people carried his artworks to the protest site, they no longer belonged solely to him.
He says while art per se is not political, it can become so if it engages with the politics of its time. Politics, he adds, is not separate from the everyday, and neither is art. Mote says the movement also changed popular perceptions about Gen Z, and in some cases, how it thought about itself. "We make memes and reels, but we also show up on the streets,” he says. The protest pulled in many first-time protesters too and demonstrated that protesting was possible.
Songs of dissent
Jantar Mantar at night especially came alive with music and performances. The young realised that one did not need to be a professional artist to contribute—a sketch pen, a piece of paper, and a strong, robust voice singing along with others were enough.
Speaking with TMS, rapper Shiv Mishra (@shivaay_music on Instagram) recalls participating in a cypher at Jantar Mantar. A video of Mishra, who has long written songs on social issues, has been widely shared on Instagram. Inspired by the NEET controversy, one of his songs goes: Ummeedein jitni bhi theen jal ke saari raakh ho gayi (All our hopes have burned to ashes)/kursi pe baithe neta, tujhse hai sawaal mera (To the leader sitting in power, I have a question for you)/tune jo waade kiye uski parchi khaakh ho gayi (The promises you made have turned to dust). The shayari of scriptwriter Kashif (kashif29s on Instagram), particularly his poem Yeh Kaisi Sarkar Hai (What kind of government is this) and Jago Phir Ek Bar (Wake up once more), also found great resonance in the protest.
Young voices
TMS also met Meeza, a Class 12 student, with her face painted like a clown. She pointed to her fellow protester, Kavya, who recently completed her Class 12 and has been affected by CBSE's new digital On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, for her creativity. “The government has made all of us into a clown,” Meeza said while pointing to her painted face. “Not just me. Everyone.”
The movement also inspired new forms of participation. Singh recalls organising a letter-writing workshop for children at Jantar Mantar, where around 60 to 70 children wrote letters to the Prime Minister describing their dreams, schools, and hopes for a free education system.
Anurag, a spoken word artist, saw his participation in the CJP protest as a moral obligation rather than an opportunity for visibility. On the ground, he distributed food and water, stood alongside students, singing protest songs and raising slogans. Online, he used social media to keep people informed about developments and even penned a satirical poem on the current regime. "Art is a collective vocal cord for any public expression or movement. Slogans make people roar together,” he says.
Inputs: Srestha Sarkar