Street-fighting’s second coming

Just when you thought that we have lost the ability to come out on the streets, the Delhi medical students prove you wrong….


Looking at the scenes, you almost felt a 1991-redux….I do know that even though I was pretty young at that time to remember the details, it had affected me a lot….


My first impression was, what kind of a freak democracy are we supposed to be living in when a group of medical students from some of the most prestigious colleges in India are not allowed the simple democratic exercise of giving a memorandum to the minister (of course, then, I remember that, peel off the surface and we are in many ways close to a police state)…..I mean, they were not rebels and they were not trying to storm government buildings, then why the lathi-charge and the water-cannons and the tear-gases? You almost felt that the government is constantly on edge or more plausibly, the first reaction to a mass-gathering is…beat them up and think later….doesn’t speak too well of our much-vaunted ideals eh?

Anyway, the guys at the top soon realized how bad it looked (atleast their PR agency did) and an 'apology' soon followed and the minister decided to meet the representatives…of course, one could not have assumed that they had a chance against the seasoned politician that Arjun Singh is…and there was a ready excuse anyway, that the before elections are over, he couldn’t speak of it as directed by the EC….

In that respect, its good to see that the students were not defeated and have charted an independent course of their own….

It is indeed good to see the dissent spreading across the country…..as to how it will unfold, its difficult to say…both sides have too much at stake…the congress, its votes in UP and Bihar and we, our careers….we have to wait till 11th may, I guess….but one thing is for certain, it has just become more difficult for the congress to move ahead….

And if we win, well, it will help us in our belief that we can fight and we can win….what the students need is a clear headed fellow at top, if this movement is to go anywhere and not end up like the massacre (it was near enough) like it was last time

In the same breath I hope that that leadership is not given to some political parties (who would want to co-opt this and use it their way), because, then, we can say adieu to the faint sliver of hope of a new beginning….