‘People’s sympathy is now with the youth’: BJP workers worry about crackdown on protests

On Monday, when thousands showed up in Delhi for the Cockroach Janta Party’s march to Parliament, students in Madhya Pradesh organised small demonstrations to support them.

For a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from the state, who asked not to be identified, that was proof that the youth anger over the the mismanagement of the national entrance test for seats in medical colleges was “genuine” and had reached his state.

Though the protests in his district mostly drew left-wing student-activists, he was worried that the fire could spread.

Evaluating the BJP-led Union government’s handling of the situation in the national capital, he blamed the Delhi Police for using excessive force.

“Yes, the youth were all over Connaught Place [in the heart of Delhi], but they were not committing crimes,” he said. “Why did the police beat them up?”

A day after the police crackdown on student protesters in Central Delhi, several BJP workers across the country said they were worried about the ripple effects of the Narendra Modi government’s handling of the protests.

One party worker from Haryana, who also sought anonymity to speak freely, complained that the central leadership had bungled its response to the Cockroach Janata Party campaign. “They took it very lightly,” the 34-year-old remarked.

Rather than ignoring educator and environmental activist Sonam Wangchuk’s hunger strike for nearly three weeks, the party should have dispatched a delegation of local leaders to the Jantar Mantar protest site much earlier, the BJP worker said.

“Our own workers are siding with the protesters,” he said. “The sympathy of common people is now with them.”

A senior BJP legislator from Arunachal Pradesh said he was surprised that Wangchuk’s fast had resonated with a large number of people in his state. “There were protests everywhere in Arunachal yesterday,” he told Scroll. “This means the students are angry and frustrated. We have to appreciate it.”

‘Party must start dialogue’

Several BJP workers emphasised the need for dialogue with the protesters.

Nandini Sharma, a BJP municipal councillor in Dehradun, noted that in a democracy, students have a right to make demands. The use of lathis and teargas against young protesters had sent out a “wrong message”, she said.

“The administration should have had dialogue and conversation with the protesters,” Sharma said. “These are our children after all. If the protest continues, that is not good for the children’s future.”

Another BJP councillor from Dehradun, Amita Singh, was more cautious. Expressing mistrust in the media coverage of the protests, she said it was “hard to say what was really happening on ground, who was instigating violence against whom”.

Despite this, she said the students should not have been lathicharged. “There are many ways to discuss and keep the conversation going,” Singh said.

In Mumbai, 35-year-old Shridhar Manickan, who identifies as a loyal voter of the BJP, had a similar view. Government representatives “should have sat down and talked with the protesters about their demands like they did yesterday”, he said.

In fact, said Ashok Baraik, spokesperson of the Jharkhand BJP, dialogue had already begun. “JP Nadda met the protesters and heard them out with gravity,” Baraik said, referring to the health minister’s meeting with representatives of the Cockroach Janta Party on Monday.

However, the Haryana party worker was sceptical that the meeting would control the damage to the BJP. “We are having to share videos in which we call the protesters stone pelters to convince people that the government action was right,” he said.

‘Protest has been hijacked’

Despite their misgivings, some BJP workers sought to discredit the protests. “What does NEET have to do with slogans like ‘Sansad bhawan ko ukhaad ke phekenge, PM ko peetenge’ [We will rip the Parliament apart, beat up the PM]?” asked Baraik.

The Cockroach Janata Party is demanding that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign for mishandling the national NEET-UG exam for seats in medical colleges.

Baraik claimed: “People raising such slogans are trying to incite riots in the country.”

Ashok Sinha, a BJP leader from Tripura, shared this opinion. The “genuine” demand of the students had been “hijacked and destroyed by other politicians who tried to take advantage of it”, he asserted.

He alleged: “People came on to the stage and abused Mother India, they abused Sita, they abused everything.”

Avnish Kumar, a member of the BJP’s district committee in Bihar’s Sitamarhi echoed Sinha.

The protesters’ cause was valid, Kumar argued, but the campaign had turned “anti-national”. He even resorted to the now-familiar Hindutva trope of falsely accusing activists of chanting Islamic slogans and using Pakistani funds. But on further questioning, he admitted that the party found itself in a corner.

Political impact

However, nearly all the party workers said the BJP would not suffer from this misstep electorally.

Manickan, the loyal voter from Mumbai, said that though he might be disappointed with the way the government handled the protests “that does not mean I will not vote for BJP”.

“There is a lot of time left before the next election,” he said.

Kumar, the BJP member from Bihar, claimed that “any party in power has to face a period like this”.

He was confident that the BJP would not meet the same fate as the Congress, which was voted out of office in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Some of the momentum against the Congress was the result of the India Against Corruption protests in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan in 2010, in which Kumar had participated, he said.

“The difference between this campaign and the 2010 movement is like the difference between night and day,” he added. “The BJP had indirectly supported the 2010 movement. It is we who took it to the smaller towns in every state. But today, the Opposition is divided on this issue.”

With inputs from Tabassum Barnagarwala, Rokibuz Zaman, Vaishnavi Rathore and Nolina Minj.