The Last Refuge

My last year in High School was a very pleasant one.All of us were very aware that we would soon be stepping out in the "Real"world, and were therefore quite determined to have a last hurrah, in a manner ofspeaking. Academic pursuits, unfortunately, were not given a priority. Needlessto say, my lifestyle led to a spectacularly low score in the Board exams, and Iwas suddenly facing a very different reality. My poor parents were so shockedwith my results that they promptly retired to Ladakh for a vacation, puttingpaid to my hopes of getting familial help for college admissions. My uncle, withhis sick sense of humor in full form, joked about how I could get admission inGovernment College Karnal, and commute to Haryana every day. Fairly disgusted atmy family's response to my self-inflicted tragedy, I turned to my friends whowere already in College. I enlisted their help in getting into college, anycollege, as long as it was part of the University of Delhi. A superficial surveyof those colleges revealed that my results were too poor to even get me intoSouth Campus, the prestigious North Campus being out of question, at leastthrough legitimate means. Bypassing the admission lines, we then startedapproaching the Student Union offices.

The University of Delhi has always been important in terms of politics to thenational parties. Winning the DUSU (Delhi Univ. Students Union) elections, andby extension the individual college elections are a reflection on the prestigeof the political parties themselves. This was the summer of 1990, and VP Singhhad just become Prime Minister the previous year, supported by the BJP on onehand and the Communists on the other. The main student union parties are theABVP (Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthee Parishad) which is affiliated to the BJP and theNSUI (National Students Union of India) which is affiliated to the Congress. TheSFI (Student Federation of India) which is a Communist backed student body hasnever been able to penetrate DU. I approached representatives of both partieswith a USP: Get me admission into the BA (Hons) English program, which ispredominantly girl dominated, and I would guarantee the votes of the wholesection to them. Girls, especially the ones in courses like English Honors,would have no interest in coming to College on Election Day since they did notassociate with the crowd that typically stands for elections. By getting meadmission into that class, their existed the possibility of accumulating 50-60votes which would otherwise be lost.

To my own surprise, the spin actually worked and the ABVP guys, who were really trying to expand their presence at the Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, got me admission in the first list itself even though the cutoff was a good 20% higher than my own score. After all the hassle of trying to get admission, all it took was for two apparently connected gentlemen to walk me over to the clerk who was initialing the forms that had been approved for admission. A cursory nod from my escorts was all it took for me to get an approved form back and line up to pay my fees; an anti-climactic end to all of my admission worries.

Suitably grateful, I immediately startednetworking with my classmates with an eye on the upcoming elections. Thecampaign for the elections started within the first month itself, but there werereally no issues of importance, so we had to depend on personal mudslinging. Iremember one instance where the ABVP and the NSUI factions got into a fightbecause both wanted our college to be on strike on the same day. We wanted to goon strike because of atrocities on Hindus in Kashmir, and the NSUI chaps wantedto do the exact same thing because the cafeteria prices had gone up.

Events at the national level however were soon to overtake us. Facingdissidence from Chandrashekhar and Devi Lal, and with a view to consolidate thelower caste vote base, VP Singh unleashed the Mandal Commission on theunsuspecting Indian middle class. The initial opposition to the MandalCommission came from upper caste students in the North Campus at DelhiUniversity. It took a while for the Anti-Mandal movement to pick up steam, butsoon the entire student body was involved in it. The student organizations wereput on a spot because we were not getting support from our respective politicalparties and yet the student body wanted an unequivocal stand from us. It is saidthat all politics is local and in that sense we decided to go with the flow andback the movement.

The initial protests were in the form of candle lightvigils, silent marches etc. This soon degenerated into smashing up the windowpanes of DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) buses, and hijacking them forjoyrides around the city. The co-ordination of the Anti Mandal CommissionCommittee, fearing that the movement may lose its focus, gave a call for forminga human chain outside the Parliament. Tens of Thousands of students rallied tothe Parliament House. Our college president, in a fit of genius, declared thatwe would not go to Parliament, but would instead demonstrate right outside thePrime Minister's residence. Seemed like a great idea, especially because thePrime Minister's residence is on Race Course Road, quite close to some decentfast food and Tibetan food joints.

What we did not anticipate was that India, which we usually perceive as a "SoftState", could be quite a hard state when you cross certain lines. I stillremember the Deputy Commissioner of Police telling us that we had a right todemonstrate, and that we should all sit down so as to not create securityissues. As soon as the majority of the students sat down, the DCP ordered aLathi charge, to create maximum effect. Unfortunately, the security perimeter ofVP Singh's house was guarded by different state police contingents on arotational basis. Whereas Delhi Police had some underlying sympathy for us, theMaharashtrians who were on duty at the time, had no clue who we were or what wewere doing. They just went around doing their job efficiently. I was busyletting the air out of a DTC bus tire, and had my back towards the crowd. Iheard a commotion behind me, and so the Police whacking away at all and sundry.I got up and ran as well, and along with a few other students clambered upon apassing DTC bus and asked the driver to take us back to college. We could alsosee a lot of students running into Nehru Park, trying to avoid the pursuingcops. Unfortunately, a couple of Police jeeps approached the bus that we werein, sirens blaring, and then a few cops clambered on and told the driver to takeus to the nearest police station.

Once inside the Thana, a section was roped off, and we were made to sit downthere. Initially, it was only a dozen of us, but we were later joined by quite afew that the cops had picked up from Nehru Park, and the number soon swelled toabout 50 or so. Our College President had run away on a motorcycle at the firstsign of trouble and the cops had no idea where he was. As we waited, a crowd ofstudents gathered outside the Thana, shouting slogans against Police brutalityand asking for donations from passing motorists.

A rather senior ABVP member came in to the police station, demanding ourrelease, and carrying a huge bag of bananas for us. The cops were in a foul moodby then, so they took the bananas, slapped him around in full view of us, andthen took him upstairs for "special treatment". We could soon hear thesounds of the special treatment coming down and that terrified us even more. Thecops then decided that they would not arrest us, but would teach us a lesson incivic courtesy before letting us go. The civic lesson constituted our being madeto lie down on the ground face down and rubbing our noses on the ground, whilewe were whacked by lathis on the backside. While rubbing our noses on the groundwe also had to say, "Mai Public Property damage nahin karunga". Thoroughlydisgruntled, we went outside to find that the students outside had collectedhundreds of rupees from passing motorists, and had then gone on a binge ofChinese food and cold beer. The objective of politics was revealed in absoluteclarity to me.

From that day on, as the agitation steadily worsened,with Rajeev Goswami and others immolating themselves in protest, my missionremained clear. Have fun but do not put yourself in danger. We collected moneyfrom passing motorists and whereas a portion of the money was spent in goodcauses such as posters and rallies, a significant portion was utilized forpersonal consumption. I had heard rumors about politicians giving money, but Inever came across it. The BJP certainly did not provide any money - if anything,they wanted the agitation to be wound down. If the Congress gave money, theywould have done so to the NSUI and I have no knowledge of that. I do doubt thathappened, simply because the political parties were looking way beyond Delhi, atthe real numbers. To them, we were just a miniscule bunch of middle class kidswho counted for nothing. They were right, too. We did count for nothing in apolitical sense.

The regret I have is for the people who immolated themselves, losing theirlives for a hopeless cause. Most Delhites of the time will remember RajeevGoswami, the first person to publicly burn himself in protest of MandalCommission recommendations. Rajeev Goswami survived, and went on to become thePresident of DUSU a year later. People do not however remember the second personto attempt immolation, and the first one to die. This gentleman -- I don'teven remember his name -- rode up to the AIIMS (All India Institute ofMedical Sciences) crossing on his motorcycle. A large crowd had already gatheredthere because Rajeev Goswami was in the burns unit of Safdarjung hospital. Hecalmly parked his bike, pulled out a bottle of kerosene from his bag, poured itall over himself, and set his clothes alight. I heard this sequence of eventsfrom bystanders, as I was on the other side of the crossing at the time. But asI got to the spot where he was at, I saw an image I will never forget. A pair ofmelted Nikes was all that were left of an individual.

The Anti Mandal movement remained confined to largely urban areas, thesupport base being the educated elite. In hindsight, it seems it was destined tofail. However, it was the first time I had actually seen the middle class beingdriven to a level of political involvement not seen since the Emergency. Themainstream opposition parties never openly supported the Anti- Mandal Movement. With Congress having taken over the Ayodhya issue by first opening the locks of the Babri Masjid and then doing a shilanyas and launching its election campaign from there, Mandal perhaps came as the laststraw for the BJP as the party saw its carefully cultivated Hindu vote-bank dissolve in a vortex of caste differences. Something had to be done and fast to unify the Hindu vote. The answer was the Rath Yatra, but that, as they say, is another story.

Originally from New Delhi, Parag Vohra currently lives in the San Francisco bay area.