DC Edit | Talk To Protesters, Give Them A Hearing; Avoid Use Of Force

The government’s use of brute force to crack down on the massive peaceful march in the nation’s capital by young people under the banner of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) demanding the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan is an undemocratic and unwise action. It will be a miscalculation, too, if the government thinks it can suppress the students’ demonstration of frustration and anger against a dispensation that has failed to do even the minimum for them.

Every single report suggests that the congregation of people in Delhi on Monday is unprecedented in many aspects. The CJP is not a formally structured organisation; it is rather a grouping of people with a cause; the Left parties which support them do not have a large support base in the national capital. It is not very common in India for people to turn out in their thousands to launch an agitation unless there is a felt need. The hunger strike by environmental activist Sonam Wangchuk gave them a rallying point to and launch their protest against the government’s irresponsible handling of examinations. His forceful removal from the venue of his protest did not end it; instead, more people joined the protest.

It is time that the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognised the fact that Mr Pradhan has been presiding over the education ministry which has failed the student community. About two dozen teenagers, all of them aspiring doctors, died by suicide after being unable to withstand the pressure caused by the cancellation of the NEET examination, the entrance test for undergraduate medical courses in the country, brought down on them; the agency which conducted the test, the National Testing Agency, functions under Mr Pradhan. Lakhs of students were put in an excruciating dilemma after the CBSE outsourced valuation of their Class 12 answer sheets to an agency with a dubious record; CBSE also functions under him. There was mismanagement in the conduct of the Common University Entrance Test and in the National Eligibility Test, both conducted under the aegis of the education ministry.

Electoral democracy functions on the principle that those whom people elect and vest with the power to run the government will exercise it for the benefit of the people. Mr Pradhan has proved a humongous failure on this count. He would have resigned had he had the sense to understand his responsibilities; the Prime Minister would have asked him to go if he understood the impact his failures have had on the young people. It defies logic that neither Mr Pradhan nor Mr Modi has their ears to the ground to sense the mounting frustration among young people of this country.

It would be a futile exercise on the part of the BJP to paint the protestors as traitors, for they are not. The CJP is not an accident; it is the manifestation of the underlying anger of the young people against the dispensation which boasts of the country’s economic progress but does nothing for them. They have repeatedly made it clear that they seek resolution of their problems within the constitutional framework; it would be foolish to contemplate torpedoing a movement that swears by the Constitution and its framer Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

The government must engage the protesters in meaningful dialogue and make honest attempts to address their concerns instead of speaking the language of force. The BJP often reminds the country of the lessons of the Emergency; it’s time the party took some lessons from it, too.