The Arab Spring uprisings spread to New Delhi where one million protesters massed at Rajpath. The gathering is generally peaceful until pandemonium broke out later in the day. Delhi Police believe 23 people died with several hundred injured.
The protest was initially organised by student leader Amit Das of the Communist Party aligned to the All India Students Association.
“The mobile phone is the 21st century’s Kalashnikov!” he told this reporter.
“We got all our comrades to get online and rally our troops!”
Amit is angrily interrupted by Ajay Goel, leader of the ABVP, the BJP aligned student union.
“Arrey yaar, these Bengali duffers tried to do this but they do not own a computer bhai! My Father owns a mobile shop only.”
Amit tries to respond but is enthusiastically interrupted by the Muslim Students Union, the powerful National Students Union and an emerging union from Panipat, with a membership of two.
Middle-aged Students
It did not escape this reporter’s observation that many of the student leaders were in their late forties, early fifties and that many of their children attended as it was University study leave.
Deejay from the Congress aligned NSUI finally manages to be heard.
“We were appalled that these Unions were campaigning for the down throw of our glorious leader. Soniaji Zindabad! So, we started giving away mobile phones if people promised not to attend.
“The ABVP then irresponsibly promised, with the help of their seditious BJP masters, a 38” plasma television with every busload that came to the rally.
We naturally responded by offering a 42” plasma television with a built in coffee machine and promptly had Ajay Goel arrested.”
The NSU also took strong exception that Congress President Sonia Gandhi had not been invited as head speaker at such an important rally. Regardless that it was focused towards the down throw of her own Government.
Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee took an even stronger offence. But on questioning, she could not say why she was offended but insisted she was very angry and could not stop shouting (without taking a single breath).
Despite the divisions, the rally was a historic display of democracy in play. A sea of humanity demanding the reclamation of their beloved India. Columns of smoke from burnt buses punctuated the horizon.
Jats, with beautifully constructed homemade deadly weapons, repeatedly pierced the night sky with 1000 spears in appreciation of the charismatic speakers from every party and faith. Whilst the middle classes made a herculean effort not to panic when the network was jammed and when they could not get in touch with their drivers.
Dash to leadership
After a fiery speech by a BJP Leader, the crowd started to proceed to 10 Janpath with a taste for blood.
It was Cairo all over again. The power of the unstoppable crowd was terrifying.
Then Ms. Gandhi took the podium and the less intelligent looked dumbstruck.
How could she be in two places at the same time?
Mrs. Gandhi, in impeccable Hindi-Italian, charmed the crowd to a murmur and said that the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi-dictated violence was completely unjustifiable but if the million strong crowd felt it was unavoidable they should attack the BJP headquarters which was just round the corner, ‘…just past the second set of lights.’
In any case, she said, inflation, corruption and no basic services was an incredibly clever CIA plot.
This is when a glorious movement lost its way. Mr Diwan, a tailor from Bengali Market tells us his story.
“I was minding my own business, sewing a shirt with a tricky rainbow design, when there was an almighty noise outside my shop. I stupidly opened the shutters to find a mob shouting for a tape measure. Then I took a quick look at my bottle of Old Monk to see if I had taken one too many pegs because I saw at least 10,000 people start to measure a dozen plasma televisions.
When they found it was 36” instead of 38”, all hell broke loose.
On this reporter asking what happened next, searching for details of how Connaught Place was burnt to the ground, he admitted he did know as he had just regained consciousness.
Roy Lange is a New Zealand citizen with a passion for India. He now lives and works across the Tasman. Email: inz1@yahoo.com
