Is a new India rising?

The new generation is laying down its own terms for the country’s future discourse

- Harbans Mukhia

The tsunami of protests across the length and breadth of the country has several fascinating facets. Are there any significant pointers in it?

First and foremost, these are clearly the civil society’s autonomous protests, devoid of any organic links with any political party. Barring issuing some statements in support or occasional visits by leaders to a protest site, even political parties have kept themselves at a distance from these protests. Underlying the autonomy is perhaps an unarticulated feeling that the issues evoking the protests go beyond electoral battles; that these concern the very life and blood of society’s future. There is also an unarticulated assumption that the solution lies beyond the ken of one or the other political party or indeed all parties together. Therefore, reliance on a party or a group, any group, might end up in diversion, which often becomes equivalent of betrayal. The one possible link with political parties is perhaps a potential realisation by them that they might be left aside by the people if they keep the distance intact — a case of people leading the parties instead of the other way round.

The power of resistance