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Stop demanding resignations. Resignation is a voluntary act, and voluntary acts require shame.
Shame took voluntary retirement from Indian politics several elections ago. Expecting today's politicians to resign is like expecting a politician not to divide the people. She or he won't, least of all Dharmendra Pradhan.
Demand removal. A minister actually serves at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, and displeasure is strictly with the PM's department. Address your demand to the boss. And the boss serves at the pleasure of you, the voter, renewable every five years. That is the chain of command. Pull it. So what to do before the term's end?
Between you and the boss stands your own employee: the MP you directly elected. Make that employee work. March to their office, it will be more effective. Because it will be all over the country, not limited to Delhi's version of Hyde Park. Your agitation will earn the adjective nationwide. Force them to place your demand on record in the Lok Sabha. A slogan evaporates after the heat of the moment; a demand recorded in Parliament sits in the proceedings forever, waiting to embarrass someone at the right moment. The Member of Parliament cannot claim to have represented you. Formal language is required because democracy is a system, and systems are inherently formal.
Protest, absolutely. But protest with paperwork. Submit a written demand along with your placards. A protest without a document is just decibels, and decibels can be declared illegal by the nearest police station and dismissed by the party. Without paper, "the youth demand" shrinks into "a bunch of youth demanding". Lung power fades. Paper, in this kaagaz-obsessed system, survives.
And remember what the word democracy comes with: representative. In a representative democracy, you must represent, through the representative you elected, not through a self-declared spokesperson of "the people".
Self-appointed voices of the nation carry the same official weight as self-appointed godmen. They have followers who will die for them, but for the benefit of the godmen. There will be some opportunist politicians who will get their moment of relevance riding on your back. You will go home. They will go home. The system won't change unless you know the real levers. The system only hears you when you speak through the microphone it gave you: your elected representative, your vote.
The minister you cannot remove today, file him away for the queue where you hold absolute power: the polling booth queue. His resignation is his choice. His removal is yours. If you can't wait, demand accountability from the fellow you elected. He or she is having fun standing, unseen in plain sight. Don't speak into a vacuum.
Speak to someone specific. Place specific demands. Your general dissent will be treated as general dissent. So, kudos for your passion and drive. It has happened before. It will happen again. A resignation, even if the despicable disaster does tender his, wouldn't solve anything, except calm your nerves. Ganja does the same. At the venue itself. The red flags have used the green stuff to enhance their delulu. So, go on. Hope something comes out of it. Hope is not a strategy, though. Just a small reminder.
Now, you have two options: dismiss the above as quote-unquote justification. WhatsApp uncle rant, boring Sanghi trope, use some expletives, and feel good, or think and support the cause you want to, oppose the government you want to, but give it what it takes. Value your emotions and give it all it takes. It will take a lot, so be ready to give it all. If you are looking for a leader, you aren't ready to be one. So, be led wherever the leader takes you for a ride. Be happy.
But you need to remember that the right is yours. So is the proof.
Let nobody tell you that protest is a favour granted by the government of the day. It is not. Article 19 of the Constitution hands every citizen the right to speak and to assemble peaceably, and it asks for no membership, no minimum crowd, no permission from anybody. The right is individual. You, alone, with one placard and two convictions, are constitutionally complete.
But here is the catch: though the right to protest is individual, the power of a demand is collective. And a collective needs credentials. The moment you say "the youth demand", the government's first response is not an answer; it is a question. Questions. Which youth? How many? Appointed by whom? A crowd is a crowd; a mandate is a document. The state will never attack your grievance first, because the grievance is real. It will attack your representation, because that is the claim you left unproven.
So prove it. Convert the crowd into a constituency. Collect signatures, not just followers. Pass resolutions in unions, university committees, coaching-centre WhatsApp groups if that is your Parliament. Route memoranda through MPs, so the demand enters the record of the Republic, not just the reels of Instagram. When lakhs of examinees put their names on paper, "a bunch of youth" becomes an electorate, and an electorate is the one species no minister's boss can ignore.
What if your MP doesn't listen to you? Well, if you can't get a hearing from your MP, how do you expect the state itself to bend? Your MP will if you try. Because his future in politics is directly linked to your vote.
Sit at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar, by all means. But remember that the site has a permission slip and your demand needs a paper trail, and the second protects you long after the first expires. Anyone can shout for the youth. Prove the youth asked you to shout.
And a word about the band that has joined your baraat. The comrades have arrived, red flags and revolutionary daphli in tow, ready to turn your dharna into a cultural evening. Enjoy the music, but pay heed to the lyrics. The ideology behind those flags has never believed in the democracy you are currently using; its doctrine calls your Parliament a bourgeois talking shop, and wherever it won full power, from Moscow to Beijing, the first casualty was always the next election.
Strange, then, to find its choir performing at a protest whose only demand is that Parliament work harder. YoYa and the red flags believe in your crowd, not your Constitution. And their presence gifts the government its favourite exit: the moment the familiar flags appear on stage, your paper leak becomes their pamphlet, your exam grievance gets rebranded as ideological theatre, and the minister's defenders stop answering you and start describing them. Their rainbow ideas, Kunal Kamra's jokes, sex and violins. You came to fix an examination, not to audition for a revolution. Keep the mike, keep the demand, and keep the copyright for your own protest.
The right to protest comes free with citizenship. The right to be taken seriously has to be earned, in writing. So give it in writing. Written words have far greater value than opportunists who smelled the carcass of a minister's conscience and flew down to have a feast and have someone fast.
(Kamlesh Singh, a columnist and satirist, is Tau of the popular Teen Taal podcast)
