The Instagram generation knows its mind
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Cryptic Comment: What most people of my generation do not understand is that the initial response of our ‘young digital citizens’ was no flash in the pan, but represented a very real anger that has built up over the past twelve years. It did not need sponsors.
By Aditya Nigam in Delhi
Following Sonam Wangchuk's breaking of hunger strike late at night, at the behest of BJP leaders and on some vague promises, some friends have responded by going back to their initial reactions of dismissing the movement altogether or dismissing the leadership of Abhijeet Dipke and his CJP team. Many have returned to express their pro-Congress arguments, which are neither here nor there, since that is based on some fantasy and not on an understanding of the movement.
I certainly find Sonam Wangchuk's role at this hour an act of betrayal. However, by saying this I don’t mean to deny that, despite my personal discomfort at his central presence, it played a very big role in galvanizing the movement. It is obvious that the students who joined in large numbers as his health deteriorated did not -- and do not -- share my skepticism -- but that is hardly relevant.
As a political analyst, I cannot lump together different movements (India Against Corruption -- IAC/Anna Hazare/CJP) or people (Wangchuk, Arvind Kejriwal, Dipke), or even the same person's role at different times. They have to be understood in their specificity before passing judgments.
Much of the initial response to the movement, for instance, was based on prejudice and was completely devoid of any factual basis -- based simply on a pre-existing narrative of it being "RSS-sponsored", reading some fictional account of the India Against Corruption movement into it. This is not a post on the IAC, so I will not go into it here, but I want to state that on that occasion too, there was more of prejudice and speculation – and more importantly, aesthetic distaste of "people like us" – rather than an argument at work. Arguments about "lack of ideology" are also completely a priori and do not help to study and understand movements on its own terms. It is always an external ascription on something that has grown on another soil.
In this case, the CJP movement was greeted by exactly the same stock arguments that were made at the time of the IAC movement, without any factual evidence. It was only closer to the 20th of July #ChaloSansad that many people started revising their position -- which is fine.
People can change their assessment of movements but now the new tune was "oh, the movement has gone beyond Dipke and company".
This is not the place to go into a detailed response to this kind of argument but many of us who supported or tried to understand the movement with empathy, did so precisely because we believe that is the logic of all mass movements.
One only needs to read Subaltern Studies historians' critiques of nationalist historiography to understand this. Nationalist historiography represented nationalism as the great binding force that drew the masses into one big movement, but it was precisely the point of the Subaltern Studies critique that subaltern participation in the movement always exceeded the intentions and control of the leadership.
Historian Shahid Amin reports of Phenku Chamar, who told the Sessions Judge during the trial that some volunteers were coming along calling out “Gandhi Maharaj Gandhi Maharaj” and when asked why they were calling out 'Gandhi Maharaj', they said the thana of Chaura had been burnt and razed to the ground [by them] and the Maharaj's swaraj had come. This was the Gandhi of popular imagination which saw the burning down of the thana as an execution of the Great Man’s will.
One need not labour the point further, but any serious study of any mass movement or uprising will tell you that eventually leaders are "nimitta matra" as they say – just the excuse or the modality by which an idea gets communicated and transformed in popular consciousness. There is nothing unprecedented happening in this case too -- except that possibilities of all kinds have now expanded manifold in this world of “young, digital citizens".
What most people of my generation do not understand is that the initial response of the Instagram generation was no flash in the pan, but represented a very real anger that has built up over the past twelve years. It did not need sponsors.
Aditya Nigam is former professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, (CSDS), Delhi.