It is adversaries as powerful as these that Swamy and the young Adivasis, who he stands in unflinching solidarity with, are fighting. Is it a surprise then that he is seen as a dangerous enemy of this government?
As threats of arrest and incarceration on charges of secession and armed rebellion shroud young dissenting voices, who will ask: “Who lit these embers? Who stoked the wind?”
Harsh Mandar writes: It is apparent the policies of the Union government to battle the pandemic have failed. I believe that the people of India will gravely suffer the consequences of these failures for at least a generation.
In these dire circumstances, it is essential for the state to directly provide the basic means of survival to anyone who needs it. This must be in both cash and kind.
Harsh Mander writes: The Indian government found it fit to charter planes with medical staff to fly in migrants from other countries. But it felt no responsibility at all to the millions of migrants stranded without work and food in every corner of the country.
History will long remember this moment for how citizens pulled India back from the edge of fascism, through both, the resolve of collective civil disobedience and the public affirmation of their solidarity.
Harsh Mander writes on COVID-19: Public health experts differ about whether such a harsh and comprehensive a lockdown was advisable in India. But assuming it was, it was designed and implemented entirely bereft of empathy and compassion.
The other part of the movement, therefore, must be to deepen our unity and solidarity. It must address not just the state but each of us. In the end, the kind of country we become will be determined not by law or court judgments, but by whether love or hate colonises our hearts.
