New Delhi
For days the streets and parks in the center of India’s capital have seethed with the biggest demonstrations it has seen in years as young protesters demand change to a national exam system they say cheats millions of them out of a fair chance.
Earlier this week, as the mostly Gen-Z protesters tried the bring their demands to the parliament building at the heart of the world’s biggest democracy, they were met with tear gas and police violence, struck with sticks and batons. Delhi Police had imposed prohibitory orders ahead of the march and declared it unlawful. And on Tuesday, the protesters – many showing the wounds suffered at the hands of the police – returned to Jantar Mantar, a 300-year-old observatory surrounded by a large, open park, and rebuilt the makeshift camp that has served as their headquarters. Police had demolished it the day before. The protesters are refusing to back down, setting up a continued confrontation with Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, one his critics say has overseen a crushing of dissent during its more than a decade in power. About 150 protesters were taken to hospital with injuries following Monday’s violence, according to leaders of the party behind the protests. Videos showing the police crackdown – widely shared hours after the event thanks to a government-ordered cutting of the internet – have sparked outrage. Delhi police said 118 of its officers were injured during the “violent protests.” At the camp, defiance bubbled over. “We will stand here with pride,” said Sudhir Kumar, who attended Monday’s rally and said he saw protesters struck by the police. “The main topic here is education,” said Kumar, who said he had spent a year preparing for an admission exam to a prestigious medical school, to later learn the papers had been leaked. Mohammad Taj, who travelled to Delhi from neighboring Haryana state, and whose face was badly bruised in the Monday crackdown, said the march heading to parliament had been peaceful. “But just in a flash, I don’t know what happened, the police started hitting us with batons. Kids, women, old men, they hit everyone.” By evening, crowds overflowed outside the site and spilled onto the streets and lanes. “Whenever Modi is scared, he brings out the police,” they chanted as one, calling for “freedom.”
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