A week in protests (and some hope)
Hey there,
What did we just witness! A historic moment in our living memory for sure. The resignation of Pradhan shows the power of the collective and the power of showing up, every which way. Online, in-person, on calls with family, abroad. To the sceptics and nay-sayers I say, yes, the resignation alone is not enough to fix the system. I agree. But it has hopefully instilled even the tiniest amount of fear in the cabinet that we will no longer be okay with being pushed around, disenfranchised. That "we don't give resignations in this government" is not the flex they wanted us to believe it is. Hopefully this has convinced you too that your vote matters. That showing up matters.
I had the pleasure of attending not one but two solidarity gatherings in the Netherlands myself and it was quite something. Showing up, just in itself, is such a great feeling! And to be surrounded by people who have the same basic principles as you is an even greater feeling. I have friends who were at Jantar Mantar on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday! Nothing but respect for them. The guilt of not being able to show up with them, for them, was eating at me and I know I am not alone in that feeling.
In case you could not attend any solidarity gathering, I have thought of a way you can still show up. This protest has shown us, one after another, the independent journalists who will go above and beyond to get honest news to us. I am going to list the ones that I have started following. In this attention economy, even your attention can make a difference. Amplify voices that deserve to be heard and starve the ones that spread hate.
- NewsPinch
- Sarthak Goswami
- Samdish Unfiltered
- Harsh Yadav
- Priyanshi Sharma, PeakTV (although I have my reservations about them from time to time)
- Medha Yadav, Jist
I am sure I am missing other deserving names. Feel free to share them with me and I will share them forward!
✊🏼
Just the protests
🔗 Submerging homes and habitats is development
If you have been chronically online, you must have heard the mention of Ken-Betwa Link Project. The Ken-Betwa Link Project is India's first river interlinking project, a Rs 44,605 crore scheme involving a dam on the Ken River, a 221-kilometre canal, and irrigation infrastructure designed to move water from Madhya Pradesh's Ken basin to Uttar Pradesh's Betwa basin, providing irrigation and drinking water to drought-prone Bundelkhand. This is one among 16 such projects that were identified in 1980s but faced delays due to environmental concerns and political disputes and only got greenlit in 2021. It will result in the displacement of 10 villages, 7,000 families, and submerging significant forest and farm land including a large part of the Panna Tiger Reserve that brought back tigers from local extinction in 2009. Therefore, people have been protesting for several months with the protests having intensified this month.
Amit Bhatnagar, leader of the Jai Kisan Sangathan, say on a hunger strike and was, like Wangchuk, forcefully removed by the police last week. However, when he refused to end his hunger strike even at the hospital and the protest continued, the Madhya Pradesh government agreed to conduct fresh village-level surveys to identify families excluded from compensation under the Ken-Betwa Link Project. He has since suspended his 18-day hunger strike.
Bhatnagar's specific allegations were that hundreds of eligible families were excluded from rehabilitation lists, that compensation assessments were flawed, and that Gram Sabha proceedings were irregular. The government initially maintained that all affected families had been compensated. But a fresh survey, conducted after complaints from Chhatarpur, had already identified 638 additional eligible families, increasing the sanctioned beneficiary count from 3,080 to 3,718. That revision, acknowledged in the government's own written reply to the Assembly, rather undermined the claim that everything was in order.
Bhatnagar has been clear that this was not an end. He is converting the indefinite fast into what he calls a "Nyay Upvaas", abstaining from food grains until all eligible families receive compensation, while travelling village to village to monitor whether the government follows through.
The pressure that produced Wednesday's concession came from multiple directions simultaneously. Women in affected villages had launched a "chulha bandi" protest, refusing to cook in solidarity. Children had begun fasting. The Madhya Pradesh Assembly had a stormy debate in which the Leader of Opposition accused the government of systematic irregularities. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav eventually assured the House that complaints would be investigated within a month. Hours later, Bhatnagar suspended his fast.
➡️ Large infrastructure projects in India have a consistent pattern where displacement and rehabilitation are treated as secondary to construction timelines, eligible families are routinely undercounted in the initial surveys, and corrections only happen under sustained public pressure. The Ken-Betwa project is the template for India's broader river interlinking ambitions. How rehabilitation is handled here, whether the fresh surveys actually identify all excluded families, and whether the Chief Minister's one-month assurance translates into action, will set a precedent for every subsequent project in the chain. But this small win in this protest so far is significant in showing to the other citizens that public pressure counts, no matter how repressive the government.
🔗 Displacement is the middle name of development
Bengaluru is expanding, about 40 kilometres outside the city, near a town called Bidadi, the Karnataka government wants to build a 9,600-acre township pitched as India's first AI-powered (!) "work-live-play" city. To do that, it needs land currently farmed by thousands of small landholding families in an area that has functioned as Bengaluru's food basket for decades, home to 50,000 cattle producing six lakh litres of milk a month and crops ranging from ragi to coconut. More than 10,000 farmers are affected, 60% of whom own just half an acre to one acre, and acquiring the full project could mean felling nearly two lakh trees. Ufff that was a lot of numbers in one sentence! A lot of impact.
The government has offered compensation of roughly Rs 2 to 2.14 crore per acre, but many farmers are refusing, arguing money cannot replace generational livelihood, and 40 farmer organisations allege the legally required 80% landowner consent was never properly obtained, a claim they intend to challenge in court. The farmers' organisation leading the resistance has also alleged that the official land survey was conducted without transparency and under coercion.
What makes this more than a straightforward land dispute is the politics layered on top. The project originated under a JD(S)-BJP coalition government in 2006, got greenlit by the last BJP government, and is being executed by the current Congress administration led by DK Shivakumar. Opposition to the acquisition is coming from multiple directions at once: figures from the project's own founding political lineage and the opposition BJP have both accused the government of a land grab that disproportionately harms small farmers and marginalised communities, an alignment that cuts across normal party lines. As does the responsibility though. The Karnataka government has issued a final notification to acquire 518 acres, moving ahead despite over 15 months of continuous farmer protests.
➡️ This project represents a familiar pattern: fertile agricultural land, sustaining thousands of small farmers and a food supply chain into the city, being converted into real estate development with financing structured around future sales rather than farmer welfare. Whether the courts intervene on the consent question, and whether the government's political incentives shift as the farmer agitation grows, will determine whether Bidadi becomes a model case study for the Indian growth story or another instance of displacement dressed up as development. Your guess is the same as mine. ;)
🔗 The legacy of Chipko and a government in a bind
Near Rishikesh, at a forest site called Saat Mod, thousands of trees were slated for felling to widen the Bhaniyawala-Jolly Grant-Rishikesh Highway, a roughly Rs 743 crore project to facilitate travel for Chaar-Dham pilgrims. Because who does not like destroying nature where we were taught gods reside to visit a temple where an idol of a god resides?
Residents launched a relay strike in protest, with different groups holding down the fort one after the other. It has since drawn direct comparisons to the Chipko Movement, the 1970s movement where villagers, mostly women, embraced trees to stop them being cut down and became one of India's most iconic environmental movements.
The count of trees at risk has shifted across reports, ranging from roughly 3,000 to 4,369, and it is not clear which figure is the reconciled official number. What is clear is that the scale is significant, and that an elephant corridor runs through the affected area, raising wildlife concerns beyond just the tree loss itself.
Protesters staged a symbolic "Black Harela" demonstration on July 15, tying their opposition to the traditional Harela festival, which is specifically about planting trees. Police arrested 13 people and detained four others during the protests. Then on July 18, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami halted the tree felling and called for stakeholder talks. There is a pending Supreme Court hearing on the matter. The suspension is reportedly conditional on stakeholder consensus and an environmental review, though the timeline for that review, whether the halt is temporary or permanent, and what happens to those already arrested remain unclear. Police have separately booked protesters for obstructing traffic and government work on the highway, which goes against somewhat the government's simultaneous claim to be listening to the same protesters' concerns.
➡️ Following the pattern, another significant infrastructure project was moving forward with limited transparency until a sustained grassroots resistance invoked one of India's most resonant environmental legacies. The government response came only after arrests, protests, and a pending court hearing. Whether the halt holds, or whether it is a pause designed to let attention move on before felling resumes, is the question that will determine whether Chipko's legacy means anything in our new India.
🔗 The protest that shook the kursi
Now we come to the talk of the town. After more than a month of silence on the Cockroach Janata Party protest, and two months since the NEET paper leak, the Education Minister of India has resigned. His resignation was the central ask of the protest. This came Saturday afternoon. This is nothing short of a historic win for India and its youth. We have shown the world how to protest peacefully, playfully, and politically. The chronically online generation brought every second, every corner of almost a month long protest to everyone's homes.
But the theatrics had begun some time ago. Prime Minister Modi posted a late-night selfie video on Thursday night announcing fast-track courts for paper leak cases and a new law to address examination irregularities. The substance, if I can even call it that, avoided the protesters' central demand: the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. He reportedly also had a meeting with the rest of the cabinet where he asked them to 'get online'.
That same night, Sonam Wangchuk broke his 26-day hunger strike at Medanta Hospital in the presence of two Union ministers, after they assured him the government would "consider" compensation for the families of students who died by suicide following the NEET leak, and a "meaningful discussion" in Parliament that might include Pradhan's resignation. Might. Consider. No firm commitments were made on either point. The one written assurance Wangchuk did receive was that no cases would be filed against peaceful protesters.
The CJP spokespersons also met Union ministers JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh for two hours on Friday. The government reportedly agreed, at least in principle, to compensation for the families of deceased students and to withdrawing FIRs against protesters, but asked for another 24 hours to decide on Pradhan's resignation, with the CJP stating on X that they would accept nothing less.
In the middle of all this, the Centre transferred higher education secretary Vineet Joshi out of his post, replacing him with an IAS officer whose family has been a documented beneficiary of a separate government subsidy scheme. Delhi University and JNU both issued official notices urging students to stay away from Jantar Mantar entirely, citing Supreme Court directions on public demonstrations and warning of disciplinary action. And Delhi Police have deployed AI-driven facial recognition vans at the protest site, running live footage against a police database, a surveillance practice the Digital Personal Data Protection Act technically governs but effectively exempts government agencies from.
But then came Saturday, the 25th and with it came the resignation. Of course the resignation blames it on 'anti-nationals' and paints Pradhan as a martyr who is taking one for the country. But hey, we'll take it. The martyrdom was coming, one way or another. Prahlad Joshi has been appointed the new Education Minister who himself has a colourful record to show for but one battle at a time.
➡️ Let us not let anyone minimise the impact that the nationwide protests have had. Modi making an Insta reel at midnight, cabinet ministers meeting CJP representatives twice, even coming to a neutral location for that, the (sham) transfer, and finally the resignation. This is not a government that is comfortably sitting and watching anymore. They had thought that the removal of Wangchuk will do it. It didn't. Then they thought the police brutality will do it. It didn't. Then they thought sending goons into the protest will do it. It did not. Then they thought using TV news to spread propaganda will do it. It did not. But the one hurdle in front of us now is that they will very likely use this resignation to discredit any near-term disagreement with the government or call for accountability by saying "look, we did what they wanted and that still wasn't enough for these people."
✊🏼
