My last year in High School was a very pleasant one. All of us were very aware that we would soon be stepping out in the “Real” world, and were therefore quite

determined to have a last hurrah, in a manner of speaking. Academic pursuits, unfortunately, were not given a priority. Needless to say, my lifestyle led to a

spectacularly low score in the Board exams, and I was suddenly facing a very different reality. My poor parents were so shocked with my results that they promptly retired to Ladakh for a vacation, putting paid to my hopes of getting familial help for college admissions. My uncle, with his sick sense of humor in full form, joked about how I could get admission in Government College Karnal, and commute to Haryana every day. Fairly disgusted at my family’s response to my self-inflicted tragedy, I turned to my friends who were already in College. I enlisted their help in getting into college, any college, as long as it was part of the University of Delhi.

A superficial survey of those colleges revealed that my results were too poor to even get me into South Campus, the prestigious North Campus being out of

question, at least through legitimate means. Bypassing the admission lines, we then started approaching the Student Union offices.

The University of Delhi has always been important in terms of politics to the national parties. Winning the DUSU (Delhi Univ. Students Union) elections, and by extension the individual college elections are a reflection on the prestige of the political parties themselves. This was the summer of 1990, and VP Singh had just become Prime Minister the previous year, supported by the BJP on one hand and the Communists on the other. The main student union parties are the ABVP (Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthee Parishad) which is affiliated to the BJP and the NSUI (National Students Union of India) which is affiliated to the Congress. The SFI (Student Federation of India) which is a Communist backed student body has never been able to penetrate DU.

I approached representatives of both parties with a USP. Get me admission into the BA (Hons) English program, which is predominantly girl dominated, and I would guaranty the votes of the whole section to them. Girls, especially the ones in courses like English Honors, would have no interest in coming to College on Election Day since they did not associate with the crowd that typically stands for elections. By getting me admission into that class, they could get an easy 50-60 votes which would otherwise be lost.

To my own surprise, the spin actually worked in one college and the ABVP guys, who were really trying to expand their presence in a specific college, got me admission in the first list itself even though the cutoff was a good 20% higher than my own score. Suitably grateful, I immediately started networking with my classmates with an idea on the upcoming elections.

The campaign for the elections started within the first month itself, but there were really no issues of importance, so we had to depend on personal mudslinging. I remember one instance where the ABVP and the NSUI factions got into a fight because both wanted our college to be one strike on the same day. We wanted to go on strike because of atrocities on Hindus in Kashmir, and the NSUI chaps wanted to do the exact same thing because the cafeteria prices had gone up.

Events at the national level however were soon to overtake us. Facing dissidence from Chandrashekhar and Devi Lal, and with a view to consolidate the lower caste

vote base, VP Singh unleashed the Mandal Commission on the unsuspecting Indian middle class. The initial opposition to the Mandal Commission came from upper

caste students in the North Campus at Delhi University. It took a while for the Anti Mandal movement to pick up steam, but soon the entire student body was

involved in it. The student organizations were put on a spot because we were not getting support from our respective political parties and yet the student body

wanted an unequivocal stand from us. In an unparalleled decision, we decided to ignore the instructions of our respective political parties and back the movement.

The initial protests were in the form of candle light vigils, silent marches etc. This soon degenerated into smashing up the window panes of DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) buses, and hijacking them for joyrides around the city.

The co-ordination of the Anti Mandal Commission Committee, fearing that the movement may lose it’s focus, gave a call for forming a human chain outside the Parliament. Tens of Thousands of students rallied to the Parliament House. Our College president, in a fit of genius, declared that we would not go to parliament, but would instead demonstrate right outside the Prime Minister’s residence. Seemed like a great idea, especially because the Prime Minister’s residence is on Race Course Rd, quite close to some decent fast food and Tibetan food joints. What we did not anticipate was, that India, which we usually perceive as a “Soft State” could be quite a hard state when you cross certain lines. I still remember the Deputy Commissioner of Police telling us that we had a right to demonstrate, and that we should all sit down so as to not create security issues.

As soon as the majority of the students sat down, the DCP ordered a Lathi charge, to create maximum effect. Unfortunately, the security perimeter of VP Singh’s house was guarded by different state police contingents on a rotational basis. Whereas Delhi Police had some underlying sympathy for us, the Maharashtrians who were on duty at the time, had no clue who we were or what we were doing. They just went around doing their job efficiently. I was busy letting the air out of a DTC bus tire, and had my back towards the crowd.

I heard a commotion behind me, and so the Police whacking away at all and sundry. I got up and ran as well, and along with a few other students clambered upon a passing DTC bus and asked the driver to take us back to college. We could also see a lot of students running into Nehru Park, trying to avoid the pursuing cops.

Unfortunately, a couple of Police jeeps approached the bus that we were in, sirens blaring, and then a few cops clambered on and told the driver to take us to the nearest police station.

Once inside the Thana, a section was roped off, and we were made to sit down there. Initially, it was only a dozen of us, but we were later joined by quite a few that the cops had picked up from Nehru Park, and the number soon swelled to about 50 or so. Our College President had run away on a motorcycle at the first sign of trouble A La Mullah Omar, and the cops had no idea where he was. As we waited, a crowd of students gathered outside the Thana, shouting slogans against Police brutality and asking for donations from passing motorists. The president of the ABVP (the party, not the union itself) came in to the police station, demanding our release, and carrying a huge bag of bananas for us. The cops were in a foul mood by then, so they took the bananas, slapped him around in full view of us, and then took him upstairs for “special treatment”. We could soon hear the sounds of the special treatment coming down and that terrified us even more. The cops then decided that they would not arrest us, but would teach us a lesson in civic courtesy before letting us go. The civic lesson constituted our being made to lie down face down and rub our noses on the ground. All this, while we were whacked by lathis on the backside. While rubbing our noses on the cold floor, we also had to say, “Mai Public Property damage nahin karunga”. Thoroughly disgruntled, we went outside to find that the students outside had collected hundreds of rupees from passing motorists, and had then gone on a binge of Chinese food and cold beer. Suddenly, the objective of politics was revealed in absolute clarity to me.

From that day on, as the agitation steadily worsened, with Rajeev Goswami and others immolating themselves in protest, my mission remained clear. Have fun, make money, but do not put yourself in danger. The regret I have is for the people who immolated themselves, losing their lives for a hopeless cause. Most Delhites of the time will remember Rajeev Goswami, the first person to publicly burn himself in protest of Mandal Commission recommendations. Rajeev Goswami survived, and went on to become the President of DUSU a year later. People do not however remember the second person to attempt immolation, and the first one to die. This gentleman, I don’t even remember his name, rode up to the AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) crossing on his motorcycle. A large crowd had already gathered there because Rajeev Goswami was in the burns unit of Safdarjung hospital. He calmly parked his bike, pulled out a bottle of kerosene from his bag, poured it all over himself, and set his clothes alight. I heard this sequence of events from bystanders, as I was on the other side of the crossing at the time. But as I got to the spot where he was at, I saw an image I will never forget. A pair of melted Nikes was all that were left of an individual.

The Anti Mandal movement remained confined to largely urban areas, the support base being the educated elite. It was destined to fail. However, it was the first time I had actually seen the Middle Class being driven to a level of political involvement not seen since the Emergency. The mainstream opposition parties never openly supported the Anti Mandal Movement. It was most embarrassing for the BJP as the party saw it’s carefully cultivated Hindu votebank dissolve in a vortex of caste differences. Something had to be done and fast to unify the Hindu vote. The answer was the Rath Yatra, but that, as they say, is another story.

I live in the Hub of the Universe, also known as the City of Boston. Being right next door to nerdy Cambridge gives us a bit of an intellectual complex, so I hang out at Chowk. Kidding!! I work for a hotel company doing corporate sales, and I am going to graduate school for a Marketing degree.