‘From JNU to Jadavpur, anti-national movement spreads!’—Zee News

‘Activism or anti-nationalism?’—Times Now

‘Dalit students on warpath after Vemula suicide’

—FirstPost

‘Violence on Ramjas campus: no room for free, peacefulpolitical debate’—NDTV

‘Kashmir University students protest anti–free speechcircular’—TheQuint 

These are but a tiny sample of headlines that have becomecommonplace in India in recent years. What is it about the present moment inthe life of our nation that has stirred so many thousands of young citizensinto political action? And what is it about the nature of their protests thatis threatening enough for the establishment to brand it ‘anti-national’? 

The wave of youth protests, agitations, andmarches thatgripped India in the last fewyears were not, Nikhila Henry argues, sporadic,isolated, or piecemeal. Rather, they were an organized effort against afractured,

unforgiving, and deeply discriminatory society. Theparticipants, despite differences, often found convergence and empathy for eachother, and fought larger battles: battles of the Dalit, of the Adivasi, of theKashmiri, of the Women, of the Muslim. In so doing, it was not simplyentrenched discrimination they highlighted. In so doing, they questionedfundamental ideas of public morality and the very essence that makes us aunited nation.