Shabana Azmi, one of India’s most acclaimed actors, also known for her long association with theatre and activism, spoke to The Wire Talks about what she witnessed at Jantar Mantar on July 20, 2026. She described a gathering of young people who were angry at being unheard and driven by hope that dialogue and accountability were still possible. In conversation with Sidharth Bhatia, described the determination of the protesters, the force used against them and why she believes this moment marks something significant for her personally as well as for India’s public life. Below is the full transcript, edited lightly for clarity.§Hello and welcome to The Wire Talks. I am Sidharth Bhatia. The protest by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, which began to demand the resignation of the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan because of the leak of the NEET undergraduate exam paper, has grown into a wider protest.Tens of thousands of young people, collectively called Gen Z, have congregated in Delhi and also in different parts of the country. The hunger strike of Ladakhi scientist and activist Sonam Wangchuk also galvanised the protesters. Instead of reaching out to them, the Modi government has reacted by sending the police and then paramilitary forces to control them. Initially, there was a lathi charge, which was followed by the use of pellet guns, which has provoked outrage throughout the country. The protesters, however, have kept on coming. Many high-profile people have extended support to the protesters, including actors Prakash Raj, Shabana Azmi and now singer Arijit Singh. Shabana Azmi, who is a well-known activist, joins us today to talk about what she saw and felt in Delhi. Welcome to The Wire Talk, Shabana Azmi.Shabana Azmi: Thank you. Thank you very much.Sidharth Bhatia: Why did you decide to go to the protest in Delhi? SA: You see, I was very disturbed by what I was seeing on social media and the fact that no attention was being paid to the real hurt and anger and grievance that the children were expressing. And so, apart from, you know, making a few comments on social media, I thought it was very important for me to be there personally and physically. And so, very sensibly, I think both Javed sahab and I, Javed Akhtar and I, wrote a letter on July 15, appealing to the prime minister directly, saying that, you know, we have no intentions of going to the press with this letter. We are appealing to you as concerned citizens and as former members of the Rajya Sabha; please initiate a dialogue with them.It was as simple as that, and I think our earnestness cannot be doubted. If you want, I can share the letter with you also. And so I sent it by email, I sent it personally and I sent it by fax. Within two hours, we got an acknowledgement, and they said we would get back to you in two days. So I waited two days, three days, four days. [On the] fifth day, I decided that since the protest was becoming more and more intense, I couldn’t wait endlessly for this. And so I went.When I went there and saw the sea of young faces as far as the eye could see, all of them were young with anger as well as hope. And I felt they were so charged that they absolutely needed that kind of support. By that time, Sonam Wangchuk had already been shifted to the hospital along with some of the fasting members, and obviously they needed the fillip, and I knew that the next day, on the 20th, there was going to be a march to parliament in which I felt it was very important for me to join them.When I went there, I was amazed at the intensity of their feelings as well as hope. [Their] hope was that something was going to be done, that their issues are going to be addressed.The next day, when the march was decided, everything had been closed and there was no way that we could reach parliament.So we had to keep protesting. Now the important thing is that, from the podium, everybody who spoke kept insisting that it should be a non-violent demonstration. I was surprised that in spite of their anger and in spite of the fact that they were stopped from what is a completely democratic right of marching to parliament, they still listened. They listened and they did not do anything for which they could be faulted.At one time, I was taken and pulled into a truck because they feared that there would be a stampede, etc. And so they put some of us into the truck. Now, I was so exhausted by then that I just lay down in the truck. One of the activists came running to me and said, “Please get up. Please get up because there’s likely to be a stampede and you will be crushed.” So I got up. I got up, and I went to the grill of the truck and a big stone was hurled. I just escaped it because of the grill. I’m not saying that it was directed at me, but it was hurled. Then I saw complete mayhem. I saw the tear gas and then the lathi charge. So I came down [from the truck] and I went and sat in the mud with the students who were still there.Now the students who had been brutally injured and lathi-charged all came rushing to me asking after me, and I said, “Main toh bilkul theek hun, laykin aapko toh laathiya pari hain” (I am completely fine, but you have been hit with batons). And one of them says, “Ek laathi padnay kay baad dar nikal jaata hai.” (After being hit by a baton, fear leaves you).[I saw] a little 15- or 16-year-old boy who had come walking from a huge distance because the metro lines had all been closed. He was so young, a slim little boy. I said, ‘What makes you come here?’ and he said, ‘If I hadn’t come, I would never have been able to face myself again.’ This was the pure jazbaa (courage), which I cannot even explain to you; the selflessness with which they had come.They had lots of mothers supporting them as well. Mothers who were really angry because they … unhoney apna zewar girvi rakh diya tha, unhoney loans liye they, unhoney bacchon ko padhaney kay liye. (The mothers had pawned their jewellery to take out loans for their children’s education). So now what was happening was unfair. By that time, sorry if I’m sharing too much detail, but I just wanted [what happened] to be recorded.SB: I wanted to come to a few points, but you can wind up if you want to.SA: Yeah. So then, I got an asthma attack because I’m an asthmatic and because of the tear gas, it came on, and so they led me to a safe place. I got my breath back, and I went back and stayed with them and continued to see what they were doing. SB: Shabana, clearly you were witness to the mayhem as well as, as you called it, hope and anger. But by now hope would have turned to anger, wouldn’t you say? By now, I mean that [the youth would think] we are really in good faith to walk there [to parliament], we have not indulged in violence, and this is what has happened. It must have been a slightly angry mood, do you think?SA: Of course, it was very, very angry. They were very angry, but they still could not believe that the issues that they had raised, the concerns, were not real! We have a ruling party and the leaders always calling out the youth and saying the youth are our biggest strength and all that, toh woh ek address bhi karnay kay liye nahi taiyyar they (they were not even ready to address them). I don’t think they could comprehend… they kept feeling ki nahin-nahin hoga, hoga. (No, it will happen, we will be heard.)That’s when I left, at that point, although they were very angry because lots of false accusations were made at them. The police said usmein say kisi nay hum par shoe feka hai (someone hurled their shoe at us). The children are saying that’s not true at all. Now it’s their word against the police. We don’t know.SB: Come on, the police can tolerate a shoe? Come on, I mean this is absurd!SA: You know when we look at this, Sidharth, what are we seeing? We are seeing that whenever the police have to disperse what they call an “unlawful gathering”, there is a perfect protocol that they have to follow in how they go about it. First you give a warning, then you throw a bullet in the air, then you throw water on them, and then you use tear gas. And then, if you hit them, it has to be below the knees. There’s a very, very clear protocol.None of that was followed. And why was it not followed? Obviously because either they weren’t given clear orders from the top or they were given the freedom to do what they wanted. Surely you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that.I remember when the bomb blasts happened in Mumbai. After that it would have been legitimate for people to come out and just want to destroy everything, but Sharad Pawar was then the chief minister and it is absolutely obvious that there were clear orders from the top that no violence had to be initiated by the police. And so they were able to control that anger after twelve bomb blasts! Now what more examples do you need than that?SB: Therefore, what you’re saying is either they were not given instructions, or in fact they were given instructions which actually makes the whole thing a little worse.SA: Either – I am not claiming either as being the correct thing. I’m saying these are the two probabilities [of] what happened. SB: I’ve covered a few riots, including 1992, 1993 and earlier, and I can tell you one thing: the police never, in major situations like this, do anything without political instructions. SA: It’s the same thing that I’m saying. SB: So you saw the entire spectrum of the protest and march – and now photographs are coming out of policemen throwing stones. Do you think that after Sonam Wangchuk was shifted outside the protest, a gesture could have been made than going to a higher stage of using pellets, which have been tried in many places including Kashmir, and which can blind a person. There’s a photograph of this young boy who’s got pellets in his body. Don’t you think that was very provocative, to escalate it so much?SA: I don’t think that they will have the guts to go beyond that. I’m absolutely certain.SB: Yeah, but even this is pretty strong.SA: It is very strong, but after seeing what has happened all over India, it is not only those who came to the protest [at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi] but all the spontaneous demonstrations that are happening all over India and support from other countries also… Surely they cannot be so, so, blind as to think they will be able to control it in the way they controlled the Shaheen Bagh protest, in the way they controlled the farmers, etc. Because people, the young, affect people very differently. Because the young are our future and we have a stake and a claim in the world that we give them.Toh yeh toh aisa mudda hai kay mujhe nahi lagta ki koi bhi insaan legitimate dialogue puchey aur inhay woh na de (This is such an issue that I don’t think there’s anyone who would ask for legitimate dialogue and be denied one).See, what happens is that important people, celebrities, etc., can lend their support, they can amplify the conversation, but they cannot replace institutions. They cannot replace democratic processes. For that, accountable governance has to discuss this issue threadbare in parliament.I’m not saying you have a knee-jerk reaction. Have a discussion and a debate in parliament and then form a law. That is why you are there. But they are not allowing the opposition to speak.SB: I read somewhere that every possible window and door has been shut for a sensible dialogue with the students or with the Opposition or with the country as a whole. You [the government] can still say that it’s gone too far, maybe these students have a point, we will certainly do something about it. Instead, there is a statement today that we will punish the culprits. But this is not what the students may want to hear.But what do you think is now the hope and anger, as you put it? SA: I think things rest firmly in the court of the Opposition. How the Opposition gets them [the government] to debate and have a discussion. They have to all come together, leave aside their own differences and come in a broad agreement. You don’t have to agree on every small point. It’s not my way or the highway. But the Opposition is there for exactly that reason. Right? That’s what they have to do. Students toh kartay aa rahein hain, magar aapko agar accountable governance ka koi sharm hi nahi hai, ya koi lihaz hi nahi hai toh kya? Aap samjhtay hain aap isko quell kar saktein hain? Yeh nahi hoga. (Students have continued to protest. But if you have no sense of accountability in governance, no sense of responsibility, do you really think you can quell this? You can’t.)This will be a turning point in India’s history. You know this sounds very dramatic, but I feel when the history of post-independence India is written, there will be a chapter devoted to post-independence till one end and then the students’ strike. It is of such enormous significance in my view.SB: Let’s not forget, I mean if you bring politics into it, that these are students of voting age; their parents are also….SA: Woh toh bol rahein hain, accha ab dekho ab humein vote dena hai na, ab dekho hum kya kartein hain. (They are themselves saying, ‘Now see, it’s our time to vote now, see what we do.’)SB: Also, they are parents, and I daresay many of them may otherwise have been supporters of the government.SA: Yes, yes, I saw that very clearly.SB: Yeah, so this is going to spread; you are right.SA: But wait a minute. What I find very strange are appeals being made by individuals saying, Students, we love you, we respect you, we have your good at heart, but please don’t get exploited by political parties.’ Toh kya discuss karein,aap yeh bataiye, parliament mein kya discuss karein? (So what should be discussed in the Parliament, what should we discuss?) Will they discuss which film has to be supported, or will they discuss issues that concern the country, environment, farmers’ rights, students’ rights, women’s rights?How can you say ‘don’t get into politics’? I don’t understand what it means. Kaisay ho sakta hai? Kaisay imagine kar rahein hain yeh? Ab chitt bhi meri aur patt bhi meri. (How can that be? How do they imagine that’s possible? Heads I win, tails I win.)SB: No, but if the Opposition has been virtually stopped from speaking in parliament, then what is its role here? SA: No, they have to come together. At the moment, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav have come and courted arrest and things like that. But then there’s a huge Opposition. [in India] All of them have to come together. They have to work out a strategy, and meanwhile, the government has to rethink its attitude and realise that what they are doing has not found favour with anybody and they will be the sufferers if they don’t take up this issue and address the concerns.What I find very strange is that for years we’ve been saying we have to make investments in public health, in education, in women’s rights to measure our country’s progress, but we are seeing education ka jo budget hai voh kam se kam tak ho raha hai . (The education budget is being reduced to the bare minimum.) We are asking for 6%, they’ve gone down to 3% and maybe even a little lower: Why? Because they need it [budgetary resources] for arms. Is that justified?SB: Shabana, I remember coming to your hunger strike at Cuffe Parade. This is where you sat under the sun.SA: It was a five-day hunger strike. SB: What was it like? SA: I don’t even remember it. But a friend of mine said that on the fifth day she saw me and she said, ‘You could barely speak; your mouth was completely dry, and you had to be even to be pulled up; you needed support’.That was only five days, and these students, 23 days, they’re doing it. And what electrifies me is with the body giving way, [they retain their] clarity of thought, their complete focus on what their demands are. Hats off to them. Really, really hats off to them.SB: This is no longer about NEET and the education system. SA: No, no, no. It’s asking for the whole educational system to be overhauled.SB: It’s also their sense of frustration about so many things. SA: Yeah. Of course, including the environment we’ve been given, including the kind of air we are breathing, all of that.SB: And the job prospects which look bleak even if you come out with good degrees, the very, very poor rate of getting satisfying jobs. Then, I think, somewhere in the back of everyone’s mind is everything else: the corruption and the fact that none of this ever gets a response from the government.SA: Unemployment has never been this high ever. I remember I was so pained because there was a student who had done his MA economics with distinction and he had been looking for a job and he didn’t get one. He had been looking for a job everywhere, and he was getting nothing. Finally, he came to me and he said, “Didi, main toh safai karamchari ban-nay ko bhi taiyyar hun, aap jo hai mujhsay gutter saaf karwa lijiye, lekin mujhey naukri dijiye, aur unhoney mujhsay kaha hai ki agar tum humay teen lakh rupay bribe do toh hum tumhey naukri dengey.” (Didi, I’m even willing to work as a sanitation worker. You can have me clean sewers, but please give me a job. And they told me, ‘If you pay us a bribe of Rs 3 lakh, we’ll give you a job.)Can you understand what we are doing and what kind of frustration we are breeding?SB: Well, if you’ve got corruption staring you in the face even in mandirs and so many other things, then obviously it tells the students something.Now on to a couple of other things. Other people have gone to Jantar Mantar. Some people have issued statements today. I read Arijit Singh’s statement, and he’s getting a lot of hate. You must have got a bit of trolling also. You’ve been asked this question before, I’m sure, but why do your esteemed colleagues in your industry not say a word?SA: Firstly, it’s not true that they’re not saying a word. Many more people…SB: Naseeruddin Shah has.SA: No, no, not [just] Naseeruddin Shah, many, many, many, many people. Maybe they’re not as vocal, but they have condemned the action. I think it’s not fair for us to judge them because they’re not speaking, because it is every artist’s right to decide for themselves. And the people who choose not to [speak up] can do so because they weigh the consequences differently. The most important thing is that when we get into this dialogue, we must not lose sight of the real issue. The conversation should remain focused on the concerns raised by the students and on how these concerns are addressed rather than on whether individual celebrities comment.SB: But I think because they are citizens, also influential citizens, and they had views in the past when it was a slightly different political scene that they were very vocal about. They’ve been supportive of this government, which also is their right. I do not take it away from them.But I’m sure that in private conversations you may have heard somebody saying, you know what, what they’re doing is awful, but they are not able to say it in public. I ask you because you belong to that industry.SA: I am saying that they weigh the consequences differently and they have the right to do that. You know, it’s exactly what I said earlier: that you know artists and celebrities can amplify conversations, but they cannot substitute democratic processes and institutions. They can’t do that. They can only lend their voice. SB: So why don’t they? They can amplify.SA: Because they’re weighing the consequences differently and they have that right! They have a democratic right to do that. Aap jo hai yeh bataiye, industrialists say nahi puchtay, businessmen say nahi puchtay, doctors say nahi puchtay. (Tell me: you don’t ask industrialists, you don’t ask businesspeople, you don’t ask doctors…) they all have their areas of influence. Woh kyun nahin baat kar rahay hain, har cheez film industry par aakar hi kyun? (Why don’t they talk to them? Why does everything always come back to the film industry?)SB: Kyunki aap film industry se ho, doctor se doctor ke baarey mein puchunga. (Because you’re from the film industry. I’d ask a doctor about doctors.)SA: Main toh film industry ki hun na, toh mujhey aap films ke baarey mein pucho. Jaisey aap keh rahay hain ki doctors ko medical issues pe baat karo, aap humsay film pe baat karo. (I’m from the film industry, so ask me about films. Just as you’re saying doctors should be asked about medical issues, you should ask us about films.) Why is it necessary that just because we are actors, we should have a view on everything?SB: But you can amplify it. You yourself said, I’m sorry to argue.SA: But I am saying, of course you can amplify it, but isn’t there a right for them to make their individual choices for whatever they feel the consequences will be? Why? How is that not fair for them to decide for themselves?SB: How is it that you don’t weigh the consequences? SA: Look, it is also a result of my upbringing. Remember that I was raised in a commune called the Red Flag Hall till the age of nine. Workers’ rights, women’s rights, justice, equality were everyday conversations. That’s what we heard as children. And so for my brother, Baba and me, we imbibed it by a process of osmosis almost. You know, my parents believed that art should be used as an instrument for social change. My father through his poetry, my mother through the work that she did as an actor. And so for me, within that environment, it was inevitable, I think, that I would reach this because the ground was so fertile, ki ek na ek din usmein Ankur nikalta hi (sooner or later, something was bound to sprout.)SB: Ankur. That was a nice one. Incidentally, it has been more than 50 years since you acted in that film. So what do you think are the next steps? Are you going to meet the protesters again in Delhi or Mumbai?SA: In Mumbai. And we are also making our own groups of protesters, and circles of people who are going to write, who are going to do the usual things that we do when we indulge in this kind of social interaction. I have not seen anybody baulking. Everybody who is appreciating that is also willing to put themselves at stake. Main bol rahin hun kuch ho gaya hai abki baar, jo is-say pehlay kabhi nahi hua tha. (Something has happened this time, that had never happened before.)I t affects every single one of us, na.SB: As citizens…SA: As citizens and as parents. Human connection that has not happened unfortunately in the other big protests, that has happened. [Other protests too] should have had the same kind of resonance, but they didn’t. Magar yeh toh har insaan kay dil ki baatein chui hain. (But this protest have touched every human being’s heart.)SB: You know, when you think about it, the Shaheen Bagh protest ended because of COVID finally, and they dispersed, but Shaheen Bagh resulted in the Citizenship Amendment Act never, ever coming to Parliament. So it had an impact.Now you move to farmers’ protests. After 380 days. Mr Modi said he will repeal these laws, which he has not done, which is another matter, but he said that and, incidentally, you know that three days ago the farmers were also moving towards Delhi and they were stopped.So past record shows that this can build up further pressure and perhaps something may happen. Do you feel optimistic? SA: Yes, I feel optimistic because I do think that public engagement and civic participation can put enough pressure on accountable governance because jab unhay yeh lagnay lagta hai (once they start feeling) that, my God, the entire country has come together on this issue, they have to do it. And I am absolutely certain ki yeh hoga. (This will happen.) I cannot even foresee a time when this protest of this kind and this historicity will go unaddressed. I don’t think so.SB: One last question. Have you got a response to your letter? SA: Just an acknowledgement that we would get a reply in two days. I’m still waiting. SB: You’re still waiting. SA: I’m waiting. But now I have gone public. In that letter, Javed and I said that we are not going public with it because we are appealing to them as individuals.SB: Thank you, Shabana. That was a wonderful analysis and I’m always generally hopeful, and I’m glad to see that you also, after seeing the faces of the youth and children, believe that hope has not been lost and you are still hopeful.SA: Wait – I want to end this with a sher (couplet) from Faiz.SB: Yes, yes!SA: Jo rukay toh koh-e-giran thay ham, jo chaley to jaan se guzar gaye; rah-e-yaar, ham ne qadam-qadam tujhey yadgar bana diya. (When we stood still, we were an immovable mountain; when we moved, we were willing to give our lives. O beloved path, we made you memorable at every step.)That’s Faiz for you.SB: The wonderful thing about poets of that ilk, whether it was Faiz or your father or so many others, was always optimism. SA: Always, always, always. I unearthed a poem of my father called Naujawan, kitnay saalon pehlay likhi hui thi; my God, aur iss maukey pay bilkul apply aisey karti hai matlab saath saal say kuch bhi nahi badla! Kitnay hairat ki baat hai. (It was written so many years ago. My God, and yet it applies so perfectly to this moment. It feels as though nothing has changed in sixty years. It’s quite astonishing.)SB: Chaap dijiye kahin. (Please have it published it.)SA: Haan. (Yes.)SB: Thank you once again, Shabana Azmi; always wonderful to talk to you, and I hope that your hope is fulfilled and those of the students too.That was Shabana Azmi, who needs no introduction except that not many people may know she was an activist and she continues being an activist as much in the front as everyone else.We’ll be back again next week with another guest. Till then, from me, SB and the rest of The Wire team, goodbye.