When a famished population in France rose against the lavish and brutal disdain of the Bourbon monarchy in 1789, the English poet William Wordsworth, then an 18-year-old ‘Gen Z’, famously wrote:“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,But to be young was very heaven.”As popular upsurges now rage across France, Portugal, Italy, Albania and Spain against the mendacity of states in refusing common needs and rights, many might well resonate with the lines quoted above.Nearer home, Sri Lankan youth first showed the way towards political rectification, followed by the Gen Z uprisings in Bangladesh and Nepal.In all these cases, both in Europe and Asia, the culprit has been seen to be models of governance enslaved to big money, leaving not a pittance for the populace and, correspondingly, a political order that brooks no questioning from the millions consigned to penury, ill health, voicelessness and clampdowns calculated to shut out the democratic gumption of those in the fourth estate who might yet summon the courage to say it like it is.Indeed, the current upheaval in India, that is Bharat, has organically sprouted against an attempt to steal the electoral process itself to keep the present-day rulers in place.The commission incharge of conducting that process is exclusively the choice of the executive, and is protected from virtually any legal challenge by a law granting it immunity for life.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Notably, such immunity is not available either to the prime minister (yet), or the justices of the Supreme Court.What could be more instructive?There is, however, this discrimination to be made: in Europe, it is hardly conceivable that the clout of the church could be used to counter the secular upsurge of the street. ‘Hindu India’, however, unlike Christianity or Islam, is not confined to merely two or three sacred festivals per annum.Also read: Regime Change Is Democracy’s Lifeblood and Modi is No Exception: 7 Reasons Why BJP is WrongAmong Hindus, not a day passes when some god or goddess is not to be propitiated, or some holy dip is not to be taken.This year-long religiosity provides the current right-wing rulers with a tool that is inexhaustible in scale. Secular India has become too enfeebled to question this tool, however much it may flash the secular constitution as a lawful reminder of what the republic was conceived to be.That the Modi era has witnessed an effulgence of this religiosity is far too visible and insistent a fact to need substantiation. Never before in democratic India, legitimised by the secular Preamble of the constitution, have chief executives of states been seen wearing religious robes both in and out of office.Almost without exception, the endless plethora of state-sponsored government promotional advertisements interweave administrative pronouncements with one or the other reference to Hindu religious context.The historical task of secular, democratic India to make consequential assertions and garner mass support is thus rendered all the more uphill by the unbridled use of religious markers by the powers that be.What irks India’s current day rulers is the fact that the protesting Gen Z of the day may be less amenable to the seductions of religiosity than most who have crossed middle age and less taken in by the subterfuges spawned by ‘mainline’ corporate media houses to keep the hegemony of capital in place via a flood of commercially-driven piety.This is not to say that the ruling wing has not sought to deploy its own reservoir of Gen Z to thwart the unprecedented street agitation of young Indians intent on upholding their secular-constitutional charter of demands. But this attempt has met with little success so far.One reason for this failure seems to be the accusation that the Election Commission (EC) has been all too obviously coloured by pro-ruling party proclivities has found widespread acceptance, extending to even the hinterlands.As of now, many observers of world events must wonder how much traction the global pushbacks presently in evidence will eventually gain, and whether bread-and-butter issues may indeed triumph over religiosity and other forms of chicanery to return the world order to a more just and sane balance.In India, the disreputable EC is seeking to make amends across a spectrum of alleged misdemeanours after being exposed by a prominent English daily and, crucially by two of its own members. The forthcoming election in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, whose population is comparable to that of many large countries, may offer a forceful indication of where India’s current push against wrongdoing is headed. Of course, that is contingent on the voters’ lists remaining as flawed as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is alleged to have made them. In that ugly eventuality, yet another victory for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may prove to be yet another dupe.Also read: Why We Must Intervene to Take Back Our DemocracyThe approaching electoral battles in America and many European nations will likewise suggest whether the answer is indeed blowing in the wind.There is also the possibility that the Opposition’s INDIA bloc may yet again fall into disunity, with its constituents squabbling for individual advantage to the detriment of the larger political imperative.Conversely, the fact that parties both allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and hitherto non- aligned – Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), YSR Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) – have made statements critical of the modus operandi of the EC must give pause to the ruling party’s cavalier gumption that it can carry all before it in the legislative days to come.Interesting times ahead.Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been republished here. 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