As kids we didn’t really understand, but as we grew up we realised what Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece Hirok Rajar Deshe truly communicated. The authoritarian raja played immaculately by the legendary Utpal Dutt was a place holder for Indira Gandhi or any authoritarian ruler for that matter. His scientist had invented for him this propaganda machine that hypnotised people into being his andhbhakts, or ignorant worshippers. One would be put inside the machine and a lever would be pulled. There would be different levers – one for the farmer, one for the worker and one for the teacher. Each would sound different spells and the subject would come out brainwashed into obedience. A jantra or machine that would whisper the metallic sounding mantra. The machine in the movie was called Jantar Mantar.The Jantar Mantar in Delhi has proved to serve quite the opposite purpose today. Whoever enters this space comes to shed their obedience and start asking questions, difficult ones, to the regime. The regime tried to instil fear in their hearts with brute force, lathis, tear gas shells, barricades and pellets. But the spell of Jantar Mantar refused to wear off. It, in fact, multiplied across the country. And it is this indomitable spirit that has forced Dharmendra Pradhan to finally, at long last, resign. As someone who has entered his forties, whose receding hairline is slowly turning more salt than pepper, who has been struggling to keep one’s optimism alive in the face of everyday cynicism, the cockroaches have come as a force one can rely on. To recharge, to revitalise and rebuild. Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, who had been slapped with ‘sedition’ cases while at JNU. Photo: PTIIt’s been 10 years since the first wave of student and youth dissent dared to show its head against the regime. Ten years since Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder, 10 years since the JNU “sedition row” that sent some of us to jail. The cockroaches today were largely still in their schools then. A lot has changed since. It has gotten far more darker by every passing year. The students today are faced with a regime that has a far more firmer grip over the institutions, far more deeper roots into the body politic of the nation. And thus, this rebellion has been up against much higher odds. This is also the time when many of the forewarnings or prophecies from a decade back are coming to life. At a time when the pellets were blinding the youth in Kashmir in 2016, many had said that if the core overlooks the atrocities committed on the periphery, if we look away, it won’t be long before it comes closer home. Many had warned that if we remain indifferent to the brutal lathi charge on the students in Jamia Milia Islamia (2019) a day would come when the same batons would turn against the rest.Movements reflect the specificities of the present. It is embellished by the energies and creative synergies – memes, humour, slogans – of the present generation. It gives expression to the angsts and the artistic fervour of the present, in its demands, in its articulations. But movements are also always the aggregate of the collective memories of the past. The ghosts of the past struggles which the regime often thinks were obliterated, creeps into the voices, the slogans, the songs of the present. Each movement in that sense builds over the last ones. Change is incremental. We can hear that in the slogans of “azaadi” that echo despite the attempts of sanitisation by even the present leadership. The singer Arijit Singh while expressing his solidarity with the students today draws from the lines of Amir Aziz’s iconic poem from anti-CAA agitation days “Sab yaad rakha jaayga (we will remember everything)”. Youth like Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam from that struggle are still in jail. Memories of the farmer agitation, memories of ‘Justice for Rohith’, of Bhima Koregaon, they live on in the streets. Memories that the regime thought were buried under the case files or were hidden away by fresh coatings of whitewash on the Jamia walls. This movement is probably the first in India that has earned the epithet of being a Gen Z moment. In its trajectory it is also probably the first that lends its origins purely to the ethereal or online domain at least to start with. While all other agitations were forged on ground or were in response to events that unfolded on ground, this one originated from the rather demeaning comments of the Chief Justice of India characterising the youth as cockroaches. The response to the Cockroach Janta Party online was phenomenal. But as observers from the preceding generation, it was probably educative to see that when it landed from the online space onto the ground on June 6, unlike the expectation of some and the apprehensions of the police, it did not immediately translate in terms of scale into a ground movement of a significant weightage. It is only when it proved its credibility on ground, it is only after it was nurtured by the struggles of activists (many from the left-aligned student groups like AISA) and the hunger strikes of Sonam Wangchuk, Neha, Anees, Manish and others that the movement on slow burn gathered enough latent energy to unleash the kinetic force we saw in the spirited mobilisation of July 20. The ideological depth and character that the left organisations contributed, left its mark on both the protest site and it’s trajectory. In the face of that energy, the regime was forced to do what it does best – use brute force on a peaceful democratic agitation. Also read: Jantar Mantar Is a Showcase of the Organised Left and its Quiet PowerIt is one thing to have opinions online, but it cannot be overstated that solidarities are still largely forged on ground, at the barricades, at moments when the stakes are real. That’s what July 20 proved yet again. We have seen the tireless efforts of Mohammad Junaid, an activist who has earned the love and admiration of lakhs for arranging the food and water, for his admirable grit in solidarity with the movement despite being the target of the andhbhakts for his religion. So, today when there are reports of his family being harassed by the UP police, it is imperative that the students and youth display the same grit in our solidarity with Junaid bhai. When we see the hundreds from Bhim Army join the students in solidarity, it is imperative that we speak up with indignation at every instance of atrocity that is committed on a person belonging to a Dalit community. For many of this generation for whom July 20 or this movement is the first public memory of protest action, these are the ties of solidarities that I believe will outlive this present moment. Fuelled by a generational anger, and responding to a systemic crisis, the energies of the youth in its many avatars – the workers on the other side of the river in Noida months back, those in Jantar Mantar today and the millions uprising in many cities across the country – we hope can not only extract this resignation, but in the long run we hope they can also shake the system off its slumber. It is also educative and encouraging to see that this agitation and its participants – young and restless – have not only been able to dispel the veil of fear in publicly speaking up against the might of this regime, but that the cockroaches have also been willing to question the leadership of the present movement too. Whether it was Sonam Wangchuk, or the leading cockroaches, we have seen not just deference or loyalty, but also creative skepticism and doubt. It is this dialectic between the streets and the stage that both defined and refined the agitation. Such accountability in practice and in motion is reflective of the political maturity of the present generation that so often have been written off for their supposed “indifference”, “immaturity” and “lack of commitment”. The spirit of this movement has been inspiring, its resilience infectious, and its humour disarming. The regime’s arrogance had no answer to it. No awkward midnight reels, no crumbs were acceptable. The intelligence of those on the streets proved to be sharper than the artificial intelligence of the regime that surveils them. For many like me, we truly believe as we start greying, that we really do have something to rely on.Anirban Bhattacharya writes on socio-economic issues, democratic rights and inequality and is associated with the Centre for Financial Accountability.