Here is the full text of senior journalist Karan Thapar’s discussion with AISA president Neha Bora, whose work and ideas about democracy have been in the discussion a lot since the Delhi Police cracked down on protesters against Gyanesh Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner, and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists.Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. My guest today has captured the imagination of the country. Though still a student leader, she’s become one of the key faces of the nationwide protests. Now, leading politicians are courting her, and the New York Times and the Hindu are profiling her. Today is your chance to get to know her better, to understand her views and how she herself perceives the movement she’s a key part of. She is of course the president of the All India Students’ Association, Neha Bora.Neha Bora, on Friday evening you were tempted at the Tiranga rally, but the police did everything possible to prevent you. How do you view the police’s behaviour on that occasion?Neha Bora: Thank you for having me. And that day at Mandi House, we had not given a call for the Tiranga march. Actually, we had issued a simple call to protest against SIR and Gyanesh Kumar.What we’ve been witnessing in these protests is that the government has understood that this is a generation that has now realised that it can protest and come out onto the streets. And that is why we are witnessing a different strategy from the government.The government knows that if it allows us to exercise our democratic right to dissent, then there are going to be thousands and thousands of people who are going to be out on the streets protesting against whatever is going on in the country. And because the government is scared of our democratic protests, it is making sure that we are not able to congregate in any place for even five minutes. And that is why this idea of Jantar Mantar.Now, Jantar Mantar as a protest site is not something that was demanded by us, by the common people. This is a site that was designated by the government. And now, when the government realises that this site has the potential of actually representing what people want; that people want change. The government has on its own decided that Jantar Mantar is going to be de-notified, and now it has decided that we are supposed to go out to the outskirts of the city, if we want to protest.The idea of protest itself means that you have approached all the people who are part of the system, and there is no remedy. You’ve not received any remedy, and that is why you are exercising your right to protest.Now, people can protest anywhere. Our constitutional right to protest is not limited to a site, a designated site. We can protest anywhere. This idea, that you will protest, and only protest at a specific place designated by the government, and that too after you seek permission from the government – it defeats the entire purpose of what democratic protests were supposed to mean in a democracy and the foundation of the constitution.So, what we are witnessing now everywhere in the country is this: that the government is very, very afraid. It is afraid that the people have understood; that the people do not want the BJP and the RSS and everybody else who they have placed in the system to support their being in power. And that is why we’re seeing a change in designated protest sites.We are witnessing a clampdown on any form of gathering. We are witnessing that a big part of central Delhi, surrounding Jantar Mantar has a permanent no protest section on it and we’re witnessing this new and increasingly popular peace bond that people are being forced to sign. Now what is a peace bond?Karan Thapar: Let’s come to a peace bond in a moment’s time. Let me first ask you about the detention, because on Friday night you were detained by the police for several hours, all night long. How did they treat you? Were you mistreated? Were you manhandled in any way?Neha Bora: They detained me, and they detained me alone. A very surprising thing that I witnessed was that while the protest had just begun and the police had started to seclude me from the rest of the protesters. It often happens, and it has happened in other protests also, that protesters who are not from AISA or from other left organisations often try to come between the police and me and say that, “You cannot detain Neha. Don’t detain Neha. We will not let you detain Neha alone.” They always come and say this.This time, when the police were detaining me, there were two or three women in masks, and they looked like students. I thought that they were normal protesters. Then a male cop came, and amongst other female police personnel, this male cop was standing and trying to push one of these women protesters who was wearing a mask.My comrades and I were saying, “You cannot detain female protesters. You need to leave. You cannot even touch her.” So we were arguing with this male cop. The male cop could not actually make out that this was a female protester. So he asked her, “Are you a female protester?” She shook her head and said yes, and the male cop left.These two or three women, along with AISA comrades and other left student organisation activists, were trying to make a human chain around me and the police. But eventually, the police succeeded in detaining me in a van, where I saw they had already detained a male protester in a blue-and-white striped T-shirt. They put another woman in the van. This woman was screaming and saying, “My hair is stuck in your badge. Please let me go.” Then she was also detained.I asked them if they wanted water, if they were okay, if they were hurt, anything like that. I asked them all of this.Once the bus in which I was detained started moving, after 15–20 minutes, there were two lawyers in black coats following our bus. They asked through the window, “Where are you taking Neha? You tell us, otherwise we will come in front of the bus.”This person in a blue-and-white striped shirt who was sitting behind me suddenly got up and said, “Madam… main jaoon kya iske bahar?” I realised that he was also a cop.Five or ten minutes later, I realised that this woman who was screaming that her hair was stuck in someone else’s badge, a uniform badge, was also a woman! [Note: Bora, it is likely, meant to say “was also a policewoman”, and not “was also a woman”.].Half an hour to 45 minutes after the bus started moving, they stopped it in the middle of Delhi, in some secluded lane, and said, “Staff aa raha hai hamara [Other police officials are on their way].” The door opened, and these two or three women who were wearing masks, who had been pretending to be protesters, and whom we had been fighting with the male cops to protect from detention, came into the detention vehicle.I realised that all of these people in plain clothes, whom the police had been pretending to detain, and who had been standing in the crowd pretending to separate me from the other cops, were all police personnel.Also read: Beaten, Private Parts Hit, Phones Snatched, Minors Not Spared: Pandwalan Khurd Detainees Recount Evening of HorrorThis was happening for the first time that there was such grand planning to detain me.Karan Thapar: This was an outright deception. The police were pretending to be protesters, not police.Neha Bora: Exactly. This was outright [deception]. Everybody, all of the protesters, thought that they were part of the protest because they were trying to make a human chain around me. They were trying to separate me from the police, from the other cops, along with other protesters. All of us thought that they were part of the protest because they were wearing masks as well.A lot of the time, people wear masks, and we don’t say, “Remove your mask and show us who you are.”So then the detention took place, and they took me to Palam anti-narcotics police station. I was there, sitting there. Half an hour passed, 45 minutes passed, and while I was on the way to Palam, the sun had already set.I was constantly telling them, “You cannot detain me after sundown. Is this detention? If this is detention, you cannot detain me after sundown. You have to release me.”AISA chief Neha Bora being detained by the police during a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, demanding his resignation over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, at Mandi House, in New Delhi, Friday, October 16, 2026. Photo: PTI/Ravi Choudhary.The person who was accompanying me kept saying, “We’ll just drop you to Palam. That’s our responsibility. We can’t just let you go in the middle of the night.”I said, “No, you let me go. My comrades will come, and they will take me. Don’t worry about it.”I kept saying that, but they didn’t listen. They stopped the detention vehicle at Palam. At Palam, half an hour went by, 45 minutes went by, and then different police personnel associated with Barakhamba Police Station and South Campus Police Station entered the small room where I was being kept. Then the others left.She came in and said…an SI [Sub-inspector] and said, “Apki talashi leni hai”. I said, “Do you have a warrant? Do you have a warrant to look at my personal belongings, to check my phone, anything?”She said, “We don’t need it.”I said, “How do you not need it? First of all, the sun has already set. How have you kept me in detention?”She said, “Madam, you are arrested.”I said, “Then show me the notice. Show me what sections I’m being arrested under. What is it that you’re arresting me for? Show me a warrant. You have to show me a notice which says that I have been arrested.”She said, “We’ll give this to you.”I said, “No, you have to give it to me for me to believe that you are arresting me and for me to decide whether to allow you to look at my bag or not.”She said, “We will do it. We will check you.”I said, “You don’t have my permission to check me.”Karan Thapar: Did they ever show you the warrant of arrest?Neha Bora: No. Not at all. Not until I was released. I’ve never seen the warrant of arrest.They checked my bag. They checked my person. They even wanted to record it. They wanted a police camera person to record them while they were checking me. But I said, “No, he cannot record me. What is this?”So he was told to leave. Then they told another woman to record it on her phone.I said, “You don’t have the consent to look at my bag. You don’t have the consent to touch me, but you’re still doing it.”So they kept touching me everywhere. They took my phone.Neha Bora: They took everything in my bag that they thought was something that could lead my fellow comrades to them. They did not want me to contact my people from my organisation, my lawyers, or anyone else.After they got my phone, they must have looked through it. They looked through my phone. They shifted me from Palam Police Station to RK Puram Police Station. They took me to that police station.I kept telling them, “Show me the notice of arrest. Show me the notice of arrest,” and kept telling them, “Let me talk to my lawyer.”I looked at their own watch, and it was 12, 12:30, and I said, “You have to provide me a notice that you’re arresting me, and you have to let me talk to my lawyer.”She kept asking me, “What is your father’s name? Where do they live?”I said, “I am sorry. I am not… I told you the basic information: my name, my father’s name, my address, where I stay, my phone number, things that you asked for in detention. I have told you. If you want me to cooperate further, you’re going to have to provide me a notice saying that you have arrested me.”But they failed to provide it to me.They said, “We are going to give you a document. You have to sign it.”I said, “I will not sign any document without my lawyer first looking at it. You can do whatever you want. You can try to rough me up. I will not sign any document unless my lawyer explicitly tells me to sign it.”After one and a half to two hours of having come to RK Puram Police Station, they allowed my lawyer to come inside for two minutes. My lawyer kept saying that there is something called lawyer-client confidentiality, under which you’re supposed to allow me to talk to my client in private. But the police refused to let me talk to my lawyer.I talked to my lawyer for two minutes. He just asked me if I was doing okay, if anything had happened, and if I’d eaten anything. I told him that it was okay.I was not doing well for the past two or three days. I was feeling very faint. I had a slight fever. I had a throat infection. All of that I had, and I told them as well.They asked me what had happened because I was coughing and all. I said that I was not well, and they said, “Okay.”I told them to switch off the fan. They turned off the fan, and then they did not allow me to meet anyone.All of the other activists had to come outside the police station for them to call a doctor and give me paracetamol and ibuprofen at two or three in the morning.Also read: Why a Highhanded Security Response to a Political Challenge Reveals Modi’s Loss of AuthorityThey constantly tried to ask me for details and kept saying, “You have to sign this. You have to sign something. We’ll give you a document. You sign it. You sign it.”I constantly said, “I will not sign anything. I will not sign anything till the time my lawyer gives me an explicit go-ahead. I will not sign anything. You can do whatever you think is…”Karan Thapar: And how long did they detain you?Neha Bora: They detained me at around five in the evening, and they let me go at 5:36 the next morning. So, around 11 or 12 hours.Karan Thapar: And at no point was the arrest warrant shown to you?Neha Bora: No. At no point was an arrest warrant shown to me. In fact, they said several times, “You’re under arrest. You’re under arrest. You’re under arrest.”But they didn’t tell me under what sections they had arrested me or what [laws] they were invoking. They constantly said, “A decision is being made about you. A decision is being made about you.”I kept asking them what decision, and they refused to tell me.The idea I got was that they wanted to arrest me that day. But they could not because there was a lot of political uproar about the fact that I was missing; that they were not letting my lawyers meet me; that they had taken away my phone and everything else, my personal belongings.Because of this, they decided not to arrest me.The day after my preventive detention, my night-long detention, they came to the address and served me a notice which said that the police had found that the SEM had found that they had reasons to believe that I would breach the peace, and that is why I had to execute a surety for Rs 10,000, saying that I would not breach the peace pending inquiry.Karan Thapar: Absolutely, you were also asked to execute a surety, not just that you wouldn’t breach the peace, but a personal bond of Rs 10,000. Your legal team has contested this in the Delhi High Court. Briefly explain to the audience how you view this part of the story.Neha Bora: I think it is very important, very, very important. What we were trying to do, along with our legal team, when we said that we would challenge this notice by the SEM in the High Court, was this:We want to do this because what is happening now, and what we have seen in the case of the CJP leadership, is that they are making activists sign a bond of peace while actually making them sign a bond that they will not participate in or give a call for protest anywhere.The constitution guarantees us the right to peaceful protest. Even an SEM order saying that you sign this personal bond, you execute a surety, you sign this personal bond saying that you will not breach the peace, does not allow the police or the judicial system to deny me my right to peaceful protest.They know that they cannot deny me my right to peaceful protest and go against the constitution. That is why this notice says that I will not breach the peace.What do you mean by “I will not breach the peace”? What does the SEM mean when he says that you sign a bond saying that you will not breach the peace?Because when Abhijeet Dipke gave a call for a Tiranga March and stepped out of the door of his house to wave the Tiranga, you quickly detained him. Why? What was the breach of peace there? What was the breach of peace? What was the unpeaceful thing or action that he was doing? What was it?It’s very simple: through this peace bond, they are trying to deny us our right to peaceful protest.Karan Thapar: In fact, it’s an attempt to entrap you.Neha Bora: Exactly. That’s exactly what it is. And therefore, we have challenged it in the High Court. The courts will either have to say that our right to peaceful protest stands suspended while all of this is going on, and that is why we sign a peace bond, or they write in the peace bond what they mean by “breach of peace”.Because this idea, this bond of breach of peace, cannot be used to allow people… to disallow people from exercising their right to democratic dissent. It’s as simple as that. The SC will have to say that, no, you cannot protest if they want us not to protest.Karan Thapar: Let me cite another example from the Delhi High Court. Yesterday, in the Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das case, the Delhi High Court questioned their right to represent Gen Z. The court claimed that because of their age, they can’t claim to be Gen Z themselves. The court also mysteriously said, “It’s a different cause, but the people are the same.” And then the court wondered if the protesters wanted to imitate Europe’s violent protests. Clearly, the court seems to have been unsympathetic, if not outrightly critical. How do you view the attitude of the Delhi high court yesterday? Because you will face that same attitude today when your case comes up.Neha Bora: No, it’s true. Actually, I was very surprised by this line of questioning, where the high court judge says, “You’re not Gen Z. How can you represent Gen Z?”It’s funny, because we live in a democracy where our elected leaders represent people across different ages, across different genders, across linguistic divides, across everything: caste, class, gender, everything. This idea of people representing a cause, or leave aside representing a cause, people representing people, is not new to us because we are a democratic country.We elect our representatives irrespective of whether we are 19 or whether we are 60. The Prime Minister, the Cabinet ministers, all of the MPs and MLAs have been elected by people who are 18 to 90, or whenever they’ve been elected by us.And therefore, if anybody is concerned about the fact that Gen Z, or young people, or the students of this country are disenfranchised through the SIR process or are facing an increasingly corrupt education system, then we, as young people, would welcome it.We, as college- and university-going students, would welcome it if the rest of the people in this country who are not students or who are not Gen Z are standing in solidarity with us.I believe that was the idea of a democracy. I think that is what it is.Karan Thapar: The court, in this instance, is deeply mistaken. It has misunderstood the very nature and character of democracy.Let me, at this point, move from the court and ask you about the police and the way the police have behaved over the last 10–12 days.We know that detainees have frequently been thrashed by the police. In some cases, the police actually sat on their chests. In other cases, they broke their arms. Yet, in other cases, they denied water to people who were fainting. Even MPs and senior lawyers were manhandled by the police. We saw those scenes on TV.The police, on the other hand, claim that they’ve behaved legitimately, properly and correctly.What’s your impression of the way the police have behaved over the last 10–12 days?Neha Bora: Two or three things. One of them is that people in plainclothes have been following me ever since the detention.Ever since the detention at Mandi House, four or five people have been following me. How and why can police personnel in plainclothes follow me? What are the directives that they have got to follow me? And it’s not like they are following me on the road and just taking pictures.No, they are travelling with me, 100-200 m behind whatever vehicle I’m sitting in. Going from one place to another, another place to the next, next to the next. They are waiting outside the places that I am staying in. The entire night, the entire morning, they’re taking shifts waiting under houses that I’m living in.Karan Thapar: Are you being followed even today? Are you being followed even today?Neha Bora: I don’t think today I’ve been followed. I don’t think I’ve been followed since last night. I think since we went to the SEM on Sunday. Since then I’ve not been followed, but until then I was being followed. I was being followed; people were going around on bikes in JNU looking for me. People police people in plain clothes, and this is not new. This has happened with everybody who is associated with the protests.Protesters being removed by the police during the ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ event called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) demanding the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar, at Connaught Place, New Delhi, Friday, October 16, 2026. Photo: PTI/Karma Bhutia.Yogendra Yadav was being followed. Prashant Bhushan was being followed, Abhijeet Dipke was being followed, Ratna Singh [legal cell chief of CJP] was being followed; everybody was being followed by the police. Why are they being followed? The police need to answer that.Second, the police, the commandos, the SSB, the ITB, all of these security forces have been on an alert. They have been told to be on alert ever since the 10th of October. Even before that, for the 10th of October the others were recruited, but the Delhi police was told to be alert even before that. Now when this happens, honestly speaking, I can speak on [and on] about the police brutality and the repression done by the security forces on protesters.But once we are detained and we start talking to the police and we ask them, we ask them for tea, we ask them for food, and they start talking, and they also tell us that they’ve been on duty since 9:00 in the morning, 8:00 in the morning, and they have to be on duty till 12 at night, midnight and all of this. The police and the security forces have also been made to stand on two legs for the duration of the day.Now […] the BJP ecosystem and the right-wing ecosystem keep saying that protesters want anarchy. What do you mean by anarchy? When does anarchy take place? Does it take place when citizens come onto the streets with banners and say when they say SIR must go or does it take place when the… Karan Thapar: It’s not just the police that accuse you of anarchy. The prime minister of the country refers to you and your colleagues in terms like anti-nationals, andolan jeevis, urban Naxals. It’s coming from the highest authority in the country. How do you respond to being called a dimagi Naxal and an anti-national? Because that is how they refer to you. Neha Bora: Yeah. They refer to us that way because they think that the majority of the people in this country are idiots, and that the people think that it is not disenfranchising 13 crore people in this country from the right to vote. They think that is not what the people are going to perceive as treason and anti-national. They think that rigging elections in a democratic country is not going to be perceived as antinational.They think that manipulating the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commission of India to favour one political party and change the laws. How they are appointed and how they get lifelong immunity. That is not going to be perceived as anti-national. But we, the common people, without weapons, with no sticks, nothing, no protection, who are walking on the streets and saying that Gyanesh Kumar has been found to flout law rules and guidelines that are set to ensure that the ECI remains impartial. Gyanesh Kumar has been found to flout these very guidelines and laws by his own counterparts, the other election commissioners, and he is not anti-national.The BJP changes rules, it changes the laws on how to appoint the CEC, how to appoint the other election commissioners and to provide lifelong immunity. When we are talking about this, we are anti-national. […] We are a democracy because at the core of it, even if you ask a layman, it’s so sad that even school going students will tell you that if you ask them what a democracy is they’ll tell you a universal adult franchise.What is a universal adult franchise? Where every citizen in a country has a right to vote and has an equal right to vote, and when the people in power decide who these citizens are going to be who are going to be favourable to them in the coming elections.Karan Thapar: But you know they’ve actually personalised it with specific regard to you. Pradeep Bhandari, the national spokesperson of the BJP, claims you’ve admitted to being inspired by what happened in Bangladesh in 2024 when Sheikh Hasina was toppled that you’re advocating a Bangladesh-style Gen Z movement in India to bring about regime change. That phrase regime change has certainly lodged itself in their thinking. He accuses you of wanting to create anarchy. They’ve levelled this personally against you. How do you respond to this?Neha Bora: So first of all, I would like to ask BJP ministers, MPs, MLAs, leaders what they know about the Bangladesh movement. What do you think happened there when the movement in Bangladesh was going on? As it was going on in other places also, and then later it got to be called the Gen Z movement.There were different components of it. There were regressive components of it, conservative components of it, religious fundamentalist components of it. And at the same time, there were young people, progressive student organisations, socialist student organisations which were protesting against what? They were protesting against authoritarianism and wanting and demanding democracy.They were protesting against the large-scale attack and violence on students by the previous Bangladesh government and demanding student rights. They were protesting and saying that the minority, religious Hindu minority communities, and the ethnic minority communities in Bangladesh should be protected by the government. Now, when we talk about any movement, a lot of the movements have different components.So when that video comes out, I understand that it has been doctored and edited and clipped and is being circulated to show that we are trying to support anarchy or something, but it’s not. That video was made for the socialist student front which is a socialist progressive student organisation in Bangladesh, and they were the ones who took out the largest communal harmony march while violence was going on in Bangladesh.They took to the streets, not caring about their own lives and safety and took out a march demanding communal harmony in Bangladesh. My solidarity was to this organisation and its activists at their national conference. This video was supposed to be played at their national conference, and it was supposed to be addressed to their activists and their struggles.Also read: India Examining Hasina Extradition Request, Govt Tells Parliament Panel as MPs Push Reset with BangladeshBut it’s funny that Bangladesh’s right wing picks up this video and says Look, look, what is this? What is this Indian saying that we are fundamentalists? How can they say this? This is what these left-wing people say. So this is what they are saying, […] and the right wing of India pick it up from the right wing of Bangladesh and says the complete opposite and says that look they are supporting fundamentalists look what they are.So while the right wing in Bangladesh and the right wing in India claim to be enemies but they are deep friends. They’re fast friends. That’s one thing. The second thing is about anarchy. They say that we want anarchy. Anarchy happens when you shut down trains on one night’s notice because the next day people are going to assemble to exercise their right to democratic dissent. This is what happened on the 10th of October; the anarchy happened from the side of the government.When you shut down 57 metro stations leaving Delhi completely unable to move, that is what that is when anarchy happens. Anarchy happens when there are around 40,000 uniformed security personnel at every gol chakkar, at every metro station, and everywhere on every state street in central Delhi and around it. That is what anarchy is.Anarchy happens when 13 crore people in a democracy are explicitly excluded from participating in a democracy from their right to vote. It is such a shame that this government continuously claims that we are the elected representatives and they fail time and again at every step to understand what it means to be a democracy. To be a democracy is to give people voting rights; it is to give people the right to democratic dissent.Karan Thapar: Let me quote Rajnath Singh, the defence minister, probably the second or third most important member of this government in an article that he wrote for The Times of India on the 19th. Rajnath Singh claims that the protests are, and I’m quoting him, “ manufacturing outrage, peddling propaganda, and weaponising misinformation to spread anarchy, and they’re placing political goals above national interest.” How do you respond to Rajnath Singh?Neha Bora: I think, I would respond the same way that we have responded. The BJP thinks that national interest means BJP’s interests. Perhaps that is why they keep the CEC in one pocket and the election process in the other pocket, because they think that the national interest is the BJP. They think that it is their birthright to be in power in the centre and in different states.They think that it is their birthright to manipulate elections, have several BLOs end their own lives from the pressure of executing SIR, an impossible SIR within a time frame that is impossible to achieve.They think that they can manipulate everything in all institutions of democracy. They can threaten, bribe, and manipulate all institutions of democracy, all the people sitting in the bureaucracy. So it is them that the system favours, and that is why I think they say that national interests are being compromised and political interests are being kept above it.I’m really sorry, Mr Rajnath Singh, but the fact that 13 crore people have been denied the right to vote is in the national interest. I know it’s not the BJP’s interest, but it is the national interest. It is in the national interest that the CEC has been found guilty of manipulating and violating the guidelines that have been set forth by the ECI in the ECI. It is in the national interest that the common people hold the CEC responsible who has been held responsible and found to be violating laws by his own counterparts.Karan Thapar: But the BJP is going one step further ahead. They have now begun to claim that the protests are foreign funded. This claim has been made by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the agriculture minister. It’s been made by Nitin Nabin, the president of the BJP. It’s made repeatedly by Sambit Patra, their chief spokesperson. This was the sort of thing Indira Gandhi used to talk about in the 1970s. Today the Modi government is speaking the same language. How do you respond to the claim that you’re funded by foreign interests and that foreign money is supporting you?Neha Bora: I don’t know. I believe the people who are actually supported by foreign funding would have to be the BJP, whether it is through the shell AAP, which gets so much funding but has nothing to show for it on the ground, or whether it was through electoral bonds. We all know the kind of relationship that the RSS and the BJP shared with different diaspora groups in different countries. So we know what kind of funding goes on there.We know what kind of relationship the BJP has with the Israeli government. We know what kind of a relationship they have with others. We know it very well. But the question is, does it bother us that they’re calling us anti-nationals, that they’re calling us “foreign-funded”? I think it might have bothered us a few years ago, but now it’s so common for us to hear that anybody who has any form of difference of opinion with the BJP is an anti-national.When the Hindenburg report came out, and people started talking about the corruption that went on there, there were TV screens in which BJP spokespersons were screaming that it is anti-national to talk about the Hindenburg report. And that is why we have concluded, I believe the common people of this country have very firmly concluded that their labels of anti-national, their labels of disruptors, anarchists, all of this means nothing because they have labelled a majority of the population in this country something or the other. Somebody is Bangladeshi, somebody is anti-national.Karan Thapar: Let me, for the record, ask you, has George Soros in any way funded these protests? Has his money fuelled them?Neha Bora: I do not know, sir. I think George Soros would have a lot of other things to probably fund. I am not personally aware that the placards that we are getting printed have been funded by George Soros because these two shops, one in Munirka, one in North Campus, which print our placards for protests, and they still tell us every time we tell them to print fresh ones that we have Rs 50,000 debt with them. So I don’t know why George Soros is not removing our debt. I would be really grateful if he did it. So I think that’s about it, about their allegations.I think that the entire country has been labelled something or the other and that is why we continuously say this fight is the BJP versus the we the people of this country and they can continue with whatever they want.Karan Thapar: Let me put this to you in July in what’s now being called Janta Mantar 1, you had massive support, but the issue at the time was neat, and that affects young people across the country. Do you believe you have the same level of support when the issue is Gyanesh Kumar and the SIR? It’s a much more abstract, much more indirect subject. Do you think you still have the same level of support?Neha Bora: I think that perhaps we have more support this time. I say this because even when the Dharmendra Pradhan movement was going on, people were still not sure what would happen. People wanted to come and they were coming and they felt emboldened. They felt that after a long time they could say what they have been feeling, the suffocation that they have been feeling under the BJP. They thought that they could say it after a long time.But Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation was a confirmation of the fact that not only can we say how suffocating it has been to have the BJP rule over us all, but we can also come down to the streets and fight. I think we should appreciate while all of this is happening, in terms of the BJP, they are panicking and they’re levelling allegations.But it is important to appreciate, for all of us who actually believe in a democracy and constitutional morality, to appreciate what is happening now. What is happening is that people open their phones and they are watching videos where the police are tearing down the clothes of women.They’re watching videos where they see that protesters were kept for 5 hours, 6 hours and dropped 25 kilometres, 30 kilometres away from central Delhi to the outskirts of Delhi and that they had to come back on their own. They reached home late at 1–2 am. They’re watching videos where blood was coming out of the heads and arms and whatever different body parts of protesters.This is violence of a very scary kind. All of these videos should have inspired fear in us. But what we are witnessing instead, is that people are watching these videos, and the next day these very people are coming out to protest. How are they coming out to protest, if violence is happening and everybody knows that the police are using violence?Karan Thapar: So sympathy and support for the protesters is growing, and in many instances the behaviour of the police and the government is responsible for ensuring that your support grows.Neha Bora: Yeah. I would say not just sympathy and support but something like courage. I see courage everywhere when the protests happen nowadays, because we’ve been so scared and we’ve been so quiet for so long because of that fear that now when people are speaking up people, it’s astonishing, it’s astonishing to witness how much violence people are ready to take on their own bodies to uphold democracy in this mention that I think we should appreciate this.Karan Thapar: But the problem is, Neha, that Gyanesh Kumar shows no sign of resigning, and the government seems determined to protect him no matter what the cost. So how long can these protests continue? Are you worried that the exhaustion will set in and the protests could begin to lose their momentum? Particularly because we’re now into the festive season, when the protest will wind down for a while. So, are you worried that it could lose momentum?Neha Bora: I don’t think so. I don’t think that these protests will lose momentum. It’s true that the festivals are going on and all of these things and it’s also true that we’ve been out on the streets for a very, very long time, but it’s also true that people are not really following the script since the government is not following the script.People are eager to understand what is happening and how in this new scenario under these new circumstances, they can continue to exercise their right to protest. There is excitement for once where people feel like they have a stake in this country.New Delhi: Police and security personnel stand guard during ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ protest called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) at Connaught Place, in New Delhi, Friday, October 16, 2026. Photo: PTI/Ravi Choudhary.For a long time, things have been happening. You put up a post; there’s an FIR. You go for a protest, there’s an FIR. You say something that you know the government doesn’t like. There is a public trial happening on prime time by these Godi Media anchors. So it’s been going on for so long, and people have become passive witnesses to the violence and repression that is going on. Now, when they have a chance to participate in all of what will happen in the country and all of what is happening in the country, I think that there is a sense of excitement, and it’s not just them.It is also the Opposition parties, which have probably now realised that the delay that happened during the Janta Mantar movement should not be repeated here, and that is why we see even opposition parties are giving calls and coming out onto the streets. This kind of struggle where democracy takes place on the streets has been essential for a very long time in this country, and we are very glad as young people and citizens that our elected representatives are, for once after a long time, behaving like elected representatives. So this fight is going on everywhere.Karan Thapar: Before we end Neha, let me briefly widen the discussion. This month, the BJP is celebrating 25 years of Narendra Modi as a head of government. First chief minister of Gujarat for 13 years, then prime minister of India for over 12. How do you view Narendra Modi as a head of government both as chief minister of Gujarat and now as prime minister of India?Neha Bora: I think we know this man’s history. We know the history of his political affiliations. We know what they do, and we know why they do it. We know what he did in Gujarat. We know that he was a politician [whom] people did not want to engage with him for the longest time because – and not just India, not just in this country but even others.America did not want to engage with him for the longest time – because of his role in the 2002 violence in Gujarat. For the longest time, he was being held responsible, if not directly, then morally responsible as the head of state, for the violence that went on in Gujarat, and that was his image. The image of the Home Minister again was one such image.Also read: Crying ‘Regime Change’ Proves Modi Govt Has Lost Control: The Ground Has ShiftedSo the people of this country and political forces worldwide have known what kind of politics the RSS and the BJP represent. They saw, and they knew what Godse stood for and which organisation he came from. They know what happened in the 1990s, when large-scale violence and deaths happened at the behest of these political organisations. So this eagerness for violence that almost quoting [courting, ed.] of violence and marginalised sections of this country, be it Dalits, Muslims or women.This quoting [courting of] violence has been a constant part of the BJP–RSS’s political work. That is how I see it and if Narendra Modi is supposed to be the political face of these organisations, this is how I see him.I see him as the face of this violence. I see him as the face of an entire campaign of hatred and bigotry. I see him as the face of a country which has sold all of its public sector to private entities and common people have no right to healthcare, no right to education, nothing. He is the face of all of this for us. He’s the face of a country which was made to forget what democracy is.He’s the face of the push from democracy to authoritarianism.Yeah.Karan Thapar: And yet, the truth is Neha, that the polls suggest that Narendra Modi remains a very popular prime minister and Amit Shah has boasted that the BJP will win a fourth term in 2029. And I want to ask you, is that confidence misplaced? Is Modi as popular, particularly with your generation, as the polls suggest he is?Neha Bora: I really like these polls that take place because these polls are conducted by people who are funded by the BJP and the RSS. Then these polls, once publicised, are printed or shown across different news media channels by people who are funded by the BJP and the RSS and then the right wing ecosystem takes sections of these polls and copy pastes it copy-pastes them in different tweets in different posts and these are also people which are funded by the BJP and the RSS.So for the BJP, by the BJP, of the BJP – these polls are I have always believed and I think if you want really want to see how popular he is perhaps we should all get down to social media and we should see the kind of memes, jokes, songs he inspires or the BJP inspires amongst the people. The most popular social media memes and posts and jokes are those which are making fun of the people in power, specifically the prime minister and the home minister.Karan Thapar: Social media is the voice of India when it comes to judging Narendra Modi. That’s what you’re saying. Go by social media. Don’t go by these polls which you’ve rubbished.Neha Bora: We can go by polls if the polls were being conducted with integrity, but sadly that’s not true.Karan Thapar: Let me, before I let you go, ask you a couple of questions about yourself. It’s quite clear to everyone that in the last few months you’ve transformed from a student leader to one of the most recognised and admired faces of a national protest. Is that a daunting thing for you, or is it exciting?Neha Bora: It’s a very tiring thing for me. I believe that making living human beings into idols is – I understand and I have the utmost sympathy why people admire other people because we live lives of such indignity of such disappointment, that we try to make people into symbols of hope or we try to say that ‘these people exist so there must be something good and we can continue to believe in a fight for hope; in a fight for justice’.That is why people do it, because in a life of indignity, violence and humiliation you want to believe that this is not all there is to life there is something hopeful there is something better and that is why people do it they make figures out of common human beings.But at the same time, it’s very tiring. It’s very tiring, and it’s very new. So I’ve not really adjusted to it all. I can’t make out whether … if I’m passing on a road or something, and if somebody looks at me, I don’t know whether that is being done with admiration or whether I have to be scared or this new fear, whether he’s from the Delhi police. Now this is a new fear for me. So all of this is part of it.Karan Thapar: But when we sent out advance notifications that you were going to be doing a live interview with me today at 11:00, we got multiple responses from people saying, “I admire her grit. She has incredible energy. She’s very courageous.” One of the people asked me, “Where does her energy come from? You talk about being tired, but where does the energy come from? Because you’re all over the place.”Neha Bora: Yeah. It looks unusual to people because they are watching it for the first time, but for me and for everybody in my organisation, this is nothing new. We do it all the time and the energy does not come from a person or from food or anything like that – of course, it does scientifically speaking – but it comes from the momentum of an idea whose time has come.Also read: Neha Bora Moves Delhi High Court Against Police Notice, Seeks Urgent HearingIt comes from the fact that you can see that something is here, something other than fear and disappointment is here, and you realise that there is momentum and you realise that now is the time; that now you have to hold on to this. Keep at it and make sure that this idea does not fizzle out in the face of repression, in the face of smear campaigns. [So that] this idea continues to flourish, take root, become a big, big, big, huge, humongous tree under which democracy can finally flourish, justice can fly, finally flourish.Karan Thapar: My last question, you’re 29. Would you want to be in the next 10 years an MLA or an MP? Would you want to be part of a government? Would you want politics to be at the centre of the career you choose for yourself?Neha Bora: I mean, I don’t really care. I believe the most politics that takes place in this country has in the history of this country taken place on the streets and not inside the parliament. I believe that whatever changes have happened for the good in this country even in the past few years, have happened through the streets and not the parliament.The farm laws were not repealed in the parliament. Dharmendra Pradhan did not resign because of something that went on in the parliament.We have a conception of workers’ rights, a conception of women’s rights, an idea of an anti-caste struggle because of the struggles that have gone on the ground and not because of a parliament. And that is why I don’t care specifically for it. Yeah.Karan Thapar: So you would prefer to be a street fighter than a parliamentarian?Neha Bora: Yeah. I mean I don’t really care for it so much. I think it’s just the way in which you’re supposed to practice your politics would differ for people who are in the parliament and for people who are out onto the streets, but even if we do go to the parliament; if I go or people from my organisation go, we don’t forget that we are, fighters at the end of the day – being in the parliament does not mean you take your MP flat, have your sarkari car, take your salary and sit in an AC [room].Being an MP being an MLA would also mean fighting and then fighting even more for the people who have elected you and I think that’s about it.Karan Thapar: Okay, Neha Bora, I thank you for the time you’ve given me. I thank you for helping us understand how you view the protests, the opposition, the manner in which the Modi government is attempting to characterise and denigrate you and how you, in turn, view Narendra Modi. I’m deeply grateful for all of that. Take care. Stay safe. And let me add, although as a journalist I shouldn’t – good luck.Neha Bora: Thank you!Transcribed by Sonak Bhatt and edited lightly for clarity and flow.