They Were Afraid. They Went Anyway. They Went Because They Cared.

In my last post, I wrote about finding our political voice again. But ever since the protests gained so much traction, I wondered about the people who went there. News reports, social media, articles just lumped everything together as GenZ – but we all know these are just labels – there are real people behind that, with their own reasons and motivations.

So, I reached out to people who were there.

I wanted to know something that isn’t easily captured in news reports or photographs of enormous crowds: Why did they go? What were they afraid of? What did they experience when they got there? And, after all of it, did they think it was worth it?

And what I heard was fascinating. While my previous post was about rediscovering political voice, this one is about what that political voice looked and felt like on the ground.

Ajay travelled alone from Chittorgarh, didn’t tell his family, was afraid of violence – at the protest met a father and son on the bus and suddenly felt less alone.

Ashwin went with his friends – and at the protest site encountered thousands of students, posters, books and flowers.

Saumya attended the protests from day 1, as she felt seen, when a movement reclaimed an insult of being called a cockroach for the exhaustive work of dissent. Especially having been subject to paper leaks and mismanagement by NTA.

Sarita, a GenX, went with her friend’s daughter, felt safe in that enormous crowd, until the police response changed the atmosphere.

Sujoy felt “human and alive” and “in full sync with other fellow humans.”

Jahanvi had been going to the protest site from early days in solidarity with the cause.

Sonia, a ‘baby boomer’, joined the protest along with her niece and other feisty baby boomers armed with a charged phone, water, cap and her placard.

And then there was Rohan, perhaps the most skeptical of all. He didn’t think the protests could bring structural change. Yet he was interested because it wasn’t politically affiliated. Being far from Delhi, he helped channel donations, arrange medical supplies, pee buddies for women, tarps and other essentials to volunteers at Jantar Mantar.

This is clearly not a homogenous group of people that can be neatly put into one category. There is the politically experienced activist, the young woman who is frightened but felt she couldn’t stay home, the privileged mother who hadn’t even heard of CJP when she decided to attend, the man who travelled from Chittorgarh without telling his family, the young affluent woman who decided she had to go anyway, and the Baby Boomer who felt it was her generation’s duty to support the young. What brought them together was not their age, background, politics or even their reasons for going. It was simply the decision to show up.

Why did you go?

I wanted to understand what made so many people go to this protest. Being a completely risk averse person myself, I really wondered what made these people leave the safety of their home and walk into uncertainty? And I found that the answer wasn’t always ideology. For some it was anger. For some solidarity. For some, a sense of injustice. For some personal experience. And for yet others, “I couldn’t stay home anymore.”

For many the turning point was when Sonam Wangchuk was forcefully taken to the hospital. Ashwin had been following the issue online but was still hesitant to go. But then Sonam Wangchuk was taken. “Till then I was a bit skeptical about going,” he said. “But then I just decided I am going for the march and will face whatever consequences I got to face.”

Ajay had also been following the issue from the beginning and was angry about the CJI’s “cockroach” comment, but that alone had not been enough to make him go. He also decided to travel from Chittorgarh after Wangchuk’s incident.

For Sarita too the trigger was the same, but also something bigger: the frustration of watching young people struggle with an education system in which many cannot even afford to travel to take competitive exams, let alone prepare and take them again.

For Sonia the march on July 20 was like a calling and she felt it was her generation’s responsibility to support Gen Z taking to the streets.

Jahanvi had attended everyday since the start of the protest as she felt it was her duty to support the cause.

Sujoy had been planning to attend for some time but work and life kept getting in the way. Eventually, he reached a point where he “just couldn’t stay back home anymore.”

How did it feel?

The way the numbers swelled up towards the last days was unbelievable to say the least – not just because of the numbers but because of the diversity of people that went to the protests. Sarita was at the protest site on 20^th July and felt truly inspired. “the sheer size of the crowd and the different strata of society represented was a mark of success. Kids from top institutions walking hand in hand with kids from Govt schools. Moms with their college going kids. Kids working in Multinational companies who took leave from their work to join. Seeing the kids made one want to do something for a change after a long time.”

Sonia mentioned that as they walked and chatted with young walkers around them, someone from Patna, another from Uttarakhand, she realised that this was not just a Delhi show. This was much bigger.

“I felt safe and happy and felt like I am at a place where people have same belief and value system”, said Ajay. “For the first time we women felt safe in such a big crowd” shared Sarita.

For Sujoy, the most powerful part was seeing thousands of people put aside their individual lives and come together for something they believed was bigger than themselves.

At the barricades outside Kerala House, Sonia watched young people as they arrived. “The excitement was palpable. The air was electrifying.” She described the experience afterwards as feeling “energized, elated, charged and humbled.”

Perhaps most importantly, people discovered that they were not alone. The crowd wasn’t simply an angry mob. It became a temporary community. People who arrived alone found others to walk with. Women who didn’t know each other joined groups for safety. Strangers helped people caught in the crush.

And that feeling seems to have crossed generations.

….then came the fear….and loss of trust…

For many of the people I spoke to, getting to the protest was an act of courage in itself. They knew something could happen, but they went anyway. Ashwin and his friends spent the previous night preparing for tear gas, water cannons and a possible lathi charge – masks, appropriate clothing, plans for what to do if they were separated. “The night felt like we were preparing for a war,” he told me. “What forced us to have such preparation to go to a peaceful protest?”

Saumya went alone despite warnings from family and friends. She was scared enough to tell the Rapido driver that he could drop her the moment a police officer came into sight. Yet she still went. Ajay travelled from Chittorgarh without telling his family, worried about a possible stampede or violence. Sujoy had installed alternative communication apps and was monitoring routes and danger zones before setting out. Even those who had gone in groups were conscious that they might not remain together. Sujoy prepared himself for the possibility of trouble, installed Signal and Bitchat, worked out routes and went.

And then, for those who were there on the 20th, the fear became real.

Ashwin was among those caught in the first charges. He described being pushed into a stampede-like situation, with people falling, getting crushed and struggling to breathe. His friend lost her shoes; he was hit on the leg. But what stayed with him wasn’t the physical pain. It was seeing the faces of those charging at them from less than a foot away.

“It was not about getting beaten,” he told me. “It’s okay, it’s their duty to clear and stop. What really hurt was the “rage and cruelty”  with which the personnel charged at the crowd.” “I can never forgive them” This breach of trust in the system that Ashwin described was saddening and angering in equal parts.

Sarita, who had gone with other women, described initially feeling remarkably safe in such a large crowd. That changed when tear gas was fired and people began to panic and run. She remembers asking the people manning the public-address system to tell the students not to panic because of the danger of a stampede. Instead, she says, the crowd was left to deal with the chaos. “None of the kids from privileged backgrounds were hit. Cops weren’t expecting people like us. Things could have been way worse had people from privileged backgrounds not been there” This was a really sobering thought.

Saumya found the atmosphere transformed after 20th. Many of her friends who had been lathi charged on the 20^th had turned up despite the wounds. She could see the intense anger towards the police. “the tension between students and police was so real. Many people were close to resorting to violence but didn’t break the unity and discipline only for the sake of the protest”

And most importantly, she saw people helping one another through the chaos. The contradiction that really struck me was that the people at the protest were afraid of the police. But many of them were not afraid of each other. In fact, some of the strongest accounts of solidarity came when things became frightening.

Was it a success?

The response to this question has many layers. If success is measured against the original demands – particularly structural reform of the education system – Rohan and Ashwin are skeptical. But when Rohan heard the celebrations in his hostel on news of the resignation, he reconsidered his own cynicism. People who had never before participated in political action were cheering. People who had never participated in politics suddenly found themselves talking about politics, questioning the government and even turning up at protests. For them, this was the first time they had seen collective action produce a visible result.

Perhaps something can be a limited political success and still be a profound civic success.

Ajay believes the protest succeeded because it “lit a fire in people.” And we have already seen more student protests happening and more attention being given to them including from Gen Alpha.

Sujoy reflected that a protest does not have to immediately produce its stated demand to matter. It tells citizens that they are not completely numb, that they still care, and that they are willing to stand up for something beyond their individual interests. A protest still serves the purpose of making even the ignorant people aware of what’s going right and what’s going wrong. “Even if one ignorant person can be made to understand the perspective of the demands and the protestors, I’d personally consider that a success.“

Sonia saw it as something even more fundamental: proof that her long-held belief that collective action could create change wasn’t naïve after all.

For Jahanvi the biggest win was the way the fear has been broken.

The protests reminded a generation that governments can be questioned, citizens can organise, and questions can have consequences. As Sonia said, “It felt like GenZ were our parents”

I believe that is the real significance of what happened. Not that one protest changed the country overnight, or that one resignation solved the problems that brought people to the streets. But that, for a few days, thousands of very different people experienced something that had begun to feel increasingly rare: the belief that their voices mattered. They showed up despite the fear. They found solidarity in strangers. And, for at least some of them, they left believing that staying silent was no longer the only safe option.

This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’
hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Tanvi Agarwal.

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