Due to a mix of jet lag and other emotional events in the day I woke up at 4 am again. I usually don't come to India in December but I happen to be there in December 2019. I am very far away from JNU and Delhi and Jamia. I still tell people with pride that I went to JNU because I wanted to be a political student. I wanted to do politics and I wanted to be involved. I did that when I was there. Fortunately or unfortunately it was a time of relative stability, the JNU government was still in exile and the biggest issue at hand was the Arab Spring. I left for Amreeka, things seemed like they were not going to change. Just when I left or slightly after Arvind Kejriwal would win massively, it would appear that there was going to be another populist alternative while the Congress continued to die. It was a different time to think of political viability, what was possible, what was going to happen and what the worst outcome could me. I admit it was a time when those predicting the rise of fascism seemed hyperbolic. Fascism or whatever word for total takeover by a majoritarian Hindutva party. After all it had been business as usual for a very long time. In hindsight despite having grown up in the riot state of Gujarat, it wasn't paradigm shifting. Maybe it helped that our interactions with Muslims were so controlled and cordoned off, there had never been any space to be challenged, to think or feel or be told that my own experience of fear as a Hindu was not the only experience. If that was then, today is now, that kind of impossibility has hardened into norm. I don't even know where to begin to challenge or talk or ask fellow Hindu neighbors, family, anyone what they think of recent political developments. There are still those reminding me that this too shall pass. The thing that I couldn't stop thinking about was how I didn't plan for any of this. None of us did. I left India because I was tired of JNU and this week so many must have planned weddings, flights, exams not anticipating protests and tear gas and the ongoing bulldozing over whatever is left of our democratic processes. I confronted dad today in the morning at 7 am as soon as he woke up. I said I want to go to Delhi. You are not doing anything about this so I have to. He probably knew I wasn't serious but I just wanted to see him say something. He said he has been reading up and that I am wrong to assume that he doesn't care or has a singular opinion. I just asked him what would happen if the delhi police locked me up and assaulted me. I just wanted to see him react and say something. All my life has been shaped by people who hold stoicism and durability over spontaneous emotional responses. Many a time I've felt it was a disingenuous tactic to ignore what is going on at the moment. I even asked him how we would save his Muslim friend if the police came looking for his documents and then destroyed his documents. Who is to stop them? He wanted to say something but I just did not want to hear it. I wanted to hear him agree with me and have a change of heart and become more vocal and do something. I even told him that he was going to die sooner than me and that he was going to leave me behind with this country that I don't want.
I am writing this because I can't do much more. I don't even know how Ambedkar dealt with all these fuckers whose machinations have borne fruit today. Did someone tell him this was cyclical and this was going to pass? I don't know. Maybe if someone ever held me to it, I would be able to at least show them this piece of writing and say that I thought and cared. I don't know.
