Mumbai: I had written a few articles earlier admiring the CJP phenomenon, before anyone ‘serious’ took it seriously. When some people scoffed politely, I almost apologised for being a romantic.
Much has happened, and much has been said and written since then.
The CJP has brought into public view some fascinating representatives of what may be a new kind of politics—Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, among others. I have watched and listened to several of them with considerable interest.
But today I want to speak specifically about a girl called Neha Bora.
After watching her interviews, I wish I were a college student and she were my teacher!
I spent four years at JNU as a student, and they were the best learning years of my life. Not merely because of the books and classes, but because of the animated and illuminating ideological debates between the Left student organisations, the Free Thinkers and the Socialists.
I had good friends in all the groups but never joined any organisation. I did not see myself contributing to making the world a better place by binding myself to a student organisation. I found the Left too dogmatic, but I wasn’t anti-Left either, and therefore did not align myself with the Free Thinkers, whose raison d’être sometimes seemed simply to challenge Leftist ideology on campus.
In any case, I had convinced myself early in life that the best way I could contribute to ‘nation-building’ was to become an IAS officer. I had already told my father that if I did not make it to the IAS in my first attempt, I would pursue an academic career.
So I sat for the Civil Services examination and, to my surprise—and my father’s delight—I was selected for the IAS on my first attempt.
When I joined the IAS, my only ideology was efficiency, fairness and transparency, together with a belief in the concept of ‘development’. I was naturally more drawn to developmental work than to regulatory roles.
I may write someday about my experiences with people, programmes and systems during my years in the Civil Services and later in the private sector. Perhaps also about what ‘development’ really means—or should mean.
But today, I want to return to Neha Bora.
I have not come across an activist of any age who holds views that students of WhatsApp University might casually dismiss as ‘urban naxalism’, and yet expresses her beliefs with such clarity, warmth and ease.
No cheap remarks. No lazy whataboutery. No bitterness. No ideological obscurantism.
I have watched several of her interviews. The latest—and probably the most comprehensive—was her interview with The Indian Express, which I watched yesterday.
What impressed me was not simply what she believes, but the manner in which she believes it—and the manner in which she worked alongside the CJP during the Jantar Mantar struggle.
Ideological purity did not come in the way.
There is conviction without arrogance, anger without venom and idealism without self-righteousness. Most importantly, she seems capable of disagreeing with people without assuming that those who disagree with her are necessarily stupid.
That is rare.
One may disagree with much of what she believes. One may even challenge some of her assumptions. But I would never want her silenced.
Quite the opposite.
I would want more young people like her to speak, argue, question—and even be wrong.
Because that is how societies learn.
And that takes me back to JNU.
Those four years taught me something that no textbook could: ideas become stronger when they are challenged. You could disagree profoundly with someone and still enjoy her company. An argument need not be a battle to be won; it could be an opportunity to discover something you did not know before.
We seem to have lost much of that culture.
Political discourse today increasingly resembles a shouting match in which everyone arrives with a conclusion and then searches for facts to support it. The Left calls the Right fascist. The Right calls the Left anti-national. Social media supplies the ammunition and WhatsApp supplies the history.
Somewhere in the middle, curiosity quietly dies.
Which is why the CJP interests me.
I have no idea where this extraordinary experiment will lead. Perhaps it will surprise us. Perhaps it will disappoint us. Perhaps, like many movements born out of youthful anger and idealism, it will change as its protagonists grow older.
But the people who have emerged from it—Dipke, Das, Ranka and others—are fascinating representatives of a generation unwilling to accept the old vocabulary of Indian politics.
And Neha Bora, in her own way, embodies something particularly interesting.
Not because she represents an ideology I necessarily subscribe to, but because she represents something I fear we are losing: the courage to believe in something, the ability to explain why, and the grace to do so without hating everyone who disagrees with you.
So this is one kid I am going to watch.
With fascination.
And concern.
In a dreary political landscape populated by professional politicians, professional commentators and professional outrage merchants, a young woman who actually seems to believe that ideas matter is worth watching.
That is the privilege of being young—and of living in a democracy.
You are allowed to be wrong. You are even allowed to be idealistic.
What you cannot afford to do, if you want to change the world, is stop thinking.
And perhaps that is what I find most refreshing about Neha.
She makes me want to listen before judging.
To argue without dismissing.
And, for a moment, to be a student again.
