THE FERMENT

THE FERMENT NIKHILA HENRY

‘From JNU to Jadavpur, anti-national movement spreads!’—Zee News

‘Activism or anti-nationalism?’—Times Now

‘Dalit students on warpath after Vemula suicide’

—FirstPost

‘Violence on Ramjas campus: no room for free, peacefulpolitical debate’—NDTV

‘Kashmir University students protest anti–free speechcircular’—TheQuint 

These are but a tiny sample of headlines that have becomecommonplace in India in recent years. What is it about the present moment inthe life of our nation that has stirred so many thousands of young citizensinto political action? And what is it about the nature of their protests thatis threatening enough for the establishment to brand it ‘anti-national’? 

The wave of youth protests, agitations, andmarches thatgripped India in the last fewyears were not, Nikhila Henry argues, sporadic,isolated, or piecemeal. Rather, they were an organized effort against afractured,

unforgiving, and deeply discriminatory society. Theparticipants, despite differences, often found convergence and empathy for eachother, and fought larger battles: battles of the Dalit, of the Adivasi, of theKashmiri, of the Women, of the Muslim. In so doing, it was not simplyentrenched discrimination they highlighted. In so doing, they questionedfundamental ideas of public morality and the very essence that makes us aunited nation.

NIKHILA HENRY

NIKHILA HENRY is a Special Correspondent with The Hindu in Hyderabad, reporting on education, student politics, civic administration and social welfare. An alumnus of the International Visitor Leadership Programme on Investigative Journalism of the United States’ State Department, Nikhila worked as a Principal Correspondent for The Times of India in Hyderabad for eight years, covering education, youth agitations, gender struggles and politics. She also compiled and edited Rohith Vemula’s online diary, Caste is Not a Rumour. The Ferment is her first book.