As India’s leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, marched with tens of thousands of supporters to the country’s Supreme Court on October 12 to submit a petition seeking the sacking of the nation’s election chief, he rested his hands on the shoulders of two women ahead.
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he → march → women
One was his 54-year-old younger sister Priyanka, whom Rahul – two years older – has described as his “best friend” and most trusted lieutenant.
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Rahul → describe → friend
The other was a 29-year-old student leader who few knew outside college politics until these past few months: Neha Bora.
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few → know → months
After 12 years in power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently faced a number of his toughest political challenges, as a Gen Z-led movement first forced him to dump his education minister after a series of examination scandals and is now pressuring him over controversial changes to India’s electoral rolls that have stripped 130 million people of the right to vote.
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that → face → right
Yet while the satirical Cockroach group that drove mass protests at Jantar Mantar in the heart of the capital New Delhi over the last few months has grabbed more global headlines, Bora, from a left student group, has rapidly emerged as one of the most defiant faces of a generation that is challenging Modi’s grip on power.
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that → drive → power
Bora is slight of build, with dark hair, and speaks in a deep, resonant voice.
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Bora → speak → voice
But where Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders have sat in for protests, held placards, and quickly been picked up by police, Bora has made almost a game out of tricking security forces out to get protesters – using street politics tactics that have turned the student into a cult figure among sections of the country’s youth unhappy with Modi’s policies and appointees.
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that → sit → policies
Software developers have turned Bora into video-game characters, leaping over barricades, collecting “democracy” points and dodging police in Mario-style games.
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developers → turn → games
Social media users edit and share Bora’s quick-paced fan edits, confronting police personnel, shared by tens of thousands and viewed by millions.
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users → edit → millions
And veteran opposition leaders like Gandhi lean on the student leader – literally – in tense situations.
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leaders → lean → situations
“Can we please, please call Neha the Goddess of Democracy,” asked Nishita Nath, a 24-year-old student in the capital, sitting under a tree in central Delhi earlier this month.
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Nath → call → Delhi
The reference was to Hong Kong protest leader Agnes Chow, who earned that epithet as she campaigned against laws that critics have called draconian, imposed by Beijing on the Chinese territory.
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critics → earn → territory
Such comparisons, though, are the last thing Bora wants – as a leader of a protest movement seeking to cut a political demigod down to size.
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Bora → want → size
‘Guerrilla tactics’
Bora has spent nearly a decade studying the arts at universities in Delhi, including as a postdoctoral theatre student at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a premier public university that has been a cauldron of political activism for decades.
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that → spend → decades
There, Bora joined the left student organisation, All India Students’ Association (AISA), which has been a major force at JNU for more than three decades.
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which → join → decades
Now the national president of AISA, Bora and comrades joined the Cockroach activists earlier this year in camping for weeks at Jantar Mantar seeking the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
But it was earlier this month that Bora moved from the sidelines to centre stage in the national consciousness.
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Bora → join → consciousness
On October 10, the Modi government locked down the heart of the capital New Delhi as thousands of young people prepared to protest, demanding the election chief’s resignation.
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thousands → lock → resignation
Police moved swiftly to detain protesters arriving by train and buses, confined student leaders to their homes, and even boarded a plane to detain top leaders of the Cockroach movement moments after the plane landed in the capital.
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plane → move → capital
But Bora disappeared into the shadows, remaining beyond the police’s reach.
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Bora → disappear → reach
Then, that afternoon, Bora appeared live on Instagram, wearing a One Piece T-shirt – a symbol adopted by global Gen Z protest movements – and leading a crowd of a few hundred through affluent South Delhi, kilometres from the police barricades.
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Bora → appear → barricades
In half an hour, the police chased down Bora, who was dragged away in a police van and released many hours later.
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who → chase → van
To understand Bora’s street politics, one needs to turn a few pages back.
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one → understand → politics
The AISA was founded in August 1990 as the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, a party that emerged from a Maoist-led communist rebellion that began in eastern India in 1967, inspired by a peasant uprising in the village of Naxalbari, West Bengal.
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that → found → Naxalbari
The Maoists were called Naxals, after the village.
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Maoists → call → village
The party operated clandestinely in the face of state crackdown for at least three decades before rejecting armed violence – a number of its splinters, however, still seek a violent overthrow of the Indian state – and embracing parliamentary democracy in the 1990s.
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number → operate → 1990s
But the party has changed, although it retains some of its legacy DNA.
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it → change → DNA
On October 10, AISA knew that the police would preemptively come after youth leaders.
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police → know → leaders
So its activists hid Bora.
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activists → hide → Bora
“We have been an underground party before, before our party contested elections; so, we followed the same tactics, some kind of guerrilla [tactics],” said Danish Ali, a 25-year-old AISA student leader and a friend of Bora.
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Ali → contest → Bora
Ali said the party relies on tactics that “revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh” – an anti-colonial activist who was executed by British authorities in 1931, aged 23 – “used in resisting colonial rule.”
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who → say → rule
While Bhagat Singh, a self-described socialist in his time, remains a hero worshipped across political strains, Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party has demonised left politics.
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Party → describe → politics
In parliament and state legislatures, too, left parties have in recent years suffered historic setbacks.
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parties → suffer → setbacks
After protests won the resignation of Education Minister Pradhan, the prime minister cautioned in his Independence Day Speech in August against “urban naxals” or “intellectual naxals” – references that Modi’s party have used to describe opponents and critics of all political stripes.
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party → win → stripes
There’s a reason, argues Bora, that Modi’s party is so scared of the left.
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party → ’ → left
“How do you claim to be the champions of nationalism if you do not delegitimise the people who are actual inheritors of the radical legacy that got India independence?” Bora said, speaking to Al Jazeera.
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Bora → claim → Jazeera
Breaking with her family – and a motherly massage
Bora was born in Khatima, a small town in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
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Bora → break → Uttarakhand
The family then lived in Jammu, Bengaluru, Amritsar, and Lucknow as her father’s service in the Indian Army frequently took them from one posting to another.
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service → live → another
As a teenager, differences in political opinions with the family grew, to a point where Bora was “cut off”.
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Bora → grow → point
Then, a few months ago, Bora staged a 23-day hunger strike in solidarity with the students at the Jantar Mantar protest strip.
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Bora → stag → strip
Bora recalled being surprised when someone among the thousands-strong crowd said: “A woman is there, saying she is your mother; shall I let her in?”
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I → recall → her
…and 34 more, not listed.
The Aporia
