Beyond the 'Apolitical' Label: Reading the CJP Movement Through Ambedkar

India recently witnessed a youth-led revolutionary wave that started as satire but was propelled into a mass movement with serious democratic demands. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) was once considered a joke but mischief came to articulate people’s anger, disdain and denial of rights by the government. Despite the vast mobilisation that the nation saw at Jantar Mantar, critics have pointed out the misorganisation and ‘apolitical’ nature of the CJP’s movement. A response to the critique can be found in Dr. Ambedkar’s ideas which I seek to depict in this article. 

Ambedkar’s iconographic presence at the protest 

A significant political advancement in India has been an acceptance of Ambedkar as an ideal of resistance and social change, it is the reason why we see his portraits and blue flags being waved at every progressive protest. There has been a change in the social perception of Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is no longer restricted to oppressed communities and has been recognised as an emancipatory icon for all. 

Ambedkar’s iconographic presence in the public sphere, while largely driven by the Dalit community, challenges the strict separation of space informed by ideas of purity. In this context, Ambedkar’s presence at protest sites must not be reduced to a symbol, his ideas inform resistance movements with respect to solidarities, rights and citizenship. 

From communal participation to political participation

Unlike most protests which are marked by participation of class, caste, minority communities, the student movement at Jantar Mantar seems to have a wider political participation not limited to unions or communities. The issue-based mobilisation in this case for democratic accountability and fair examination resonates with the proposition of ‘political majority’ by Ambedkar in Communal Deadlock And A Way To Solve It, where he says that “there is absence of political majority in India as the majority is born, it is not made; it is a communal majority”. 

A communal majority is a permanent majority fixed in its attitude. A diverse nation like India must lead itself towards a politics marked by political participation else diverse minorities shall remain prey to communal majoritarianism despite democratic rule. The issues and public conscience must lead the nation to political majority, which can emerge against any compromise with democratic principles. 

However, recent political developments highlight the active efforts made by the Brahminical majoritarian government to turn the political majority into a communal majority. Since the current regime legitimises and participates in politics marked by distinctions of religion and caste, any social or political opposition to the government acquires a communal character or the case is termed anti-national, anti-development or even parasitic.

Formation of public conscience

Ambedkar in Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah believed that egalitarian societies come about through public conscience, which for Ambedkar was essentially concerned with collective social action against unaccountable governments, unethical leaders and oppressive social practices and norms. One of the themes in the reading of the mass mobilisation against examination failures of the government is the lack of political ideology among the masses. Many of the protesters who participated in the CJP’s movement were labeled ‘apolitical’. This is a reductive understanding of the mass movements with the presumption that social and political action requires ideological articulation. Additionally, this reading treats protests and mobilisations as fixed entities whereas protests are dynamic and lively entities which change and grow. They acquire new meanings, go beyond the experience of protestors and become an ideological force in themself against a controlling state.  We must understand this mobilisation in terms of the formation of a critical consciousness against the current examination process and public recognition of the non-accountable government. 

The issue-based mobilisation that we saw at Jantar Mantar is a depiction of an organic social movement in response to a systemic suffering caused by compromised state function. I had been hopeful about this mobilisation precisely because it resisted the government in its own way, despite not being led by a particular ideology. The CJP protest prepares a ‘pre-political’ class which can be transformed into agents for social and political change. 

Despite the lack of structural insights, pushback against the government marked by formation of public conscience for accountability is a rebellion of its kind for two reasons. One, it becomes a reminder that no regime is infallible and that sovereignty stems from “we the people”, not from the government. Second, rebellions provide opportunities for people to educate themselves by engaging in ideas of social and political change, protest spaces become spaces of lived experience for solidarities, resistance and citizenship. 

The movement should be analyzed in this light so that the pre-political class becomes a politically conscient class that tolerates no injustice and holds the government accountable for institutional failures. To build a new kind of public conscience, we must also take a critical look from within, we must admit incompleteness positively and critically assess the reproduction of oppression within the mobilisation. 

Realising a complete rejection of injustice

In Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar argued for unhesitant political action to reject religious traditions like Hinduism, prophetic ideals like Gandhi and oppressive structures like patriarchy for social reconstruction. Ambedkar showed us that movement for equality can not be actualised in part rejection, they must envision equality wholly. 

Protesters used patriarchal and misogynistic rhetoric to resist power during the CJP protests, they were explicit in terms of resistance but the language and the form which they invoked reproduced sexism and misogyny. One may argue for putting aside minor issues and celebrating the political gain, however we must come up with more inclusive and transformatory language. 

We must do what Ambedkar did when the choice was between resistance and transformation, choosing to reject the caste ideology rather than merely asking for safeguards. Further, his ideas not only challenged caste but also gender so much so that on the question of granting equal marriage, property and inheritance rights to women, Ambedkar resigned from the post of law minister in 1951 rather than compromising his stand on the Hindu Code Bill. 

The protestors must critically assess the implications of the rhetoric which is invoked to counter the arbitrary power of state. While they employ misogyny as satire to challenge the undemocratic state, they also normalise the idea that women’s bodies and dignity can be used as political weapons. Using an oppressive ideology to humiliate the government challenges one form of injustice by repeating another. 

Sexist satire can be seen as a justified response to the masculine, patriarchal and controlling state, however, in my view, protest spaces are not only spaces for resistance but also spaces for vision and transformation. They should show us what a better society might look like and even lead people there. Sexism remains a hurdle in realising our democratic visions. The slogans and rhetoric tend to influence people, it shapes the dispositions of masses and directs their action. Hence, we must produce spaces which are not merely challenging the power but also visionary in the sense of transformation it seeks to bring among masses. We must also envision a rejection of implicit ideologies like meritocracy and state action towards centralisation, thereby compromising federalism.

Towards a conscient citizen

Ambedkar in Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah asserted that “rights are not protected by law, but by the social and moral conscience of society”. They also depend on society’s willingness to defend them. He cites American statesman Thomas Jefferson, who thought that politics was only an affair of policing by the state so that rights of people are maintained without disturbance. However, Ambedkar questioned “what is there for the state to police if there are no rights? Rights must exist before policing becomes a serious matter of substance”. This insight is significant as a government may formally promise rights, but those rights become fragile when institutions are weakened, dissent is punished and citizens are discouraged from protesting. 

It also summarises the state of democracy we are heading towards; with opposition under consistent threat of horse trading, universities under control, states under centralised action, institutions increasingly privatised, political violence against the marginalised and then taking away of constitutionally mandated affirmative action. The state is consistently reducing its accountability, which means it shall have low stakes when the rights of the citizens are violated. 

State action in recent years has increasingly sought to erase the democratic right of citizens to protest and dissent. We have observed political imprisonment, legal actions without trials and impunity to hate mongering. The brutal use of force by the government and the police seem unjustified when most of the rights that it seeks to protect are not actually realised. We must reject this form of governance where political parties hold no accountability to citizens once elected. We must form a public conscience to produce transformatory spaces and make conscient citizens who are not subjects but agents of change. 

 Jatin Mathur is a post-graduate in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, with interests in Sociology of Education, Sociology of Identities and Critical realism.

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