To Those Who Dared to Show Solidarity With the Palestinian People...

Dear Jean Dreze, Harsh Mander, Nandita Narain and about a hundred other Indians who gathered together in Nehru Place on July 19 to show solidarity with the people of Palestine,

First of all, thank you for doing something so selflessly brave and decent, and standing in solidarity with your fellow humans in another part of the world who are suffering a genocide so horrific that it almost defies description.

Secondly, instead of holding your protest inside the ridiculously tiny, designated Jantar Mantar protest site to which most peaceful protests in the city are now confined, your choice of Nehru Place as an open, public market square frequented by working-class people, students, and office-goers was a brave attempt to reclaim democratic space in a city where protest is now virtually criminalised. 

You were probably expecting trouble from the police, as, unfortunately, do most people who still take Article 19 (1) (a) of the Indian Constitution seriously (Freedom of speech and expression, a fundamental right given to its citizen against the state, which includes carrying out public demonstrations peacefully.)

I can only imagine your shock and chagrin when the trouble suddenly came from the very people you were trying to reach with your message of humanity and solidarity.

The pro-Palestine protest at Nehru Place in Delhi today, July 19, 2025. Photo: By arrangement.

Within minutes, the hundreds of people milling around the central courtyard of Nehru Place suddenly turned into an angry mob and starting attacking you! They started shouting “Jai Shri Ram!”, “Israel Zindabad!” and “Palestine Muradabad!”

The crowd almost became violent and started screaming at you. One man heckled Harsh Mander and said, “Why are you protesting for Palestine here? Go to Palestine and protest there!”

Another yelled, “You are betraying India!”

When Mander tried to respond and reason with him, and asked him, “How is standing up for the Palestinians a betrayal of India?” the logic was lost on the heckler.

Some individuals asked you, “Why don’t you raise the Indian flag too?” In an effort to peacefully. engage, one of you raised the Indian flag. However, it was quickly snatched away, and the crowd began chanting “Bharat Mata ki Jai!” 

As you distributed leaflets and stickers to passersby, it was clear that the mob confronting you either did not know about Israel’s crimes or did not care. Nor did they seem too bothered with  the Indian government’s ongoing complicity. 

Over the past two years, more than 50,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed in Gaza. Thousands more are injured, displaced, starving, and denied medical care. Israel’s war has been systematic, deliberate, and documented live. Yet the Indian government has not only remained silent, but actively participated in it by subsidising defence-sector joint ventures, dispatching Indian workers to replace Palestinian labour in Israel, and repeatedly abstaining from UN resolutions that condemn Israel’s crimes. 

But none of this seemed to matter to the mob who seemed to have equated Palestinians with Muslims and who, therefore, of course “deserved” what they are getting.

As the ugly scene unfolded, one couldn’t help but think of what journalist, YouTuber and former NDTV anchor Ravish Kumar has said again and again over the last 11 years, “गोदी मीडिया आपको भीड़ में बदल रही है  (The lapdog media is turning you into a mob!) "

Water, mud and rotten fruits were thrown at you from the balconies above.

Jean Dreze and others at the pro-Palestine protest at Nehru Place in Delhi today, July 19, 2025. Photo: By arrangement.

The police eventually arrived, but rather than addressing the aggression of the crowd, they demanded permission papers from the protestors. It came as no surprise to anyone that no action was taken against those who had disrupted the event, hurled objects, or threatened many of you. 

I am deeply grateful you managed to walk away from Nehru Place without sustaining injuries or worse. (And to think the place is called “Nehru” Place. Oh, the irony…) 

As I think about what the crowd did to you, I couldn’t help but contrast it with another Palestinian solidarity protest I had witnessed just a few weeks prior. On a visit to family in Scotland, (that has always had a healthy history of struggle and democratic protest) I had the good fortune of seeing hundreds of peaceful protestors gathered in front of the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, holding up Palestinian flags and placards condemning the violence in Gaza and also the alleged complicity of Keir Starmer’s government in the genocide. 

A pro-Palestine protest in Edinburgh. Photo: Rohit Kumar.

After listening to speeches, the entire crowd turned into a procession that marched down Princes’ Street, one of the main streets of Edinburgh. As their chants and slogans rang through the city, I noticed something strange. The only police personnel present were the ones directing traffic and telling vehicles to wait till the protesters had crossed. 

The response to the demonstration was peaceful. No one threw anything at the protestors. No one yelled or screamed at them. Perhaps the plight of the Palestinians is better understood there than it is here. I noticed Palestinian flags everywhere in the city, in bookshops, restaurants and bars. I also noticed a good number of books co-authored by Noam Chomsky and Ian Pappe prominently displayed in Edinburgh’s bookstores.   

Perhaps you who protested in Nehru Place can take a bit of solace in the fact that solidarity for the Palestinian cause is alive and well elsewhere in the world even though it has been well nigh bludgeoned to death by the Indian media and the right-wing ecosystem here. 

A pro-Palestine protest in Edinburgh. Photo: Rohit Kumar.

As I walked along with the procession in Edinburgh, I asked one of the protestors, Chris, a man in his late 50s and a plumber by profession, “Why are you standing up for people thousands of miles away? How does it concern you?”

It was a deliberately provocatively-worded question, and it got a response.

Chris stopped walking, stared at me for a long moment and said, “How does it concern me? Are you serious? The murder of thousands of children and innocent civilians should concern every thinking human anywhere in the world. This isn’t just a geopolitical problem. It’s a human one! How are you even human if you aren’t appalled by this genocide?”

And that, perhaps, is the fundamental question that those who attacked you in Nehru Place should be asking themselves.

Rohit Kumar is an educator, author and independent journalist, and can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com.

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