Devil’s Advocate continues ………….

He was rushed to the burns ward of Safdarjung Hospital where he fought a brave battle for his life and, fortuitously, survived. Goswami became the face of the agitation against the Mandal Commission, and his action sparked a series of self-immolation bids by other upper-caste college students, who strongly disputed the commission’s recommendations as they found them to be unjust and biased against the deserving.

Before grade separators and an interchange came up at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) intersection, where Ring Road and Sri Aurobindo Marg cross each other, it was not only one of the busiest intersections in Delhi, but perhaps in the country. It was the meeting point of the north–south traffic corridor with the east–west corridor, with thousands of vehicles plying across it every minute. Since Rajeev Goswami was fighting for his life in the nearby Safdarjung Hospital, the agitating students of Delhi decided to make the AIIMS crossing the base of their revolt against the government. They squatted at the intersection in the thousands, blocking traffic and bringing the city to a near halt. The blockade was, in media circles, compared to the Tiananmen Square protests of mid-1989 in Beijing, the memories of which were fresh in everyone’s mind.

The formidable student movement against job reservations and the creation of OBCs witnessed 200 self- immolation attempts. Sadly, sixty-two students succumbed to their burns. Almost every opposition party supported the agitation, some more overtly than others, but they never stated so in explicit terms. To support the agitation overtly meant opposing reservations approved for OBCs, which in turn would have meant alienating 51 per cent of the voters. Therefore, the opposition leaders restricted themselves to criticizing police action and sympathizing with the families of those students who had immolated themselves.

A few days later, while controlling unlawful crowds near INA market (again in south district), I ordered my boys to resort to lathi charge and tear-gas the mob if the situation called for it. The mob refused to disperse and resorted to large- scale arson and vandalism.



To be Continued ………….