Why India's uncles and aunties have no patience for young protesters

So Dharmendra 'Veeru' Pradhan has resigned. But turn around and ask anyone you know above 30 who sits with their legs crossed, yourself included, 'Madam, sir, how like you this play between these protesters and the government?' and you're very likely to get the response: 'The protesters doth protest too much, methinks.'

Methinks that this response goes beyond RWA aunties' and uncles' fondness for a sturdy state, the most appealing feature of which is to 'never compromise', come what may. Their distaste towards NEET protesters in Delhi and across this blessed land lies in their natural contempt for disruption in general, and agitated - sexually, socially, or politically - youngsters in particular. Whatever happened to our nation-building 'Nanha munna rahi hu, desh ka sipahi hu', huh?

When in 2020-2021, farmers took to highways in Delhi-NCR, there was much harrumph from our non-agricultural nationalists, but not quite disdain. As days rolled into weeks, one way these buzurg log showed their disapproval of traffic being held up - which apparently only happens when attention-seeking people start protesting - was to spot and call out 'pizza-eating' rich farmers who apparently had no business protesting. Because they ate pizzas and were rich. The anti-farm laws protests were, however, seen by most uncles and aunties as uncalled for, but understandable.


Earlier, during the 2012 'Nirbhaya' protests, the spark was seen to be too brutal, too close to home(s), even for a society that not-too-secretly takes pride in taking everything in their stride, 'rarest of rare' heinous crimes included. But going out on the streets to protest an entrance exam garbar? Yeh kya badtamizi, bachhon?!

To demand something outside jholawala enclosures like Jantar Mantar, JNU, Jamia, and the non-J-lettered change.org is insolent enough. But to go out on the streets and damage police barriers, invite police batons when sparing the lathi clearly spoils the child (and everyone under 30 is a 'child' in India), and try to probably storm Parliament, copying First Worlders storming Capitol Hill, is so not real Bharatiya sanskar.

The Pakistani deep state, or jealous Chinese must be behind this tukde-tukde destabilising operation. Frankly, the only agency our youngsters can possibly have is the Central Intelligence Agency. Or so goes the thinking.

Inside the mature halls of Parliament, wise grown-ups told the nation how the average age of the entire team at Skyroot, India's first private enterprise to send a rocket (not a bamboo) up in space, is 28. And just outside our Great Hall of the People, to have 28-year-olds demand the resignation of the education minister for some NEET exam leaks, has to be the height of entitled behaviour. Can't they learn from youth in Skyroot?

Of course, there's always whataboutery to make sense of all this. But in this latest episode, it's not just 'Oh, so you've forgotten all the lathi charges and police brutality during Congress rule?' but one atavistic level deeper, 'Suck it up, boys and girls. We faced far harder hardships when we were young. Did we go all Rajiv Goswami or kar sevak berserk on the streets? Never!'

Beware the argument of the saas, who once was a bahu having to put up with a long line of Lalita Pawars. Dharmendra Pradhan, we have been dutifully reminded, was reportedly beaten up by cops in 1997 when he went out protesting against - wait for it - an exam leak in Congress-ruled Odisha. But by subsequently studying hard, look how he became an upstanding member, if not of society then at least of the union cabinet.

This meme-saheb generation, with its head permanently stuck in a phone, has no idea how lucky they are. No hours-long power cuts, food that can be delivered to them, never having to watch Jeetendra movies, champions in cricket, freedom to break into a garba anywhere they go in the world... And they still have the insolence to complain.

Cockroach Janta Party spokesperson Vijeta Dahiya 'caught' on video eating a burger in a mall - while Sonam Wangchuk not once ate burgers, not even to break his fast - sums up this 'Bachhe Din' lot.

'Why can't these wayward kids,' uncles and aunties reckon, 'just study hard like NEET topper Panshul Bansal beta, and appear as many times as it takes to crack exams? When we were growing up, in China's Tiananmen Square...'