India's Movement Cannot Be Compared with Regime-Change Protests in Bangladesh and Nepal, Says CJP Leader Abhijit Dipke
The ongoing youth movement in India cannot be compared with the movements that changed governments in Nepal and Bangladesh, Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) leader Abhijit Dipke has claimed. He made the remarks in a video message published on the social media platform X on Tuesday.
Dipke spoke on behalf of jailed CJP leaders Sourav Das and Ashutosh Ranka. He stressed that their calm and peaceful conduct is not a violent protest; rather, it is a non-violent stance like Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha movement.
In the video message, Dipke said those who keep pointing fingers and saying to look at what is happening in France should be a little ashamed and should look at India instead. In his words, Sourav Das and Ashutosh went to jail in India with smiles on their faces; they did nothing like what is happening elsewhere.
He added that even knowing they were being jailed illegally, they chose the path of peace and harmony. Without harbouring anger or hatred, they entered prison smiling — and he urged people to look at this non-violent attitude of India's protesters rather than at events in foreign countries.
Dipke strongly protested attempts to link the domestic protests with violent movements abroad that changed governments. Highlighting the difference in the jailed activists' conduct, he said people talk about Nepal or Bangladesh, but their comrades went to jail smiling without stepping into anyone's provocation.
In Dipke's words, 'They carry Gandhi's ideals in their hearts — they smiled on their way to jail and they smiled inside the courtroom too. You cannot inject hatred into them; the hatred is actually inside you. And everyone can clearly see where this hatred of yours has brought the country today.'
Dipke is unwilling to see these activists' imprisonment as an attempt at a disorderly uprising. Instead, he described it as a kind of moral awakening connected with India's independence movement.
He said, 'Without drawing any direct comparison, it can be said that this is a reflection of what Mahatma Gandhi did. When he was sent to jail, he went quietly, because that was his Satyagraha. Ashutosh and Sourav are practising exactly the same Satyagraha. Enduring that suffering inside prison, they are awakening the conscience of this country. I cannot wait any longer for their release.'
The CJP and opposition parties are protesting in India against the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list. The main opposition party, Congress, has also strongly rejected attempts to link this protest with the violent civic unrest in France and other European countries.
Congress has described the movement as completely peaceful, constitutional and conducted with the aim of free and fair elections.
This strong response from the opposition camp came after an allegation by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP had alleged that an 'anti-India circle' was conspiring in a planned way to effect a 'change of government' in India, just like the recent unrest in Bangladesh and France. Dipke's video message and Congress's position have emerged as a counter to that allegation.
