Remembering Gauri Lankesh

It has been four years since I first took part in a protest. I had recently moved to Pune when I stepped out on September 6, 2017 to join a congregation on Tilak Road. This was a day after Gauri Lankesh, a senior journalist from Karnataka, was assassinated by Parashuram Waghmore outside her home. During the special investigation team’s probe, Waghmore said on-record that he had to do it to save his religion.

Lankesh regularly wrote against the establishment and the rise of Hindutva in the Gauri Lankesh Partrike – a self-run, self-financed weekly newspaper which solely relied on news-stand sales. Lankesh and her team didn’t adhere to the financial paradigms of present-day news production, which heavily relies on advertisements rather than the number of subscribers in circulation – which echoes what William Randolph Hearst, a famous American newspaper publisher and businessman, had once said: “News is something somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising.”

Lankesh was also an effective political organiser with the uncanny ability to bring together different voices of people from various groups such as Dalit communities, indigenous tribals, leftists, Muslims and others who oppose majoritarian Hindutva views. She wrote in Kannada, the language of the people and perhaps that’s why her words were such a serious threat to the Hindutva propaganda machinery.

A democracy is by the people, of the people and for the people. In a democracy, you are supposed to uphold opposing views, and reason them out using the freedom of speech guaranteed by the constitution. However, like Narendra Dabholkar and M.M. Kalburgi, Lankesh was assassinated just for having views that didn’t align with majoritarian sentiments. What good are the sacrifices made by our freedom fighters when we don’t have the freedom to articulate what we feel in our own country, about our own people?


Also read: For My Avva, Gauri Lankesh


Our leaders have not only lost their values, but the entire political sphere itself has lost its power to capitalists. We have reached a point where democracy itself might just be a facade created by a well-oiled propaganda machine for capitalism to thrive. In 2018, a Cobrapost sting caught various media houses, including Times of India, nonchalantly agreeing to business proposals by an undercover reporter seeking to promote Hindutva agenda and influencing electoral outcome for a price. When politicians are unable to answer simple questions like “why is there a shortage of clean drinking water?” they use phrases like ‘urban naxals’ and ‘gau rakshaks’ to divert voters from the real issues.

As it turned out, the protest on Tilak Road on September 6 wasn’t led by students, but rather had veteran activists addressing the gathering. Shuffling through the crowd, I felt my grief turn into solidarity. I realised how some societal agreements don’t need to be written in words, but need to be felt within. In her death, Lankesh reminded us how to be fearless again. Since 2017, I have been a part of several protests in different parts of the country and for the past one year, I too have been organising protests and awareness campaigns with a global youth movement against climate change – the Greta Thunberg-inspired Fridays for Future.

In 2020, we faced daily assaults on human rights, our democracy and our constitution by a machinery that’s taken the right-wing groups over a hundred years to build. We witnessed a pogrom in our capital city and our professors, students and social workers are still in jails under draconian acts like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. On the other hand, those who openly fired at students at Jamia Millia Islamia and stormed inside the hostels of Jawaharlal Nehru University walk free.

Yet, all of this hasn’t made us fearful one bit – for every person silenced, we have seen a hundred more rise up. Last year, lakhs of people joined the streets during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, when 24/7 women-led sit-in protests were held across the country. Similarly, thousands gathered at the Aarey forest in Maharashtra to protect trees.

Now, our farmers have taken it open themselves to stand up against Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s oligarchy. December 2020 witnessed the biggest protests ever recorded in human history with the country’s capital under siege, surrounded by lakhs of tractors. Our citizenry is constantly organising, agitating and educating to demand fraternity, equality and justice. India will not surrender its soul without a fight.

So I write today, for Gauri Lankesh, whose hard work and resistance won’t go in vain. Voices will rise, words will be written and opinions will be expressed. India is a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic and no political institution or party can obfuscate its identity.

Yashwant Singh Chauhan is currently volunteering with Greta Thunberg’s global youth movement Fridays For Future as Lucknow’s city co-ordinator.