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KOLKATA: July is the cruellest month for film lovers in Bengal. Many away from the state mourn this day as their favourite matinee idol Uttam Kumar journeyed to the land of sleep on July 24, 1980. He had become a screen icon portraying some of the best characteristics of Bengali manhood. If it was the dutiful elder brother in Basu Paribar, an upper class youth who has an equal mix of an adventurous streak and chivalry in Jhinder Bandi, a man with a golden heart who frequents houses of ill fame in Nishipadma and befriends a motherless child there, a romantic lover in Share Chuattor, a top bracket freedom fighter in Sabyasachi, a sleuth in Chiriakhana.

Forty-six years ago, I participated in the "Job or Jail" campaign organized by the All India Students' Federation (AISF). Those memories returned with remarkable clarity on Sunday, July 19, when I spent nearly four hours with students at the AISF stall at Jantar Mantar, where four students were on a hunger strike.

Delhi Police had to resort to firing tear gas on protesters near CJP protest sites at Jantar Mantar to push them back late on Wednesday evening, where tens of thousands of them had gathered and still swelling. On Thursday July 23 morning, CJP protesters at Jantar Mantar had intensified their protest even more by demanding “Dharmendra Pradhan Must Resign”, responding to the violence unleashed against them and to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on social media platform X, while evading statement in the Parliament when it is in session, that fast-track courts would be set up to prosecute the culprits behind the exam paper leaks.

History rarely announces political turning points when they occur. They often masquerade as administrative failures. A bread shortage becomes the French Revolution. A tax on tea becomes the American Revolution. A fruit vendor's self-immolation ignites the Arab Spring. India may one day discover that its political inflection point did not begin with an election, an economic crisis or even communal unrest. It began with a leaked examination paper.

There are moments in history when time scampers. Many Indians who were in a dilemma over the lack of collective rage would now be relieved. With developments over the manner in which the executive, the legislature and eventually even the judiciary appeared to converge, it was almost a replay of the British colonial rule. The freedom struggle, the sacrifices and the democratic secular Constitution, all appeared to be under major strain. July 20 was the day when a protest and Parliament march call was given by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), but actually it became a confluence of both streams of organised and spontaneous student action that stunned the nation.

KOLKATA: Competing for attendance of followers, three rallies held on July 21, the Martyr's Day sprang surprises for the organisers. Notwithstanding desertion, internal squabbles coupled with snowballing of corruption charges, the Trinamool Congress rally led by former chief minister Mamata Banerjee near Birla Planetarium drew the largest crowd putting in the shade the meeting organised by rebel faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee.

When THE PEOPLE gathered at Jantar Mantar this Monday, fasting and chanting and holding copies of the Indian Constitution above their heads to demand that a Union minister answer for a leaked examination that had upended a generation, the Government of India had a tidy explanation for why they were blocked, detained and brutally beaten up: they had no ‘permission’, and that the gathering was unauthorized.

The spectacle in central Delhi this week carried a significance far beyond the barricades, detentions and blows captured on mobile-phone cameras. The first confrontation unfolded during the Cockroach Janta Party’s march from Jantar Mantar towards Parliament, while Tuesday brought another coercive police response when Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other Congress leaders staged a sit-in near the prime minister’s residence. Together, the images presented the uncomfortable optics of a state treating political dissent as a security threat rather than a democratic warning.

After the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi was removed by force from the sit-in protest site near the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official residence on July 21, the opposition has further hardened their stance on examination irregularities and “brutality unleashed on students”. Earlier, they have been demanding discussion in the Parliament, but on Wednesday they disrupted the proceedings in both the Houses of Parliament demanding resignation of Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan before any discussion.

Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protesters near Parliament, faced on Monday barricades, lathicharge, tear gas. Security forces fired tear gas and resorted to lathi charges after protesters breached barricades and marched towards Parliament. Chaos gripped central Delhi, triggering traffic disruptions, metro restrictions and a police crackdown to disperse demonstrators. Chaotic scenes erupted across central Delhi on Monday as security forces fired tear gas shells, resorted to lathi charges and deployed anti-riot vehicles after protesters participating in the Cockroach Janata Party's (CJP) 'Chalo Sansad' march attempted to breach security barricades in the high-security zone surrounding Parliament.