Above is the quote that Yogendra Yadav made after Dharmendra Pradhan resigned from the post of education minister. I can understand the emotional outburst due to which he made this statement, as the development was unexpected. Following a violent scuffle by the protesting students who banded themselves as the Cockroach Janta Party, the central government quickly gave in to all the demands of the students and let the minister go. For Yadav, that must have been a rare occasion of euphoria because all his past attempts at scoring a win against the Modi government had a history of falling flat on their face.
With this statement, Yadav wants to imply that Indian democracy, from now on, will be held hostage by street protests that won't allow the functioning of the Parliament. This effectively means the redundancy of the elections, the cornerstone of any functioning democracy. Parliament essentially derives legitimacy from elections.
Anyone familiar with the recent electoral history of India will know that BJP, led by Modi, treats elections like a blitzkrieg. In the latest one in West Bengal, the BJP not only defeated the incumbent TMC government but also virtually obliterated the opponent from politics and finished the political career of its supremo.
It's natural that anyone who opposes the BJP would have their hopes rekindled by the non-electoral victory of the Cockroach Janta Party on the streets of New Delhi. Yadav, never famous for exercising restraint, expressed his feelings explicitly. Even if I ignore the intense sense of anarchy and non-democratic sensibility of the comment, it's difficult to let go of its immense stupidity.
There is one aspect that Yadav forgot while trying to provoke his beaten opponents—BJP's history. If he tries to bring the fight to the streets, how does he plan to win it? Did he forget that the BJP was involved in several bigger and extremely violent agitations directly or through their proxies like the Bajrang Dal or the VHP? Let's just recount the main ones for the sake of the forgetful amongst us.
The Navnirman movement of 1975 in Gujarat was strongly backed by Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was the BJP's earlier version. It was in this mass protest against corruption, which claimed more than a hundred lives, that Narendra Modi was noted for the first time in political circles. The anti-Mandal agitation of 1990 had more than sixty casualties and led to the fall of the V. P. Singh government. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement spanned multiple decades. The early nineties caused much violence and destruction. The post-Godhra riot is a recent event that I hope Yadav hasn't forgotten. I'm not even mentioning the several minor ones.
Each of these movements demonstrated the BJP ecosystem's capacity to organize, sustain and politically capitalize on mass street mobilization. But once they achieved national prominence, especially after Modi was elected as the prime minister, we can observe that there is a considerable difference in their attitude. Several proxies like Bajrang Dal and VHP are defanged. One can still find them engaging in occasional violence, but mostly inconsequential and confined to small localities. One reason for this hibernation is that the BJP, with its comfortable electoral power, doesn't need much support through street mobilization. They now rely on state institutions and police.
But I don't think they need much time to revive the proxies if cornered. I think for the sake of the national interest, it would be better to fight the BJP in elections and not force them to the streets. A party that historically excelled at street mobilization is probably the last opponent one should try to defeat through street politics rather than elections.
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