'Kisike Baap Ka Hindustan Nahi Hai': A Debate on Cockroaches With a Yuva Neta
Anish Gawande, Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leader talks Cockroach protests, Shiv Sena (UBT) split and more.
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"Whatever you might think of them, to have that kind of conviction – to leave the US and the possibility of a nice American dream there and come back – is not easy. I think, if nothing else, I have to admire the conviction and I have to admire the chutzpah," says Anish Gawande.
A youth leader, India's only openly gay politician, and the national spokesperson of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar), Gawande is the only politician from any of India's mainstream political parties to be attending the protests of the Cockroach Janta Party.
But that does not mean he doesn't want it to be questioned.
Gawande's optimism also comes amid fresh political turmoil in Maharashtra, his home state, which has witnessed yet another split – this time in the Shiv Sena (UBT), after six of its nine Lok Sabha MPs defected to the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
"The Mrinaltai Gore flyover opens with more potholes than a flyover that's been open for decades. The coastal road underpass gets flooded within the first 15 minutes of rainfall in the city. The Mumbai Metro 3, the newly inaugurated flagship project, has a sort of downpour in its stations. You would imagine that the focus would be on governance given the pathetic state of affairs in the state. But governance has come to a standstill. Why? Because unfortunately our government is more busy horse-trading than governing," Gawande alleges.
Every time you vote in Maharashtra, your candidate either has changed the party or their leader has changed the alliance or something else has happened entirely. This has been a relentless cycle since 2019 and honestly, it's gotten exhausting.
When do you think this is going to stop? After the end of the opposition in Maharashtra?
You know, I think the repeated splits that you've seen happening in Maharashtra today are concerning not just as somebody who's a part of the opposition, but as somebody who's concerned about the state of democracy in this country. I don't want to even remotely presume or insinuate that this did not happen before. My own party was created out of a split with the Congress party. My own party leaders split multiple parties in the past. But there was a certain way in which a politics of principle presided over those splits or at least a politics of ambition. The goal at the very end of those splits was to govern.
But on the one hand, the only headlines you see out of Maharashtra today are a total collapse of governance. The Mrinaltai Gore flyover opens with more potholes than a flyover that's been open for decades. The coastal road underpass gets flooded within the first 15 minutes of rainfall in the city. The Mumbai Metro 3, the most newly inaugurated flagship project, has a sort of downpour in its stations. The Mumbai Monorail gets sort of stranded. And you have to get a fire brigade getting ladders to pick people out of a monorail carriage as if it were an amusement park. So this is a state of governance in Maharashtra.
You would imagine that the focus would be on governance given the pathetic state of affairs in the state. Let alone the fact that there is farmer distress, that we are staring at a potential drought, the jamun crop has been bountiful, which suggests that rain is not going to sort of arrive the way it was meant to. And governance in the state has come to a standstill. Why?
Because unfortunately our government is more busy horse trading than governing. I'm saying "Ab ki baar Paach Sau Paar". Please take our MPs as well if you’d like. But after that, govern. After that, fix your NEET exams so that 20 plus kids don't have to die by suicide. After that, fix the rate of unemployment in this country, which is hovering at 15% for youth unemployment, and in states like Rajasthan, going to around 30%.
After that, get us a goddamn trade deal with the United States of America, because you announced a historic trade deal months ago, but we still don't know if they are going to allow soybean imports, and corn imports, and dairy imports, and ruin the lives of farmers across the country. So, you know, these are the questions that people want answers for.
And in between all this, all the issues that you have pointed out, from a city like Bombay, which is the highest tax paying city of the country, it clearly shows voters are being taken for granted.
No, but I'll tell you why, right. Now, see, the blame cannot be put on the people who left.
Can it not be?
No, because look at the statistics. 99% of all development funds for the city of Mumbai, were allocated to wards belonging to the Mahayuti alliance. Absurd. Absurd. 1% was allocated to the opposition. 14 crores out of 1400 crores, if I'm not wrong. In such a situation, what are opposition MPs, MLAs, co-operators supposed to do? Bajao thali thali? Why have you elected us? If you're not providing funds for governance.
Look at Pune district. My own party leader, Supriya Tai, has to go into a DPDV meeting, and sort of raise hell. Because there's no funds allocated to her Lok Sabha constituency.
Okay, let's just talk about a larger picture. Not just for Maharashtra, but Mr. Raghav Chadha taking 7 MPs along with him. We all know what happened to the TNC. This has become so repetitive, that even for the media that sticks to this 24 hours, has stopped getting TRPs out of this. And there are multiple factors, other than not getting funds.
Correct. But those multiple factors include absurd amounts of money being thrown at people. Where is this money coming from? Your taxpayer money, my taxpayer money is being used to buy MPs and MLAs, fly them around in private jets under cloak and dagger fly-by-night politics. And to ensure that their 5-star resort stays are funded. So, if those in power are misusing money to a point unlike ever before, those who came on a crusade of anti-corruption are now behaving in the most corrupt and unethical manner, then first my blame will start with them.
You know, they're using the ED, CBI, income tax, using ICE. Everyone's getting ICED. Income tax, CBI, ED. Supriya Tai keeps saying, everyone's getting ICED. What do you do? I will blame the people who are splitting these parties. I will blame those who are refusing to govern and only engaging in horse trading. And I will blame those who created this culture without any accountability.
You know, I'll tell you this. 2014 was the death of ideology. 2019, unfortunately, was the death of shame. There is a level of shamelessness today that is absurd. I mean, you don't even warrant a response to why the party has been split. I mean, look at the gloating that is happening with the splitting of parties. Somebody once described it as nostalgia for hypocrisy.
You know, there is a party split toolkit that, you know, you don't necessarily need to follow the news anymore, I think, when a party splits because it's the same cycle. It begins with somebody deleting posts, in the beginning, a few days before it actually comes to the media. Somebody, you know, there is a category of people who do incommunicado.
There is another category of people who say, yes, we are here, but then eventually, two days later, they are in another press conference. Then if there is a little more budget somewhere in between, then a resort also comes. A charter flight comes. And then eventually the split happens. Everybody, media amps it up into operation this, operation that.
How do you expect India's voters to repose any faith in any political party in a climate like this?
A good question. I think that's why you're seeing the kind of anti-establishment politics that's emerging. I was in Tamil Nadu for 10 days campaigning for PTR in Madurai Central. And the reason behind somebody like Vijay emerging, again, without ideology, without any concrete plan for what he was going to do for the state, was because he said only two things.
"I'm not corrupt," and "I'm not like the other two parties that I established over here." And that's what people wanted. And it should worry all of us in the opposition. Because this is an anti-establishment politics that will come to hurt us in the next elections.
Would Anish Gawande be a part of NDA if the two NCPs come together?
That’s a very good question to ask.And I think it's a question that will really depend upon what the framework upon that coming together is. It would be hard. It would be hard. I think I'm grateful to not have that child by fire so early in my career in politics. But to give you a frank answer, I don't know what I would do or where I would go. It's a party that's given me everything.
No other party would have made me a national spokesperson at the age of 27, without coming from a political family, without coming from any sort of background that is related to politics. As an out gay man, these are also considerations you make when you're in a political party. It's not that easy to leave a party either. And then if the rationale did not sit well with me, to tender my resignation very sort of professionally but with a level of honesty.
What is the state of opposition in Maharashtra at this point?
I'm very optimistic. I'm very optimistic. Listen. Public anger exists. If public anger did not exist, a cockroach Janata Party would not have been born. So it's the most incredible time for the opposition to take advantage of people's dissatisfaction with the government. So you cannot write off the fact that the space for the opposition is alive and kicking. Let the people who have gone go. I keep saying this but nobody believes me.
There has never been a better time for young people to enter politics in India.
Are you sure about that?
I'm absolutely certain. Because you have very little to lose. So you are far more dependable than somebody who can have a whole host of pressures applied on them by the powers that be.If you don't have anything, what will you do?You don't have power. You don't have a ministry. You don't have anything else. Whether or not we take that opportunity by the horns is something that remains to be seen.
Well, speaking of young people taking opportunities by the horns. Somebody has been frequenting the Cockroach Janta Party protests fearlessly, While other political leaders of India's mainstream parties have chosen to stay away.
By the way, do you identify as a Gen-Z politician or do you identify as a millennial politician?
I identify as a baby politician, but I identify as old. I'm 29. But apparently I'm on the cusp of Gen-Z and millennials. So I can identify as both. Which is perfect as a politician. Because I would never like to be in either camp. I'm always on all sides.
Is that the reason you have been present at the Cockroach Janta Party protests?
No. The reason is that when young people take to the streets, you have to join them. When young people demonstrate the kind of anger that you've seen on the streets in Pune. The kind of anger you've seen on the streets in Delhi. The kind of anger I saw on the streets in Jaipur. You have to go and join them. I think there is no doubt in my mind today that any anger against this government. Any expression of dissent.Particularly when it's funny.
Have you seen the posters of the Cockroach Janta Party protests? I'm copying them for any protest I do, right? Tomorrow. This is the future of political satire being built as we speak. This is the future of political technology being built as we speak. Use the power of new media and gain prominence when they're being blacked out everywhere. That's what we need to learn from.
I went to the Cockroach Janta Party protest to learn from them. I think there's so much to learn. I think the rest of us are Luddites if we don't manage to realize that this is the new form of protest. This is the new way in which people are expressing themselves. And this is how dissent is going to move forward. You were at the first day Jantar Mantar protest as well when Abhijit arrived in Delhi and I've never seen a protest like that before.
Because the podium was not the main event. The main event was clusters that were forming alongside people who were talking to YouTubers and content creators. Netas were being formed digitally as it were at the protest site. It was something truly remarkable.Why have we not been able to do that?Why do our rallies still look like the same old thing? One stage is put, there’s like 18 speakers all praising the last person who's going to speak. I mean that model is over. That model is over.
I get where you're coming from. I get that dissent is being represented via various mediums. Social media as a tool cannot be ignored. The following of the Cockroach Janta Party which took the nation by fancy in the first week itself. There are two tangents I'm going to take with this question.
Number one: Expectation or critique, that the massive online following hasn't really translated to presence on the ground, which usually leads to securing the resignation of the education minister.
Simultaneously how fair do you think it is to have that expectation in a social media driven world?
There’s a food crisis here! How many people can protest? That's the concept. You're a Swiggy driver, Uber driver. You're penalized for every hour that you're not at work. The few hours that you get off of work you're going back home or sleeping. There's somebody who's sort of working in any other kind of role that is representative of the Cockroach Janta Party's following. You're overworked, exhausted, situated across the country, feeling frustrated and possibly unable to come out onto the streets.
This is also a big challenge. But why do we assume that people must come out onto the streets to be able to have their voices heard? We have to slip out of this notion in a country of 1.5 billion people that 4,000 people coming to a protest is not a large mobilization. It is. For something that started off as a meme page to get 4,000 people to show up on the ground? Impressive.
Somebody who's organized protests of that scale before as part of a political party? It takes a lot of effort to get 4,000 people somewhere. And a lot of organization with a party carder that has been there for decades. And that's why I think this following has been remarkably efficient at getting attention to this issue. 20 people have died and there's been not a remark by this government. We have lost all shame. The education minister is touring the world.
Not a rupee in compensation to the kids who died by suicide because of the gross incompetence of this government in conducting the NEET examination. What is that level of shamelessness of this government? The fact that the education minister has not resigned is not a testament to the Cockroach Janata Party's failure or the Congress' failure or the NCP-SP’s failure to mobilize on the ground. It is the sheer shamelessness of this government that has forgotten how to listen.
Railway accidents? Ashwini Vaishnav, still minister. Oil price hikes despite record low crude prices where the government earned windfall gains? Hardeep Singh Puri, still minister. NEET scandal, CBSE scandal, JEE scandal. Dharmendra Pradhan, still minister. Terrorist attack in Delhi, no accountability from the Home Ministry.
You just had the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister buying land near development projects. Himself. Not even through his cronies. Look at the level of shamelessness. He is buying it himself. And that land is appreciating at record values. No accountability. I mean this cannot be allowed to continue any longer because then it's a joke and the joke's on us.
This is a circus and we're all little circus monkeys.
Regarding the Cockroach Janata Party, it was constantly being said, it was expected before the 6th June protest that this is going to be another Anna movement of the country.
Why do you think that is not happening? In fact, what do you think is the difference between an Anna movement and the Cockroach Janata Party?
If you want me to speak quite frankly and cynically. I mean, the Anna movement was possible in a democracy. But the Cockroach Janata Party is confronting them in an area that does not resemble a democracy anymore. When Anna Hazare went to protest, he led to the resignation of ministers and accountability from the government and some kind of response from the government. Now the government is saying, you keep protesting, we'll allow you to protest, we'll let you protest, have Jantar Mantar for how long you want, but we will not respond to you.
That can also be seen as the government really allowing democracy to function.
Not at all. Not at all.
But at the same time, I think the Anna movement made it possible for public anger against the government to be crystallized, to be channeled, to find a voice. I think it, wittingly or unwittingly, allowed for the rise of the BJP. We know that the Sangh was very involved in supporting the movement, whether or not the movement wanted its support or not.
But it led ,eventually, to the fall of the UPA. In some ways, I think the Cockroach Janata Party might achieve something similar.
The government is not responding because they don't want to give the movement more momentum?
There is nothing out of the oxygen from the movement. They are making it impossible to remain relevant because their demands are not being answered. It is precisely what they have done with every other movement. Look at the ASHA workers, who have been sitting on strike in Mumbai in Azad Maidan. Farmer's protest goes on for as long as it has. The wrestlers have had to sit for three months and then start marching before they are detained. And then that leads to public anger that then results in Brij Bhushan Singh being removed and his son being given a ticket.
Do you think a CJP has the potential to become a formidable force within the opposition?
No, I think there is no doubt in my mind that if the CJP wants to be taken seriously, they must become a political party. You must then contend in an electoral battlefield where you will be pitted against us.
You will be pitted against the BJP and you will have to prove your mettle. I think this wishy-washy politics is not the way to go. You must say that we are willing to enter the electoral battlefield.
We are willing to take this forward as a political movement. And that is where the government will find it the hardest to completely crush. Becoming a political party is hard work.
It takes a lot of effort. But it ensures that you create that organizational structure. It ensures that it creates those layers of accountability. It creates a sort of ideological clarity that allows you to sustain yourself and move forward. And so, I don't know if it will survive as a political party. I don't know if it will go far as a political party. Maybe it will lose its first election and sort of dissipate and disappear after its first election. But you have to try.
At the risk of losing opposition’s votes?
Listen, I don't believe in this cutting of votes business.
You don't? Nobody is nobody's B Team?
No. Too many times we are calling somebody B Team Monday or calling somebody else B Team the other day. What B Team have you run? Asaduddin Owaisi becomes B Team one day. Vanjit Bahujan Aghadi becomes B Team the other day. It's a level playing field. Who has kept the flag of getting into politics?
Kisi ke baap ka hindustan thodi hai? Fight if you want to.
Observing the movement from the ground for the past few days, there is one thing clear that there is anger amongst people. That anger has translated into various forms, various ways, social media expressions. There are genuine people present on the ground who have come from other states, who have come from, you know, who have come as victims of paper leaks in the past, who really feel for the movement.
What do you think is the Cockroach Janta Party lacking in terms of channelizing this? Do you think it's a PR problem? Do you think it's a planning problem? Do you think it's a perception problem? Which one?
Three things that are important right now. One, to remember that this was not a movement against paper leaks or against NEET. This was a movement against the Chief Justice of India calling young people lazy, unemployed cockroaches who only file RTIs.
Right? So once you remember that those are the roots of the movement, you come to point number two, which is that this is a movement for accountability and against the perception that young people are not relevant or important in politics or are politically unimportant. Right? That goes way beyond Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation, beyond paper leaks, beyond meat. And the third and final thing is that there needs to be a structure to take this forward.
There needs to be a way in which you channelize and mobilize this energy and I think to give him the benefit of the doubt, it's been less than a month since a viral meme turned him into a crusader for the “lazy young unemployed” who are dissed by those in positions of power as irrelevant. We need to give him at least a year longer to figure out what he wants to do with this movement and to see where it goes. I think that's the generosity that was afforded to political parties that came before him.
That's the generosity that was offered to somebody like a Prashant Kishore when he started a different political party and didn't succeed the first time over. For crying out loud, the guy's parents faced death threats in Aurangabad, right, after he started on memes. Right? So, these are not abstract threats.
Whatever you might think of him, right, to have that kind of conviction, to go around, to leave the US and the possibility of a nice American dream there and come back is not easy. I think, if nothing else, I have to admire conviction and I have to admire
Chutzpah. Chutzpah hai yaar.
Are you saying the currently established opposition parties or very senior leaders, and former leaders from the opposition parties are lacking that conviction?
Not at all. There's somebody like Rohit Pawar sits on a fast run to death in Pandharpur for farmers, karz maafi, for farm loan waivers. Supplementary budget includes a 26,000 crore allocation for farm loan waivers.
Right? Multiple other opposition leaders across the country, Rahul Gandhi included, who are leading incredible rallies. This Kota rally saw thousands of people, Chhatron Ki Goonj is touring across the country. This is not, I mean, of course, politics is competitive, but this is not a zero-sum game.
The more people raising their voice, the better.
You know, along with the treatment that you mentioned that they need to become a formidable force, there's a fourth thing I feel they also need is a lot of clarity on a lot of fronts for people to be able to start looking at them as a formidable force. A political party will have to have a support base from a lot of stratas, right? So your stance on reservation, stance on atrocities against minorities, stance on how you look at the media and how you hold different, you know, kinds of people accountable within a system.
How do you bring about a systematic change?
The Bharatiya Janta Party has been ruling for 12-13 years without any accountability, without any clarity on any of these stances. Why should a new party have to have any clarity on these stances?
But then there won't be a difference between the CJP and the BJP...
Not at all, right? Vijay came to power with no clarity on any of these questions. These are questions that you get clarity on when you're in power and you're governing.
Otherwise, it's a khayali pulao. What is your stance going to be on this if you possibly come to power? What is your stance on nuclear energy? Are you making them the Prime Minister?
No, even the basic everyday things. So, for people from the minority community, the kind of politics we see in the country.
Sure, I mean, again, it's not a political party either. They become a political party to have some clarity on this, but not necessarily, right? Not necessarily.
You can have a few guiding principles that shape your response to certain issues, but the TVK doesn't have a stance on any of these issues.They're governing just fine for now, right? The BJP has an entirely hypocritical stance on all of these issues. I agree with you. I ask all of these questions.
Again, like I said, for what it's worth, I hear more answers from the Cockroach Janta Party and from the NCP-SP and from the Congress than I do from the BJP on any of these matters, right? So, really, we are very willing to talk to the media and to everybody on all of these issues. The government isn't. So, I hope they get questioned more because they're actually doing the job of governance.
I don't necessarily see this being a roadblock for it to be politically viable early on. You learn these things along the way. You know, building something from scratch, you’ll make mistakes and you should be allowed to make mistakes.
So, government need to be held accountable before the opposition Is held accountable is my two cents on this issue.
Well, I hope everybody learns. I hope we learn as well how to vote. Anish, thank you so much for giving your time.
Thank you very much for having me. And I hope I'm going to be on Badi Badi Baatein. Many, many times.
Like, share, subscribe to all of these people on YouTube and get lots of views to them and sometimes to me also. That's what we need to say at the end of interviews. But thank you for having me. Thank you so much.