'Can't Win GenZ With Firing Reels': How Neha Bora Is Building a Larger Movement

AISA president Neha Bora talks about a united students' movement, BJP’s youth outreach, AISA’s view of CJP and more.

Neha Bora Interview | ‘BJP Cannot Understand India's Youth, GenZ’: AISA President Neha Bora on Gen Z, CJP Protests, Bihar Police Violence & Student Politics

(Photo: Instagram/Neha Bora)

“You want subservience, but young people don’t feel like obeying you because it is you who have jeopardised our futures...” said Neha Bora, president of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), when asked about the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) attempts to woo Gen Z after the anti-NEET protests at Jantar Mantar.

Just a few minutes before the interview, she had managed to bring representatives of several protests together on one stage for a consolidated press briefing: the Cockroach Janta Party protest; victims of police brutality during the anti-NEET protests in Bihar’s Siwan; Manirathanam, brother of S Anitha, who was the first suicide victim linked to the NEET exams in Tamil Nadu; an alumnus of NALSAR; a protester from IIT Delhi who was at the forefront of the recent movement on campus; and several others.

“We really do believe that these are not isolated movements,” she said. “It is, in fact, about young people coming up and saying that we are united in reckoning with an education system that has failed us for years on end now.”

At the same time, Bora is confident that the BJP cannot win over Gen Z.

“They cannot, and do not, understand young people. You cannot say that you want to reach out to Gen Z and, at the same time, put out reels from your official handles targeting young people, calling them ‘dimaagi naxals’ and actually advocating firing bullets at them,” she said.

In this interview, Bora talks about her attempts to bring several student movements together, the attack on her in Jharkhand, the BJP’s youth outreach, and AISA’s view of the CJP weeks after the Jantar Mantar movement.

We are speaking on the sidelines of an event that seems to be AISA's attempt to consolidate several student movements. We saw speakers from a number of different protests that have taken place so far. We have seen protesters from CJP and IIT, and someone from NALSAR spoke as well. Is Neha Bora looking to build a larger political movement of students?

Always, of course, always. We really do believe that these are not isolated movements, and that's what I think everybody also said: this is not just about JPSC or Jharkhand students protesting; this is not just about NALSAR students or about the Ahmedabad students saying that we were reading Anne Frank's diary. It is, in fact, about young people coming up and saying that we are united in reckoning with an education system that has failed us for years on end now.

It's not like the Jantar Mantar movement told us that the education system is failing us. We knew it. We have known it for a very long time. What the Jantar Mantar movement did was give us the confidence that if it is failing us, then why don't we question it? Why don't we change it? And what we are witnessing throughout the country — students sitting in protests, sit-ins, hunger strikes, silent reading sessions — is a reflection of the fact that young people now feel confident in challenging a system that no longer serves them.

There is a lot that had happened in Bihar durung the CJP protests. There are people who have been injured in gunshots. There are court hearings that have happened over that the cop has been transferred. This is not a sign of normalcy. What exactly happened in Bihar?

So, what happened in Bihar was actually multifold. There were over 600 people who were arrested in Bihar. A lot of our own activists were arrested because AISA was leading the protests there.

One of our activists, her name is Saba, was detained before 20 July, and they asked her her name. When she said it was Saba and they realised she was a Muslim, they said, “Tum logon ki toh alag se training hoti hai” (you people get special training). Jo tamam cheezein Musalmanon ke khilaaf boli jaati hain: terrorist, jihadi. All of these things were said to her.

They, in fact, told her, “Put her to the side, iska toh special encounter hoga.” Iss tarah ki bhasha istemaal ki gayi towards Saba and towards the rest of the Muslim protesters who were arrested too. They were in jail for a long period of time. They were in Beirut jail, where we met them.

On the same day, we met the DGP. He said that all women had been released. But we said our own activist hadn’t been; we had just met her, and she told us that another woman had been shifted to Beirut jail just that night. So, these claims that minors were let off by the police and that women protesters were let off were lies. It was published by the police that they had been released. That was a lie.

The second lie was that no excessive force was used against protesters. That, again, is a lie. In Siwan, a student named Akash was beaten up by the police so badly that his eardrums have been permanently damaged, and he needs several surgeries to fix his hearing. The doctors are not sure whether he’ll be able to hear properly again.

For one student, Akash, the bullet went in through one end of his shoulder and came out the other. Another student, his name is Bullet Kumar, had one bullet enter his leg and come out the other side. He showed me his X-ray. His bones were shattered. He has already had two surgeries. He has to undergo more surgeries so that he is able to walk again in his life.

This is the state of Bihar. An AK-47 was fired. The SP, the person who fired it, has been transferred. He was apparently suspended, but that’s not enough. What allows a state to treat protesters like criminals? Our law and order system even prevents criminals who have not had any trial from being shot.

No state can treat common citizens the way the Indian state, the state of Bihar, has treated protesters. There are bullet wounds here in Delhi as well. The Hindu did an article where they produced evidence too. Later, the hospital changed its own MLC and said that it was not a gunshot wound.

So, what allows a state to treat its citizens like this? We have a right to peaceful protest. We have a right to dissent.

There was a moment during the students’ protest in Ranchi when you were also attacked. What happened at that moment, when ink was thrown at you? Were you shaken by it?

He (the attacker) is associated with and affiliated to the BJP. Wherever such instances happen, it is mostly the BJP. Why else would someone have a problem?

See the irony and hypocrisy of it. According to the BJP and the ABVP, they were there at the protests in Jharkhand and they were fighting for students. They were demanding that the JPSC-JSSC exams be cancelled and re-exams be held, right?

The march that happened in Ranchi, in which I marched along with the other students, was in support of the student movement that was going on at Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium. We were demanding that the JPSC-JSSC exams be cancelled and re-exams be held.

So, what compels people from the BJP and the RSS to attack the very students who are also supporting the demands that you are supporting? It’s like slapping your friend and saying, “Oh, it’s my enemy.” No, your friend is your friend. We were together in this movement. I had gone to Ranchi to support the student movement there that the BJP and the RSS are claiming to have led. Why did you attack me?

It was clearly a case of: we don’t really care about the student movement. What we care about is politics. We care about people who speak against the BJP. Those people, we will not accept, even if we have to jeopardise student movements for that. It was a simple case of that.

How do you see the BJP’s attempts to woo young people, especially since the CJP protests? Do you think they’ll be successful? Do you think they’ll be able to regain momentum in the next few months?

No, I see their attempt as a failure because, clearly, the only thing they are providing us on Instagram is meme content. Whatever reels the Prime Minister or other ministers are putting out are being used by young people to make fun of them. When we get bored, we open Instagram and see young people and students talking about how disconnected those reels from the Prime Minister and other BJP members are.

They cannot, and do not, understand young people. You cannot say that you want to reach out to Gen Z and, at the same time, put out reels from your official handles targeting young people, calling them “dimaagi naxals” and actually advocating firing bullets at them.

So, you want subservience, but young people don’t feel like obeying you because it is you who have jeopardised our futures, jeopardised our universities and colleges, and jeopardised the entire education system. If it is the state and the system that are failing us, you have created that system and that state.

That is why, no matter what reels you put out, what videos you put out, or whatever Gen Z outreach programmes you run, you have now been decisively rejected by the young people of this country.

It’s been over a month since the CJP protest ended. Where do you see the CJP right now? Why don’t we see the CJP and AISA sharing the same stage as regularly anymore?

I see the CJP just as we saw them before. As long as they’re fighting on issues concerning students and young people, we will converge on common platforms and fight together. And I think the School Thik Karo campaign that they’ve undertaken is gaining traction among people because our schools are in complete disarray, and it’s a good initiative.

AISA is primarily active in universities and colleges. So, we have our campaigns and protests there. That’s why I think our agendas are divergent at the moment. But we are united in our understanding that young people and young voices need representation. They need a political programme and a political agenda, and whatever voices are out there, we will stand in solidarity with them.