The Fire Neha Lit—We Are Guilty Before Its Flames

The blistering 42-degree Celsius tarmac of Delhi. A thin tarpaulin at Jantar Mantar. Underneath it, for 21 consecutive days, a body has been slowly inching toward death. Her name is Neha Bora. For three solid weeks, not a single grain of food has entered her stomach. Her blood sugar has plummeted to a dangerous low, and her ketone levels are at a stage where Mumbai-based Dr. Anjali Chhabria is repeatedly warning: this girl could slip into a coma at any moment; she could even die.

Just at dawn the other day, hiding behind a screen of sheets, the police forcefully dragged away environmental activist Sonam Wangchuk. Every attempt is being made to crush this democratic movement with brute force. But Neha, a PhD scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), has not moved a single inch from her spot.

Neha is fighting. We do not know if she will eventually return alive from under that tarpaulin or from a hospital ICU. We are merely watching. Yes, a nation of 1.4 billion people, its youth, its citizens—all are staring blankly at their mobile screens, watching a living, breathing human being become a martyr before our eyes. Yet, no one is stepping out to join the protest.

We might be silent today. But mark my words, 5 or 10 years from now, this memory will literally haunt us. An endless guilt and sense of injustice will eat us alive from the inside. Whenever a grave injustice strikes this country, we will remember—just to protest a sitting education minister's corruption and to ensure fair evaluation (NEET) for ordinary students, a 25-year-old girl withered away to death right before our eyes, starving for 21 days. And we? We chose to hide, like cowards.

Who is Neha? Why this hunger strike?

Neha is a brilliant PhD student at JNU. Had she wanted, she could have effortlessly built a glowing corporate or academic career. Settling abroad to live a luxurious life would have been nothing to her. But she chose the path of dust, blistering heat, rain, and tear gas. She aligned herself with the left-wing student organization, All India Students' Association (AISA).

Why left-wing politics? Because this politics taught her to speak of equality, to look the oppressor dead in the eye and point a finger at injustice. Neha didn’t just speak up about the 'NEET' paper leak. When children in Gaza, Palestine, were left bloodied by bullets, Neha’s voice tore through the streets of Delhi. When Bilkis Bano’s rapists were garlanded and welcomed, Neha raised slogans demanding justice. She has always been the embodiment of resistance against the RSS's Hindutva polarization, their politics of division, and mob lynchings. She never fought for herself; she fought for the deprived, the poor, and the oppressed. When Abhijeet Dipke of the 'Cockroach Janata Party' (CJP) stood up against corruption, Neha committed herself fully to this hunger strike without a moment’s hesitation.

Looking at Neha today, history comes rushing back. It reminds us of 1929. Bhagat Singh threw a bomb in the Central Assembly—not to kill, but "to make the deaf hear." The British did not flee India the very day Bhagat Singh hung from the gallows. On the surface, it seemed the British Raj was completely unaffected. But that single sacrifice ignited such a fire of armed revolution in the veins of India’s dormant youth that it broke the backbone of the colonizers, forcing them to leave.

Today, Neha Bora is the Bhagat Singh of this generation. We do not know if her terrifying 21-day sacrifice will force Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign immediately. Using the muscle power of the police and the state machinery, the BJP might temporarily clear out Jantar Mantar. The BJP of today may not lose power tomorrow morning. Perhaps today, out of fear or the lure of comfort, ordinary people haven’t joined this movement. But history is witness—sacrifice never goes in vain.

The spark created today by Neha’s starved, withered face and frail body will surely turn into a wildfire one day. The day the BJP's fascist arrogance crumbles like a sandcastle, no one from this generation will likely have the face to join that victory march. Because that day, they will know: when changing the system was needed the most, when a girl was slowly giving up her life, piece by piece, for the liberation of the people, they stayed silent.

Neha is about to become a martyr, not just because of the government's injustice, but because of our collective silence. The fight Neha has begun, the gunpowder she has manufactured, will one day cause an explosion that will turn all of BJP’s fascism to ashes. People like Neha never truly lose—they become the ones who show the way. It is our own opportunistic society that ultimately stands defeated.

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*Author: Editor, Dhaka Papers

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