I was in my 4th year at college, when I heard the words : "PinjaTod" for the first time. One of my buddies, in the room adjacent to mine, was laughing hilariously, looking at a video in FB. Out of curiosity, I too watched the video. Even I was aghast, but at the same time, (1/n)

burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. The video showed a few girls shaking the gates of the hostel& climbing over them, with the security-guard begging them to come down. For a moment,it seemed as if some Devil's soul has possessed them, like in the film "Conjuring" (2/n)

& considering their show, the only plausible cure seemed to us : an exorcism by some Tantrik ! Anyways, jokes apart, but one word struck me : "PinjaTod". And then, I started a bit of my own research. While we may laugh at their histrionics, we can't deny that they had (3/n)

become a formidable force in the top-tier campuses in DU. DU Politics was usually a fulcrum of caste-driven cacophony, with ABVP pitted against the NSUI. Though AAP's student wing tried to break the glass ceiling after AAP's massive win in 2015, their efforts ran into (4/n)

rough weather, with many of their candidates losing deposits. DU's Center-Left space is often occupied by NSUI & the radical Left never found a foothold in the campus politics, because the student crowd of DU isn't charmed by the paeans of poverty-porn that would trigger (5/n)

inexorable orgasms in the JNU junta, which, unfortunately, is still stuck in the time-warp of puritanical Communism. DU, in terms of diversity, is a simulacrum of a mini-India, with kids flocking to the campus across every nook & corner of the country. In such a rush-driven (6/n)

pandemonium, one of the foremost priorities of outstation students : room allocations in hostels. The 1st listers usually get the accommodation, but for the 3rd/4th listers, it is like a round of Russian Roulette. And all student political groups, feast on this issue : (7/n)

"Room Dilwa Do, Bhaiyya ! Please... Saadar Aapke Charan Sparsh". Now, in this clientele of accommodation seekers, there is one niche silo that nobody ever heeded too : girls' accommodation in a city like Delhi, where women safety is indeed a pertinent issue. Outstation (8/n)

girls would often gravitate towards a PG in a safe area, since getting a solo-accommodation in a judgemental society is as arduous as extracting a needle from a haystack. So, the radical Left used this "serious" issue as its opening for foray into the campus politics of DU,(9/n)

with PinjaTod being the eponymous clarion for a "change in the status quo ! Sounds good, eh ? [P.S :Every Communist Revolution starts with lofty claims of changing the status quo, but at the end of the day, it usually ends up with the tiger replacing the incumbent tiger !(10/n)

].And yeah,this movement got considerable traction, with regular articles on the tentacles of the Liberal Hydra : Quint, Scroll, YouthKiAwaz, Raoit[.]in, Wire, kafila[.]org,.... And how did they solicit attention?Social Media histrionics, on change of time-tables in girls' (11/n)

hostels, or getting WiFi router fixed, which could've been done by a simple application to a Warden or consulting the hostel administration via elected student parliament. But they deliberately morphed a trivial issue of dialogue into a form of class struggle : "women" (12/n)

pitted against "the Saruman's eye of administration infested with patriarchy, in a dehumanising society en route to Hindu Rashtra". Hold on, sounds convoluted ? Aah, that is what the Left is adept at : sophistication of trivial matters to obfuscate the space of (13/n)

sanity-driven debate. But like every communist movement that ebbs away with a struggle of "internal contradictions", the PinjaTod Movement too had its pitfalls. Most of its office-bearers were girls from privileged families in gated urban communities of Delhi, with a (14/n)

father itching to send them to an Ivy League college so that he can tell to his neighbours : "Hamari Bitiya Amrika me parh rahi hai !". In its purest form, this movement was a certificate that would be flaunted in the Statement of Purpose for admission into Ivy League (15/n)

universities, embellished with an internship at Oxfam or Amnesty or Civil Society groups mushrooming in Delhi. So, despite a plethora of SM theatrics, it lacked the dedication of cadres of an organised outfit, like NSUI or ABVP, & hence, electorally, till date, they r (16/n)

struggling to win a major seat despite faculty-members endorsing them !

Now, fast forward to the CAA violence, especially the blockade of the Jaffrabad Station. The recent arrest of 2 of their members on the grounds of fomenting riots has sent a shivering chill to many. (17/n)

Because usually in violence related to student wings, there was an omerta code in the Police circles with endorsement from the "top" : "Go slow.. bacche hai... samjhakar wapas bhej do......Pura jeewan para hai in logo ka...". This "go-slow" lackadaisical attitude of Police(18/n)

in campus violence is one of the few reasons why political parties, of all shades, often put their cadres in universities using the pretext of courses that need nominal academic rigour : the most commonly ones being distance-learning courses. Now, in Jaffrabad violence, (19/n)

who did the damage? Radical u-know-who youths from Seelampur's ghettos, mobilised by a plethora of "Civil Society" organisations, with PinjaTod being one of the leading luminaries. But they did 2 major mistakes: Firstly, they didn't even expect in their wildest nightmares(20/n)

that the violent protest would pan out to a full-blown riot & secondly, they failed to cover their "digital" trail of "organising mobs". The Delhi Police is proceeding the riots contour-by-contour : First, they arrested a few footsoldiers, & after making them squeal out, (21/n)

they are going after the big fishes : student leaders of Jamia & Pinja Tod; which is, unprecedented considering the omerta code of tolerance of violence by student-groups. I feel a bit sorry for the rioters from the slums. Their reactionary attitude was ignited by these (22/n)

sophistry-laden "educated" civil society groups, only to be left all alone when the riots blew out. These groups have blood on their hands. Obviously, they won't literally murder someone, but they incited the riots with the poor,vulnerable sections as foot-soldiers after a(23/n)

blitzkreig of Whatsapp propaganda & arousing speeches with "Kagaz Nahi Dikhayenge" as the theme. Does the rot end with the arrest of these 2 "female" students ? I doubt, because if u go by the facebook page of this group, u will find big "esteemed" names endorsing them :the(24/n)

The same lot that often floods Modi's spam-box with letters citing "intolerance".

I would end this thread with a small request : Don't troll them with foul language because that would turn them from a "Soorpanakha" to a "Draupadi" & also, do not underestimate them. After (25/n)

all, the sympathy for ISIS started when Western Media glorified a few radical students who died in custody of Assad's police !

Borrowing a few words from Rahul Gandhi's parlance, I would suggest : maintain "strategic" silence !

Pika Pi ! [26/26]