In the latest episode of Hafta, the panel discusses whether political protest movements need ideological anchoring to succeed, sparked by a debate over the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) lack of clear ideological convictions.
Poornima Joshi, the resident editor of The Hindu Businessline, argues that successful mass movements of the last decade – even ostensibly issue-based ones – have tended to carry ideological undertones. In addition to ideological moorings, Rinchen Norbu notes that mass protest movements also crucially push for structural, systemic demands that outlast a minister’s resignation or reshuffle. The CJP’s demands, he argues, don’t meet that bar.
The Anna Hazare movement comes up as a test case, with Abhinandan Sekhri disputing the claim that it had RSS backing, saying the initial support came from trade unions and communist parties, not the Sangh. A similar dynamic is drawn out through the farmers’ protest, which Joshi argues benefited from ideological and organisational anchoring – support from farm unions gave it both structural backing and a wider anti-corporate framing beyond the farm laws themselves.
The conversation also touches on how ideology can double as both an asset (organisational strength) and a constraint (limiting appeal). Anand Vardhan notes that once a movement positions itself in the opposition camp, its stated commitments – secularism, socialism, anti-corruption – tend to overlap with those of every other party making the same pitch, leaving it with a harder question to answer: what, then, is its actual product differentiation?
Separately, Abhinandan notes that Newslaundry is lining up a follow-up round table with panellists holding more critical views of Hartosh Singh Bal’s position on the film Satluj.