New Delhi : Remember the young man who, during a TV debate on the NEET paper leak, rose from his chair and passionately argued that caste-based reservation was driving student distress and even suicides? Harsh Dubey has since amassed thousands of followers on social media, reportedly given around two dozen interviews, and is now awaiting permission to stage a protest at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
Online, the anti-reservation campaign has found a growing rallying point. The Reservation Hatao Andolan (RHA) Instagram page, which began gaining traction as the CJP protests wound down, now has around 5.9 million followers, amplifying voices against caste-based quotas and calling for their rationalisation. Days later, an agitation by the members of the Shri Rajput Karni Sena, a group of the Rajputs, in Jaipur turned tense. They took to the streets and clashed with police over the now-stayed UGC’s caste equity regulations.
Harsh Dubey waits to enter Jantar Mantar and lead. The RHA is continuing to mobilise anti-quota voices on the internet. The Shri Rajput Karni Sena is waging its own battle on Jaipur’s streets. But it’s clear that anti-reservation sentiment is growing stronger than ever, with prominent voices like academic-author Anand Ranganathan, journalist-creator Ajeet Bharti, and writer-director Anuradha Tiwari, joining in on the RHA platform that a student called Vedant started weeks ago.
Influencers, commentators and public intellectuals are split over reservations. Some favour the status quo, some want it scrapped entirely, while others support it only if they have a tighter eligibility criteria. Online and offline, anti-reservation voices are steadily growing louder. The momentum threatens to widen one of India’s most politically explosive and divisive debates on caste-based reservation. The timing is delicate and could unsettle multiple stakeholders.
The organisers had told the newspaper that around 1,000-2,000 people were expected to participate in the march. They described the Nagpur rally as the beginning of a nationwide campaign seeking changes to India’s reservation system and drew parallels with how the CJP evolved from an online campaign into a street movement. Days later, on August 3, members of Savarna Morcha and Swarn Samaj in Lucknow came out in the city’s Shahid Smarak and Hazratganj area, reported Amar Ujala.
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