AISA's Neha Bora recalls July 20 violence and recovery

Days after ending a 23-day hunger strike, All India Students' Association (AISA) president Neha Bora says her body is still "not used to food" as she relearns how to eat, but her frail condition has not stopped her from travelling across states to push for the release of protesters detained during the Jantar Mantar agitation.

Bora, a JNU PhD scholar from Uttarakhand, was among a small group of activists who staged a prolonged hunger strike over the NEET paper leak controversy, demanding then-education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation.

"My body adapted to surviving without food during the hunger strike. Now it has to adapt again to eating," Bora told PTI in an interview. "My digestive tract is still not used to food and is not able to tolerate much. I am avoiding spicy food and red meat because it disturbs my digestive system. Otherwise I am doing well. Slowly my body is trying to tolerate the food that I am giving it."

Despite the physical toll, Bora travelled to Bihar soon after the agitation ended to meet protesters who had been arrested despite assurances that cases against them would be withdrawn. "It was a little difficult, but it was important," she said. 

"More than 600 students were arrested, and some even faced attempt-to-murder charges. We went to Patna, met injured protesters in Siwan and also met the DGP. If we had not done this then, they would not have been released."

Bora said she had been too weak to join the July 20 march because of her hunger strike, and instead stayed back at the protest camp with doctors as injured demonstrators began returning. "Our hunger strike had ended that day, and we were in no condition to join the march. 

If we had been hit with a baton, we would probably have landed in the ICU," she said. "We were sitting in our tent with three doctors and medical supplies. About 30 to 45 minutes after the march started, we heard tear-gas shells. Then people started coming back."

She recalled a student arriving with a fractured arm that doctors bandaged using a folded piece of cardboard as a sling because an ambulance could not reach him, and a colleague struck on the neck with a baton, leaving it "red, swollen and bent." 

She alleged a woman protester had "her leg split open," while another was struck on the chest by a male security officer and suffered swelling and ligament injuries.

Bora also alleged that protesters were trapped between multiple layers of barricades. "There were tear-gas shells from one side and baton charges from the other, so people would run in one direction. Then there was another layer of barricades with tear gas and batons again. 

The barricades were removed so people converged, and a stampede was forced. Elderly people and children were caught in it. People didn't know where to go," she alleged.

She said she later met a Delhi University student who had lost vision in one eye from a pellet injury, an Ambedkar University student whose body still contained pellets, and the parents of a student who was on a ventilator. "We witnessed all of this with our own eyes," she said.

Bora said the police crackdown ultimately strengthened the movement. "They thought they would break our bodies and our emotions. But after July 20, the number of people who came to Jantar Mantar was unbelievable. 

People came with broken heads and broken bones and sat there from morning till evening," she said. Recalling her speech after returning to the protest site, she said she told the gathering that "the marks on our bodies will bear witness," adding, "We will tell the coming generation what the people sitting in Parliament ordered and how they treated the citizens of this country. We will remember it."

The movement, Bora said, also transformed her relationship with her family. Her mother, who had long disagreed with her activism, visited Jantar Mantar on July 19 and witnessed the events of the following day. "When Dharmendra Pradhan resigned, she called me and said I should congratulate my colleagues because we had achieved this. The change that I saw among parents across the country reached my own home as well. For me, this movement is a personal achievement," Bora said.

Asked about her father, a former Indian Army officer, Bora said she had yet to speak to him since the agitation ended. "I haven't spoken to my father yet. Hopefully, when I go home..." she said, trailing off with a smile.