New Delhi:When CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke arrived at the protest site at Jantar Mantar on Saturday, the crowd surged towards the stage area, surrounding him and his associates as slogans intensified.Addressing supporters, he said, “When I was about to land in India, every minute felt like the last minute of my freedom before arrest,” drawing loud cheers from the crowd.Dipke, 30, moved to Boston two years ago to study public relations. Originally from Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, formerly Aurangabad, he carried a copy of BR Ambedkar’s autobiography, which he held up several times – at the airport and during the protest at Jantar Mantar.A few days ago, when he was questioned on X (formerly Twitter) about his silence on reservation and Dalit causes, Dipke had replied, “I am a Dalit myself. Hope that will answer all your questions.”Before going to Boston, Dipke was associated with the Aam Aadmi Party and was part of its social media team.Referring to what he described as attempts to suppress the movement, Dipke said, “My friends, this is a long struggle. It has been a month since we started demanding Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation on social media, but these individuals are so shameless that instead of taking action, they have been focused on other distractions, like hacking our accounts and getting our posts deleted.”“You may be able to delete our posts, but you cannot erase us from this space. They tried to shut down our social media handles, they tried to stop our voice, and yet I am standing here in my country, fighting for the rights of my country,” he added.Urging supporters not to allow the protest to be diverted from its core demands, he appealed to them to avoid provocative slogans. “You can raise slogans of Bharat Mata Ki Jai, you can raise slogans for Gandhi and Ambedkar, but don’t raise slogans that turn this into religious politics,” he said.Drawing a parallel with past campus protests, Dipke added: “This is what they did in JNU. They will get fake slogans raised and then put them on us. That’s why we have to stay focused on our cause.”Promising that the movement would spread across the country in the next seven days if no action was taken against Pradhan, CJP said in a statement on Saturday evening, “We are giving the government seven days. Either Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan should resign within seven days, or Prime Minister Narendra Modi should dismiss him… As long as he remains in office, we cannot begin the process of restoring the education system of this country.”As the protest concluded, Dipke also posted on his social media handle visuals of a packed protest site, taking a dig at critics who said the online movement won’t materialise into physical presence. “They said cockroaches won’t come on ground,” he wrote.In another post, he wrote: “Going home to see my parents, it’s been more than a year since I last met them. They’ve suffered a lot over the last 15 days and had to leave home because of threats. Will be taking them back to home. FYI, today’s protest was just a trailer. Thank you for showing up in such huge numbers!”
