This week on Hafta, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan and Rinchen Norbu are joined by Rohan Venkat, non-resident managing editor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Advanced Study of India, and Sidharth Raimedhi, a fellow at the Council for Strategic and Defence Research. 

The discussion begins with the protests that turned violent in several French cities. What began in September as student-led demonstrations against the state of the public education system soon grew into a wider expression of public discontent, driven by the rising cost of living, increasing fuel prices and political paralysis.

Venkat explains that the violent images circulating on social media did not capture the scale or nature of the wider movement, and cautions against reducing the protests to these incidents.

“The bulk of the protests were not the violent images that you saw,” he says, pointing out that hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across France. The violence, he argues, should not obscure the real grievances that brought people out to protest.

France’s history of popular mobilisation, from the student protests of 1968 to the Yellow Vest movement against fuel-tax increases, also forms an important part of the discussion. But Venkat draws a distinction between the aspirations of earlier generations and the anxieties confronting young people today.

Manisha Pande highlights a line from a young French protester that captured this desperation: “People call us the most daring generation, but we’re actually the most desperate generation.”

The panel then examines how the French unrest was being portrayed in India, particularly the attempts to draw parallels between the violence in France and the Cockroach Janata Party’s protests in Delhi.

Manisha questions the narrative that Delhi had been saved from a French-style breakdown through a forceful police response. The CJP protests, she notes, had continued for nearly a month, without arson, looting or widespread damage to public property.

One of the most striking images from the Delhi demonstrations, she recalls, was “just streets full of shoes and chappals” left behind when protesters fled during police action.

Rinchen questions the conspiracy narratives circulating on social media, particularly the suggestion that protests across countries were part of a coordinated effort to destabilise governments. He argues that Indian young people have ample reasons of their own to be frustrated by the state of education and employment prospects at home.

The conversation then shifts to Rubio’s visit to India, including his meetings in Mumbai and his visit to Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar refinery to discuss the refining of Venezuelan crude oil.

Sidharth Raimedhi argues that the visit was unusual because it appeared to be driven less by traditional government-to-government diplomacy and more by immediate American commercial and energy requirements. The US, he says, is looking to address domestic energy concerns and strengthen Venezuelan oil production, exports and refining capacity, with Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery playing a potentially important role.

He suggests that India could use this moment to negotiate better terms in the long-running trade talks with the US, but remains sceptical of the optimism surrounding an imminent agreement.

All this and more.