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A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Sushant Singh, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Tanweer Alam, Siddharth Varadarajan and Seema Chishti | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK 

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Snapshot of the day

August 21, 2024

Siddharth Varadarajan

Dalit and Adivasi organisations called a Bharat Bandh – a day of protest – today to highlight the need to defend and strengthen constitutional provisions mandating affirmative action for the marginalised sections of the population. The Opposition, including left parties, mobilised their supporters across the country. The context of the protest is the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s efforts to undermine reservation. The Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav explained the logic in a tweet:

The mass movement to protect reservation is a positive effort. It will instill new consciousness among the exploited and deprived and will prove to be a shield of people's power against any kind of tampering with reservation. Peaceful movement is a democratic right. 

Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar had already warned that the Constitution will only work if the intentions of those implementing it are correct. When the governments in power will tamper with the Constitution and the rights given by it through fraud, scams and scandals, then the public will have to take to the streets. 

Public movements put a check on unbridled government.

The BJP has brought Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue Ram Madhav back into the fold after a five year long banishment (for sins unknown) and put him in charge of the party’s election campaign for the Jammu and Kashmir assembly. Yudhajit Shankar Das reminds us about his career and asks whether Madhav’s return reflects the