Boomer meets Gen Z over tea and Gyanesh

A One-Act PlayCharacters:TARA (24): Gen Z. Volunteer with a youth protest movement. White t-shirt, water bottle in hand, voice already hoarse from three days of shouting.HARISH (78): Journalist. Shirt without jacket, old briefcase. He stopped walking when he heard the slogans. He is not here to protest. Setting:A tea stall near a protest site in Delhi. In the distance: police barricades, placards, the low roar of a crowd. A radio on the counter. TARA: Sorry, my voice is hoarse.HARISH: Three days of shouting pointlessly, waste of energy, rebels without true cause.TARA: Why pointless. Quite the opposite, it is a score for doing the right thing for the right reasons: "Gyanesh, it's done, you have to go." (She shouts hoarsely) "Vote chor, gaddi chhod."HARISH: Thief of votes, leave the chair. You want him out, another scalp after the Education Minister. You have tasted blood in the water, now you lust. Who next, how many more?TARA: We want one man to answer for what he did. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. (Pumps a fist) Fourteen times. The other two commissioners formally objected. Fourteen times in ten months. He signed alone. They didn't know.HARISH: The Commission says decisions were unanimous.TARA: Of course they say that. Who admits they broke the law? But the record is there. Sandhu's record. Joshi's record. April, Sandhu told senior officials: "Many communications issued in the Commission's name were not approved by the Commission." He demanded approval for every future order. Eight days later, Joshi said the same thing.HARISH: It is an internal administrative matter.TARA: No. It's a Constitutional matter. Three-member body. Three. Not one. Article 324. The 2023 Act. Majority decision. Not one man signing for three.HARISH: What makes you the keepers of the faith? Shouldn't you be in class making sure Mummy and Daddy's fee money is not being wasted? This is immoral policing.TARA: (Shouts again) "Vote chor, gaddi chhod." A hundred and thirty million names. Gone from the voter rolls. During the SIR. West Bengal. Twenty-two million. One state alone.HARISH: The Commission says those are dead voters. Duplicates. Migrants. Have you checked the names, done due diligence, provided evidence of a scam or are you just flexing muscle, enjoying the self importance?TARA: Your generation were cowards. Ours wants to clean up the system, make government accountable. And to answer your question, tell us then why did over 90 per cent of deletion appeals succeed after hearings? If they were dead, why did living people appeal? Why did they win?HARISH: That is a procedural issue. The appeal mechanism is working. Leave it alone.TARA: Procedural. Form 6. The new voter registration form. They added a question: whether the applicant or their parents or grandparents appeared on the rolls of the last SIR. Joshi said in May this required a rule change. Sandhu said in August it was "unauthorized and illegal" and must be removed. It is still there. The Supreme Court said it did not approve any modified Form 6. The Commission said it did. Who is lying?HARISH: The Court is examining the records. Why are you pre-empting things? How are you protesters any less a political tool, disrupting things, making a nuisance of yourselves? Like sharks, today Gyanesh, who is next? Go finish college. You are dependents, stop getting used.TARA: We are not political lackeys, we are fighting for justice and fairness but the old guard belittles us because they lack the moral fibre. Here we are asking for answers. The Supreme Court issued notice to the Commission. To Kumar. To the other two. It demanded the record: were the disputed decisions unanimous, majority, or Kumar alone? It is waiting for a response.HARISH: Then wait. Disband. Bring normality back to the country, stop holding it at ransom.TARA: The rolls don't wait. The election doesn't wait. If the court takes six months and the election is in three, who restores the deleted names?HARISH: You speak as if this is deliberate, some great devilish plan.TARA: Do you think it's an accident? West Bengal. 2026 assembly elections. In 49 constituencies, the margin of victory was smaller than the number of SIR deletions. Who benefits? Wake up, smell the coffee.HARISH: You are talking conspiracy. I am talking vigilantism. You are not elected to police the government. You are not even taxpayers. You have very thin skin in the game.TARA: That's cap. We are citizens, with as much right as you. I am talking arithmetic while you are sidestepping the issue by using that tired senior by age trick. It doesn't work. If you cannot respect us, why should we respect you? The situation screams corruption but you do not to see it. West Bengal's Electoral Registration Officer was sidelined. ECINet. Central database. IT officials in New Delhi. District officers don't have full access. Goa. Ninety-seven voters cleared by local officials. The software wouldn't restore them. Who controls the software?HARISH: You are saying a technical problem became political, so why can't you back off, allow a breather? This demand at gunpoint is wrong, so wrong, so very wrong.TARA: You still don't see it. Amazing. A technical problem is a political problem. When one man controls the database. When two men say, "I didn't know." When 14 objections are recorded and ignored. That is not technical. That is power MISUSED.HARISH: What do you demand?TARA: Kumar resigns. Now. Second, stop the SIR. Third, audit the voter database.HARISH: He cannot resign. Article 324(5). Removal only for "proved misbehaviour or incapacity." Parliamentary process. Special majority. You don't have the votes. Like I said, much of the country is tiring of you lot, they see you as pawns fighting other people's battles.TARA: We know. Everything we say is vetted. We are not stupid, much as you would like to believe we are troublemakers. So much easier to see us through that filter, we have done our homework. That's why we're doing the "people's impeachment notice”. Former civil servants. Former intelligence chiefs. Former home secretary. Former Delhi Lieutenant Governor. They went to Nirvachan Sadan. Six charges.HARISH: A people's notice has no legal force. Wishy-washy grandstanding is all.TARA: Legal force isn't the point. Moral force is. The record is. History is. When the Supreme Court finally sees those fourteen objections, when it confirms the decisions lacked majority approval, those decisions are void. Ab initio. Their own words.HARISH: And the appointment case?TARA: The 2023 Act. The Chief Justice was removed from the selection committee. Replaced with a Cabinet Minister. The Supreme Court split. One judge said a minister nominated by the Prime Minister cannot be expected to defy the Prime Minister. "Largely ornamental”. The other said a larger bench. Now it's with the Chief Justice.HARISH: That is a separate case.TARA: Same case. Kumar was selected by that committee. If the committee is invalid, his appointment is invalid.HARISH: You have read a lot. But the jury is still out on who gave you the power to speak for all of us, over a billion of us who have real everyday problems, no time to indulge in showboating.TARA: Did you just say showboating? I read the media reports. I read the Supreme Court orders. I am not shouting slogans. I am reading the record. Stop gaslighting and let us cook.HARISH: Then why the streets? If the record is there, let the court read it. Stay out of it. No one has asked you to fight the fight.TARA: Hey, we are only locking in. Because the court reads slowly. Because the rolls change quickly. Because if we don't take the streets, the record gets buried. Because Rahul Gandhi said one thing: "Sticks can stop a crowd. They cannot stop a question."HARISH: That is a good line. You do realise that with each passing day, more of us think you guys are Rahul stooges.TARA: Yeah, yeah. You do you with the boring old blame game. We are only following. That is what happens when an institution closes its doors. You talk about procedures. We talk about our names being gone.TARA: I think the pressure is building against Kumar. Parliamentary notice. Two hundred MPs. People's impeachment. Supreme Court record. The streets. The media. International attention. One man cannot sign alone forever.HARISH: And if he holds?TARA: Then it becomes a Supreme Court case. About Article 324(5). About the definition of "proved misbehaviour". About whether one man can be the Commission.HARISH: Meanwhile, you will upstage the process by holding the gun to our heads, weaponising youth power.TARA: I am a calendar-reader. The election is coming. The database is changing. Every day is being used to consolidate gains. Falsely.TARA: What is procedure? Procedure is three people deciding. Not one deciding and telling the other two it's already decided.HARISH: Yes. So if those 14 objections are real, if the Supreme Court confirms it, if those decisions are voided—TARA: Then what?HARISH: Then you owe me an apology. For calling me complicit. From your eyes.TARA: I didn't call you complicit.HARISH: You did. With your eyes.TARA: (silence) Which side are you on?HARISH: I am on the side of procedure. If procedure proves procedure is broken, I am on the side of fixing procedure.TARA: And if the people who fix procedure don't want to fix it?HARISH: Then change the people. Through procedure. Not through shouting or holding the nation at ransom.END OF PLAY.- Ends(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)