Odisha teaches a lesson that India must not ignore. History has it already that, when rest of the ani-CAA protests wear smudges of blood stains, the land of Jagannath, Odisha, has set a new precedence of Gandhian way of saying that, they are not ready to accept anything thrust-upon. No CAA & no NRC.
It was no mere show of opposition shown by a mammoth crowd here, people drawn from all spectrum, faces paraded before all of us, sounds coming from far and near, of slogans of resistance and resolve.
On Thursday when people came out on the streets of Bhubaneswar , echoes of footsteps were heard interspersed by occasional sounds of vehicles nearby, but no sort of cacophony to trigger any feverishness or any gun shots.
Thousands and thousands of people kept the media cameras preening upon and hundreds of still cameras flashing yet, the tranquil and the civility of the multitude was in stark contrast shown in places like Shaheen Bagh, Jamia or JNU or Uttar Pradesh.
Here there were no Gopals brandishing guns or masked assailants sneaking into campuses of knowledge or any Sharjeel Imam or Anurag Thakur.
Neither there were any fist fights with the police nor any hysteric jostle to demonstrate any political impudence ever through the protest that lasted over a good period of time.
Rather, what was uppermost in the minds of the protester was the ugly contours of the Citizenship deadlock that has today turned rest parts of the state to lands terror and dirty politics.
Even the political outfits those took part, were vocal about the forceful imposition but restrained enough to say, silence can be a sober tool but not a surrender.
