Student leader Neha continues hunger strike on 22nd day at Jantar Mantar protest
As the party-led protest began at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on June 20, at the peak of Delhi's punishing summer, the focus was mostly on the party's founder, Abhijeet Dipke, who had by then become an online sensation.
As the sun went down, the Delhi Police started removing people from the area, and the protest was reduced to a small band of people gathered on and around the main stage. One lesser-known face, standing next to Mr. Dipke with an 'AISA' badge pinned to her kurta, continued chanting slogans louder than most. She was Ms. Neha.
Ms. Neha, then not widely known, has since become a prominent face of the protest. The 29-year-old is the national president of the All India Students' Association (AISA), the student wing of the CPI(ML) Liberation. She began an indefinite hunger strike with five other AISA members on June 28, the same day as activist Sonam Wangchuk.
Over the next three weeks, three of her colleagues gave up the strike due to health issues, and Mr. Wangchuk was forcibly removed from the protest site on Saturday morning, leaving Ms. Neha and two colleagues continuing the hunger strike for the 22nd day on Sunday. The three, who now need support to walk, stay in a makeshift tent near the main stage. She is the only woman still continuing the hunger strike.
Though such a long strike is a first for Ms. Neha, she is not new to protests. Hailing from Uttarakhand, she did her schooling in different parts of the country as her father served in the Army. Coming from a non-political background, she moved to Delhi for her undergraduate degree from the University of Delhi. There, she became politically active through a theatre group. 'The good thing about theatre is it tells you about politics in the languages we speak, the songs we sing, and our body language,' she said.
Ms. Neha continued with the theatre group 'Sangwari', which has many AISA members, and became active in student politics. She continued during her master's at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi and now during her PhD at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Colleagues said she was active in the anti-CAA protests and the farmers' protest of 2020-21. She was elected secretary of AISA's Delhi unit in 2021 and national president in December 2024.
'What sets her apart is her charisma and ability to connect with people. Someone else may get agitated when discussing an infuriating issue, but she knows how to modulate her tone and convey the message better. That may come from theatre,' an AISA activist said.
Ms. Neha and others had protested at the same Jantar Mantar in the summer of 2024 demanding the education minister's resignation over paper leaks, and had gone on a hunger strike then too. 'But we were detained by police as we came out of the Metro Station for a march to Parliament,' an AISA member said.
When asked about AISA's association with the party during the ongoing protest, Ms. Neha told The Hindu that they had been building this movement for a long time. 'The student organisations, specifically of the Left, along with AISA, have built this movement from the ground up through memorandums and protests over the years. So when something like this party comes up, it's great for us.'
