Deepika Padukone, Bollywood superstar and India’s highest-paid female actor, became a trending Twitter topic this week, after a strategic visit to Jawaharlal Nehru University – a center of ongoing anti-government protests.
In India’s volatile political climate where a huge debate ensued, and protests are raging over a new ‘anti-Muslim’ citizenship law, Padukone added fuel to fire by stepping into the premises of the university in New Delhi, which has become a “symbol of resistance” against an allegedly “fascist government,” to express solidarity with the protesting students. Padukone, whose latest film is released on Friday, knew exactly what she was doing.
The Left is politically irrelevant in India but its hold over educational institutions such as the JNU, or JU (Jadavpur University) make it possible to fight pitched battles from fortresses where disaffected students serve as tools for the ‘larger cause.’ In an era where news is a spectacle, the creation of unrest becomes a way for the Left to stay politically relevant. The fact that impressionable minds are pressed to the cause gives the Left’s political fight a moral veneer.
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