It is curious how the right to protest looks different from opposite sides of a barricade.

Arun Jaitley, former president of the Delhi University Students’ Union, once escaped an early-morning attempt to arrest him during the Emergency. He returned to campus, burned an effigy of Indira Gandhi and courted arrest. Jaitley was in good company. The veteran Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan’s call for Sampoorna Kranti, which started as a student movement and quickly became the symbol of anti-Emergency resistance, was practically a political finishing school for India’s students and future leaders. Lalu Prasad Yadav was leading the Patna University Students’ Union. Student leader Nitish Kumar was swept into politics through the JP movement. Sitaram Yechury cut his political teeth in JNU’s politics, marching to Indira Gandhi’s residence and demanding her resignation as chancellor of the university. Sharad Yadav, president of Jabalpur University students’ union, was backed by JP to contest a 1974 byelection — which he won. Fighting on the other side, Mamata Banerjee, then a young Congress activist, blocked JP’s convoy in Kolkata. She climbed onto his car and shouted slogans.

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