There is a moment: Neha Bora is being detained in a police bus that protesters have managed to stop. Neha and the other activists leap out. Footage of that escape spreads online within minutes.

Madri Kakoti, an assistant professor at Lucknow University, sees it, takes a screenshot, and posts it on her popular Instagram channel, Dr Medusssa. In the frame, the activists are about to jump from the bus. Neha turns back and looks straight into the crowd, which today also means looking into the camera.

“Remember this face. Remember the RAGE,” Madri wrote. Beneath it, Neha replied with lines from Dylan Thomas’s famous poem: “Do not go gentle into the night! Rage! Rage! Rage against the dying of the light!” 

Anger is having a moment. 

Not the anger kept behind closed doors. Not the anger dissected by friends. Not the anger swallowed into the body only to return in a dream at night. 

This anger has moved from memory to muscle. It is out on the street. It is loud and embodied. It is in your face, on your screen, and in your living room. It is standing up and lashing out. 

This anger is Neha Bora.

I met Neha Bora, president of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), on October 11, in a detention centre on the outskirts of Delhi. Neha uses the pronouns they/them.

Since October 2, AISA has put out several calls for citizen protests against the Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls, demanding the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, India’s Chief Election Commissioner.

Neha has been at each of these protests, making fiery speeches, running, scaling barricades, being dragged away by security officials, bruised, and detained. In the last two weeks, Neha has been detained more than 10 times, sometimes more than once in a single day.

That day, as soon as we entered the detention centre, Neha dropped a bag on the floor and lay down. “Detentions have become my rest hours these days,” they said. “Let’s do the interview now. What else is there to do here?”

During the July 2026 NEET paper leak protests, Neha sat on a hunger strike for 23 days. The country watched as Neha occupied a corner under a shade in Jantar Mantar, their body growing weaker and weaker by the day. Other activists fanned them, pressed their legs, and carried them to the washroom.

This time, Neha is not in one corner. They are whizzing through the city, yelling into the camera, detained again and again by........

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