​No, Neha didn’t use a guerrilla tactic, romancing the term hurts dissent

Did the All India Students’ Association (AISA) leader Neha Bora use a doppelganger to evade Delhi police during the October 11 protests? Neha clarified that she hadn’t set out to do that at all. “It was not a strategy but a simple coincidence," she said later the same day on Instagram.  But social media and news platforms had already rushed to characterise a case of mistaken identities as a “strategy” or "battlefield tactic”. Neha was immediately showered in praise for cleverly “outsmarting” authorities. To call a coincidence a manoeuvre of war is a dangerous misrepresentation of facts. It leaves peaceful civilian protesters, most of them in their 20s and 30s, vulnerable to a narrative that frames nonviolent dissent as active combat.   What happened? On October 11, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) and various Left student bodies, including AISA, called for protests amid the demand for Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.   Neha asked protestors to gather at RK Ashram Marg in New Delhi at 2.30 pm. “See you there. Don’t be late,” she signed off.  The number of protesters and journalists swelled at RK Ashram. As police tried to stop movement towards Jantar Mantar, chaos ensued. One protester, her face partially covered, was mistaken for Neha, chased down and detained.  But Neha wasn’t at RK Ashram. Soon a second social media post from her announced that she and other AISA members had crossed the barricades into Connaught Place. She also shared dramatic visuals of her running alongside protesters to evade detention. While Neha was eventually detained and whisked away, the confusion about her location sparked social media posts and headlines congratulating her for "guerrilla warfare”.   One report referred to the mixup as a "battlefield tactic” worthy of Neha’s upbringing by an army officer. The report claims she had intentionally “sent a doppelganger” so that police could chase a “deliberately planted look-alike”.  Other reports talked of an ‘Asli (real) Neha” and “Nakli (fake) Neha”. Headlines screamed ‘How Neha Bora tricked Delhi Police with a Doppelganger’ and the ‘Tale of two Nehas’.  These headlines took on a life of their own for hours before Neha could issue her clarification from a detention centre that it was all nothing more than a coincidence. The ‘look-alike’ had also been taken to the same detention centre from where the two women posted a photo together.    Civil disobedience, not war Fluidity is in the nature of protest, particularly when authorities are attempting to shut it down. When ground situations are mercurial, protests adapt. Plans do have to be modified when faced with barricades and mass detentions.  Such changes are organic to protest culture. Dodging detention is a part of that. As AISA leaders have previously pointed out to TNM, over the years each protest and the state’s response have taught them how to evade being detained. That’s why, they added, most of their leaders managed to make it the protest site on October 11 when the CJP’s leadership couldn’t.  For whatever reason Neha went to Connaught Place instead of RK Ashram, it isn’t ultimately surprising that she was at a different location from the one she announced. RK Ashram, Connaught Place and Jantar Mantar are all within a 2-kilometre radius of each other. But in a time when anyone who dissents is discredited as an ‘urban Naxal’ or ‘dhimagi Naxal’, comparing lawful protest to guerilla warfare is dangerously irresponsible.  “The cost of protest is already high. Terms like ‘guerrilla war' are associated with naxalism and have a long-time negative connotation,” warns independent journalist Padma Priya.  The problem isn’t just about jumping to conclusions in the heat of the moment or unverified reporting. It’s also the deeply unsettling romanticising of militarism. These are real life protests that come with a human cost, not a cinematic battlefield.  Civil disobedience is not a call to war. Protests aren’t a bloody invasion or mutiny. They are an enactment of the constitutional right to dissent. When the anti-CEC protesters are actively choosing non-violence, describing them as combatants is inaccurate and even disingenuous.  References to imaginary battlefields only serve the project of otherisation already underway in which citizens who ask the Union government legitimate questions are made out to be disrupters of stability. When the shifting realities of a large-scale demonstration are presented in terms of guerrilla tactics, it undercuts the message anti-CEC protestors have been sending—a demand for transparency.  Neither have these demonstrations been covert. Designated protest locations have been publicly announced. Student leaders constantly keep supporters informed on social media of their movements. They have chosen open but peaceful defiance.  Just a figure of speech? As CJP leader Abhijeet Dipke repeatedly highlights, it is the Union government who is using battlefield tactics against its own citizens. Framing protests as war is all the more alarming when the actual violence on the ground is being committed by the state.  Further, there is nothing glorious about the brutalising of unarmed bodies. It’s actually dehumanising to be dragged, beaten and groped. When a student leader is labelled a combatant, when a sit-in is framed as insurgency and police brutality as counter-insurgency, the narrative convinces the reader of a non-existent war, Padma has previously said in a statement.  “Conflict sells. So dramatisation becomes intentional,” she told TNM.  She calls attention to the ‘protest paradigm’. This concept in media studies examines how protests are reported on, what aspects are highlighted, who is shown favourably and what gets left out.  “The mainstream media should be talking about why Gyanesh Kumar is being asked to resign. That’s the story. But they are focused on spectacle and on presenting ‘David versus Goliath’ moments. These are just students, not superheroes in capes. Neha, for instance, is a 29-year-old PhD scholar.” She points out that once unarmed peaceful protesters are reframed as guerrilla fighters, the state can use any amount of force and make it seem like a reasonable response.  “In the past, we’ve seen how student leaders like Umar Khalid or Sharjeel Imam, who were extremely articulate, have faced the might of the state’s wrath.” Padma also dispels the defense that such terms are figures of speech — the public often sees only a viral clip and the headline. When a journalist hasn’t taken the time to explain what they mean by using terms like guerrilla war, labels shape how the public perceives someone. The current atmosphere around the protests is unprecedented in many ways. Emotions are running high. For many this is either the first time they’ve witnessed mass mobilisations or this is the first time they’ve paid attention. However, unfiltered enthusiasm that dissent is finally happening in India on such a scale cannot cloud judgement when reporting on protests.