By Aftab Ahmed and Saurabh Sharma
NEW DELHI, Oct 11 (Reuters) - A little-known doctoral student has emerged as one of the most visible faces of a protest movement in India that has mounted the most serious challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in years.
Neha Bora, 29, is one of a number of prominent activists detained this weekend as the authorities cracked down on attempts by protesters led by the "Cockroach" youth movement to demonstrate against what they say is massive vote-rigging
to help Modi's party.
But Bora, national president of the left-wing All India Students’ Association, says she did not set out to become an activist. She traces her path into politics to theatre and, later, the student-led protests against a citizenship law in 2019 and 2020.
BORA URGES PROTESTERS ON FROM DETENTION
On Saturday, after police blocked demonstrators from reaching New Delhi's designated protest site, Jantar Mantar, Bora urged them to regroup at Dilli Haat, a crafts market 10 km (6 miles) away.
"Dilli Haat becomes Jantar Mantar today," she wrote on X before setting off towards the site, chanting slogans as others followed.
Police detained her with several other activists. But even in detention, she called for the demonstration to continue.
"I am in detention. The movement is not," she said in a video posted online, urging supporters who were stopped by police to protest wherever they were. She was released later on Saturday.
The Cockroach Janta Party-led protests seek the ouster of India's election chief, claiming irregularities in handling voter data have led to the deletion of 130 million names — more than the population of Japan — from electoral rolls.
The Election Commission denies favouring any group, and Modi's Hindu nationalist party has accused opponents of trying to undermine the country's democracy by wrongly questioning legitimate electoral processes.
Other issues Bora has championed include school-examination scandals, unemployment and police actions.
Soft-spoken in conversation but forceful behind a microphone, she has built a following through speeches in Hindi and English, often invoking constitutional rights and linking student grievances to broader questions of inequality and government accountability.
'HOPE IS ALSO INFECTIOUS'
Bora grew up in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand and moved frequently as a child because her father served in the army. She studied at Delhi University before beginning a doctorate at Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of Arts and Aesthetics.
As an undergraduate, she told Reuters in an interview this month, she joined a theatre group, where she learned to inhabit the lives of people much different from herself.
"There might be a character that if you meet in your real life, you will disagree with, you will not like. But to do theatre is to understand where that person comes from."
A turning point was the citizenship law, which critics say discriminates against Muslims.
Bora said she watched students of her own generation lead classmates out of lecture halls and onto the streets, turning ideas she had encountered in books, films and documentaries into political action.
She gained wider attention during protests in July over alleged leaks of exam papers, when she joined other activists in demanding the resignation of the education minister. Her speeches at Jantar Mantar, criticising the government and police response to demonstrators, circulated widely online.
Bora has since become a fixture at demonstrations in the capital. During protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, she was repeatedly detained and returned to the streets after her release.
She said ideology alone does not drive the current mobilisation, describing hope as a more powerful force.
"Fear is infectious, of course. But hope is also infectious," she said. "People have courage now because they think that they can have courage."
Bora said the demonstrations reflect the accumulation of years of grievances.
"People remember," she said. "People carry that discontent, people carry that betrayal, people carry that disappointment."
(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed and Saurabh Sharma in New Delhi; Editing by William Mallard)
