Leher Kala writes: How to be a dissident

CJP supporters at Parliament Street after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned from his post, in New Delhi on Saturday. (Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav) 4 min readJul 26, 2026 06:23 AM IST First published on: Jul 26, 2026 at 06:20 AM IST When I was still in school in 1990, 20-something Rajeev Goswami, studying in Delhi University, poured oil and set himself on fire amid a crowd of supporters. Like many other upper-caste students at the time, Goswami was protesting the proposed 27 percent quota for backward classes in government jobs. His shocking act — self-immolation — won sympathy all around, triggering a spate of similar, horrifying suicides but an anti-reservation movement was bound to fail. Morally, it’s hard to disagree with affirmative action to rectify historical w