New Delhi: With a stack of fliers about Gaza in hand, Prof. Vipin Kumar Tripathi carefully hands each paper to the visitors of Raj Ghat, Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial, in Old Delhi.
For Tripathi, the independence hero’s resting place was the perfect spot to mark India’s Independence Day and simultaneously raise awareness about Gaza and the mass starvation Israel has imposed on the enclave’s 2.1 million people.
On Friday, the 77-year-old Indian activist went on a fast as a form of nonviolent protest and to express solidarity with Palestinians, hoping to spark similar compassion for Palestine among his countrymen.
“I want to raise conscience because it is an Independence Day of our country and independence is incomplete unless we awaken the feeling for independence of others, (especially) the most oppressed ones,” Tripathi told Arab News.
“I am creating consciousness and awareness on the major issues confronting the people of the world and extreme violence that is going on in Gaza: People are starving to death, they are being forced to starve.”
A former physics professor at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, Tripathi came from a family of freedom fighters and has been an activist since 1989.
After his retirement in 2013, he dedicated his life to social service, traveling to different parts of the country with a message of peace.
His campaigns often involved engaging people in conversations and handing out information sheets and brochures addressing some of the most pressing issues in India, including the troubles in Kashmir and the ordinary citizens’ rights to question their government.
For the past month, his activism has been focused on Gaza. He has handed out Hindi and English leaflets titled “Gaza Sufferings Must Awaken Us,” which draw similarities between the Indian and Palestinian struggle against British colonialism, while also urging Indians to speak up.
Starting his day at 9 a.m., Tripathi distributed the same fliers on Friday around Old Delhi and at the Gandhi memorial, which he sees as a “symbol of martyrdom for humanism.”
He said: “No human being is inferior or superior to each other. Every human being has a right to live with full dignity and freedom, and for this he sacrificed his life.
“I am sitting here today remembering the independence movement that India fought, to our martyrs, our freedom fighters and Indian masses who participated in their struggle, and I am also here fasting, remembering the (Palestinians) suffering extreme crisis of survival due to mass starvation and bombings continuously going on for the last 22 months.”
While India’s civil society and government opposition are increasingly speaking up against Israeli war crimes, New Delhi has largely remained quiet since Israel launched its assault on Gaza in October 2023. The campaign has killed more than 61,000 people and injured more than 154,000 others.
Tripathi is also calling on the Indian government to “change its position, change its stance on Gaza (and) on Israel.”
By the end of the day on Friday, Tripathi was removed from the Raj Ghat by the police, who said that the site was not a location for protests. It was a scene similar to other pro-Palestinian demonstrations in New Delhi, where protesters have been detained.
But Tripathi has said he will continue to campaign for Palestinians, as he merely wants the people of India “to open their eyes.”
He said: “India’s independence is not the independence of only the Indian people; the people who fought for India’s independence also cared for the freedom of others.
“I want the people of this country to remove prejudices from their heads and feel the agony of the suffering masses of Gaza because they are not different from us. They are part of the same colonial struggle against colonialism that we carried … so I want the people of our country to be caring for them.”
