The BJP-led NDA government at the Centre appears to be guided by a French proverb to handle political dissent as reflected by the anti-SIR protests going on in Delhi in the vicinity of Parliament. The unending protests are being held by fearless youngsters, including those associated with the recently formed Cockroach Janata Party and the All-India Students Association, to force CEC Gyanesh Kumar to resign, their primary demand, owing to the alarming charges levelled against him in connection with the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Congress, too, has joined the agitation openly to lend support to a cause dear to a large section of the country’s population.
The proverb has it that if you want to eliminate a barking dog, accuse it of having rabies. One gets the impression that the strategists of the ruling class are working on this otherwise self-destructive idea of getting rid of the massive challenge the government faces by describing the protesters as anarchists. There are clear indications about the government being scared of the protests, threatening to envelop the entire country. If the anti-CEC agitation, now happening as flash protests, goes on in this manner for a long time, the situation may lead to shaking the government from its very foundations. That is obviously why the Delhi Police, controlled by the Union Home Ministry, have declared that the iconic protest site, Jantar Mantar, can no longer be used for rallies, demonstrations, sloganeering, etc., a powerful weapon for those not part of the ruling establishment.
In the process of all that has been happening at Jantar Mantar and about its status, the place has earned no less popularity worldwide than Cairo’s Tahrir Square (Maidan at-Tahrir), also called Martyr Square, where lakhs of pro-democracy people participated in protests in 2011, resulting in Egypt’s powerful President, Hosni Mubarak, tendering his resignation, of course, when his country’s armed forces refused to support him. Tahrir Square happened in the wake of what came to be known as the Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia as the Jasmine Revolution following the death of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi owing to self-immolation. The historic wave of protests soon took in its sweep not only Tunisia and Egypt but also Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, throwing out of power the rulers of some of these countries.
The Central government in Delhi might have feared that the protests could take the form of what happened at Tahrir Square if the situation was not handled effectively before it was too late. That is, perhaps, why the use of the coercive method witnessed for some time. The Delhi police, controlled by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, however, argues that the October 11 decision to de-notify New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, near Parliament, as a designated protest site follows an October 9 observation by a Supreme Court Bench, headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, that the Union government should identify an alternative spacious and open venue for organising agitations with a view to preventing inconvenience to ordinary commuters. The order came after the apex court heard the petitions challenging the government’s actions to scuttle the October 10 protests aimed at forcing the CEC to resign because of various kinds of allegations against him, showing that he no longer enjoys the confidence of the people.
This, however, did not mean that the government should identify places for expressing political dissent through protests far away from the corridors of power or where it is virtually impossible to indulge in this kind of constitutionally permitted activity. The location of each new protest venue notified by the government – Ramlila Maidan (around 5 km away from the seat of power), Burari Ground (nearly 18 km away) and East Delhi’s CBD Ground (around 12 km away) – is incomparable with that of Jantar Mantar so far as the effect of protests is concerned due to its nearness to Parliament and Central government offices. One can notice that the idea behind designating the new protest sites appears to be aimed at ensuring that the people’s right to express their opposing viewpoint is not possible to exercise effectively, and the government’s decisions, policies and programmes remain unchallenged by the masses.
Here it must be pointed out that if daily commuters have a right to unhindered movement, those unhappy with the functioning of the Election Commission, etc., too have a constitutionally protected right to hold a peaceful protest near the seat of power. Protecting the interests of one section and jeopardising the rights of another section cannot be called justice.
Unfortunately, the ruling class of any hue has never been interested in allowing the expression of opposition to its policies and programmes, etc. nearer the two Houses of Parliament and the offices of the Central ministries. That is why the initial protest site at Boat Club, near India Gate, was shifted in 1993 to Jantar Mantar, earlier well known for its observatory built in 1731 by Jaipur ruler Maharaja Sawai Singh-II to study celestial bodies and refine astronomical calculations. In the early nineties, the pretext for shifting the designated place for protests, an essential feature of democracy, was a massive week-long agitation by farmers in October 1988, led by Mahendra Singh Tikait, causing major traffic problems, etc.
The Jantar Mantar ground was, however, acceptable as a protest venue despite having very limited space and other problems because of being located in an area where protesters’ voice could be easily heard or noticed. But this advantage will disappear forever if the government of the day has its way in keeping protesters far away from the Parliament complex.
It is not without reason that most capital cities in the democratic world have designated protest sites near their seat of power. The world’s oldest democracy, the United States of America, has its famous protest venue, Lafayette Square, in Washington DC just across the White House.
In London (UK), protests can be held close to the two Houses of Parliament and along Whitehall in the government district that leads to the Prime Minister’s official residence.
In Paris (France), there are two officially designated places for protest – Place De La Republique and Place De La Concorde – at a distance of around 4 km from the seat of power.
Even in Russian capital Moscow, not having strong credentials as a democracy, the official protest site, Bolotnaya Square, is less than 2 km away from the Kremlin.
An immediate neighbour of India, Sri Lanka, in the news some time back for massive protests against President Gotabaya Rajapksa, has a vacant plot of land marked Agitation Site, located near the Presidential Secretariat at Galle Face, Colombo. The area captured global attention when anti-government protesters occupied the place in late 2022 till early 2024, calling for the President to resign and go home which he could not avoid. The people’s anger became uncontrollable owing to the severe economic crisis they faced with the government doing little.
However, when the people’s anger against their government forces them to come out in the streets in large numbers, not bothered about the consequences, they do not require any specific place to take on their rulers head on. This is what happened in Bangladesh in 2024, where the Sheikh Hasina government had to become history after students forcefully raised their voice against widespread corruption and a discriminatory job quota system for the offspring of the veterans of the 1971 war of independence against Pakistan. What began as demonstrations by university students led to the involvement of other sections of society, resulting in Sheikh Hasina leaving her country in August 2024 to take shelter in India.
Thus, the message is crystal clear. Shifting the protest venue is unlikely to help the government save its skin without finding satisfactory answers to the issues raised by the protesters.
[The writer, former Dy Editor of The Tribune, is a New Delhi-based political commentator. Email: syed.nooruzzaman@gmail.com]