The Significance Of Protests In The ‘Mother Of Democracy’
· Free Press Journal
BJP spokesperson and member of parliament Sandeep Patra criticised the October 10 Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest at Jantar Mantar, calling it an attempt to create unrest. He said the protest did not reflect the mood of the nation, which, he said, remained peaceful, adding Jantar Mantar’s story is not India’s story. Describing the protesters as “anarchist forces” and calling Rahul Gandhi an “anarchist”, Patra accused the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition of trying his best to conduct anarchy on the streets of India. However, by dismissing the protests as a “flop show” of anarchists, he inadvertently focused on the importance of protests in what was described as the ‘mother of democracy’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Thousands of citizens have been protesting in the national capital and elsewhere since October 2 against what they see as the subversion of the electoral process. What began as a major grievance against exam irregularities and demand for educational reforms earlier in June has expanded to include the dismissal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for the controversial and flawed SIR, which impacts not just citizens' voting rights but also their citizenship status and access to welfare schemes. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been at the forefront of raising these issues for a long time, but his concerns were dismissed as a “loser’s grievances without evidence”.
However, since the CJP stepped in to demand the CEC’s resignation and the freezing of the SIR, the protests have expanded to include civil society, student activists, former civil servants, and opposition parties. The issues at hand are not just the SIR and the CEC’s resignation but a pushback against the broader ecosystem of opaque governance under the ruling dispensation, which has, allegedly, pursued a range of anti-democratic policies over the past decade to undermine opposition, federalism, media freedom, democratic rights, and independence of democratic institutions. It started as a movement for the CEC’s resignation but has turned into an anti-Modi government stir.
Protests have been an integral part of India’s emergence as the world’s largest democracy. Save for the brief Emergency period, Indian democracy, however imperfect, was not like what it is today. Innumerable political and grassroots movements, agitations, protests, labour strikes, and campaigns against government policies are foundational to India’s democracy and have served as a vital check on power outside of regular elections. Protestors are never a homogenous group, but labelling protestors as anarchists is mistaking activism for anarchism.
Discontent and protest are part of human life and its very existence. They can manifest in different ways and may not always be political in nature. When politics reduces itself to a level of all-powerful autocracy, people protest the facade of democracy and lack of accountability. Labelling all those who read, think, have an opinion, question the government or amplify marginalised voices, agitate for democratic rights, and demand better schools and hospitals as “Dimagi Naxals”, as the Prime Minister did in his Independence Day speech, is an obvious attempt to narrow the boundaries of legitimate dissent and frame the wave of youth protests as anti-national, rather than addressing their anxieties.
Asserting constitutional rights and demanding accountability from the government and democratic institutions is not criminality; rather, protest should be seen as a form of negotiation with the socio-political structure. But when the state itself uses strong force to suppress legitimate demands, it becomes a ground for more discontent, demonstrations, sit-ins, and rallies. After yielding to the demand of the leaderless Gen Z protestors at Jantar Mantar in July, the government seems determined to treat the youth as an adversary who have found their political voice which resonates with common citizens.
History has shown time and again that people cannot be suppressed for long. Neither can a state forever wish to control individuals. People have protested and rebelled in every possible way for ages. What we are witnessing in India currently is a manifestation of a challenge and resistance against an ideological orthodoxy, both political and religious, that expects and enforces obedience at social and political levels. A democratic state is not harmonious when everyone agrees. It is amicable and healthy when people have the right to disagree. Citizens of a democratic country believe in different political, social, and economic ideologies; they cannot be forced to abide by one ideology or socio-political structure and uniformity.
Not all protests are progressive. Some can be flawed, and some can be contradictory as well. When citizens question institutions and their protected functionaries, it is a sign of individual freedom taking hold in everyday life, challenging the accumulated structure of a flawed system of power and governance that glosses over economic distress, deeply entrenched inequality, and caste biases with narratives of nationalism and development. Narratives are exaggerated stories, a framed, structured version of reality or a rigid simplification of a complex, ever-changing reality that quickly clashes with new facts and shifting social needs.
This is not to say that every protest is right or every demand is just. The counter-argument of protestors is that patriotism does not mean a “good citizen is a compliant citizen”, and dissent is anti-national. The problem with the political leadership is that it expects unquestioned loyalty and sees protest as national weakness. Dissent should be seen as evidence that a democracy is healthy and vibrant. The larger life in a democratic country need not be uniform, and diversity of opinion does not mean disunity. Protests can be inconvenient, but silence does not mean patriotism. Elected governments don’t cease to be accountable because they have a parliamentary majority.
Research shows that collective action shapes history and delivers measurable results over a longer term. Democracy is noisy because it is a rule by the people and for the people. A nation that treats protests as disobedience is a country where citizens are expected to suffer in silence. The problem is not that India cannot withstand dissent and disagreement; the problem is that the government which came to power against the backdrop of a massive anti-corruption movement fears that the youth protests could spread into a wider mass movement for political change.
The writer is a senior independent Mumbai-based journalist. He tweets at @ali_chougule