After riding high on protests in its opposition days, BJP govt denies citizens those very rights. Now that they are in power, they want to clutch it tight.
There used to be a joke during the time the late Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister in India and General Zia-ul-Haq was the president of Pakistan. The Indians would gloat about the freedom they enjoyed at home and would tell the Pakistanis, “We are truly a free country, we can freely criticise our PM Rajiv Gandhi.” And the Pakistanis smirked and said, “What is so free about that? Even we can freely criticise Rajiv Gandhi in our country.” Now the bhakts need not jump about in ecstasy over this joke, considering it is their hobby to criticise the Nehru-Gandhi family. But just pause for a minute – everybody still blames the Nehru-Gandhi family for all the ills of this nation, but are citizens allowed to criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Home Minister Amit Shah? Now that the government has asked for cyber-vigilantism, would those reported be spared? In such circumstances, just imagine you are driving on a one-way street anywhere in the west, where traffic rules are strictly implemented. You cannot get off that road if you have forgotten something. You cannot suddenly take a U-turn or turn left or right. Now ask yourselves, is your life any different from this scenario right now?
The majoritarian rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party is similar to military rule. Forget criticising the Pradhan Sevak, now, going by the rule in our country and his recent speech (a day after the ‘ansoo-bhara’ speech), he spoke about ‘parasites’ – those protesting on any issue they have a problem with, be it the education policy, farm bills, CAA, NRC policies and so on. He also objected to those holding placards seeking the freeing of the arrested urban Naxals, ‘terrorists’ and jailed Shaheen Bagh activists, all those being denied bail and trial. The PM has also objected to citizens criticising the corporate entities. He said, some may have got votes criticising the private sector, but it will not be acceptable any more. “We cannot keep criticising our youth”. My cranial nerves are jammed trying to think which of the India Inc top guns are the said ‘youth’, because the two most powerful corporate honchos whom Rahul Gandhi referred to as ‘Hum Do Humarey Do’ are certainly no spring chickens. But we will be arrested if we ask, right? The environment in the so-called largest democracy is far from free. Those who seek answers, ask questions or are seen to be opinionated can suddenly see their social media accounts being blocked. Many of the same youths who the PM claims are our future are being jailed for editing a public document, a Google toolkit tweeted by that other ‘young’ climate activist Greta Thunberg. Conspiracy theorists have been put in action to send out messages all at once on social media. But that’s no Tweetstorm, mind you.
When the head of the state says he condemns those who criticise the corporates, it was a direct hit at the protesting farmers. But just as this criticism is not seen as healthy, corporate honcho Rahul Bajaj too hit a rough patch after criticising the government and said that “companies do not dare criticise the government”. It is a no-win situation for Indians right now. Just as we heard the Google kit and other conspiracy theories to destabilise the country, interestingly, FoundationTLS, the London Story, made public the BJP narrative. After the young activist, Disha Ravi was arrested for editing a line in Greta’s toolkit, the BJP’s IT cell began circulating its own toolkit. Immediately topics that could arouse the sentiments of the majority were trending – gauraksha, love jihad and so on. It did not stop here, this mob went on to saying Disha was pregnant and it was a veritable Twitter storm on Monday night. Why did the mainstream media not question the police for not producing transit remand before arresting the woman? The Union Ministry of Home Affairs also issued an arrest warrant against advocate Nikita Jacob who had attended the Zoom meeting a few days prior to Republic Day in which Greta, Disha and founder of Poetic Justice Foundation Mo Dhaliwal participated. However, it is simply the curiosity and urge to do something that has got these young people into trouble. But weren’t these the very same youth the PM defended staunchly in the Parliament? Perhaps, not.
I will just run you through some of the protests and events that occurred before 2014, when this government first came to power. At that time the BJP and allied parties, along with their affiliated parties took to the streets ever so often when in the opposition, and rightly so. But now that they are in power, they want to clutch it tight, disallowing that same fundamental right to the citizens and other parties in the opposition.
Right now, petrol costs Rs 96 while diesel is at Rs 86.98 per litre respectively, in Mumbai. In Chennai, petrol is at Rs 91.68, in Delhi Rs 89.54. This was quite similar to the times in 2011 when the BJP stormed the streets to protest the price hike. We are yet to hear a murmur after this recent hike. If you please, during the UPA government, the BJP gave a call to the citizens to stop cooperating and not to pay taxes. They also gave a call to bring a no-confidence motion against the Dr Manmohan Singh government.
The way the CBI, ED, NIA, NCB and other investigating agencies have been deployed to chase all those opposing the government or have extended sympathy to the protesters, in case of Deepika Padukone who visited Jawaharlal Nehru University and the NCB called her immediately for questioning, the narrative put out was the Hindi film industry needs to be flushed out of drugs, alcohol, the underworld and other anti-social elements. Well, in 2010, the BJP raised the issue of misuse of the CBI by the UPA government and took to the streets. The BJP leaders submitted a memorandum to the PM Singh, demanding to immediately stop the misuse of CBI and ensure its impartiality, independence and autonomy. PM Manmohan Singh was then blamed even for the vegetable price hike and the BJP at that time had ‘threatened to intensify the agitation’ and gherao Parliament. The targets were the PM, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar. Now, imagine these protests in today’s times.
Later in 2012, the BJP had threatened a nation-wide agitation prior to the beginning of the winter session of Parliament, against the UPA government against price rise, corruption, scams and FDI in retail.
In 2013, the BJP demanded the resignation of PM Manmohan Singh over graft charges. The youth wing of the BJP clashed with the police as it tried to march towards the PM’s residence. While this same party that is now ruling has of course even sent signals to the apex court to ensure no long-term protests are held anymore against their government.
Just last week, we heard the Supreme Court first say that as citizens, our fundamental right to protest is upheld, as long as it is spontaneous. But in case of prolonged protests, people cannot continue to occupy public space, as it affects the rights of other people. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Kirshna Murari said, “The right to protest cannot be anytime and everywhere. There may be some spontaneous protests but in case of prolonged dissent or protest, there cannot be continued occupation of public place affecting the rights of others”.
Do you realise as a citizen your rights are being slowly eroded? First, every government, be it the Congress or the BJP (more during this time) have restricted the number of places where citizens can protest and within a timeframe. Now, with the apex court also restraining long-term protests, the BJP has deprived every citizen of the same right it once enjoyed.
Now lastly, I will bring to you two of the longest protests, which occupied space and had the nation on tenterhooks during the UPA government. First were the protests after the gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman, whom many news channels referred to as Nirbhaya. In fact, even Modi in his campaign in 2013, attacked the Congress party and asked the citizens to remember ‘Nirbhaya rape’ case while going to vote for the assembly polls in December 2013. Nobody questioned him even then on why this rape case was being capitalised on.
The other landmark protest by the BJP was in 2011, the Campaign against Corruption, led by Anna Hazare, but was backed by the BJP and Aam Aadmi Party, with leaders like the late Arun Jaitley, Arvind Kejriwal and Nitin Gadkari playing prominent roles.
I see nothing wrong if farmers have been sitting on protest since September 2020.
Neeta Kolhatkar is a senior journalist with over 30 years of work experience across different media platforms. She is currently a freelancer and media consultant.
(Views Expressed Are Personal)
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
