February 6 is the day farmers’ groups intend to hold a ‘chakka jaam’, or road block, to highlight their continuing opposition to the the government’s three farm laws. Unsurprisingly, the police in and around Delhi decided they would take no chances and erected formidable blockades of their own.
The state’s response to the latest phase of the farmers’ protest may be a product of what happened in Delhi on Republic Day but it reflects a deep distrust in the functioning of real democracy and the legitimate processes through which changes take place in societies. Sadly, that distrust is widely shared by the big media too. Consider these views:
“The chaos and mindless violence unleashed on the national capital by a section of protesting farmers on Republic Day were abhorrent… They must discontinue the protest for now and disperse… They should consider options short of a complete repeal of the laws,” said an editorial in the Hindu on January 28.
Around the same time, unnamed “sources in the government” told the Indian Express that farmers’ leaders, who are protesting against the three laws, have lost “moral authority” in the wake of violent protests in the national capital on Republic Day. “The government has already given them (farmer leaders) a better proposal, but they did not accept it. They lost good opportunity. They have (now) lost the moral authority. Now, we have to see whether they accept that offer or they come with a counter proposal,” said the report, citing a source.
The right to protest and agitation
The claim that a violent incident in which some protesters may (or may not) be involved invalidates the cause of the entire protest is deeply disturbing. The validity of a reason for demanding change always remains independent of the methods employed to achieve that change. If that was not so, then every single freedom struggle around the world would have no “moral authority” because every single such struggle has been accompanied by some violence.
The same is true for movements associated with the the right to vote for women, the struggle by Blacks for equality with whites in the US and even workers demanding an eight-hour day.
Protests take place because of a sense of subjective injustice, loss of control over one’s existence, perceived exclusions, unfair treatment in society with regard to employment, civil rights and political representation.
Also read: The January 26 Violence Was a Result of Police Incompetence, Negligence and Chaos by Design
Matthew Schoene of Albion College in the US has been studying protest movements and suggests that if governments are reliable and responsive, that reduces the need for protest since people can receive consistent representation without pressuring their government. Protests are not random events and can depend on the level of grievances and discontent held by a population.
Jim Aulich, another researcher on modern protest movements claims that “much contemporary dissent, for example, finds its sources of discontent in neoliberalism, monopoly capitalism, and the breakdown of social democracy and civil society as the result of the unequal distribution of opportunity and increased precarity”.
Even if the above analyses are partially correct, it becomes very important for us to engage in a serious introspection of why we are seeing a large variety of protest movements and why the establishment almost always reacts so negatively. By the establishment I mean the group in power, mainstream newspapers and TV channels, and most of the upper class of the country.
The most recent protest movements – the one at Shaheen Bagh and now the farmers’ protests in Delhi and around the country – have drawn very large participation by those not usually associated with political movements. Anyone who has been a part of organising a protest knows that it is not easy to get more than a few hundred people to an event and to stay there for many days.
Farmers stand next to an overturned tractor at ITO during their Kisan Gantantra Parade to protest against Centres farm reform laws, on the occasion of 72nd Republic Day, in New Delhi, Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Brief visits to the sites of these protests cannot help in discovering the depth of commitment of the participants, their fears (real or imagined), the source of their strength and excitement and their understanding of the issues involved. However, all of them have resulted in court cases, deployment of the police and violence at different levels of lethality, if we include the February 2020 communal violence that was used to scuttle the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
These protests signal at least some level of a breakdown of the social contract between the powerful and the powerless. This also means that arbitrary levels of legal and police force can become a part of the process to control eruptions of discontent. If the frequency of “violence” at such events has to be reduced, we will have to become a little more honest with ourselves.
While everyone officially abhors violence, it is also clear that neither the state nor vast sections of our society actually believe in non-violence to resolve contentious disputes. In this situation, it becomes very important for us to realise that the challenge for reducing violence in protest situations rests primarily with the state. This would require more empathy with protest movements on our part. It would mean internalising the American historian Howard Zinn’s belief that “protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it”.
Also read: The Action of Dissident Factions Can’t Be Used to Discredit an Otherwise Peaceful Protest
We could start by discussing policy options that would make it possible for protests to be held in a less antagonistic atmosphere. In a highly hierarchical society with very unequal distribution of wealth and a large number of linguistic, ethnic and religious groups, most protest movements will, by definition, involve some “minority” group and not have majority or elite support – no matter how just the cause is.
In a majoritarian context, this portends serious dislocations in the body politic. We could start by thinking of small measures like allowing protests in most places in all cities. By confining protests to designated out of the way locations, the authorities start by irritating, provoking and even inflaming the aggrieved group. Our cities must be reopened for people to express their concerns in a much less hostile atmosphere.
Unless we move toward a society where the demands of citizens can be judged on their humanistic and constitutional merit, we are bound to find ourselves in a more contentious and violent democracy.
Dinesh Mohan does research on road safety.