New Delhi: Eminent citizens on October 22 came together to denounce the recent ruling of the Supreme Court on a petition against the Shaheen Bagh protest, in which the apex court observed that “dissent and democracy go hand in hand but protests must be carried out in designated areas”.
The meet, organised by Concerned Citizen’s Collective, proclaimed the need to uphold the right to protest through the legend, ‘Democracy dies when its streets fall silent’.
Feminist theorist Nivedita Menon said, “We have to ask if all legislation passed by parliament is sacrosanct.” She charged that the Citizenship Amendment Act was a law that discriminated against Muslims. “It is espoused under the principle of Hindu Rashtra and not the Indian constitution.”
Menon also insisted that most of those named in Delhi police chargesheet in the North East Delhi riots were those who have conducted fact-finding in cases that largely involved Muslim victims. She also lamented that a large number of social activists were languishing in jail.
A professor of political thought at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Menon said, “It is time that a very serious fundamental debate starts on the right to protest in India.”
Also read: SC’s Shaheen Bagh Order: Fundamental Rights for Commuters, No Country for Protesters
In the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, she said, one issue that was raised was that if people were being “over-policed”. One way of dealing with this, that could be explored, she said, was to find non-funded forms of public safety. She said it also needs to be debated “what we are to do when police concocts theories that suit the parties in power – and there are thousands of such instances.”
Pointing out that the role of the police in the rape of women in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh and more recently in Model Town in north Delhi was “reprehensible”, she said it appears that the police have become the private army of ‘Hindu Rashtra’.
‘Constitution is the product of dissent’
Citing the examples of dissent between B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi, which ultimately saw the return of Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly, senior Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde said, “Constitution is the product of that dissent and the recognition of dissent. Our forefathers fought for a free country with men and women having inalienable rights.”
However, he said, “Over the last few years – there has been a gradual chilling of dissent, it is being treated as a fire that has to be put down.”
He added that the idea should be to “comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable”. “There can be no demo without a dissenter and in the protection of the dissenter lies the strength of our democracy”.
‘Delhi riots investigation has itself become a conspiracy’
In his recorded message, which was played to the gathering, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan said, “In he context of Shaheen Bagh, the Supreme Court delivered a strange order in which it said that people do not have the right to protest and the police can identify where the protest can be held.”
Also read: Supreme Court’s Shaheen Bagh Judgment Will Lead to Fresh Curbs on Right of Peaceful Protest
He said these protesters were speaking against discrimination of religion and for the victims of violence but they were targeted.
“People like Umar Khalid were arrested for doing what the youth of our nation should be doing,” said Bhushan, adding that several activists are being “falsely accused by Delhi police of instigating violence – the investigation has itself become a conspiracy – they impose UAPA against the accused so that they do not get bail.”
But now, he said, this conspiracy is getting exposed. “I would urge the (Delhi) police to improve – or they would be considered like UP police of the 1950s about whom Justice A.N. Mulla of the Allahabad high court had said that it was the biggest organised gang of the country.”
‘Contestation is central to any democracy’
President of Swaraj India, Yogendra Yadav recalled how socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia had said, “Jab sadakain sooni ho jaati hain to sansad aawara ho jaatay hain” (that loosely translates to ‘When the streets are deserted, parliament becomes wayward’).
He said this quote illustrated the inner connect between democracy and contestation. “Contestation is central to any democracy and that is what is being stifled today.”
“Our judges say we should protest in designated places with proper permission – do they not know how the police operates. The police refuse permission so they can then claim that this was an illegal protest.”
Yadav, who was recently actively involved in protests against the three farmers bills in Haryana, recollected how recently on October 14 following the death of an elderly man, who was protesting in Ambala with black flags against a tractor rally called by BJP in support of the laws, the police booked several Bharatiya Kisan Union activists on the charge of murder. “The man slumped and fell on his own. There was no violence or scuffle and yet the men were booked for murder,” he said, adding that this showed how the police was misused.
Photo: The Wire
Yadav also spoke about how in Mumbai, three police stations served notices to anti-CAA protesters and students who participated in the protests against violence at JNU. “So while there has been no action on those who perpetrated violence at JNU (on January 5, 2020), the students of TISS who came out to protest against it have been booked. Also they have been asked to furnish surety of between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh,” he said, highlighting the bias.
‘Everyone is fair game, you never know who would be next (to be put behind bars)’
Internationally acclaimed author Arundhati Roy commented on the arrests and death of social activists saying, “Every time I speak here I see the ghosts of all those who are today in prison. There are no more eminent people in this country – everyone is fair game, they are all on cancellation list. You don’t know who will be in the next lot when this has been dealt with.”
She said be it activists involved with the Bhima Koregaon protests, student leaders or anti-CAA protesters, everyone was a target and the “constitution has been rendered useless – police courts and judges are reading a different constitution from the one we were taught.”
Stating that after India witnessed crushing of popular people’s movements in the 60s and 70s, it saw a lot of displacement of the masses in the 80s and 90s and talking about these issues was considered revolutionary. “Now we are begging against mass incarceration – which began in Kashmir, the North East and Central India where thousands of villagers, poor and Adivasis were put in jail on charges of sedition and under the UAPA – which is a loose collection of words that allows the state to keep a person behind bar for long periods.”
Telling people to take a look at what became of the people of Assam due to NRC, Roy said the Centre was now trying to promulgate it in the rest of the country. “State is asking for documents which it approves – as was in Nuremberg in Nazi Germany – this is to cut the ground from under the feet of Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis,” she said.
Also read: In Hathras Rape Victim’s Village, Caste Discrimination Is an Everyday Reality
‘Mainstream media has become most toxic’
Further, she charged that “what happened in Hathras shows you that every organ in this country is rotten. The Dalit girl said in three videos that ‘I was gangraped’ and she named the men” but the state blamed the victim. In Delhi too a girl was found hanging and again cremated before evidence was collected.”
Roy also accused the media of failing these victims. “The most rotten part, shameful part is the mainstream media – people who call themselves anchors but are spineless pets on saffron leash.” She said it was these people who had also built a narrative around Umar Khalid. “Problem is the anchors and those who advertise on these toxic channels.”
The author also accused the Centre of trying to deflect the attention from the economy being in shreds and people not having jobs by having a pipeline of hatred being funnelled by the media. She charged that the “government has criminalised social movements, opposition and non-conforming NGOs” and gained as the “election funding is completely opaque – the election is like watching the Ferrari of BJP racing against the cycles of the other parties.”
Stating that the ruling does not want an opposition to exist and was using Enforcement Directorate and other agencies to threaten their leaders, she said, the “the only good thing is this is unsustainable – so individual judges, CMs and politicians are now slowly speaking out.” Roy insisted that people should fight fascism. “We are all living in a time which is worse than any we have seen. The time to stand up is now.”
Photo: The Wire
‘Will continue to raise voice against atrocity, discrimination’
Nadeem Khan, co-founder of United Against Hate, a group which has been actively involved in the movement against the CAA-NRC, said while judges in the Supreme Court interpret the law, every day the station house officers in the police stations write their own new constitution.
As for the permission for protests, he said, “The question to be asked is why people feel the need to protest”. Khan said the need to protest arises due to discrimination. He spoke about how his group had taken up various issues.
These, he said, included the disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, who went missing in 2016. “When his mother went to Vasant Kunj Police Station an officer was heard saying that we are not going to do anything in the case and still no one knows where he is,” he said. Police claimed in court that the pattern lock on the phones of the accused could not be opened. “But in the Delhi riots cases they have the phones of 300 accused with them…”
‘Abnormal has been normalised’
Convener of the Safai Karamchari Andolan and a recipient of the Magsaysay Award, Bezwada Wilson said the problem was that in India, “We have normalised the abnormal and any person’s view can be seen as dissent”.
He said there are also many pressing issues which demand an answer.
“People asked why was the body of the Hathras victim cremated late at night. People ask why when there are so many lakh tons of grain stored in India does the country rank 94 on the Hunger Index. Why is it that an agitation is needed to get an FIR registered for an atrocity against Dalits, poor and minorities? And when people raise these issues, it is viewed as dissent,” he said.