In defence of peaceful dissent
Maintaining order is important. But so are the rights of citizens
Oshould presence done, especially citizens have to maintain been to n Citizenship across the within government’s given Thursday, exercise simple. constitutionally order, the events the Ensure country. their Indian (Amendment) those while of response the rights. police democratic opposed enabling This guaranteed past This was few Act to days in is the planned framework. accordance easier rights in passage the of said national protests citizens of than with The the capital it is Instead, what (the decided the in Jamia government many to impose Millia parts Islamia of Section should the country, and have 144, Seelampur which tried the to governments prohibits do. violence), gatherings concerned but personal of more both liberty. than governed This four was people, by the done Bharatiya and across places Uttar Janata other Pradesh Party, restrictions and and parts Karnataka, on of Mangaluru, Delhi. The and violence Uttar seen Pradesh in parts (in Lucknow) of Karnataka, may especially have vindicated in this approach, but in the Capital, and in Bengaluru, it had the and flavour order falls of overreach. directly under In the the Capital, Centre, for mobile instance, services where providers law few were locations ordered (the to first suspend time this services happened and block in the the capital); Internet barricades in a resulting were placed in gigantic to restrict traffic entry jams of people and causing into the many city to at miss borders, flights and trains; and close to two dozen metro stations were shut down, causing inconvenience to thousands of commuters.
It isn’t clear whether there was specific intelligence that prompted the imposition of Section 144 in Delhi and Bengaluru. In both, protestors, armed only with posters and pamphlets, many of whom were detained and later released, said the executive has directly impinged and violated their fundamental right to free speech and to free association and assembly. In contrast, in Mumbai, Section 144 wasn’t imposed, and the protests were peaceful and non-disruptive.
This newspaper has stood against violent protests, as in Delhi’s Seelampur on Tuesday. But using the threat of violence, or painting protests as a conspiracy by political rivals who have repeatedly shown themselves as organisationally incapable of stitching together such national protests, cannot be an excuse to curb fundamental rights. History shows that dissent can’t be sustainably contained by simply deploying greater force. The onus lies squarely on the government to break out of this cycle, find a political solution to the controversy, but most critically, respect the right of the Indian citizen to speak, protest, move and assemble freely — as long as there is no threat to peace.