Democracy and Anarchy

जागरण संपादकीय ब्लॉग

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In the last few days, the farmer’s protest in the state of Uttar Pradesh has been on a boil. Their demands may seem partially fair and in few cases somewhat stretched. Without a shadow of doubt, the circumstances in which the farmers of our country have been operating are far from ideal and systemic measures are required to allay their grievances and offer sustainable solutions.

This piece however is not to delve into the hardships of our farmers or comment on the merits of their demands. It is the manner in which the protests are carried out and the way the governments of the day deal with such movements that has prompted this write up.

National Highway 58 connects national capital Delhi with the state of Uttarakhand via townships of Ghaziabad, Meerut, and Muzaffaranagar. For over a week, the traffic on the highway was obstructed. There were tens of thousands of farmers on the roads marching towards Delhi. The police and administration as it promptly does in such cases blocked and diverted regular traffic. There are hundreds of thousands of people commuting on this highway on a daily basis. A sizeable geographical region comprising parts of two states with a population of millions, disconnected from their national capital. What an irony, the entire disruption was for the sake of democracy, to uphold liberty and in the name of right to protest.

Right to Protest is enshrined in Article 19 of our constitution, which grants citizens the fundamental right to assemble peacefully and without arms. Of course in any robust democracy, right to protest is an essential right. Be that as it may, the courts have also held that this right to protest cannot be unfettered and is subject to reasonable restrictions. It cannot infringe someone else’s rights, cannot disrupt traffic or movement of people, cannot resort to coercion, cannot damage public or private property or allow violence of any kind. The travesty is that during the course of protest of any magnitude, the protestors as well as the authorities choose to gloss over the violation of the established principle of law. Unfortunately this dereliction was not the first time and the way things stand, far from being the last time.

Lets look beyond this agriculturist’s movement. What is the commonality in the protests initiated by political outfit of any hue, or for that matter any group? The recurring pattern is violence, arson, road blocs, traffic disruption, forced shut downs and basically hooligans and goons having a field day. The economic cost runs into thousands of crores, the courts have also in the past issued advisory to the state to levy fines on those responsible. How many instances do we recall of the accused being compelled to indemnify?

Peaceful protests are integral to any democratic framework and exist in varied shades worldwide. The catchword here is peaceful. Should evolved democracies allow protest to become a euphemism for vandalism? Students of history reminisce how Gandhi ji halted the non-cooperation movement against the British, because some workers retaliating to police firing, set fire to the police station at Chauri Chaura, leading to the death of over 20 policemen. Well today lesser mortals are leading protests and such idealism may seem utopian. However, it has perhaps become incumbent on civilized societies to devise ways of non-agitational protests and in all fairness even the state to develop non-lethal ways of combating such protests. At no stage although should anarchy supplant order and rule of law. The latter is as much a requisite for a thriving democracy as any liberty.

Now in any democracy, since it is the elected executive that is constitutionally empowered to enforce the rule of law, I am tempted to dwell somewhat more on the quality of government service:

The aforementioned highway NH 58 is possibly the worst stretch in the country if not the world. The travel time to cover a distance of 70 kilometers or so ranges between an hour and a half to three and a half hours and God forbid at the height of any unruly demonstration, during political processions, on festivals, during the wedding season, it is well nigh impossible to set a time frame.

If we look at just the preceding couple of months, this highway has been plagued by problems mostly avoidable or at least manageable. It was the downpour during the monsoon season, which resulted in, water logging and road break down and made movement tedious. I have expressed in this column earlier that it rains every year and not once in 12 years and yet we are always ill equipped. The roads are not built to last but to be rebuilt. Shared loot is safe loot. Continuing the tradition in early August, the Kavad yatra severed the region that this highway connects with Delhi. On the day of Ganesh visarjan in September, there was a 5-kilometer long jam. Last few days, it has been the farmer protest that has thrown traffic off gear. Soon the annual shoddy patchwork of broken down roads is likely to start bringing in associated movement delays. Shortly afterwards, the festival season will commence and post that the wedding season. Now those are occasions to rejoice and they sort of legitimize traffic woes, well at least the authorities believe so.

The highway seems to have become a playground for political and religious processions, festival and wedding celebrations, basically for everything but vehicles. The authorities have displayed scant will to remedy the ill. To the citizen stuck indefinitely on the road, it is the unpredictability apart from the agonizing delay that makes him cringe and the callous attitude and inept approach of the powers that be, which leaves him, exasperated. Is it time the plebeian and the privileged inure themselves to such emotions? Well I am an incorrigible optimist, I hope not.

Highway management, inability to first preempt and subsequently manage agitational protest is not the only example of poor governance. There are scores of underperforming areas, albeit, here I would like to briefly touch upon a kind of dyed in the wool mindset:

In every city of India perhaps, there are unauthorized settlements, encroachments. Slums have proliferated and squatters are visibly around. How often have we witnessed any concerted action against them? On the other hand we do hear and read about a handful of farmhouses or properties of the so-called affluent segment being sealed or ordered to be demolished. Why was the construction allowed in the first place, is anyone’s guess? Yes of course two wrongs don’t make a right and I am not advocating condonation but opposing disproportionate demonization. The under privileged sections have a right to live with dignity and the way to ensure that will be to rehabilitate them rather than allow them to de facto legitimize and there by perpetuate their illegal existence. Besides sensitive gentrification will only be salubrious to the sanitation campaign.

A moot point here is that how long will the discretion of the executive, judiciary and the activist community be shrouded by what is an undeniable truth that the economic majority in this country is a political minority and democracy is a game of numbers? Is it not time we jettison this fraught socialist mindset that always views the bourgeois as the hunter and the proletariat as the quarry? One of the prerequisites of a vibrant, evolved democracy is that the rule of law has to apply equally and impartially, neither in undue favor of the hoi polloi nor indiscriminately against the so perceived aristocrats or vice versa.

If India has to make that journey from developing to developed, from third world to first world, our society and polity will have to imbibe the protocol of protest, the executive will need to develop the capacity to absorb those protests which are within the realm and quell those which deviate. Gratuitous to reiterate that quality and delivery of government service will be paramount for us as a nation to score on parameters of human life index.

After all isn’t that the hitherto holy grail we all aspire for?