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[Thought experiment]
Like him or hate him, the Prime Minister comands wide support - having won the last election with well over 300 seats. Yet a protest movement has now openly declared that it will remove him from office through non-electoral means.
Contd...
Like him or hate him, the Prime Minister comands wide support - having won the last election with well over 300 seats. Yet a protest movement has now openly declared that it will remove him from office through non-electoral means.
Contd...
(2) Protesters are gathering in New Delhi with plans to besiege the Prime Minister's house. ‘We intend to overthrow him,’ an opposition leader tells the media. ‘Thousands of us will surround his house to prevent her from going out or receiving visitors.'
Contd...
Contd...
(3) This follows over a year of student-protests involving extreme disruption and frequent bloodshed.
A Union minster has been assassinated.
And the figurehead of the protest movement has called on police Army personnel to disregard orders they consider 'illegal'.
Contd...
A Union minster has been assassinated.
And the figurehead of the protest movement has called on police Army personnel to disregard orders they consider 'illegal'.
Contd...
(4) Meanwhile, massive labour strikes are rocking the country. One union leader brings the entire Indian railways to a standstill, for nineteen days. He also has plans to literally dynamite bridges and culverts as a statement of protest.
Contd...
Contd...
(5) So what's your reaction to this scenario, and what would you say is justified state response?
Because this was (just part of) the situation facing Indira Gandhi when she declared a state of Emergency in 1975. All factual; only the gender of the PM is changed.
Because this was (just part of) the situation facing Indira Gandhi when she declared a state of Emergency in 1975. All factual; only the gender of the PM is changed.
(6) The Emergency is back in the dock today, thanks to the Supreme Court and its priorities.
This headline is dark comedy, at a time when civil liberties in India are collapsing once again. https://twitter.com/barandbench/status/1338314032869044225
This headline is dark comedy, at a time when civil liberties in India are collapsing once again. https://twitter.com/barandbench/status/1338314032869044225
(7) But it's also a great time to revisit the mid-1970s and see what extreme protest has meant in India. The comparison helps us reassess how 'disruptive' today's #farmersrprotests are.
Or Shaheen Bagh / the anti-NRC national movement that started a year ago.
Or Shaheen Bagh / the anti-NRC national movement that started a year ago.
(8) It should also help us reassess the statements of today's leaders about protest, liberties and order. Because many of our current cabinet ministers started their political careers in the extreme anti-Indira protests.
(9) The most prominent was Arun Jaitley, but look for the year 1974 in most of their biographies... Including our Prime Minister's. There's a lot to learn. As for the dynamite-happy Railway Union leader, George Fernandes, he ended up a cabinet minister under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
(10) What this tells me is that public protest does have limits. It can eventually threaten national stability - as it did in the 1970s.
What's remarkable today is how much state suppression we now justify for much smaller, non-violent demonstrations.
What's remarkable today is how much state suppression we now justify for much smaller, non-violent demonstrations.
(11) The Emergency is notorious and it was a terrible reaction. Many Indians feel (and maybe the Supreme Court will discover) that we suffer a similar reactionary moment -- only without any comparable provocation.
(12) PS. Before you point to the Allahabad HC ruling on Raj Narain etc: the Supreme Court gave Indira Gandhi a conditional stay on that ruling. It was the stay order that provoked the plan to march on the PM's home.
