Time for Congress to walk the talk Premium

The Karnataka Congress government continues to follow the 2021 order restricting protests

The Congress recently announced the launch of ‘Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim, Jai Samvidhan’, a campaign to commemorate the 75th year of the Constitution. Hindutva ideologues have denigrated M.K. Gandhi while their antipathy towards Dr. B.R. Ambedkar became evident through the disparaging remarks made by Home Minister Amit Shah in Parliament. In this light, this campaign appears to hold promise.

Since coming to power in Karnataka in 2023, the Congress government has signalled its commitment to the Constitution. It hosted an international conference titled ‘Constitution and National Unity’ in February 2024 and held massive celebrations in September 2024 to mark the International Day of Democracy and the Chief Minister urged people to abide by constitutional values.

Notwithstanding these, a genuine commitment to democracy must minimally ensure that everyone feels like an active participant in a consultative process. Therefore, spaces for peaceful dissent should not be curtailed. In 2021, the BJP government in Karnataka passed the Licensing and Regulation of Protests, Demonstrations and Protest Marches (Bengaluru City) Order, making public protests outside a designated area illegal. The grounds for these were that the “unauthorised manner adversely affect traffic movement, which cause huge vehicular congestion.” After the order, protests in Bengaluru have been limited to a small park ambushed by a parking lot; it is ironically called Freedom Park. Protests attempted to be held anywhere else have met with police crackdowns and FIRs.

The right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly is a fundamental right (Article 19). Indeed, the very idea of satyagraha or peaceful civil disobedience is one of the biggest contributions of India to the rest of the world. When tenant farmers in Bihar’s Champaran district were forced by the British to cultivate indigo and were heavily penalised for any crop failures, Gandhi initiated the historic Champaran Satyagraha in 1917. He defied government orders to leave Champaran; this resistance led to the Champaran Agrarian Law providing relief to farmers. In 1923, the Bombay Legislative Council permitted people across castes to use places built and run by the government. However, Dalits were prevented by caste Hindus from drinking water from public tanks. In defiance, in 1927, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar led thousands of Dalits to walk to Chavdar tank in Maharashtra’s Mahad and drank water from the tank in protest. These, among many others, have given the world a grammar of dissent.

The Congress government in Karnataka has continued the undemocratic order passed in 2021. On August 15, 2022, 72 farmers protesting against government acquisition of their land in Devanahalli were arrested and FIRs were registered against them. Numerous pro-Palestine protesters have been detained. The police slapped FIRs against several people who gathered at the steps of Town Hall in Bengaluru to protest against the assault of two Manipuri women. The Karnataka High Court quashed those FIRs, but the process of fighting itself became a punishment. In 2023, on Gandhi’s birth anniversary, hundreds of citizens walked from the Gandhi statue to Vidhana Soudha as a satyagraha to reclaim the rights to peaceful assembly. They were detained by the police and an FIR was filed against several people.

Although election rallies and religious processions cause traffic, only protest rallies are banned. Controlling traffic is a civic matter. The government’s rationale that protests held at a particular spot cause traffic is unfounded. For instance, protesting at the steps of Town Hall does not cause traffic. The real reason for traffic snarls are the exponential rise of private vehicles without a commensurate increase in affordable and quality public transportation. Peaceful protests are usually the last resort for people when all appeals to the government fail. Therefore, using traffic as a reason to curb constitutional freedoms is undemocratic.

If the Congress wants to walk the talk, it must revoke the 2021 order. Peaceful protests are sites where the theatre of democracy is performed and its pedagogy is put to practice. So long as this is not done, the ‘Jai Bapu, Jai Bhim, Jai Samvidhan’ campaign and other events would appear to be mere platitudes.