Protests: A Test Of Democracies

In the previous monologues on the podcast, I had spoken about some values and principles that I find to be foundational in the modern social and personal life, at least in my view. Free speech is the most basic principle that is public in nature that I say we must espouse, which is why I have done 2 monologues on it. One cannot overstate its importance. In terms of legal rights, it is only second freedom of conscience, that you are free to think whatever you like.

I also did one episode on democracy and how it evolved in the world. As Winston Churchill had famously remarked about democracies, that it is the worst system of governance except for all others. In any case, it is amply clear that today, there is no more effective way of governing countries while not alienating the people from the government than democracy. The most basic form of such a governance is summed up very well by USA, that the purpose of the govt is to protect Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness of people.

In keeping with the same spirit, today I want to talk about another right and discuss its relevance today. That right is the right to protest. This has to be discussed because we are seeing its use, quite often reckless use, relentlessly for so many years now. We will consider examples in a while. First, let me quickly go over the idea of what a protest itself is and why there is a right to protest in the first place.

The Concept

Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines a protest as “display of unwillingness usually to an idea or a course of action”. In terms of politics, in which we are really interested here, it means, the dissatisfaction or disapproval of people to a certain decision that is made by authorities. Usually, as part of a protest, people gather on the streets, carrying banners and placards and loudspeakers and megaphones and what not, as an effort to ensure that they are heard. It is most often accompanied by causing an inconvenience to either the govt or general public, in order to get the attention of people who could meet the demands of the protesters.

Let me dive into the history of protests, very briefly. Where can we find the first protests, as we see them today, in history? Where did people gather on the streets to get their way done, anywhere in the world? The word itself, where does it come from?

In the 16th century, when Martin Luther, (NOT Martin Luther King Jr, of the 20th century), had written his Ninety-Five Theses, where he basically argued that the connection between man and Christ does not need the clergy, thereby challenging the authority of the then Pope. In response to that, he was banned and his book was also banned. Then, 6 princes and 14 Imperial cities had appealed against this ban of Martin Luther. This was known as protestation, or simply put, protest. This is actually also the reason why followers of Martin Luther and his views are broadly called Protestants.

But that protest did not involve people pouring on to the streets or anything, it was a letter of protest. That was seen a couple of centuries later, in America. It was called the American Revolution, which eventually evolved into a full blown war between the colonies and the British. The British Parliament, which had no representation from the American colonies, was collecting taxes from the colonies, something that did not sit well with the Americans. There was much civil unrest after the Stamp Act of 1765 was passed by the British Parliament which imposed even more taxes on the American Colonies, after which there were protests.

The British decided to take action in order to silence these protests, after which there was military action against people in Boston, which eventually led to the American Revolution, post which, America emerged as an independent country in 1776, separate from Britain, but not before a bloody war.

The immediate next historical example of protest was in France, only a few years later. As the monarchy of the Ancien Regime became more and more unpopular among the masses, there was more and more civil unrest. There were several protests and political power was up for grabs. Then, France saw a Revolution in 1789, where the monarchy was abolished and a constitutional republic was established. A few years later, the monarchs were also executed. Soon, because of external and internal political threats to the people in power in the French Republic, Maximillian Robespierre led an uprising in Paris, after which he grabbed political power and violently suppressed any opposition to him. For a period of 2 years, there was witch-hunting of people who were suspected of being dissenters. This period was called the Reign Of Terror. After this, Robespierre fell from power and there was another series of French Revolutionary Wars which ended up in the ascent of Napoleon.

These two examples of protests turning into revolutions are extremely important and must be understood together, in a way. The common point in these revolutions is that they started as protests and eventually became wars. Both cases also have a strong moral justification for there to be wars, and it was injustice. One cannot hope to be taxed by a Parliament where one does not have representation and be happy with it. Nor can one tolerate an apathetic monarchy that cannot resolve crisis after crisis that its peasant class goes through, while living up the good life themselves. The takeaway here is that these protests eventually had to become violent because the powers that be won’t give them their due. They had to resort to conflict.

There are also other, less legitimate, examples of protests, like the Haymarket protests in Chicago in 1880s, where the anarchist movement started off with a relatively peaceful rally, with legitimate demands like ensuring an 8 hour work day. But when the police showed up to disperse the crowd, there were violent clashes, including dynamite bombs being hurled on the police by the certain elements from the Anarchist movement.

Then there was also the Russian Revolution of 1917, which saw the establishment of the first Communist State in Russia after the abolishing of the Russian monarchy.

What about now?

However, the key difference between those times and today, is that now, we, in India, live in a liberal democracy, not a monarchy. We have certain inalienable rights guaranteed by the constitution. And, in case there is any idea or course of action of the govt that any citizen disapproves of, they are free to use legal means to let the authorities know.

But in India, as well, there have been several protests in history, during the pre-Independence period. Protests were popularized by Mahatma Gandhi under the name of Satyagraha. He urged people to march peacefully in order to make a statement. His most famous march was the Dandi Salt March, where he led thousands of people against the salt tax imposed by the British Raj in India. The outcome of that is for all to see.

Other examples of Satyagraha by Gandhiji are Peasant Satyagrahas against the exploitation of farmers and peasants, which was successful in perplexing the British about how exactly to react, Non-co-operation Movements and Civil Disobedience. This Satyagraha was a strange kind of protest where Gandhiji insisted that Satyagrahis follow certain principles, like Satya, Ahimsa, Aparigraha, Sarva Dharma Samabhav, etc. What connection this has with protests, I am not sure. But it is what it is.

He also laid down rules for Satyagraha marches and demonstrations. Rules such as be not angry towards the other, suffer the anger of the other, never retaliate, never resort to violence, even verbal, upon arrest, cooperate, were laid down by the Father of the Nation. All this most certainly gained him moral superiority over the British, but to a devious and exploitative opponent, moral superiority is as useful as a book to an illiterate.

In fact, I kind of blame Gandhiji for this fetishization of protests and Satyagraha to the extent that people even today think that peaceful protests actually achieve anything. They don’t. I firmly believe that the British were not kind enough to see a bunch of hapless people, ready to take beatings to the chest in service of the nation on the word of a half-naked saint and just granted people what they wanted. The British ran scared of Gandhiji’s appeal among the masses. Gandhiji could pull crowds of thousands in order for a Satyagraha. It was the well-founded paranoia of the British authorities, that what if this decrepit old man orders them to attack us, that made British shake in their boots.

Gandhiji had a remarkable zeal to appear unblemished, even if he would end up appearing foolish in that pursuit. In the Chauri Chaura incident on 1922, while there was a non-co-operation movement demonstration going on in Gorakhpur, the police, under the orders of British, opened fire on the protesters. The protesters responded by burning a police station to the ground, killing everyone inside. As a result of that, Gandhiji put an end to the non-co-operation movement, all over the country, because one of his precious principles, Ahimsa, was violated.

What he did not consider was that the retaliation to repressive laws was a major factor in forcing the British to set up an entire commission to review the repressive acts that had been passed in British India, which eventually led to the repealing of several acts, like the Rowlatt Act, under which, hundreds were killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. Gandhiji’s obsession with non-violence also meant that the Quit India movement of 1942 was also like a defanged cobra, that was subdued with relative ease by the ruthless British under Churchill.

It is my firm belief that against a ruthless and cruel opponent, there is no place for Ahimsa, esp when the opponent is entirely likely to take advantage of the fact that he will receive no retaliatory blows. A protest under those circumstances, is justified, even if it gets violent. It is in service of the freedom of the nation to kill an opponent of your freedom, esp if the opponent will not pause for a moment and think twice to do the same to you.

This perverted sense of moral superiority attached to Ahimsa of the Gandhian kind, that says don’t strike back, even in self defense or retaliation, is a seemingly honorable and admirable sentiment, but ultimately vain, useless and pompous, since it leads to no good.

But again, this was justified when the British were ruling us, NOT now.

A Contradiction

Now, let me give you something to think about. We have a right to protest, as is guaranteed in the constitutions of most countries. It is supposed to be a manifestation of the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association. Each person has the right to protest something that he/she disagrees with in a peaceful manner. Why is “in a peaceful manner” phrase so important? Because the govt has to uphold law and order.

In simpler terms, my protests should not be at the inconvenience of other people. It surprises me that no one sees a contradiction here. For any grievances people may have with the govt, they can approach their elected leaders, MLCs, MLAs, MPs, or they can approach the courts. Any person may go right up to the Supreme Court of India in order to get justice. Even after all avenues have been tried, if someone still thinks they did not get justice, then, there is a legitimate moral reason to protest.

But, one has to realize that protests rely on this idea of the heckler’s veto. Heckler’s veto is nothing but using violence as a tool of negotiations. Let us consider any protest that has taken place in the recent past. CAA. The Act itself has been challenged in courts for its constitutionality. There have been hundreds of hours worth of discussions on all fora. Yet, there were protests on streets, even riots, for 100 days, no less. And that too in the capital of the country, on extremely busy roads.

What do you think the idea behind these protests was? It was, “We will do a chakka-jaam till the govt listens to us.” And this was considered as a protest. A legitimate protest. Why do I say that? Because there was no action against all those people sitting in Shaheen Bagh for months.

How do we have a right, right to protest, which leads to the violation of other people’s rights, when they are inconvenienced by blockading roads? Is this not a contradiction people see? There cannot be two rights that act against each other. Which means that either right to protest itself is a problem, OR, more likely, that protests like Shaheen Bagh are not protests but blockades, and they should be dealt with, with a firm hand.

Take the recent Farmers’ protests. I personally have no issues with farmers, or even alleged farmers, coming to protest in their expensive vehicles. I do not begrudge people their wealth, if it is upstandingly begotten. What I object to is the destruction of property of others, be it private property or public property.

We saw several examples of people destroying public property, people were shutting down Jio towers in Punjab. That is not even a protest. It is just vandalism. You cannot damage property and claim to be protesting. There is a serious problem in that. If protests against laws passed by the Indian govt is justification for violence, then even CPI Maoists are protesters, not terrorists. That is a slippery slope, one we should not be toying around with.

Grammar of Anarchy

There is a great passage by Dr Ambedkar, in his work, Grammar of Anarchy. It goes as follows.

“If we wish to maintain a democracy, not mere in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgement we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-co-operation and Satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”

That was Dr. Ambedkar, on this culture of protests for every little thing, esp after we had our own constitution, our own laws in place. He saw little difference between these methods and those of anarchy. This, here, is a decision we must make for ourselves. Do we want to live in the hangover of our British colonial past and keep thinking of the govt as an oppressive force that has to be fought against? Or do we want to consider the govt as the greatest living experiment of Modern India and keep improving the system from within?