New Delhi: A panel of eminent citizens, including Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan and writer Arundhati Roy, came together Thursday to condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this month that public places cannot be occupied indefinitely for protests and they must be carried out in a designated area.
They also criticised the state and police’s actions in trying to stop people from protesting peacefully. The discussion was held at the Press Club of India, Delhi.
The panel, under the banner of Concerned Citizens Collective, also included Bezwada Wilson, convenor and founder of Safai Karmachari Andolan; Nivedita Menon, activist and JNU professor; Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde; and Nadeem Khan, co-founder of United Against Hate, a civil rights group, among others.
“Democracy and dissent go hand in hand, but then the demonstrations expressing dissent have to be at designated places alone — said the Supreme Court. We ask — was the Dandi March taken along designated routes? Was Jallianwala Bagh, the massacre of a gathering by permit, in a designated spot?” read a joint statement issued by the panel.
The statement also said, “Disruptions of normalcy are the core of a living, breathing democracy. We shall fight all attempts to stifle our democracy by criminalising these basic democratic rights. We shall take back our streets.”
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‘Becoming difficult to get permission for protests’
Yadav also said it has become difficult to get permission from the Delhi Police for holding peaceful protests.
“During the recent farmers protests, 20,000 farmers were sleeping at the Ramlila Maidan and we were having a meeting with the Delhi Police till 2 am in the morning regarding permission to protest peacefully. But we were denied. This has become the standard operating procedure of not just Delhi Police, but everywhere else in the country,” Yadav said.
“If our streets are emptied out, whatever parliamentary constitution in this country remains now, it will be finished,” he added.
Senior advocate Bhushan, meanwhile, condemned the arrest of former JNU student Umar Khalid and others in connection with the Delhi riots that broke out between anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and pro-CAA protesters this February.
Supreme Court lawyer Hegde said the Constitution which people defend is a product of both dissent and its recognition. “Our forefathers fought for an independent country in which men and women would have equal rights, including the right of peaceful assembly and protests,” he added.
JNU professor Menon said the Supreme Court’s judgment stating that agitations must be held in a designated area, “that protests must be safely musemised, is a parody of democracy”.
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