When the Congress won the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections, it promised to do things differently. Under Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, it called itself the ‘people’s government’, giving the impression that it would be democratic in the truest sense. That stemmed from the fact that the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi government, led by former CM K Chandrashekar Rao, was often accused of being authoritarian.
Well, cut to 1.3 years later, Revanth Reddy has proved that the Congress is not any different from the BRS. Early morning on 12 March, Hyderabad police officials picked up journalist Revathi P and her colleague Thanvi Yadav from their residences and swiftly took them into custody. Their crime? Broadcasting a video on Pulse News—where Revathi is managing director and Thanvi a reporter— featuring an old, frustrated farmer lashing out at Revanth Reddy.
Sure, the man whose video they shared did abuse the chief minister (which I don’t want to write about here), but does that really warrant an arrest? I have seen the Hyderabad police on the internet asking people to take down abusive videos in the past before taking any action physically.
More importantly and shockingly, Revathi and her colleague were booked for various serious offences. The Hyderabad police registered a case against them under section 67 of the IT Act (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form), and Section 111 (organised crime), Section 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), Section 353(2) (spreading false information to incite enmity or hatred), and Section 352 (insulting someone with the intent to provoke breach of peace) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
While the women have been granted bail now and the organised crime charge dropped, I am still unable to understand why they were booked under such a serious provision of the BNS. Our chief minister appears to be very thin-skinned. It may be noted that he himself was booked in the past for abusing KCR, and that no action was taken against him.
The Congress supporters attacking Revathi are unable to see the irony—she was also targeted earlier when the BRS was in power. For all its claims of being democratic and pro-people, the Congress has shown that it is not cut from a different cloth.
The chief minister’s response shows Revathi and Thanvi’s arrest was a warning to journalists to fall in line.
Is Congress really democratic?
This is neither the first nor the last time that someone from the public has lashed out against a political leader. Telangana itself was formed on the basis of several demands for water, agrarian reforms, and social development.
Expectations are high because the Congress added more promises (jobs, farm loan waivers etc.) to whatever the BRS earlier had said it would achieve. One of the reasons behind the Congress winning in Telangana was that the BRS had alienated many who had fought alongside it for statehood prior to 2014.
Many like Prof Kodandaram, who is now an MLC and led the statehood protests with KCR, supported the Congress during the 2023 elections. I remember how, after Telangana’s formation, the BRS government in 2017 arrested Prof Kodandaram to quash the protests he led under the banner of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) to mobilise unemployed youth who were demanding more jobs.
Back then, KCR was accused of being authoritarian – especially because the state police was given a free hand to suppress protests during his tenure. People assumed that the Congress could rein-in the police and would be more democratic.
I also remember very well Congress supporters on social media amplifying Revathi’s tweets in the past, whenever the BRS was caught on the wrong foot.
My only question now is this: Will we ever punish overzealous cops who tow political lines? There should be a law that punishes police officers with the exact same ordeal they put people through. Maybe then we will see cops not overstepping in such ways.
Hopefully sense will prevail, otherwise the Congress central leadership, especially Rahul Gandhi, will have to stop saying that it is democratic.
Yunus Lasania is a Hyderabad-based journalist whose work primarily focuses on politics, history and culture. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)