You may have seen the video because it has now gone viral on social media. An angry woman walks up to Maharashtra’s Water Resources Minister and shouts at him about the delays caused by a demonstration of which he was one of the leaders.
There are many interesting things about the video. First of all, the woman spoke for many Indians when she pointed out how the politician had no right to inconvenience thousands of ordinary citizens by organising a demonstration through the busy Worli area of Mumbai. In her own case, she was unable to pick up her daughter from school because of the delays caused by the minister’s complete lack of regard for the needs of ordinary citizens.
Secondly, because she spoke English and looked relatively prosperous, she was allowed to complain. It helped that cameras were on. If she had been poor, not only would nobody have listened to her but the cops would probably have arrested her, raided her home, and terrorised her family members.
Thirdly, the demonstration in question was not organised by the powerless who had no other way of protesting. It was organised by fat cat ministers and the ruling party.
Why on earth were they protesting when they had secured every privilege and advantage possible for themselves?
Well, they were agitated because the Opposition had defeated the Delimitation Bill with its added component of women’s reservation.
In effect, this was the government’s way of taking to the streets to avenge a rare Opposition victory.
That’s democracy in action! Or how the rulers perceive it.
A double standard
But why were the citizens of Mumbai being made to pay for the Centre’s inability to get a contentious bill passed?
Because according to Girish Mahajan, the minister in question, this bill affected women everywhere. Mahajan, who certainly does not look like a disenfranchised woman (perhaps this is because he is a man), made it clear that the protests for women’s reservation would be repeated in other cities too. So yes, we will all suffer in due course.
Many people on social media have made the point that in BJP–ruled states, a double standard applies to protests. Any demonstrations that are not pro-government are subject to all kinds of restrictions. They may be disallowed, forced to change routes or broken up on the grounds that the officially sanctioned route had been breached: who has not seen recent pictures of women protesters being physically restrained, manhandled, and picked up for arrest by the Noida Police?
But when a minister wants to bring central Mumbai to a standstill so that his party can punish citizens for the failure of a BJP bill, the police march protectively beside him, proving that their true loyalty is not to their uniform or to the citizens they are supposed to serve but to their political masters.
On social media, this has become a BJP-versus-the rest kind of issue. And yes, there is little doubt that a double standard applies. But equally I can see why the BJP is taking this attitude. During the UPA, all kinds of street protests were allowed in the uproar following the rape and murder of Nirbhaya. The government did not get the protesters assaulted or arrested. Some were even taken to meet Sonia Gandhi, who was UPA Chairperson, and despite their anger received a patient hearing and promises of future action.
Similarly, when Arvind Kejriwal launched the ironically named group India Against Corruption, he received an impetus from protests at public places where crowds, which may have been packed with RSS volunteers (though Kejriwal now denies this), cheered as he attacked the government. The UPA did not prevent these rallies from taking place.
From the BJPs perspective, the UPA fell at least partly because these protests, which received saturation TV coverage, gave the impression that the government was hugely unpopular; a self perpetuating characterisation.
The BJP is not going to make the same mistakes (though I doubt if any anti-government protests would get saturation TV coverage in this era) as the UPA. It has decided that it is better to be selective about which protests it allows and to put up its own shows of strength no matter how many thousands are inconvenienced. If it can bring central Mumbai to a standstill then that demonstrates its power.
Also read: BJP wants to be the party of Nari Shakti. Here’s a list to make that happen
New India?
That’s one part of the story. But let’s not focus only on the BJP. There are many precedents for its behaviour. When I lived in Kolkata in the late 1980s and the 1990s, the CPM was much worse. Every time the city was paralysed, it was because of a CPM dharna or protest. Just as we see with the BJP now, it was the ruling party and its ministers who actively connived to shut the capital city down.
Nor was the CPM any kinder to opposition protesters. The police would look away when they were assaulted by thugs affiliated to the ruling party. Often the police would administer the beatings itself: it’s hard to forget the number of times Mamata Banerjee was thrashed.
And let’s not forget the role of the police in shutting down our cities. They are so obsessed with VIP security that they are happy to let ordinary citizens suffer while their bosses stay safe.
Often the security threats are imaginary. I remember the Kolkata police once shut down the entire airport highway because the Foreign Minister of Vietnam was using the road. Hundreds of people (including me) missed their flights. It did not bother the cops at all. I wonder if the Vietnamese leader, who faced no security threat at all, ever realised how many people in Kolkata abused him that day.
Similarly, I doubt if Narendra Modi was ever informed about how the Bangalore police also shut down entire roads, including the airport highway, when he went to the city to campaign during the last election.
This is unnecessary security and it causes needless pain to lakhs of people. Ministers don’t seem to realise this. Has the Prime Minister worked out that the reason why the AI Summit got such a negative response was because the Delhi police shut down much of the city?
The bad publicity about the AI Summit shows us that people react more negatively now than ever before to the notion that the government and its cops exist to service VIPs and that ordinary citizens are of no consequence and can be pushed around.
The cops never pay the price but ministers will. The CPM collapsed into nothingness. So will other politicians who treat the voters as no more than a necessary nuisance.
This is New India, remember? Citizens are supposed to count for more than politicians.
But do they?
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)