By Bobby Sorokhaibam
One of the charms of living in a democratic polity is that while it privileges the voice of the majority with the right to run the government, it must simultaneously respect the voices of the minorities. A vibrant democracy recognises pluralities of views and identities as a fundamental fact of social existence. It is in this light that `protest,`™ both as idea and practice, enjoys a pride of place in a democracy, since it enables various minorities and publics to express contrary views, register objections to wrongs and above all, put a check against the arbitrary exercise of power by the government of the day. It further provides a platform allowing various interests and identities to come together and in the process, form a `public`™ against the exploitation and excesses of power.
Protests are not merely carriers of dissent but more crucially vehicles of justice. Hence, the significance of protest cannot be over-exaggerated; it is inherent in the idea of democracy itself! The recent order of the High Court of Manipur asking the state government to make available to the public a space for holding peaceful protests and agitations may thus be viewed as a tribute to this ideal of democracy.
A protest however can take various forms. Uniquely South Asian among them is `bandh`™, which typically involves forced closure of all forms of transport, government and private offices, educational institutions, shops, etc. In Manipur, despite highly palpable public opinion against the all-too-frequent resort to bandh, it continues to be most the preferred mode of protest, the default protest as it were! A sample of reasons for calling bandhs in the recent past range from cases of custodial killing, atrocities by armed forces, death of civilians in explosions at public places etc. to conflict of land between villages, demand for regularisation of government jobs and increase in pay scales, demand for districts, transfer of a principal of an educational institution, etc. They can be either localised or state-wide bandhs. Apart from these numerous bandhs, there have been the infamous economic blockades of the arterial lifelines of Manipur. It was reported that there were 20, 48 and 42 days of bandhs in the years 2004-5, 2005-6, 2006-7 respectively while the corresponding figures of economic blockade were 60, 97, and 77 days. Some infamous blockades in recent memory have been the 55 day economic blockade by The All Naga Students Association (ANSAM) in 2005 against the decision of the state government to declare June 18 as State Integrity Day , the 69 day blockade by ANSAM and Naga Students Federation (NSF) in 2010 against government`™s banning of NSCN (I-M) supremo, ThuingalengMuivah`™s entry into Manipur, and the 92 day long blockade by Sardar Hills District Demand Committee (SHDDC) to which a counter-blockade lasting 120 days was imposed by United Naga Council (UNC) in 2011.
Quotidian conversations among people feature the loss to academic life and future of the next generation, and seek to account for an exodus of students outside the state. Narratives of daily hardships that people face due to bandhs ofteninvolve mention of emergency fatalities which go unnoticed. Clearly, bandhs and blockadeshave affected the lowest economic strata the most, denying them their daily wages or the chance to sell a day`™s harvest in the market. All matters of life and death for a vast section of the population. At another level, official estimates of loss to government exchequer were reported to be Rs. 25.7 million every day and about Rs. 2.45 billion as a whole during the 92 day blockade – hugely significant sums given the size and nature of economy in Manipur.
However, beyond these adverse material consequences, the culture of bandhs as default mode of protest carries within it the potential of annihilating the very core ideals of democracy which animates and sustains the practice of protest itself. This is where protest becomes a political art. If it is in the name of the people and through invocation of democratic ideals that protests are carried out, it is only logical that those practising protest show responsibility and accountability to the people in general and even to the idea of democracy itself. Unfortunately, an analysis of the trend of bandhs in Manipur does not in any way suggest respect for such values. It may be recalled that as far back as 1997, the Supreme Court of India upheld the Kerala High Court order holding enforced bandhs as illegal and unconstitutional. Recently on 27 May 2015, Shillong High Court restrained the media from publicising any material calling for bandhs, blockades, hartals, etc. While holding bandhs to be violative of the fundamental rights to freedom of movement and right to life under Articles 19 and 21 respectively, the Court further directed the state government to authorise local administration to seek help from paramilitary forces to conduct flag marches.
Though it still remains open to debate as to whether the Supreme Court was right to declare all bandhs as outright illegal, it may also be argued that indiscriminate resort to bandhs can only inflict harm to the democratic space for protest which every citizen has to a duty to protect from being encroached by the State. Crucial to in this context is the notion of the `Public`™. If democracy is government by the people, it may be said that the Public keeps the people politically alert and constantly remind the government of its source of power. By Public here, we mean neither the active consumers in the economy nor the passive audience of social events or political performances. Instead it refers to a self-aware, critical and politically conscious people. Such a public emerges in individual desires to identify with, and belong to a people`™s cause.
It is precisely the emergence of this `Public`™ that is threatened by the very forms of protest that a myriad of groups andinstantly assembled committees choose. Protest in a democracy is not limited to demanding justice for specific grievances; it simultaneously performs the valuable function of mobilising people and building publics in the process. However even the symbolic forms of identification that are crucial to sustaining such a public begins to evaporate when in the eyes of the general masses, the causes are unable to justify the means.
In Manipur, this failure to identify with the cause is accentuated in two ways. First, more often than not, instantly formed joint action committees settle for `compromises`™ with the authorities without explaining to the public what necessitated it . Second, more worryingly, the protest-bandhs have increasingly taken ethnic and communal overtones. Taken together with cases of vandalism, there is ample ground for the government to redefine the contours of any political issue as questions of law and order and turn publics into crowds. This reversal from public to crowd robs the public of its political status and exempts the government from addressing systemic and structural injustices.
Such would be annihilation of the public `“ and if that happens, it would mean the victory of the State and the disappearance of the People!
(The writer teaches Political Science at Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi.)