Source: The Wire

A  report released by the prestigious Freedom House organisation (of which Eleanor Roosevelt was a founding member) sets out the contours of the decline of liberalism in both democratic and authoritarian countries in recent years.

It makes strong mention of the United States of America and India as particularly blameworthy in this regard.

It takes special note of the measures taken by the government of India in Kashmir, and of the suppression of democratic opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

It notes how the COVID-19 pandemic has been used by diverse regimes to thwart democratic resistance to government policy, and used it to brand sundry minority and immigrant populations as threats to peace, stability, and national security. 

We may recall how the pandemic came in handy here in India to effect a dispersal of the historic people’s resistance to the CAA, which for the first time made religion a factor in the grant of Indian citizenship, contravening a fundamental postulate of the Constitution of India.

And, then we recall how the circumstance that the anti-CAA protest saw a more than usual participation by Muslim Indians, especially Muslim women, was cannily used to propagate that a conspiracy to destabilise the state was being hatched.

Since then, we have been witness to a relentless pogrom to cast those who protested against CAA as also the ones who fomented the communal riots in northeast Delhi – a happening that has reminded one of India’s most stellar ex-judges of the communal killings in Mumbai in December 1992-January 1993.  Just to recall also that the same judge had been deputed to enquire into those riots, and had found both majoritarian hordes and many police officers in connivance with them as chiefly responsible for the Mumbai killings. His report, surprise, surprise, has remained in the dustbin.

A feeling of déjà vu

However it has happened, two occasions since the now-dissipated anti-CAA protests have brought citizens and organised political forces alike out on the streets: one, the gruesome atrocity in Hathras, and, two, yet another legislation pertaining to the future of agriculture in India.

If determined groups of social and political workers have been making a beeline to commiserate with the devastated Dalit family in Hathras village, widespread mass protests have been occurring in city after city against a farming legislation which has come to be seen as a move to render farmers (eighty percent of whom have landholdings under five acres) vassals to corporate-manufacturing interests – a sort of throwback, if you like, to what had happened in Britain with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

So, what do you know: the redoubtable chief minister of  Uttar Pradesh has sounded the nationalist alarm; ergo, in his view, what is happening is again a sinister conspiracy on behalf of “anarchists” and such like to foment caste wars and communal riots to once again make a bid to destabilise his government and damage the state generally, doing dirt on “development”.

This, even as upper caste groups, led by an ex-BJP MLA have been allowed – COVID or no COVID, prohibitory orders or no orders – to hold a congregation in close proximity to the affected village in Hathras, raising their voice in support of the arraigned culprits of the Hathras atrocity, while the state police has been used to belabour any and all seeking to trudge to meet the Dalit family.

Once again, as in the aftermath of the anti-CAA protests, grounds are being prepared to hold those guilty of unrest and mayhem who stand with the affected victims, while those others who stand with the accused perpetrators receive both upper caste solidarity and the barely concealed favour of the authorities.

And, as in the CAA  protests, already some 21 first information reports (FIRs) have been lodged by the Uttar Pradesh government against protesting citizens. Does that sound familiar?

The pre-history of rapes in the state shows that whenever such crimes have involved upper-caste men or political leaders, it has been an uphill task to obtain appropriate state action against the perpetrators  (the case of Kuldip Singh Sengar being a notable instance in point).

Questions remain of sustaining public resistance

Will the fate of the public resistance now in evidence, be it in the case of the Hathras cruelty or the farm-related agitations,  see a repeat of what transpired after the clampdown on the anti-CAA protestors, or will this new democratic opposition to bad laws and human cruelties find a more extensive life and strength?

Protests run by citizens tend to be selflessly pegged to human rights issues; while it is good that organised political forces are engaging with the current challenges, one never knows when sectarian and political interests may dictate either withdrawal or intensification. I have great hope that they will carry on protesting, but cannot say whether they will see these matters to the end.

It also remains to be seen how the justice system may view these familiar tactics on behalf of the powers-that-be.  Can we as citizens now hope that the courts will think hard before consigning people arraigned in FIRs to custody if the averments made therein seem patently cooked up with the object of chilling the opposition once again into silence?

Fingers crossed.

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