What’s bringing everyone to the picket lines?

Why is protest the order of the day? Why are farmers, Dalits, high-school students all taking to the streets? What brings on this deluge of public anger? Why is everyone being driven to the picket lines? Is it because Parliament, the forum for debate where people’s concerns are meant to be aired, is dysfunctional? That it too has been rendered a zone of protest? The treasury benches must introspect. It’s not enough to score tactical points. And winning elections is not the be-all and end-all of politics. A mandate primarily means winning popular trust, and as trustees of public faith, it’s the duty of the government to cater to the general weal—to protect people’s rights, resources and livelihood.

Blaming the Opposition for fanning dissent is part of the game only in normal circumstances, not in such times. And blaming the traditionally most deprived sections of India’s population, for taking out protest marches to defend their basic rights, is not on. It must always be remembered: the violence of Dalit protesters is a response to the everyday, structural violence they live under. And to say democratic India has achieved nothing is simply not true. The young Jatav who was killed in police firing in Alwar, Rajasthan, was a post-graduate awaiting a lecturer’s job. That’s what constitutional India has achieved, a young Dalit joining the knowledge economy, to set right history’s wrongs, and with his life that’s what we lost. 

With every death, we lose a part of an idea, a bit of the India story. Of struggling and succeeding. If only cops could be trained to think like that, perhaps they would act differently. If only the Centre had filed its review petition earlier, against the dilution of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Juridical points about the framing of innocents needs gentler handling. Perhaps the Centre can make amends when the hearings start, if its law officers possess enough nuance to calm the protesters about the government’s intentions and persuade the apex court out of its order. Or the loss may be permanently ours.