What is a democratic protest?

I started the previous post by saying that the question that I was addressing myself to there was going round and round in my brain.  Let me say that is true of this question as well.  Now you can understand why I am such a huge muddle head.  Too many questions going round and round in my brain are actually driving me insane and all that insanity comes out as these blog posts which you my dear reader have patiently been putting up with.  I request you to continue the same while I try to tone down the insanity in me and make my posts more rational and relevant.  This post too will start with an anecdote and no, please don't stop reading this thinking it is going to be something autobiographical.  

The anecdote that I refer to is actually a conversation that I had with a senior Professor working in a very reputed university.  Since I  have not asked the person for permission to spell out their name, I shall refrain from doing so.  I will only refer to this person as the Professor.  Now that that little formality is out of the way, let me get down to the conversation itself.  This was during the "Sakala Janula Samme" launched by the TRS in the Telangana region. Someone had gone to the Supreme Court (hope I have got this right) of India with a PIL or Public Interest Litigation saying that the strike was violating the rights of people and causing them inconvenience and the PIL asked the Supreme Court to take action against the TRS and its various functionaries.  The Court issued an order asking the agitators for explanation and I don't know what happened after that, but one assumes that it fizzled out just as most things in India do.  But I am not sure.  That is not the point however.  The point pertains to the reaction of the afore mentioned Professor to the idea of a PIL against the agitators.  The Professor felt that this kind of intervention by the Judiciary (I am surprised by the faith that the Professor had in the functioning of the Judiciary) is anti democracy.  Upon my questioning the rationale behind this argument, the Professor said that what characterizes a true democracy is the right to protest.  Interesting language that, the right to protest.  It is certainly not a fundamental right but could be a legal right, I am not aware of that.  I had no disagreement over the idea of protest with the Professor, but I certainly saw a problem in its articulation. In order to understand this better, let us take into consideration the events that occurred as part of the Sakala Janula Samme or All People's Strike.  The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation's services in the Telangana region were suspended for twenty two days.  Workers at the Singareni Collieries which supply coal to thermal power stations in Andhra Pradesh went on a long strike, though I cannot remember how many days, it was for a couple of weeks at least.  The Non-gazetted officers in Telangana went on a longer strike and paralysed most of the work in almost all departments.  This, needless to say, has a bearing on the exchequer of the State, which was losing money due to the non working of its staff. The State said that it would implement the "no work - no pay" rule.  When the strikes were called off, the striking people took their full salaries which were given to them as "festival advance" since the Dussehra Festival had gone by and Deepavali was about to go by.  People like me took full salaries as salaries for having worked because we did not go on strike, but our students did and also because our support staff was striking.  This meant a casual visit to the place of work and since nothing was open we promptly headed to wherever we wanted.  This went down as work and we took our salaries.  Even those who have taken the "Festival Advance" can consider to be in the same boat as people like me because no time frame has been put for the recovery of the "Festival Advance".  Usually everybody forgets about these things and get on with life as if nothing happened.

The other events refer to the inconveniences caused to people who do not even belong to Andhra Pradesh or even live here.  The Gorkhaland Agitation style three day rail and rasta rokos were introduced during this agitation.  A number of trains carrying passengers from one state to another pass through the Telangana region, Kazipet actually being a very big junction. Trains from the North taking passengers to destinations in the South such as Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and various other places in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka were either cancelled or were rerouted through some round about routes which made the journey tedious and long.  One of the longest highways in India, the NH7 also passes through the region and is an important connection between states such as Bihar, UP, Maharashtra and the southern States.  Trucks, some of them carrying perishable goods were blocked for days together.  The same was the case with the NH9 which connects the West with the East.  Here too roads were blocked.  Obviously passenger buses on these routes were cancelled as were most trains.  Freight stopped moving, people could not move, food stuffs rotted while "people" implemented the rasta rokos and the bandhs.  I am not sure what the economic losses look like but I am sure they are not a pretty picture.

I drew the attention of the good Professor to these instances and persisted in asking if these things were consistent with the idea of a democratic protest. It would not be proper to reproduce the Professor's answer here as that would be very unethical on my part.  During this time I also had conversations with various other academics most of whom were my seniors in age and service and some who were juniors as well.  In all of my conversations I popped up this question of what constitutes a democratic protest and how can inconvenience to others be justified.  I had most interesting responses, again most of which I cannot reproduce due to ethical compunctions.  But I will reproduce a conversation with a good friend and that should give you a gist of what the others were saying as well.  The person that I had this conversation with belonged to the Coastal Andhra region while I belong to the Telangana region.  Using my familiarity with this person (who is an academician) I decided to play the Devil's Advocate.  I asked the person as to why the person that this was a democratic way of protesting especially since the other person is from the other side.  The answer was that people's desire was sacred in a democracy and therefore it was okay.  So I said that I am also part of the people and that I did not desire division so what happens to my opinion?  In a democracy is there no room for people like me?  I even asked "am I also to resort to some form of inconveniencing others so that my voice can be heard"?  Would it be democratic if I kidnapped children and held them captive saying that I will release them to their parents only if my demands were met?  Would it be democratic if I constructed a wall across the road in front of my house to insist that my demands, whatever they maybe, be met?  Predictability the counter was that here I was only one while the agitation had "people".  So I asked "how many people should one gather to be called "people"?  The argument stopped there with the other person saying that this subject demanded a very, very long debate and that they had not the time, energy or inclination to go on with it.

Most of the people whom I spoke to ended the argument this way.  But here is an interesting fact.  All of them have this perception of themselves that they were leftist progressives and some of them even drew parallels between the French mob that stormed the Bastille and finally guillotined the King and Queen and the agitators asking for a separate Telangana.  Some others likened this to the freedom movement of the country.  Others said to gain some, you have to lose some.  Funnily they had no idea what the gain would be and how that would offset the loss.  Most got tired midway and said that we should talk about what can be a democratic protest on another day.  Their pitch was queered when some of the progressive left elements started characterizing Babu Rao Hazare's movement as a saffron movement or an anti Mandal Commission agitation type of movement, emotional blackmail movement and that it was anti people.  Since I am a persistent kind of person I asked why this was all that, when in reality Hazare was causing a lot less inconvenience to people.  Their response is a friendly chiding that I am too argumentative and that there was no point in talking to me.  So I let it be.

But like I said the question is going round and round in my brain. What worries me is the response of the academicians who are teaching things such as democracy and its content.  Trapped in their little cocoon which they constructed around themselves based in what is fashionably "progressive left", they have become victims of stereotypes that they further every living day.  On the other hand we have the idiot middle class that thinks Hazare will bring back their rightful money from the Swiss Banks where the thieving and conniving politicians hid them away.  The avarice of the middle and rich classes is insatiable.  It is therefore funny that the greedy have become followers of man who says he is like Mahatma Gandhi.  Mahatma Gandhi believed in limiting necessities and distributing social wealth among all members of society and so he said as I quoted in another post "There is enough for every man's need but not for every man's greed".  If the great man were to see the Hazare circus he would go "Hey Ram" all over again.  With the middle and rich classes living in their ivory towers (at different levels) and intellectuals hopelessly trapped in immobility because they have tied their shoe laces from both feet together and refuse to untie them since that may look like they are not progressive, it is but natural that democracy in India has taken the lumpen turn.  So here is the answer to the question that I started with.  Democratic protest in India means the ability to raise mobs that will roam the streets free committing crimes but going unpunished because they are protesting democratically.  Indian intellectuals and the so called educated middle and rich classes have surprisingly proved that Plato was right when he said democracy is the rule by the mob.  The irony of this is not lost on me.  Hope it is not lost on you.

P.S: Many posts today.  None proof read.  Excuse mistakes please. Horn Okay. Everything else we shall save for another day.