Preventing protests on Bengaluru roads clamps down on dissent

The government’s move to licence and regulate protests in Bengaluru as a measure to avoid traffic gridlocks may bring short-term benefits, but activists noted that the move entails huge implications for civil society, which has acted as the conscience of democracy.

The Licencing and Regulation of the Protests, Demonstrations and Protest Marches Order, 2021, issued under the Karnataka Police Act, tells people how to protest and where to protest. The order was issued last year following a direction by the Karnataka High Court, which had taken up a suo motu case following a complaint on political rallies causing traffic jams.

Against basic rights

Activists said the government order as well as the high court’s direction to implement it in “letter and spirit” go against the basic rights enshrined in the Constitution while making assumptions about the use of public commons.

Lawyer and activist Vinay K Srinivasa said the freedom of speech and expression of Article 19 (1)(a) and the right to assemble peacefully without arms guaranteed by Article 19 (1)(b) have been violated in the name of reasonable restrictions.

“The whole idea of a protest is to make the voice of the voiceless heard. People take to the streets to bring to the open the injustices they are suffering. As the constitutional court, the high court should have upheld that right of the poor. Its judgment upholding the government’s unreasonable and disproportionate order will help those in power to relegate dissent into a corner of Freedom Park,” he said.

Vinay cited the garment workers’ protest against the provident withdrawal rules in 2016, which attracted nation-wide attention due to the violence but also helped labourers in the garment sector across the country to access their money.

The goal of a protest rally is to get justice. If violence occurs, it is because of suppression. Workers can’t go to Twitter to complain against harassment, inhuman working conditions and unfulfilled promises, he added.

City and history of protests

From Central College and Maharani’s College to Bannappa Park and Freedom Park, several parts of the city have witnessed protests from the 1940s. Over the last 20 years, protests have brought several reforms in the life of the downtrodden.

The Mysore Bank Circle, where protests are now banned, is one among the several sites of resistance to power for decades. Chief among them is the gruesome episode of the British opening fire on Quit India protesters in August 1940. Historians state that many had taken to Bengaluru’s streets to raise voice against the British even earlier.

Over the last 10 years, the civil society protests have helped to steer policies. From the ‘Steel Flyover Beda’ movement to the opposition to the indiscriminate felling of trees for widening roads in June 2011, the streets have been a source of education and a platform for participation in the democratic process.

Veteran activist and president of All India Trade Union Congress’s Karnataka unit H V Ananta Subbarao said it was unfortunate the court didn’t stand up for the common man.

“Inequality is the root cause of the crisis. As it deepens, the burden of the ruling class passes it on to the ordinary people. The judiciary was supposed to stop the government from doing that. But it has joined those in power,” he said.

To a question on protests causing traffic jams, he slammed the government’s narrative. “Bengaluru’s traffic jams are caused by the government’s failure to check growth of vehicles and fund public transport, not because of protests,” he said.

He noted that protests are always anathema to the institutions that wield power.

“The space for dissent has been shrinking gradually for decades. In the 1970s, one lakh workers protested at Cubbon Park. The rulers brought a ban. The road in front of Vidhana Soudha, where we sat on hunger strikes and the chief ministers came down to receive memorandums, became out of bounds. It would not be any surprise if they ban protests from Freedom Park too,” Ananta said.