The difficulty of being a good protester

The farmers’ tractor rally on Republic Day sparked debates among the intellectuals, particularly regarding the hoisting of a flag at Red Fort. The form of the protest caused hue and cry amongst us. We condemned the incident, stating that while we support the cause of the farmers, we do not agree with their ‘unruly’ means of protest.

The means adopted by protesters to express their dissent have been criticised in the past as well. Much of this condemnation comes typically from the urban middle class. We claim that we support the cause of the protests, but we disagree with the form of the same. For example, disappointment shrouded our apparent support when in the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, infuriated protesters raided shops or when buses were allegedly burned and train services were disrupted in some states during the CAA-NRC protests in India.

Additionally, a recurring complaint of the urban middle class and elites is the disruption of traffic and their everyday activities due to ongoing strikes, protests, and rallies, and that protesters are unruly and violent. This class – our class -- is the primary beneficiary of the status quo, and thus we resent it if our usual way of life is hampered, irrespective of our stand in the matter.

The functioning of this system has reduced the concern of our class of people to that of our own well-being alone. This self-centred individualism blurs our understanding of the larger class problem and exploitation of the oppressed. We put forth a typical argument, whereby protests are dichotomised between good and bad forms. We, the privileged, tend to dictate the methods and the language of protests of the oppressed by labelling them as 'violent' or 'peaceful' or too 'politically correct', according to our own whims and fancies. Our defining the ways of protests is but another form of oppression, inflicted on the basis of our privileged position. Our discussions on the correct ways of protests to be undertaken by the oppressed play into the hands of the establishment, which has mentioned that a protest like that in Shaheen Bagh is unacceptable, and that the authorities should take steps to clear any obstructions. Further, the Supreme Court has reiterated that the right to protests cannot be “anytime, everywhere.”

The tendency of us elite intellectuals to dictate the terms of protest from afar, reflects our assumed superiority in theoretical knowledge. It is disappointing to see the shift in the ‘debates’ and ‘discussions’ within intellectual circles from the actual oppression that certain sections of the community face to whether that was the ‘right’ way of protesting to put forth their demands.

Such comments and complaints often come from a flawed understanding of society. We are so used to seeing the oppression of workers, Dalits and Muslims that we do not consider such systemic oppression as a form of structural violence meted out against them. Such a perception of society is a by-product of generations of nurtured indifference towards the structural discrimination and oppression faced by the deprived sections of society. When people suffering from generations of oppression spill over to the streets and there are sparks of violence by the oppressed for a change, the intellectuals get disturbed as it does not match their ideas of the ideal protest. We, therefore, end up condemning the protesters.

Besides, violence is often incited by the State by deploying goons, police and armed forces. Reports show the protesting farmers claiming that they had been attacked by government-sponsored goons with help from police. Similarly, the students of Jamia Milia University and Jawaharlal Nehru University were attacked because they had been protesting against CAA-NRC and fee hikes by the university administration.

This brings to mind the statement of Max Weber -- that the State claims a monopoly on violence. It can take the form of structural and systematic oppression, as well as explicit violence through the deployment of police, goons, and using media houses as political pawns for spreading false propaganda. The systematic forms of violence are arguably more widespread and normalised -- to the extent that they do not generally warrant attention of the masses. However, violence is condemned only when exercised by the oppressed, as it is generally more explicit and primarily aims to upset the accepted functioning of the oppressive system.

The elite intellectuals call for peaceful and non-violent protests, but we often ignore that it is not our decision to make. Only the victims of structural and explicit violence meted out by the State and the system can decide their forms of protests, whether they wish to sit in peaceful protest, like at Shaheen Bagh, or whether they cause disruption to the usual functioning of the system by calling for a chakka jaam.

(Dasgupta is a graduate student at Colorado State University, Colorado; Mukherjee is a PhD Scholar at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala)