The Hindu : National : ``Students waved black flags to uphold democracy, not infringe it''

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 21, 2005

National

National

``Students waved black flags to uphold democracy, not infringe it''

Awadesh Kr Tripathi of the School of Languages and Sandeep Singh of the School of Social Sciences of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, respond to media coverage of the November 14 black flag protest against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he visited the campus:

``Key issues of democracy and even facts are being conveniently swept under the carpet when a section of the media, the Prime Minister's Office, and the JNU administration claim that students waving black flags in JNU, infringed upon the Prime Minister's right to speak, and lament over the embarrassment caused. The black flags that were waved at the Prime Minster in JNU were to do neither with `discourtesy' nor `disruption.' Nor were they a transgression of the Prime Minister's rights. They meant dissent and there can be no pretence of democracy if dissent is quashed and brutally assaulted as it happened in front of the Prime Minster on the afternoon of November 14 in the esteemed university.

``The Prime Minster holds the highest political office in the country and presides over the policies that are being implemented and lived by everyone in the country, including the students who waved the black flags. These very policies have been called to question by hundreds and thousands of people across the country. Moreover, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his capacity as Finance Minister in 1991, was the architect of these policies. Thus, only those wishing the death of dissent against these policies would have imagined or hoped students would applaud instead of contest when the Prime Minister addressed them.

``The slogans captured the concerns and questions of the protesters as in the vote against Iran in the IAEA Board of Governors and the surrender of national sovereignty. Protesting students wanted to know what the Prime Minster had to say about the black law AFSPA [Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act] that violates the democracy of the people living in Kashmir and North-Eastern States on a daily basis. They demanded answers to the neo-liberal policies that have pushed farmers to suicide, to the health crisis inflicted on the poor through the Patent Act, to the Indo-U.S. defence framework agreement, to the privatisation of water, electricity, education, health, and the plunder of public sector wealth. The slogans voiced concerns over the firing at students in the Garo hills, over the massacres under the eyes of the Government in Karbi Anglong, over the burning down of Dalit homes in Gohana, and over the police assaults on Gurgaon workers.

``Curiously none of these issues has made anybody in the Government `red in the face,' yet asking the Prime Minister these questions through slogans in public have reportedly caused great `embarrassment'! Democratic dissent in public holds democratically elected people accountable and there is nothing `unsophisticated' or `infringing' about it. By waving black flags, students took recourse to a highly public form of protest at a public event where they were to be spoken to by a person elected to the highest political office in the country. Yet the questions raised in the slogans were never answered and instead a full-fledged criminal assault was unleashed on the protesters immediately — which is being dismissed as a `scuffle,' `clashes between opposing groups of students,' and `beat[ing] each other up.' While the Prime Minister spoke about free speech and liberalism, the student activists belonging to his own party, the Congress (NSUI), and the ABVP and the JPF thrashed the students holding black flags, under the supervision of the police. They hailed the Prime Minister with their slogans as they silenced the peaceful protesters with brute force.

``It should be of concern to all those worried about democracy that attempts are being made to equate peaceful protests with brutal assaults, and a procedure of silencing is practiced against those who dare question how our country is being ruled.''

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