Can protest be dialogue?

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Sonam Wangchuk staging a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

During his interaction at an event organised by the Indian International Movement to United Nations, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said protests can also be a form of dialogue. He claimed that Indian tradition fostered a culture of debate which allowed for multiple views to interact to arrive at the truth.

The question of how to address differences of opinion in a modern democracy has for long been a matter of controversy. The standard liberal response is to build a system of institutional checks and balances that will ensure the minority is not overpowered and rights are not violated. At the foundation of these checks and balances is supposed to be democracy or the right to choose representatives who make decisions. This democratic process lends legitimacy to the state on the assumption that peoples’ consent is accounted for.

Protests, especially the kind which involve violation of the law, have always had a tenuous relationship with such a conception of democracy. So much so that in his “Grammar of Anarchy” speech in the Constituent Assembly, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar thought that since the people now had constitutional methods, “we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha”. The idea is that the Constitution provides for enough safeguards in the form an independent judiciary, a free press, and free civil society to take care of any grievances citizens may have against the state. Writing on the “Rationale of Satyagraha” in 1955, U.N. Dhebar says “in the context of democracy…, there is, generally speaking, very little occasion for Satyagraha”. Though political developments of later decades may have led the Indian judiciary to recognise the right to protest as integral to citizens’ fundamental rights, the right comes with various reasonable restrictions whose scope is decided primarily by the executive.

In this view of constitutional democracies, protests that violate the law are considered valid only when the state loses its legitimacy such as when elections are rigged or when access to justice is denied. Short of such serious problems, space for the right to protest when permission is denied is limited. When Mahatma Gandhi pioneered satyagraha and civil disobedience in South Africa and then in India, it was assumed that these means were justified because the government was colonial. Once the British were replaced by our own people, their position became problematic. Addressing this situation in 1953, Acharya Kripalani criticised “Congress bosses” who “developed the view…that satyagraha can have no place in a democracy”. Pointing to inherent issues in any democracy, he said “all questions cannot await the next elections, nor can a government be overthrown on the basis of local grievances”.