Safety valves and democracy.

Heard that the Kerala CM has taken a leaf out of the PM’s playbook and banned any black clothing, even black masks, from any of his public meetings, with police being instructed to either offer a colourful mask or (if more than a mask is black) remove the person from the CM’s presence by force. I wonder what instructions go out in writing to the police and NSG and under what law such instructions are issued, considered valid and legal, and implemented.

Here’s my question (to everyone in power today, and not just the BJP): You are so afraid of dissent that even the mildest form of democratic protest (wearing black) scares you and you come down like a sack of rocks on it. You can’t handle someone saying something on social media. You don’t want to answer uncomfortable questions by the press. You refuse to respond to RTIs. You use the police from your state (or the central agencies, depending on who and what you control) to terrorise and hold your opponents to ransom. You use the courts to muzzle any last remnant of free and fair journalism. You demonise any peaceful, democratic protests and protestors as having got funding from India’s enemies. Your cadre on the ground runs riot (literally) and your police is instructed to shield them. You jail young students and geriatrics equally without bail for simply uttering an opinion opposed to yours. You rig elections and hijack the electoral process. You buy off elected representatives after they have been elected on another party’s ticket. You pass laws via backdoors and without debate. You take unilateral decisions on important matters without taking any other elected representative or the people into confidence. You force your will on them like an autocrat and claim it is for their good. You change what history means, what science is, even what civics teaches. You purposely ignore your acolytes and followers, your spokespersons and representatives spreading poison in society and in your name. You accuse others loudly of what you yourself know yourself to be guilty of. You capture the very institutions of democracy and turn them into your handmaidens by filling them with undeserving but loyal ideologues. You refuse to even give a press conference or listen to your people’s complaints. And you shut down all the safety features built into a democracy to allow peaceful dissent and a constitutionally guaranteed voice to people with genuine (or otherwise) grievances.

And then, you point to people who, fed up with not being able to register a simple protest or act of dissent in a democracy, come out on the streets and refuse to go back without being heard (their constitutional right) and accuse them of plotting violence and succumbing to anti-national elements even while you continue to visit violence on them.

भाई, सारे safety valve बंद कर दिए, और नीचे से गैस को तेज कर दिया। अब कुकर फटने को आया तो कुकर को दोष देते हो? इतना समझ लो भाई, जिस दिन कुकर फटा, उस दिन सबने मरना है। आप, हम, सब।