DC Edit | Dialogue Key to Resolving CEC-Opposition Standoff

The agitation demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for the alleged wrongdoings associated with the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls across the country will enter a new phase when the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), along with various student organisations, join the ongoing agitations at the Jantar Mantar protest site on October 10. It is in the interest of all that the agitations go on peacefully and the protesters and the government, especially the Delhi Police, handle the situation with wisdom and equanimity.

The Constitution allows peaceful assembly of people for legitimate reasons, and both the protesters and the government need to recognise this. It is going to be an assembly of young people with little or no training, though the Left student unions are part of these protests. The leadership must take every possible measure to ensure that the crowd can raise its voice demanding justice for the masses who have been struck off the electoral rolls for no fault of theirs in a peaceful manner. The means matter equally or even more than the end. The people have a cause, genuine and bona fide. They should not allow an occasional rogue element or two to derail it.

The July 20 police brutality on the students who were protesting against then Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan in the same place has cast a doubt on the attitude with which members of the force took on unsuspecting protesters, several of them teenagers. The police are accused of using excessive force and even sexually assaulting them. The police action triggered so much public agitation that the Supreme Court was compelled to set up a commission under the leadership of a former judge of the apex court to investigate it.

The police behaviour this time around does not inspire confidence either. There have been instances of police excesses: a journalist has accused a senior police officer of groping her. The protesters and the civil society members had to amplify their voice to get an investigation against the officer concerned started. The CJP has already raised serious complaints about the police misbehaving with the protesters. The police must rein in the rogue elements within it and everyone in uniform must be told in no uncertain terms that they are to act in accordance with the law.

The showdown between the student-protesters and the police last time had brought to the fore this disturbing fact. Several of the assailants in uniform had their nameplates removed, too. There were also visual proof of people with no uniform, or who are not part of the force, acting in concert with the men and women in it. This is not acceptable. True, the police must handle the difficult task of controlling a highly charged group of students and young people which could test their nerve. But they must depend on their own professionalism and skills, and not on hired hooligans.

There are also reports of right-wing activists moving towards Jantar Mantar. The people who run the government at the Centre must not consider it a wise option to allow them to unleash violence. They must instead trust in the power of democracy and engage the protesters in dialogue. This is not a new idea as it is the same advice Prime Minister Narendra Modi shares on global platforms. Democracy has the power to address issues in democratic terms, and both sides must be mindful of that.