State vs people

Exploding tear gas shells, water cannons, men in uniform beating up men, women and children, the jackboot of brute authority stamping down on democratic protest Tahrir Square, Cairo, where the ‘Arab Spring’ has become bitter winter? No, it was India Gate, New Delhi, last Sunday, when the police clashed with largely peaceful demonstrators protesting against the savage rape of a young woman in the city.

As protestors uprooted the wooden barriers erected for the Republic Day parade and set fire to them, the symbolism couldn’t have been starker; it was the people versus the state. And the battle didn’t take place somewhere in the remote, rural ‘badlands’ where self-styled Maoist insurgents combat para-military forces. The battle took place in the heart of the country’s showcase capital, the seat of our democracy.

Later, police spokesmen blamed the shameful episode, which left more than 60 people injured, on ‘lumpen elements’ who instigated violence. There could well have been troublemakers in the crowd of largely peaceful protesters. But the reference to ‘lumpens’ sought to tarnish all the demonstrators with the same besmirching brush. When citizens demonstrate people power, as distinct from the state which claims a monopoly on power, they become ‘lumpens’. However at election time, the same ‘lumpens’ become the lauded ‘aam admi’ whose votes politicians covet and desperately vie for.