Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 24: The All India Students Association (AISA) president Neha Bora has refused to sign a peace bond before a Special Executive Magistrate a day after the Delhi High Court dismissed her plea challenging a police notice directing her to provide a personal bond of ₹10,000 with one surety.
Questioning the rationale behind the notice, Bora asked, “Whose peace am I being asked to keep?”
The police notice, which was issued on October 17 under Section 126 of the BNSS, asked the student leader to appear before a special executive magistrate (SEM) on October 19 and show cause as to why she should not execute a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with one surety “for keeping peace for a period of inquiry.”
Addressing the press at the CPI(ML) Liberation Parliamentary office on Saturday, Bora said demonstrating peacefully on the streets was a democratic right, and questioned how raising concerns against the government could be construed as a threat to peace.
“If we do not ask the government any questions, whose peace are we keeping?” Bora asked, stressing that the right to question those in power and express dissent is fundamental to a democracy. She asserted that the agitation against the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar must not be considered as a threat to peace and cost the people their right to dissent.
The notice was issued on October 17, a day after Delhi Police detained Bora during the ‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ march in the capital. The demonstration was part of the protests demanding Mr Kumar’s resignation over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
Bora had challenged the notice in the Delhi High Court, terming the preventive proceedings an attempt to suppress peaceful dissent, and said the notice did not adequately establish the likelihood of a breach of peace. The student leader maintained that peaceful protests and democratic opposition should not be treated as violations of public order, emphasising that the right to dissent must be protected.
Following the dismissal of her appeal by the Delhi High Court, Neha Bora arrived at the SEM (Sub-Divisional Executive Magistrate) Court at Mandir Marg on Saturday. The Magistrate handed over all documents related to the issuance of the notice to Neha Bora. The High Court had directed the Executive Magistrate to provide the documents. The next hearing in this matter is scheduled for October 28. Neha has to submit a response to the notice by October 28.
She also wrote a piece in a leading newspaper she questioned what she had done to threaten the peace and whose peace she was threatening anyway. “What happened to us on the streets? We were repeatedly stopped, dragged, detained and prevented from reaching protest sites. I have been physically manhandled by police personnel and have shown the scratches and bruises left on my body. Other women protesters and journalists have also alleged police misconduct. On October 16, I was detained at Mandi House and remained in police custody overnight. And after all this, I was served a notice suggesting that I was likely to breach the peace.
“Are my slogans demanding Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, rollback of SIR and repealing the 2023 EC appointment Act likely to breach the peace? During the protests against the NEET paper leak, I sat on a 23-day-long hunger strike, choosing to endure hunger myself in the hope that our demands for justice would be heard. I have never sought to disturb peace. I have only refused to accept that peace requires us to remain silent in the face of injustice.
“The grounds reported in the notice point to protests, slogans and gatherings, not violence committed by me. Meanwhile, photographs, videos and accounts document the force used against protesters, including myself.
I am being asked to prove that I will maintain peace, while the violence we have experienced at the hands of those entrusted with maintaining public order is left without similar accountability.
“What, then, have we begun to understand by peace? Is peace simply the absence of people on the streets? Is it the silence that follows when protesters have been dispersed, detained or frightened into staying home? Can we call a society peaceful because those experiencing injustice have been prevented from speaking about it?
Is it possible to impose order without creating justice? To silence resistance without addressing the suffering that gives rise to it? To declare peace while leaving untouched the inequality and violence on which that peace rests? But surely this cannot be our understanding of peace in a democratic republic, she wrote.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member John Brittas said the ongoing protests across the country were not limited to demand for the CEC’s resignation over vote theft allegations, but also seek to regain the democratic space in the country. He said now there was a widespread feeling that the issues at stake affected everyone.
“Unless there is democratic process or free and fair elections, everything becomes redundant. Whether you are running a political party or whether you are a social activist, it won’t have value. Every section of the society is feeling the pinch. All those gains the country has made and its progressive ideals are being reversed. Now people have begun saying enough is enough. How far can you go ahead with Muslim-Hindu debate? Even those sane people who might have voted for the BJP are coming out in large numbers to support this protest,” he said.
However, he admitted that seeking Mr Kumar’s resignation would not be as easy as forcing the former union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan to quit after only first round of protests at Jantar Mantar as the CEC was not so easily dispensable for the Modi government.
“Since he is the one who is executing all the electoral plans of PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, he is not that dispensable like a Minister. They don’t want to have transparent or free and fair elections in India. The moment they shed Gyanesh Kumar, things will start rolling. They are also in a dilemma because they fear that the demands may grow. One crucial factor will be how these issues will impact the U.P. elections,” Mr Brittas said.
As a former journalist, he feels that the credibility of a large section of mainstream media, seen as close to the ruling BJP and the RSS, was at its lowest ebb. “I have never seen such an onslaught on legacy media. They were driven out from the protest sites. They are being seen as trumpeters or propaganda mechanisms. This is a time when everyone needs to introspect. You may have your corporate interests or parochial designs, but everything is being seen by people. Now maybe there is a slight lull in the protests. This is something just before the storm,” Mr Brittas said.