Raghu Karnad Profile picture
14 Dec, 12 tweets, 3 min read
[Thought experiment]

Like him or hate him, the Prime Minister comands wide support - having won the last election with well over 300 seats. Yet a protest movement has now openly declared that it will remove him from office through non-electoral means.

Contd...
(2) Protesters are gathering in New Delhi with plans to besiege the Prime Minister's house. ‘We intend to overthrow him,’ an opposition leader tells the media. ‘Thousands of us will surround his house to prevent her from going out or receiving visitors.'
Contd...
(3) This follows over a year of student-protests involving extreme disruption and frequent bloodshed.
A Union minster has been assassinated.
And the figurehead of the protest movement has called on police Army personnel to disregard orders they consider 'illegal'.

Contd...
(4) Meanwhile, massive labour strikes are rocking the country. One union leader brings the entire Indian railways to a standstill, for nineteen days. He also has plans to literally dynamite bridges and culverts as a statement of protest.

Contd...
(5) So what's your reaction to this scenario, and what would you say is justified state response?

Because this was (just part of) the situation facing Indira Gandhi when she declared a state of Emergency in 1975. All factual; only the gender of the PM is changed.
(6) The Emergency is back in the dock today, thanks to the Supreme Court and its priorities.

This headline is dark comedy, at a time when civil liberties in India are collapsing once again.
(7) But it's also a great time to revisit the mid-1970s and see what extreme protest has meant in India. The comparison helps us reassess how 'disruptive' today's #farmersrprotests are.
Or Shaheen Bagh / the anti-NRC national movement that started a year ago.
(8) It should also help us reassess the statements of today's leaders about protest, liberties and order. Because many of our current cabinet ministers started their political careers in the extreme anti-Indira protests.
(9) The most prominent was Arun Jaitley, but look for the year 1974 in most of their biographies... Including our Prime Minister's. There's a lot to learn. As for the dynamite-happy Railway Union leader, George Fernandes, he ended up a cabinet minister under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
(10) What this tells me is that public protest does have limits. It can eventually threaten national stability - as it did in the 1970s.
What's remarkable today is how much state suppression we now justify for much smaller, non-violent demonstrations.
(11) The Emergency is notorious and it was a terrible reaction. Many Indians feel (and maybe the Supreme Court will discover) that we suffer a similar reactionary moment -- only without any comparable provocation.
(12) PS. Before you point to the Allahabad HC ruling on Raj Narain etc: the Supreme Court gave Indira Gandhi a conditional stay on that ruling. It was the stay order that provoked the plan to march on the PM's home.

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More from @rkarnad

15 Oct
Even after its recent stand, the Hindi film industry needs to keep watching the channels that have attacked it & persecuted its women actors.
Why?
Not to see what the channels are saying, but to see a clear picture of what #Bollywood itself is expected to become. (1/7)
(2) Basic principle: The new extremist movement first asks for compromises from industry players. Then it coerces / co-opts them. But the endgame is to destroy existing players & rebuild the industry from its cadre.

Why coerce the film industry, when you could possess it?
(3) This endgame is close for India's 'news' TV. You can see the English broadcasters strung down a gradient: From accommodation, to compromises, to co-option, to full possession (you-know-who at each position.) The game is rigged so they keep moving, or come under fire.
Read 9 tweets
26 Aug
In 2017, the Jaipur Lit Fest hosted two RSS leaders for a special conversation. @DalrympleWill defended the decision against all objections (including mine).

He’s consistently platformed conservative & far-right speakers, while disagreeing with their beliefs (1/4)
But a few days ago, with zero evidence of his role in the @BloomsburyIndia decision, right-wing media figures declared Dalrymple an enemy in something called “The War”, slandered him as a Jihadist, and physically threatened his home in Delhi. (2/4)
(3/4) An IAS officer openly called for his books to be burned - and for people to share videos of the book-burnings. This is where we've come.

None of the right-wing figures whom @JaipurLitFest hosted in style spoke up in Dalrymple's defence that night.
Read 4 tweets
16 Jun
Cassandra: Warned her arrogant rulers, again and again, about true dangers to their city; was disregarded and abused ("a raving tongue of evil speech") and told to be silent, but was always right.

I'm just learning this: In 'Posthomerica', when the Trojan kings found the Greek camp razed and only the Trojan Horse left behind, they celebrated their victory. Only Cassandra and Laocoon saw through the ruse - he died urging them to burn the horse... (2/5)
(3/5) While Cassandra, cursed with the gift of prophecy, kept crying out - "as roars a lioness" - her warning: "Into the land of darkness we are now passing, for all around us full of fire and blood and dismal moan the city is... Still ye rejoice in one consent in madness..."
Read 5 tweets
25 Feb
I'm at Mustafabad, near the Loni Border, and new fires (set post-9pm) are burning in front of our eyes - Muslim jhuggis and tempos, according to onlookers - by masked men shouting JSR. Delhi Police are present saying they are unable to intervene.
If you are concerned about this being fake news, it is all on video, coming out on the Wire tomorrow, also recorded by three other reporters from different orgs - all of whom had to literally run across the border to UP police thana (Loni Road) where the police were more helpful.
These are the exact coordinates according to GoogleMaps:
B-4, Street Number 5, Johripur Extension, Johripur, ext, Delhi 110094
28.7097773, 77.2866380
Read 9 tweets
5 Jan
If you're confused about the possible identity of the masked attacked in #JNUviolence, a question to ask:
Has there been a single tweet yet from @narendramodi @AmitShah or HRD minister @DrRPNishank? What about @CPDelhi @DelhiPolice? Ans: none
@narendramodi @AmitShah @DrRPNishank @CPDelhi @DelhiPolice (2) I received word about #JNUViolence at 18.15 – three and a half hours ago. Since then the Home Minister has tweeted four times; the HRD minister eight times – none of them about JNU.
BJP Delhi MP @M_Lekhi tweeted 18 mins ago – about inaugurating a pedestrian bridge.
#SOSJNU
@narendramodi @AmitShah @DrRPNishank @CPDelhi @DelhiPolice @M_Lekhi (3) The only tweets from Union ministers are from #JNU alumni, Finance Minister @nsitharaman and Minister of External Affairs @DrSJaishankar. These two tweets speak volumes.
Read 6 tweets
22 Dec 19
"I want to tell the 130 crore citizens of India that since my government has come to power, since 2014, there has been no discussion on NRC anywhere...," the PM said at #RamLilaMaidan. "Lies are being spread."

Yes, they are.
(2/n) I deleted my earlier tweet because I wanted to re-verify the PM's bewildering quote, which appeared first on @thenewsminute. The quote is fine. Thank you @dhanyarajendran. You're always on top of your game
It wasn't just TV interviews. It wasn't just election rallies. It wasn't just BJP CMs promising to implement it. Amit Shah promised a nation-wide NRC *in Parliament*.
Read 4 tweets

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