Four students who showed black flags to a leader of the Government, were charged with sedition and jailed. Is this some event from history – are we speaking of freedom fighters who showed black flags to the British authorities? Unfortunately, no! This incident took place in independent India, ironically just the day after Independence Day this year. The incident became a rallying point for democratic voices all over the country, who saw it as a telling and ominous comment on the fragile quality of democracy in India.
On 16 August, four students of AISA – Kesri Kumar Yadav, Ranjeet Ram, Sonu Yadav and Santosh Anand Yadav, along with several other AISA and RYA activists, showed black flags near the Mithila University to Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, in protest against his visit to Darbhanga. In a leaflet distributed on 15 August, they announced their intention to hold such a protest. Advani was in Darbhanga to inaugurate a Maithili language radio broadcasting service – and the protesting students also declared that the people of Mithila did not want such sops – why didn’t Advani address the burning need for a solution to the flood and electricity crisis which were devastating the region? Of the protestors, these four students were singled out, charged with sedition and conspiracy under sections 124(A) and 120(B), and sent to jail.
Given the sharp increase, under BJP rule, in the trend of invoking ‘sedition’ to brand any protest as ‘anti-national’ this incident might have passed as yet another highly condemnable, but expected attempt to muzzle anti-BJP voices. Democratic activists have learned to expect and be prepared for such assaults by the BJP govt. and its allies. What made this latest incident totally shocking was the fact that it was the Bihar government of the RJD that was responsible.
The Laloo-Rabri govt. has never been distinguished for democracy, of course. Massacres of rural poor, murder of activists by mafia don-turned RJD MP Shahabuddin, false encounter killings of students at Patna have marked the years of their rule, and few remain under any illusion about the democratic or socially just nature of this regime. But secularism had continued to be Laloo’s USP, which still won him friends. So people inevitably asked – when Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi’s government stops Togadia and Co., they call themselves defenders of Bihar’s secular values. How is it that on the very same day, in the selfsame Bihar, students who show black flags to Advani are accused of ‘sedition’ by the same government?! The fact is that the Bihar government wants its own state machinery to have an exclusive monopoly over all claims of ‘defending secular values’. It is scared of popular, democratic initiatives that have not been carefully scripted and showcased by the RJD. As soon as anti-communalism breaks the official, state-sponsored confines and begins to take the shape of a people’s movement, the Bihar government feels threatened. In particular, it feels threatened by the vigorous energy of youth and students, when it takes up questions of secularism and democracy – after all, this youthful energy has a potential to turn against Bihar government itself, and in fact has done so many times in the recent past. Safer to nip it in the bud, even if its present target is the communal BJP. But it is the aspirations and energy of young people, and their powerful movements for employment and education, democracy and secular values which hold out far more hope for a challenge to communal forces than the hollow showmanship of Laloo Yadav.
The sedition charge sparked off waves of protest in Bihar and beyond. In the first few days, Darbhanga witnessed daily protests – a CPI(ML) March, a Student Convention by AISA, an ‘Aakrosh March’ and a human chain by students, and on 27 August, a bandh in Mithila University, Sanskrit University as well as several colleges. When bail was denied to the students on 27th, the struggle intensified and spread. On 1 September, AISA’s protest at Income Tax Roundabout at Patna stalled the cavalcade of Chief Minister Rabri Devi for several minutes, forcing it to turn and change route. Meanwhile, from within the jail, the four students issued a spirited “open letter”, refusing to be intimidated, and declaring “if telling the truth amounts to rebellion, then we are proud to be rebels”. Between 6-11 September, a CPI(ML) team went on an intensive padyatra, covering every inch of Darbhanga and mobilising opinion against the assault on democratic rights and secularism. Nearly 50 literary figures ncluding Ibbar Rabbi, Rajesh Joshi and Khagendra Thakur wrote to the Bihar Chief Minister condemning the sedition charges on students as shameful. Several democratic voices from all over the country, including journalists, writers, activists and cultural figures also sent a protest letter to the CM (see box).
However, Bihar government continued to maintain a stony silence, as did the Congress, CPI(M) and most other parties. The tide finally turned on 12 September, when over 5,000 people gathered to attend the bail hearing of the students. When the District Judge postponed the date for no reason, it was the last straw. The CPI(ML) activists, including many hundreds of women, staged a militant gherao of the DM’s office. In a historic protest, they stormed the DM’s office demanding justice for the students. The administration responded with a brutal crackdown – lathicharge, teargas, firing. The brutality was captured by news cameras, and people all over saw the sight of police thrashing women with lathis and the butts of rifles. Many observed that, like the sedition charge itself, the brutal crackdown seemed like a throwback to the days of colonial repression. But the crackdown was counterproductive. The resistance only grew, as the issue sparked off more and more voices of protest. On 13 September, CPI(ML) held protest marches and burnt Rabri Devi’s effigy all over Bihar – at Patna, Muzaffarpur, Bihar Sharief, Siwan, Ara, Nawadah, Begusarai, Samastipur and other centres. At Darbhanga, thousands of CPI(ML) activists, with black cloth covering their mouth to represent muzzling of protest, held a protest march. It was a silent march, but its echoes rippled all over Bihar. At the same time, the former Advocate General of Patna High Court and a former BJP leader Tarakant Jha spoke out to say the police was wrong in charging black flag protestors with sedition. National General Secretary of JD(U) and Councillor Tanveer Hasan also declared that the sedition case was a ‘murder of democracy’. He reminded that several leaders including Indira Gandhi had often been shown black flags, but this was probably the first case of such protest being termed ‘sedition’!
Finally, a full month after the incident, Laloo Yadav was heckled by reporters and forced to speak. Of course, just as he did over the ‘Gangajal’ incident, he tried to salvage his image by claiming he hadn’t known about the case. But his act of surprise cut no ice with anyone. Clearly, it was only the militancy of the protestors (around 1,000 of whom now face charges, and hundreds of whom were injured) which finally ‘made the deaf hear’. Sedition charges were lifted and the four students were granted bail on 22 September, but they refused to come out of the jail until all other comrades arrested on 13 September protest in Darbhanga are also released. Demanding their release and punishment to the police authorities responsible for the crackdown, Party has called for Mithilanchal bandh on 24 September.
--KK