While the country marks the 155th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi today, who led India's freedom movement through peaceful protests and non-violent resistance, activists in Bengaluru are demanding their right to protest.
For context, after a judgement by the Karnataka High Court in 2022, all protests in the state's capital have been restricted to Freedom Park and require prior Police permission.
Activists in the city have raised this issue several times in the past two years, highlighting that it violates their freedom of speech and expression under Article 19 of the Constitution.
Activist Dushyant Dubey, better known in the city as St Broseph, told EdexLive, “Last year on the same day, we were detained by the police for protesting for our right to protest. This rule was introduced under the BJP government but even the Congress government has done nothing to revoke it. Whenever we organise protests in Freedom Park against student suicides, no students show up because there have been disciplinary actions taken against them in the past.”
To recall, St Broseph has been actively protesting against the recurring suicides at Bengaluru's PES University, however, these protests were also limited to Freedom Park which is over 10 km away from the University.
It isn't just about the right to protest. In Karnataka, even campus elections have been banned for several decades.
“In a country like India, student-led movements have been at the forefront of change. Even during the emergency, it was these movements that finally led to change. In Kolkata, for example, if the right to protest was curbed, you would never see the RG Kar protests transcend into the movement it has become today,” Dubey added.
He also took to social media platforms, commenting how even Gandhi wouldn't have been allowed to protest by Bengaluru Police in 2024.
