The monument of protest and the voice of dissent

An edited version was published in Indian Express on Jan. 1, 2009.

In the back alleyways of Jantar Mantar, amid squalor, food stalls,makeshift shanties and overbearing stench, there is a patchwork of protests – fists and slogans and most importantly, hope. And count in the mayhem too.
On any given day, there are too many protests on the street just outside the boundary of the famous observatory where a cluster of jhuggies now take centerstage. Maybe 13 or even 15 rallies. And while the agendas may be different, the protests have co-existed, often recognizing each other's pace and downing their voices to accommodate another.
Effigies are burnt, slogans are shouted, and passersby frown while policemen stand guard lest the protestors turn violent, and women cook and clean and children run in the streets. And all of it against the backdrop of one of the landmark monuments in India – Jantar Mantar, an outdoor astronomical observatory built in 1724 by the Rajput ruler of Amber, Sawai Jai Singh II.
Some tourists stumble on to the "protest street" as it now commonly known and click pictures of "democracy at work". But for the average Indian, Jantar Mantar, once the observatory and symbolic of India's scientific exploits, is now the chaos street. Squatters have been served notices but they linger. In fact, the New Delhi Municipal
Council has put up a mobile potable water tanker where men and children bathe and women wash the utensils and clothes. There is even a mobile latrine van behind Jantar Mantar for these temporary residents.
"They are too many jobless people all sitting here and wasting their time," one middle-aged man, who regularly snacks at the New Delhi Municipal Corporation food stalls, said.
But for the protestors, the protest ground encompasses the spirit of democracy. After the Narasimha Rao government banned rallies at the Boat Club in 1993, protestors flocked to the Jantar Mantar location hoping to get their demands conceded to by the government.
Parliament Street, the road from Jantar Mantar that leads to the seat of the government and the street is completely choked with people – political and non-political and from all over the country – all vying to get attention, all holding microphones and all hoping for change.
One such person is Babuya Barman. In a makeshift tent which has too many holes and the chilly winter breeze cuts through the thick smoke from the stove where a woman is cooking, Barman is bracing for yet another cold season. For more than two years, he has stayed put in the little tarpaulin tent held in place with strings, decorated with banners celebrating the Rajbanshi language and culture and pressing for separate statehood for Greater Cooch-Behar, and home to about 25 others. A harmonium sits on a colorful mat, and miniature gods and goddesses dot the otherwise bare front brick wall of the Janta Dal office. Here Barman and others sing their folk songs, pore over the numerous Right to Information requests they have filed, and read
through a thick book that contains the history of the Rajbanshis, a largely impoverished ethnic community of more than two crore people.
For the 30-year-old Rajbanshi activist and member of the Greater Cooch-Behar People's Association, the brutal cold or the oppressive heat has never mattered. So what if he and 24 others sleep on the roadside. So what if it has been more than two years in the same spot protesting the merger with West Bengal in 1949. So what if the
government has not yet responded to their letters and requests.
It is hope that has kept him and others going. Underdevelopment and resulting poverty, Barman said, has been at the heart of the movement. In September 2005, the ovement claimed five lives - two activists killed in police firing and three policemen lynched by a mob. It was then that the association decided to come to
Jantar Mantar, the closest point to the Parliament and since August 28, 2006, have sat in dharna for a separate state.
Barman is a Gandhiwadi, who believes in the power of the Satygraha.
"We are linguistically, culturally different," he said. "I have chosen to be here because we suffer as a people. We will sit here until the government gives in to our demands. We are the sons of the soil. Desh ki awz yehi (Jantar Mantar) se hi buland hoti hai."
But across the street from him, a protest was already turning violent. Effigies of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were lined up at a protest rally by ex-servicemen and their wives who have been demanding "one rank, one pension" for years now.
The relay hunger strike by the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM) started Dec. 16 with two participants - Jawan Suleman Khan and Naik Rekh Raj – on a fast unto death.
And they have vowed to remain here until the government concedes.
Among them were the wives of the retired servicemen too with placards in their hands, shouting enthusiastically.
Chandro Rathi, a Rohtak-based wife with graying hair, sat quietly. The family finds it difficult to make ends meet with just Rs. 2,020 in pension, she said.
"We don't have land nor do we have any side business," she said. "And what does the government care? Army gives up their lives for the county and this is what the country gives back. How can I run a house of seven people with Rs. 2,020?"
They threaten; they cajole and even bash the media. A photographer, who was munching on a pear while he took pictures, was shunned.
"They need to respect the andolankaris," one soldier said.
In 2002, Sonia Gandhi had said at a rally in Chandigarh that if elected, her government would consider the "one rank, one pension" demand. And five years into the government and with Lok Sabha elections early next year, it is time to remind the government of its promises, Rathi said.
An elderly woman, probably in her seventies, adjusted her shawl and changed positions. A widow, she had been sitting at the rally sincemorning. For days, no media person came to cover the rally, Sab Kaur said.
"This is a dignified protest. I have five sons and six daughters. The pension is just not enough and if the government apathy continues, I will not send any of my sons in the army," she said.
A few paces down the road, another protest was forming. A few rehearsed their speeches, while others hung the posters. They were asking the Pakistani government to stop sending terrorists to India.
And as the day wore on, the protestors flocked to NDMC stalls for tea and a break. In that moment perhaps the cacophony of the buses and the din of the city drowned the voice of dissent.