Rules For Organising Protests
Dilliwalahs, well – a few of them, are discovering the common thread that runs between Tiananmen Square, Kent State University protests by students against the Vietnam War and the recent Delhi University (DU) ruling. DU’s new rules enforce strict rules for organising protests such as a mandatory 72-hour prior permission that needs to be taken from not just the university authorities but the local police as well. The application must be submitted with full details such as details organisers, speakers, participants etc. And mind you – DU emphasizes that only a physical, signed application be submitted in person (whatever happened to the Government’s much hyped programme called ‘Digital India’?).
This blogger cannot help but recall a stand-up comic’s remark that these are students who buy their samosas and bread pakoras on credit from college canteens and kiosks nearby. Yet the Government treats them as if they were capable of toppling their carefully built narratives and thus their empire. Universities were once spaces where ideas collided and now, they are being converted to spaces where ideas must apply for entry 72 hours in advance. Spontaneity, it seems, is far too dangerous a thing to be left to students. Imagine if this rule was in place would leaders of the ruling dispensation such as the late Arun Jaitley, Vijay Goel and even the current CM, Mrs RG would have ever got noticed?
Dilliwalahs, as is widely acknowledged, are a remarkably forgetful people. We have forgotten the dark days of the Emergency, the 1984 riots, and demonetisation (though a popular film that’s raking in the moolah at the box office brings back memories of those stressful days with the intent to show us, lesser mortals, the big picture). We have also, with admirable efficiency, forgotten the oxygen and healthcare collapse during COVID, the CAA protests, the farmers’ agitation, those incendiary speeches preceding the 2020 Delhi riots, and various other minor inconveniences. Ours, clearly, is a city that believes firmly in emotional minimalism and administrative amnesia.
However, it is difficult to believe that Dilliwalahs ever forget to wear their underwear before stepping out from their homes. But then some folks do not trust us Dilliwalahs enough and that’s the reason why underwear vending machines were reportedly installed at the Rohini East Metro station. It is likely that this blogger has misunderstood the initiative entirely. Perhaps citizens are expected to purchase brightly coloured underwear and wear it over their trousers – Superman-style, as a visible demonstration of empowerment, preparedness, and ease of living. Rejoice, for governance has entered its most intimate phase.
StateOfDelhi Suggests: Bread Pakoda is one of those rare democratic foods that almost every roadside stall and sweet shop in Delhi has mastered. Every DDA market and office complex will have a halwai selling perfectly respectable Bread Pakodas – often in intense competition with a street-side stall or kiosk selling something remarkably similar, and sometimes better. Then there are the legacy establishments, such as Khandani Pakode Wala on Ring Road in Sarojini Nagar, which has reportedly been serving its formidable Bread Pakodas since the 1960s, or Bindra Pakore at Hari Nagar in West Delhi, operating since the 1970s. And for DU students, there is the famous Guptaji near North Campus, where they can gobble up Bread Pakodas and then, suitably fortified, complain about the new rules on protests at Delhi University, albeit strictly in private, of course.