Opinion Regime change bogey is undemocratic

For over five years, Umar Khalid, along with Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima and others, has been incarcerated without facing trial or being granted bail. The fact that they have been charged with terror offences under the UAPA, with stringent bail conditions, should have been reason to expedite their trial. In the last three years and more, instead, their bail pleas were heard by the Delhi High Court, the verdicts reserved, only for the judges in question to retire or be transferred. Last week, before the Supreme Court of India, the Delhi Police opposed bail once again, claiming in their affidavit that the accused orchestrated the anti-CAA protests and the Delhi riots of 2020 in a “criminal conspiracy hatched for…. achieving the final ‘regime change’ goal”. The “regime change” accusation, evidently an exercise in spectre-mongering, is a worrying escalation in how the ruling establishment frames protest and dissent — in order to delegitimise and criminalise it.

India has seen several “regime changes” at the Centre and in the states, through election, the backbone of a democracy. Even after the Emergency, an authoritarian regime was ousted through the ballot. Unlike some of its neighbours, citizens in this country have the right to dissent and express their grievances in elections that are regarded as free and fair. In recent years, however, those who protest against the government have been demonised — as “anti-national” now, as “urban Naxals” then. The Delhi Police seek to add “regime change” to this list of loose labels that seek to shrink the spaces for dialogue and debate, and imbue democratic disagreement with sinister intent.

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Since Independence, students, farmers and other civil society groups have taken to the streets to protest a variety of issues. Protesters have also been arrested in the past. But what makes the case against Khalid, Imam and others more disturbing was articulated by the Delhi HC bench that granted bail to Khalid’s co-accused, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Tanha in 2021: “… it seems that in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the state, the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred. If this mindset gains traction, it would be a sad day for democracy.”