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Journalism of Courage
A few days ago, while talking about the INDIA alliance’s mega “Loktantra Bachao Rally” being held at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on Sunday, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Gopal Rai described the venue as the “birthplace of movements”.
He was not off the mark given that it happens to be the place where the India Against Corruption movement spearheaded by social activist Anna Hazare was centred in 2011. The movement ultimately led to the birth of the AAP and created the momentum that led to the ouster of the Congress-led UPA government from power at the Centre.
But the history of the Ramlila Maidan is far older, going back to the early 1930s when it was created by filling up a pond located between Old and New Delhi. According to historian Narayani Gupta, the grounds near Ajmeri Gate, where the Maidan is currently located, played host to Ramlila celebrations as far back as the 19th Century, with the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, himself ordering a change in the path of the procession so he could view it. Zafar’s reign lasted from 1837 to 1857. By 1876, it was the custom to celebrate Ramlila outside the Gate, which is today about a kilometre from Ramlila Maidan, after a procession through Chandni Chowk.
Over the decades, the ground has become more than just a festival venue, having played host to momentous changes in Indian politics as other venues eclipsed the Ramlila Maidan as a gathering place for festivals.
In 1975, it was the site of a protest led by Jayaprakash Narayan against the Indira Gandhi government. Earlier in the year, Indira lost a petition in the Allahabad High Court accusing her of malpractices in her election to the Lok Sabha in 1971. Her election win from Raebareli was declared void. After the Supreme Court granted her partial relief, she refused to resign as PM. Narayan called a massive rally at Ramlila Maidan on June 25, where he announced a weeklong satyagraha to press for the PM’s resignation. Shortly after his speech, Indira announced the Emergency.
That same night, as he was being taken to jail, Narayan made his famous comment of “Vinaash kaale vipreet buddhi (As one’s doom approaches, their intellect works against their best interest)” about Indira’s actions.
In 1977, Narayan returned to the Ramlila Maidan to address another huge rally with lakhs of people, he gave a call to the people not to miss the opportunity to choose between “freedom and slavery”. He stressed that the question this time was not whether the Janata Party or the Congress won in the elections, but “whether you and your children and the country will be free or slaves.” That year, the Janata Party won the Lok Sabha elections and formed the first non-Congress government at the Centre.
As Rai described, for the AAP the rally is a return of sorts to its roots. In 2011, Anna Hazare launched the India Against Corruption movement at the Ramlila Maidan. The anti-corruption movement proved to be a springboard for the AAP and Kejriwal, under whose leadership the fledgling party would go on to form the government in Delhi two years later.
While the Ramlila Maidan is frequently used as a site for political rallies by parties during elections, it is a popular protest venue more generally. In the past year, there have been several major protests at the Ramlila Maidan. In June 2023, Kejriwal addressed a rally where he attacked the Centre for bringing in an ordinance to effectively sideline the Delhi government, describing the government as a “dictatorship”.
Last October, the ground saw demonstrations against the National Pension System by thousands of government employees who demanded a restoration of the Old Pension Scheme in October 2023.
Earlier this month, hundreds of farmers from Punjab and Haryana gathered at the Ramlila Maidan as part of farmers groups’ nationwide agitation against the Centre to seek legally guaranteed minimum support prices for crops and loan waivers, among other demands.
