‘Using so much force to keep one person is safe admission of guilt’: Gurmehar Kaur on CEC row

Protests have broken out across the country against the CEC over the functioning of the Election Commission and the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Protesters, from the youth to the elderly, say they have lost confidence in the poll body, while Delhi has been turned into what looks like a police garrison. The Federal spoke to Kaur about what the protests can achieve, the role of the police, the right to dissent, and the differences between Congress and the Gen Z-led movement.

The protests have been largely non-violent, but the police response has been stern. Have you ever wondered what end these protests serve?

We all have. I don’t think any of us wants to be doing this. We don’t want to be out in the streets fighting our own forces. We do not want our own money being used to deploy 34,000 forces on the streets.

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But what should one do when there is a question mark on the electoral process? As citizens, it is our national duty to come out on the streets and protest, and that’s what we are doing. We do it respectfully and peacefully. We do it knowing that it is for the betterment of the country.

As far as the end of the protests is concerned, it has to end with a resignation. I don’t think any person in any position of power should use the Indian forces to stay in power.

Can a resignation solve an alleged credibility crisis in the Election Commission?

It’s not simply about the resignation. Our party has made it very clear that we have three demands.

The first is that Gyanesh Kumar has to resign, and he also has to be brought to justice and tried for treason. That is non-negotiable.

Another non-negotiable demand is that the SIR process has to be rolled back and the 13 crore voters need to be put back on the voter rolls.

The third is that the elections have to be held on ballot paper, because we have heard news of EVMs being manipulated.

These are simple demands and any government believing in fair elections should be able to fulfil them.

You are saying the deployment of the police force to protect one person is itself an admission of guilt. But the counter-argument is that exacting something from the government on the streets is not the right form of governance. People have moved court, and if something is found wrong, decisions can be declared ultra vires or annulled. Is it right to demand something from the government from the streets?

It is one hundred per cent right. That’s exactly how this country came into being. We fought on the streets. That’s exactly what Mahatma Gandhi did. That’s exactly what Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel did. Our country has emerged out of the fight on the streets. The modern Indian state that we know, this wonderful union of states, has emerged out of the street fight.

Those who question the right to protest, which is a fundamental right, and call protesters “anti-national” or “anti-India” delegitimise the country and its very being in the process.

Because of who we are, because of the nation that we are, you cannot suppress our right to protest. It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this violent, this tense, or this massive in terms of pressure. We don’t have to have mass deployment of personnel. Open Jantar Mantar, let people protest. It’s a designated protest site. Let people show their dissent.

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Dissent has to happen. The government has to be held accountable. The power is not yours to keep, it is a power that citizens have lent you. You cannot abuse it. And what’s happening today is abuse of power.

Former police officers I spoke to say the police will do whatever it has been deployed to do, because that is their job. They say this is a policing solution being sought for a political problem, and that the solution needs to come from the political masters. Do you agree?

Yes, exactly. I do agree with you. It is a political problem where we are using a policing situation and a policing solution. I would also go so far as to say that it’s an insult to our forces that they have to now fight their own citizens, that they have been asked to fight their own citizens.

I have a lot of empathy for policemen who are out there. We know their pay is not great and we know the homes they come from. I was in Punjab during the floods last September, and we were rebuilding homes with the help of an organisation. I met somebody who was deployed outside the Parliament gate, and we built his home. His home had crumbled under the pressure of the floods. And very sweetly he said, “Aap jab Parliament aayengi toh aapka darwaza main kholunga, kyunki aapne mera ghar banaya.” [When you come to Parliament, I will open the door for you, because you built my home.]

I have seen what their homes look like. I know where they come from. They are my people. They come from Punjab, they come from Haryana, they come from small towns. They have a government job – the only way for social and upward mobility for a lot of people, and some kind of security in our country. So to me, it’s an insult to our forces that they have to now fight their own citizens here.

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I have been on the protest ground and have never touched a cop. And when some have pushed me, they have said sorry a multiple times. That is one story. But I know of another story too, where the police are not so kind. I believe they also come with ideological differences. And then there are some who don’t have name tags. I want to know where they come from, and why don’t they have name tags.

My duty is this. If I was in a uniform, I would have had a very different duty, and I would have completed it. But if I am not in the uniform, I am a simple citizen. I exist to look for political solutions to these problems. So my duty is to stand on the streets and put up a good fight for a basic right to vote.

Allegations against the EC are being raised for over a year now. But the recent news about the alleged dissent in the commission has acted as fodder, prompting everyone, from political parties to youngsters to hit the streets. Why is it so crucial to be on the streets? Is there a street solution to Mr Gyanesh Kumar? How do you look at Gen Z, since many in your party treat the CJP or the Gen Z movement with scepticism?

When you have enough proof – and you said it yourself that the two election commissioners have objected to how this (SIR) has been carried out – and when you have enough proof in your hand to know that there is something extremely wrong with the election process, the question is which other institutions have also been compromised.

If faith in institutions is eroding, then I think people have to be on the streets. We have done the press conferences, we have moved courts, and we have spoken to people. It has been going on for a year. So if young people are out on the streets, it’s our duty to be out on the streets as well. Is there another solution? If you give me one, we would take it.

And why would the election commissioners not meet the Leader of Opposition (LoP)? That’s a constitutional position. You have to meet the LoP when he demands or requests it. Why is there so much resistance?

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As for the CJP and Gen Z protests, I am not somebody who believes in pitting one movement against the other. But I also understand that the larger conversation about the Gen Z protests in South Asia and across the world is something that worries people a lot. It worries constitutionalists a lot. I believe the scepticism comes from that.

I think a lot of scepticism that comes from the organisers’ previous political leanings, and of course, those associations have also compromised with the RSS in the past. And the truth is that we are not in a situation where we are a perfectly functioning electoral democracy.

AISA, the Aam Aadmi Party, the SFI, we are all constantly competing with each other. The scepticism also comes from a space of having fought each other for so long. Not everybody ideologically agrees with each other on many spaces. I believe that’s where that sort of doubt comes from. But I want to make it very, very clear that we are in a space where electoral democracy is not functioning properly. If your vote doesn’t matter, if your vote doesn’t count, then the existence of these ideologies and these organisations is also diminished. So we have to come together to demand our right to a fair electoral process, and then go back to our own spaces and fight each other fairly, as one does in a democracy.

So you are saying there should be a common minimum understanding when the cause is common?

I think there is an understanding. Of course some frictions will exist, but those frictions are not relevant enough. People will have feelings. You cannot put a blanket on it. We are not the BJP. We are not dictators. We cannot ask people to feel a certain way about certain parties. People are allowed to have scepticism. People are allowed to see allies in the CJP or in AISA or in SFI, and people are allowed to feel completely indifferent about them as well.

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So it’s all okay. But I do feel that our party leader Rahul Gandhi has also put out a website called Satyagraha, where we are registering small movements everywhere. We are a country born out of movements. We are not against movements. People can have their own movement. We can ally together or not ally together. We could do it separately.

I truly don’t think it’s a very relevant conversation. For example, during the freedom struggle, the Muslim League and the Congress were not exactly the best of friends, and there were always tensions. I think it’s a similar situation, and I’ll just keep it at that. I do not think it’s more important. The internal frictions are not relevant enough to me.