‘Lehra Do Tiranga’ march: Detentions, police restrictions and a growing battle over the right to protest

Delhi's Tricolour march on 16 October exposed the growing tension between public order and political dissent, as protesters gathered despite detentions and the closure of Connaught Place's Central Park.

Delhi's Connaught Place was on high alert on Friday, 16 October, as the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) tried to stage its 'Lehra Do Tiranga' march. The event, due to start at 5 pm in Central Park, was called by the CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke in solidarity with his jailed party colleagues Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, who had been sent to five-day judicial custody after protesting at Jantar Mantar.

The protest was also part of a campaign to demand the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on grounds of electoral fraud in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters' rolls.

The rally, which coincided with severe security restrictions and preventive detentions of protest organisers, drew thousands of people not only to Connaught Place, but also to other parts of Delhi.

According to Reuters, nearly 500 protesters gathered at various points around Connaught Place, defying the police restrictions, while other sources reported vastly varying turnout figures. The Times of India put the number of detentions during the day at around 150.

What happened from the morning onwards?

1. Morning: security stepped up across Delhi

Delhi Police deployed additional forces ahead of the protest, with barricades erected, detention vans brought in and surveillance intensified, particularly in and around Connaught Place. More CCTV cameras were also installed in Central Park and Rajiv Chowk metro station.

The scale of the police response was significant, though varying according to sources. The Indian Express quoted Delhi Police as putting the strength deployed across New Delhi and surrounding districts at "over 25,000 police and paramilitary personnel", while The Times of India put it at "over 6,000 personnel deployed in key areas". The figures relate to different deployment criteria and should not be directly compared.

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) had ordered the closure of Central Park for administrative reasons for 16 and 17 October, while Delhi Police issued advisories asking people not to congregate at the venue where the protest was due to take place, citing prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

Authorities said that they had received complaints about the safety and security of residents, the potential for obstruction of traffic and other law-and-order concerns. They also stated that a limited number of people could display the national flag and sing the national anthem at a "designated place".

The restrictions did little to stop the day's protests, however.

2. Before the march: Abhijeet Dipke and Neha Bora detained

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke was placed in preventive police custody before he could address the protesters due to turn up at Connaught Place. Delhi Police officers had visited the house where he was staying and warned him against staging the rally, before taking him away in a police vehicle.

AISA president Neha Bora was also placed in preventive custody when she and her supporters attempted to arrive at Connaught Place. A senior Delhi Police official confirmed to Reuters that both Dipke and Bora had been placed in preventive detention.

Meanwhile, the CJP protested against Dipke's detention, accusing the police of stopping young people from hoisting the national flag. The police responded by saying that they were taking "preventive action" in order to enforce "prohibitory orders" and avert a law-and-order problem.

The morning also saw the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) activists detained after demonstrating outside Parliament Street Police Station. Their protest coincided with heightened security ahead of the CJP's planned march.

The detentions of Dipke and Bora were among the most prominent developments of the day, as the rally organisers struggled to make their way to the venue where they had asked their supporters to gather.

3. Supreme Court declines to hear the CJP's petition

The dispute over the use of Central Park also involved the judiciary. A petition was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the NDMC's decision to close the park, but the request for an urgent hearing was denied. On Friday, a bench comprising the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that the petition raised several "important questions" of fact and law relating to the protest rally, the "law and order situation", and the "impact on hawkers".

The court also noted that the issues raised by the petition were "inextricably intertwined" with one another and expressed hope that the parties involved would act "in a manner worthy of the occasion".

The matter was adjourned for further hearing on 26 or 27 October.

It is important to note that the Supreme Court's denial of the petition for an urgent hearing did not constitute a ruling on the merits of the dispute over the protesters' rights to use Central Park. The court did not formally decide that either the NDMC or the CJP had acted illegally.

Nevertheless, the petition and the Supreme Court's response drew additional attention to the day's events. The CJP protesters were also seeking a ruling on their rights as citizens, which the authorities were attempting to curtail.

4. Evening: protests erupt despite restrictions

By the evening, hundreds of demonstrators had gathered at various points around Connaught Place, some of them waving the Tricolour and chanting slogans. Reuters reporters counted nearly 500 protesters who reached the area in groups and staged rallies at six or seven different places around Central Park. Some of the demonstrators were detained and placed in police vehicles.

Protests were not confined to one group or one area. Left-wing student leaders also turned up in Connaught Place, attempting to rally support despite the heightened security. Reuters also reported gatherings of demonstrators in Palika Bazaar and other parts of Connaught Place. ([Reuters][1])

The number of protesters detained by the Delhi Police varies according to the source and the time when the figure was recorded. According to the Times of India , there were around 150 detentions by the evening of 16 October. It is more accurate to say that the figure of 150 refers to that particular report than to quote a universally applicable number.

The events on 16 October were not confined to Delhi. Reuters also reported similar protests in Mumbai and Bengaluru, while student protesters gathered for a demonstration in Patna.

The protests' scale and intensity were enhanced by the fact that prominent organisers such as Abhijeet Dipke had been placed in preventive custody.

Why is the CJP protesting?

The immediate reason for the CJP's protest was the five-day judicial custody of its activists Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, who were due to face a police charge sheet in connection with their anti-Gyanesh Kumar protest rally at Jantar Mantar on 13 October.

The CJP accused the Election Commission of an electoral malpractice and launched a protest at Jantar Mantar, where demonstrators raised the Tricolour and demanded the Election Commissioner's resignation. The rally was addressed by students from various universities, but police charged several protesters with disrupting public order.

The CJP followed up on the Jantar Mantar protest by calling for a larger rally in Connaught Place to demand the resignation of Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. It also questioned why the display of the national flag had become an offence in the eyes of the state.

The anti-Gyanesh Kumar sentiment was fuelled by the controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which involves the deletion of more than 130 million names from the rolls. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been accused of disenfranchising voters in order to skew election results, but the accusations have been strongly denied by the ECI.

According to Reuters, the Election Commission has stated that the SIR process was not motivated by any "political or communal considerations", while the voters whose names were deleted from voter lists could re-register.

Nevertheless, the controversy over the ECI's integrity was a major factor in the CJP's decision to protest. The electoral-roll scandal and the subsequent detention of CJP activists represented an issue that the party felt compelled to openly address.

The political response

The protests were met with a mixed response by members of the political establishment. The ruling BJP accused the Congress of manipulating student protesters, while several politicians expressed solidarity with the CJP demonstrators.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh accused the Congress of "exploiting the youth" in order to advance their "politics of anarchy" and said that the students' energies should be channelled into "constructive activities" for the nation.

The protesters and their sympathisers, meanwhile, responded by accusing the government of undermining democratic freedoms and protested against the alleged interference with their right to dissent.

The protesters' response to the crackdown on their rally was an exercise in political rhetoric, which pitted the BJP against the left-liberal opposition. The government and the police were advocating law and order while protesters were accusing authorities of preventing legitimate dissent.

This disagreement did not settle the dispute over the Connaught Place rally, but it did add to the list of issues associated with the day's events.

The mass detentions of protesters and the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the petition for an urgent hearing did little to resolve the dispute over the CJP's right to rally in Delhi. However, the controversy over the electoral-roll revision continued to dominate the discussion.

The detention of prominent protest organisers and the scale of the weekend detentions will also affect the public debate on the CJP's agenda. For now, Friday's events represent a confrontation between the protesters' freedom of speech and the authorities' desire to maintain public order.

The bigger question: Who gets to claim the Tricolour?

The biggest takeaway from the 'Lehra do Tiranga' protest was the way in which the national flag became a focal point for dissent. In the context of the CJP's campaign, the Tricolour represented a democratic ideal that was allegedly being undermined by the government. However, the authorities were confronted with the reality of public opinion in one of Delhi's busiest commercial districts.

It is not easy to deny the right to protest on the grounds of traffic management and public order. Even before the closure of Central Park, the NDMC and Delhi Police had been forced to address the concerns of business owners and commuters who were affected by the large-scale gatherings.

Friday's confrontations did not change the fact that the CJP rally had failed to secure the support of either the NDMC or the Delhi Police. In a symbolic gesture, Central Park was closed to protests, but the demonstrators simply moved to other venues. The nationwide campaign is likely to intensify as the CJP protests continue throughout the weekend.