Mumbai Protests Debate: When Political Rallies Disrupt Daily Life And Test Civic Accountability |
In no time, the video of the angry woman screaming at Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Girish Mahajan went viral this week. She spared no quarter in giving him—and the posse of policemen and policewomen accompanying him—a piece of her mind in the choicest language she could muster, repeatedly telling him to get out of the way because his rally had caused a traffic pile-up for an hour on a stretch that should take 15 minutes.
Traffic disruption sparks outrage
Mahajan paid her scant attention and then mildly engaged but proceeded with the rally. The police disregarded her angry rant, more intent on providing the guardrails for the minister and his followers than clearing a lane for the vehicles.
How the Mumbai Police gave permission for this rally while denying it to tens of similar requests, including one last month from Chowpatty to Azad Maidan to protest the slashing of 45,000 mangroves, is a futile question for the times we live in. We must not expect an impartial application of laws any more.
Questioning the purpose of the protest
What’s absurd is that the ruling party took out a rally in the middle of a workday—this is an important detail—to protest the national Opposition defeating the Delimitation Bill in Parliament which, it claims, prevents the Women’s Reservation Bill from being implemented. The logic that ties the latter to the former would not pass the smell test of an undergraduate student of philosophy, but leave that aside. The protest and its implications call attention here.
Contradictions in messaging and........