What Makes Anti-CAA Protests Unique & What Opposition Must Do Now

Anti-CAA protests have signalled a certain disappointment with the political class.

Image of anti-CAA protests (background) and a neta used for representational purposes.

(Photo: Arnica Kala / The Quint)

It has been a month since the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests began across the country. Given the grit on display and with new faces joining in, it appears they will stretch till a solution is found. There could, of course, be another type of closure: the settling into a new, simmering normal that may well serve political ends but leave the nation scarred.

The tendency so far has been to view the protests as a stand-off between the Union government and the protestors. There is a case, however, to examine what the protests imply for the relationship between the citizen and the political class as a whole, including both the ruling and opposition parties, and the space it offers for realising what would necessarily have to be a political solution.

• The tendency so far has been to view the protests as a stand-off between the Union government and the protestors.
• The protests have signalled a certain disappointment with the political class.
• At the moment, the political class is struggling to figure out how it should engage with the protests.
• A common strategy is yet to evolve, with personality clashes and State-level political dynamics proving predictable inhibitors.

Anti-CAA Protests Signal Disappointment In Political Class

This is for two reasons. One, as mentioned above, solutions have to be found in the political space, and the political opposition, even if it were not to enjoy the heft it does at the state-level, is as salient to that space as the ruling coalition is. This does not absolve the ruling coalition from its obligations to find an early and sane solution – it only recognises that the Opposition has to be part of the solution-finding process.

Two, the protests have signalled a certain disappointment with the political class.

While the larger, more pressing questions are rightly directed at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the leader of the ruling coalition and the CAA’s chief proponent, the conscious distance most protests have maintained from the political opposition signals that their faith in the opposition is not as robust as it should be. Or that there is strategic merit perceived in maintaining such distance in this instance, hardly a comforting thought given what is at stake.

At the moment, the political class is struggling to figure out how it should engage with the protests.

The BJP is not on top of the narrative, an unfamiliar situation for it during the Narendra Modi years. Its outreach has focused more on the faithful and left several questions unanswered. The heavy-handed approach resorted to in certain states may have ensured uneasy, localised calms, but have achieved little in terms of dampening the larger energy of the protests.

Balancing Act for the Opposition

The portrayal of the National Population Register (NPR) as a routine administrative exercise and the recent hush around the National Register of Citizens (NRC) have suggested a tactical retreat of sorts, but the CAA continues to be served as a fait accompli.

No serious dialogue has been initiated around reviewing it.

The Opposition has its own challenges. Some parties have kept off the streets, confining themselves to expressions of solidarity with the protestors and conveying oral reluctance to implement the CAA and facilitate NPR activity in states they hold power in. Others have pushed back more firmly, organising marches and rallies, mounting legal challenges, and ordering cessation of NPR activity.

A common strategy is yet to evolve, with personality clashes and State-level political dynamics proving predictable inhibitors.

More importantly, the organic, citizen-led protests have not relied on the political opposition for strategising and amplification. The citizen has decided to take charge and left it to the Opposition to figure how much and in which ways it can pitch in. Such assertion by the citizen is uncommon and presents dilemmas around the mediation role the opposition parties typically see for themselves in democracies. Keeping distance from the protests will invite charges of lethargy and insensitivity. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the protestors risks playing into the hands of a government already keen on portraying the protests as ‘politically-motivated’.

The Citizen Will Persist Regardless of the Political Opposition

Clearly, the political class overall has been caught unprepared by the intensity and resilience of the protests. The business-as-usual arrangement – where the party with electoral endorsement has the latitude to set and implement policies, the parties in the opposition act as watchdogs alive to over-reach and under-performance, and the citizen relies on political channels (among others) to access her rights and entitlements – has been disrupted.

The government is seen to have overstepped, and the citizen has chosen to voice her discomfiture directly rather than route it via the Opposition.

The anti-CAA protests are not the first instance of citizens’ exercise of their agency but is nevertheless rare and unique for several other reasons:

• Their geographical spread
• The citizen’s assertion as ‘citizen’ and not an ‘occupational’, ‘social’, or ‘regional’ group, unsurprising since it is something as fundamental as citizenship that is in question
• The underlying belief that constitutionally-envisaged limits for exercise of legislative powers have been exceeded

In essence, the long-established, unequal power equations between the people and those who represent them are being revisited. The citizen is not merely stopping at petitioning and politely knocking doors. She expects the government to heed, not command – and will persist whether or not the Opposition lends its weight.

The Citizen has Underscored Her Respect For the Constitution. Politicians Must Follow Suit

Citizens, particularly young women and men, have peacefully risen to uphold enlightened constitutional values. The onus now lies on the political class to appreciate the magnitude and import of what is unfolding, reflect on its positions on the issues at hand, and abide by the outcomes of political dialogue. It is entirely legitimate to expect the government to display the initiative and sagacity this will need. Any reasonable interpretation of its role and duties demands it. And this reflection must be sensitive to protesting citizen’s core concerns:

• On the spaces for exercise of power that the Constitution provides, and the limits it sets to such exercise
• On the interpretation of electoral mandates as licenses for pursuing confrontationist courses
• On the larger, non-partisan obligations of their representatives to the people

This may sound romantic, but only till the social and economic costs of confrontational attitudes are not factored. The citizen has already stepped out of her comfort zone and unequivocally but peacefully underscored her respect for the Constitution. Politicians must follow suit. When history reads its verdicts, they surely do not want to be remembered as the ones who missed the cue.

(Manish Dubey is a policy analyst and crime fiction writer and can be contacted at @ManishDubey1972. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)