How to handle a protest, and not to

In 2024, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley ignored political pressure and permitted pro-Palestine marchers in London. They posed no real threat to public order, he said.

During the racial justice protests following the death of George Floyd in 2020, New Jersey’s Camden County police chief and his officers marched alongside the protesters, carrying a banner advocating unity. By making the march a community event, the cops ensured it stayed peaceful.

The Newark, New Jersey, police adopted another tactic to deal with the same issue. They chose not to deploy riot gear, armoured vehicles or barricades in the city's downtown area. The marches ended without a single arrest, injury or street clash.

Delhi witnessed three types of protests last week, all for one purpose—to force out election chief Gyanesh Kumar, whom critics accuse of rigging voter rolls. The Delhi Police handled the protests in three different ways, each worse than the previous.

The first was the opposition parties’ protests witnessed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. All tailor-made. On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi and team sought to lay siege to Gyanesh Kumar’s castle in the Nirvachan Sadan. The police blocked them at the right place, let Rahul climb over the barricades, have a sit-in at the Akashvani Bhavan and eat a chicken roll, before removing him and comrades. No battle damage to either side.

On Wednesday, the protest leaders ventured out well-fed. Rahul and Mallikarjun Kharge hosted the opposition leaders to a good lunch at a downtown veg restaurant, and then launched their protest. Hardly had the coaches ferrying them to Jantar Mantar moved a few yards when the police lifted them away. Capital!

On Thursday, the Congress duo hosted allied leaders at a non-veg eatery in Connaught Place, and then drove in coaches to the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi. The police virtually guided them to the spot, helped clear the traffic and even facilitated the drive. Jolly good!

There ended the first phase—the protesters had their show; the police did their job. All happy.

The cops blotted their copybook on Saturday, October 10, the day on which the Cockroach Janta (non-)Party had called for a protest at Jantar Mantar. Despite a Supreme Court warning, the police blocked downtown roads, locked up metro stations, fielded 40,000 personnel, picked up the three protest leaders from their airplanes, and detained thousands of youngsters. Shameful show.

Naturally, anger erupted on Sunday, October 11. Fearing a haul-up by the Supreme Court, the cops opened the roads and metro stations, but blocked the protesters on their way to the city centre and beat them up. The youth in thousands sat down wherever they were stopped, raised slogans, braved baton charges and got arrested. Bloody bedlam all over.

Lesson? Simple! A polity is like a pressure-cooker. It needs safety valves to let the steam out. If you seal the safety valve, the cooker will burst. As John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

*****

“It is no fun to protest on an empty stomach,” so saying, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg offered discount coupons in downtown restaurants and museums to the thousands of protesters who were gathering at Central Park for an anti-war protest in 2004. Then he told them to march from 7th Avenue to Union Square in Manhattan. Everyone was happy—the protesters had their fill and their say; cafe owners made a killing; the police were spared of any law-and-order problems; the mayor could save the park from being vandalised.

prasannan@theweek.in