Article, Paragraph, Essay on “The Quest for Protest” article for Class 10, Class 12, Graduation Classes and descriptive examination

The Quest for Protest

Shakespeare in his outstanding play Hamlet had written, ” The lady doth protest too much, meethinks.” When someone forcibly denying something, is hiding the truth. I feel the same for some if not all the demonstrations transpiring in our country of late.

It isn’t been a long time, when on August 28 2017, a special CBI court in Punchkula, Haryana, gave its verdict on a rape case against self-proclaimed godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim, he was awarded 20 years of rigorous imprisonment. After the declaration, his followers or we should call them hooligans, highjacked the whole of Punchkula, creating chaos everywhere. They burnt cars, buses, destroyed public as well as private property unsparingly. Almost all the parts of Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and surrounding areas were under strict vigil. Each and every strata of society suffered equally.

This chapter of Ram Rahim showed us, how dangerous a frenzied mob can become for the law and order. These so called supporters, believers, non believers, puritans, leftists, and rightists, take law in their hands whenever, wherever they aspire so, on the pretext of religion, cast, and culture.

Just a year ago, Jaat’s stir for reservation had wrested whole of Haryana for more than a month and had ransacked public and private property worth thousands of crores. In a more recent example of such trend, theatres are being targeted and ravaged in some states by some demagogues intimidating their owners from releasing Bhansali’s historical film Padmavati.

It has become a trend in present times, whether it is a verdict of the honourable court or it is a film, or it is a reservation demand, if you are not okay with it, go out and diffuse rampage all around until the government kneels down and agrees to fullfill all your desires or unless paramilitary forces are called up and curfew is imposed.

Why do these people’s agitation find consolance in damaging public and private property? Why do they not think twice before setting a shop on fire? Why do they not fear police or law of the land while doing so?

All these questions have a single answer- Because they are not held responsible for all these anarchy and loss. They go out on the street mindlessly just to anhhilate anything comes into their way without meditating about the future course of action taken against them.

They don’t have to pay for the ruin they cause. They are nothing but an automated bunch of miscreants who appear for the sake of their master and after executing the specified task, hide under the shadow of their possessor.

Thankfully, a supreme court bench of Justices A K Goel and U U Lalit expressed concern over the loss of lives and property during such violent agitations. The bench asked centre to set up a mechanism to decide about such cases. It asked centre to amend the Prevention of Damage of Public Property Act to incorporate provisions to fix liability in case of damage to public or private property.

Honorable Supreme Court has also directed High Courts to take suo-moto cognisance of such predicaments and take immediate and appropriate steps for mending the loss occured, by making the violence loving agitators and their masters pay for it. It has also said that centre or state governments shouldn’t bare the burden of compensation all alone. Governments should chip in only when those involved in the outrageous deed are not financially competent to compensate, and this too should be done under the scanner of a retired high court judge who would keep a constant vigil over the proceedings.

If these directions are implemented in letter and spirit, it would definitely help in changing the perception of such habitual violators of law. There is no doubt in the fact that peaceful agitation is sacrosanct in a democracy but that doesn’t mean one can do what one wants in the name of protest. So, it has now become inevitable to have a law in place to prosecute such people and put them behind the bars.

By

Satendra