The Goa Legislative Assembly witnessed stormy scenes on Friday, the first day of the budget session, after four individuals from the visitors' gallery began sloganeering to draw attention to the ongoing protest by the villagers of Mirabag against a bandhara across the River Zuari being built in their village. What caught attention more than the protest was the Chief Minister’s reaction to it.
Contrary to claims, in the legislative assembly on that day, a protest of this nature is not unprecedented nor unheard of. Since that day, several incidents have come to light, albeit from many years ago, when protesters disrupted the proceedings of the Goa Legislative Assembly as part of larger protests, including the Konkani agitation, the protest in favour of the Right to Information Act, the student agitation, and the like. The four walls of the legislative assembly are sacrosanct, and there is a well-defined procedure that mandates what penal action should apply to those who violate such norms. The chief minister screaming for the arrest of the protesters, in that context, was uncalled for.
It is, in fact, the Speaker who needs to decide what penal action should follow, if at all. The police, too, would have no authority to arrest the protesters unless specifically directed to do so by the speaker. There is no doubt that the rules of conduct of business of the House mandate that visitors to the legislative assembly observe proceedings in silence, and to that extent, the protesters knew very well that their acts would invite penal action. But for the Chief Minister to lose his cool in a manner that he did and accuse the protesters of harbouring a terrorist mentality exposed a sense of immaturity.
The Goa Legislative Assembly is not above reproach, much less outside the self-proclaimed boundaries of the purview of protests. India does not have a lese-majeste law (an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state), and the members of the Goa Legislative Assembly are representatives of the people, not monarchs to be bowed before. And that was no act of treason.
Across the world, assemblies of elected representatives have regularly been disrupted. Nearly all of these disruptions have involved non-violent acts of disruption, and the Mirabag protesters were no different. They brought printed-out sheets of paper -- something that is not ordinarily looked upon as suspicious during screening before one enters the Legislative Assembly. For legislators to claim that tomorrow they could face danger if people bring other harmful objects into the visitors' gallery conveniently overlooks the fact that bags are screened at the time of entry, and objects deemed to be harmful are kept aside.
More than that, it is simply not possible for the police who guard entry into the complex to police every single object and even if they do, visitors seeking to protest might end up throwing footwear -- even the president of the United States faced such a protest. In a democracy, no institution is above reproach. Yes, decorum needs to be maintained within institutions such as court halls, the legislative assembly complex, meetings of municipal bodies and village panchayats, but to suggest that if one chooses to dare defy the decorum as a means of protest, knowing fully well that they could be prosecuted for the offence, they are guilty of a terrorist mindset is awfully off target. They have been escorted out and booked. The matter should end at that.
