00:00I want to come from there to my other guest, the eminent jurist and of course senior parliamentarian of the
00:06Congress is joining me, Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
00:10Let's cut the chase, Dr. Singhvi. I'm dividing in two parts, legal and political. Let's talk about the law.
00:15When I asked this question just now to Sudhanshu Trivedi, he said, we have no problem with any protest anywhere,
00:21but you can't forcibly enter the Bharat Mandapam and then claim immunity from the law.
00:27It's unlawful assembly and at a mega event like this, it is designed to in some way create some kind
00:33of disturbance, incitement to possibly violence
00:36and therefore it's unacceptable and the conspiracy has to be investigated. Your response.
00:42So there are two responses, Rajdeep. I'm not in a debate with him. I'm not responding to him. I haven't
00:49even heard him fully.
00:50But to your question, there are the following responses.
00:53First, and I come to the legal part immediately and I don't want to sound technical, just step back.
01:00My friend may have talked of all political issues, general issues, but since 2014 till today, put anybody's hand on
01:07their heart
01:08and ask the question, is the understanding, appreciation, toleration, acceptance, absorption of dissent
01:16ever been at a lower ebb in India than in this dispensation?
01:19Point number one. There are thousand examples.
01:22From university campuses to misuse of sedition,
01:26to sending Assam police to Gujarat to assist tweets and Twitters.
01:32I can give any number. So there is a general approach of absolute mental dictatorial approach,
01:39no toleration of dissent.
01:40If we are the government, we are the king, we sit on the top of the mountain,
01:44you are subjects in the valley, what we say cannot be wrong.
01:47There is also therefore coupled with it an intersection.
01:50Can you enter a prohibited high security area like Bharat Mandapam when an AI summit is going on?
02:00I told you I am starting from a little standing behind.
02:03I am coming to your point immediately. Give me a few minutes.
02:06You therefore have a general profile of intolerance of dissent.
02:10You have this time criminalized something which is incapable of criminalizing.
02:16The short issue is, it is not the manner of protest.
02:20You may not like it, Rajdeep. Mr. Trivedi may not like it. I may not like it.
02:24Rajdeep may have a different form of protest. I may have a different form of protest.
02:29Ten people in the Congress may not agree with it. Forget outsiders.
02:32That is not the question at all.
02:34The question is assuming that you don't agree with the protest.
02:38Is this protest criminal?
02:40Now, protest must involve, and look at any section, and I am sorry to sound technical,
02:45but this is otherwise in the air.
02:47There are sections like 121, Voluntarily Causing Hurt.
02:51132, Assault.
02:53195, Obstruction of Public Servant.
02:56221, Obstructing Public Servant.
02:58233, Disobedience to a Promulgated Order.
03:01196, Promoting Enemity.
03:02And I will not repeat many more.
03:04All of them have three or four ingredients,
03:07conspicuous by their absence, per se, in this entire episode.
03:11A, there is not the slightest violence.
03:14There is a verbal exchange at the highest,
03:17and there is no violence.
03:19There is no intent to create violence.
03:21There is no intent to cause a riot.
03:24There is no premeditation to create something which is the nature of a voluntary hurt or a grievous hurt,
03:30or to pick up a police officer and throw him down, etc., etc.
03:33So, there is no way in which you can weaponize or criminalize.
03:37Now, assume, in any constitutional, liberal democracy with the words we have in our preamble,
03:44we have words like fraternity, secularism, etc., etc.
03:48You can at best say, look, we don't agree with this, we don't like it,
03:52we catch you and we throw you out, and don't do it again, it's a warning.
03:55What has happened here?
03:57You have unleashed, and by the way, we don't know the exact section of the FIR also today,
04:00that's another allegation, but forget that.
04:02You have unleashed the entire panoply of these provisions I've just read out to you.
04:07This is weaponizing criminal law in the worst form.
04:11There could not have been an intent to do any of this,
04:13because there's no violence, there's a peaceful protest.
04:15Howsoever misguided, please assume it is misguided.
04:19You are trying to scare these people, intimidate them, throttle them,
04:23strangulate their free speech.
04:25And what about 19-1-A?
04:27What about 19-1-D?
04:29Now, the question which you just raised,
04:31if I enter your house, that's an inapposite analogy.
04:36Bharat Mandapam is also a public place.
04:38It's not your house.
04:40It is not trespass.
04:42Now, it is true that entering inside it was a path.
04:45It was holding a high-security event with restricted access.
04:50So, let me assume,
04:52there is a public place,
04:54and people will go and protest and take off their shirts
04:56only when they want to make themselves felt and known.
05:00They will not go and do it in the quiet,
05:01inner recesses of their own house.
05:03There is not a protest under 19-1-D of the Constitution.
05:06Now, they went to a semi-public place in the hallway outside Bharat Mandapam,
05:11not outside of the building of Bharat Mandapam.
05:13That's the only difference.
05:14The analogy of a trespass into your home is completely inapposite.
05:18We can debate whether this is a reasonable restriction of,
05:22under Article 19, Dr. Singhvi.
05:24No, no, not about reasonable restriction.
05:25There is the legal...
05:27Rajdeep, not reasonable restriction.
05:29No element of any of the sections which you can think of.
05:32I've got a list of 15 sections.
05:35Common intention to do violence,
05:37to have breaking of property,
05:40it's a peaceful, loud, vocal protest
05:43in an embarrassing situation
05:45because you are embarrassed as a government.
05:47So, that's the only thing.
05:49You cannot criminalize for this.
05:51If you are truly...
05:52Okay.
05:53And these are...
05:55These are people who are maybe doing an error
06:00according to the power ZB.
06:02That is not criminal.
06:06I've heard you, Dr. Singhvi.
06:09There is a political angle to it also
06:11because Rahul Gandhi has now gone ahead
06:13and said that my babbar share.
06:15He has effectively endorsed the protest
06:17which has led at the moment
06:18to your Congress workers being arrested.
06:21Is this the Congress now deciding on a political shift
06:24that you are going to now bat on the front foot?
06:26Street protest, Prime Minister compromise,
06:29Narendra surrender.
06:30We saw what happened with Chokidar Chor Hai.
06:33It didn't quite work.
06:34So, is the Congress in that sense
06:37and even your own allies have called it inappropriate.
06:40Do you believe that even if we assume for a moment
06:43that you are on legally strong grounds,
06:45do you concede on politics you are on a weak ground or not?
06:49So, we've done with the law now.
06:50So, I won't touch on the law.
06:52Now, I'm coming to a political point.
06:53First of all, anybody who knows Rahul Gandhi even remotely knows
06:58that he only bats on the front foot,
07:00completely and totally on the front foot.
07:02He's never been batting on the defensive back foot.
07:04Number two, of course, each party, even in the same alliance,
07:09has different forms of protest.
07:10Do you think Congress has agreed with every form of protest in and out of parliament
07:14with so many other parties, be it the SP or the TMZ?
07:17Each person has its own style of expressing something.
07:20Third, Rahul Gandhi stands solidly as far as the ideological concepts behind the protest.
07:28Yes, you have a right in a democracy to say
07:31taking your shirts off in Bharat Vandam is wrong.
07:34I can say it's right.
07:36That is not the point.
07:37The symbolism behind it is unemployment,
07:40a bad tariff deal, farmers' rights.
07:43That is the idea which Rahul Gandhi is batting on the front foot on.
07:47He is not batting on the front foot on the front foot so much.
07:50He is having this articulated, manifested, up front
07:54and you don't like it because you like photo opportunities.
07:58You like event management.
08:00You like curated, artificial photo opportunities.
08:05Dr. Singhvi, this also is a part of the political playbook of photo ops.
08:10Removing shirts, you know, will get you attention.
08:12Otherwise, you won't get attention.
08:14The truth is that we are in an age of attention deficit.
08:18So, you all also wanted to stage your slice of drama.
08:21Now, is that enough to make a political point for a mature party like the Congress?
08:26Is there an element of a juvenile campus politics involved here?
08:29No, Rajdeep, there is no question of protesting in the inner recesses of your bedroom.
08:34The protest has to be where it is vivified, where it is noticed,
08:39where it gets attention.
08:40We are conveying a message.
08:41Now, I am again saying that you don't agree with your right,
08:45but you can't punish me by a criminal act.
08:48Deny me bail.
08:50Pressurize every prosecutor to put every charge.
08:53That is a real problem.
08:55That shows that you are...
08:57The strength, Rajdeep, of a country is the strength of tolerating dissent.
09:04The strength of a country is not to throttle dissent.
09:08The strength, the unanimity would have been, look, we catch you and we turn you out.
09:14And we give you a warning.
09:16But we do not.
09:17But this is happening in Parliament.
09:19You are expelling en masse 141 members of Parliament.
09:22You are suspending right, left and centre.
09:23So, these students are very small fodder.
09:27It's the overall culture and the identity of this government's thinking.
09:33I am going to leave it there.
09:35I am going to leave it there, Abhishek Manu Singh.
09:37We have heard you loud and clear.
09:38We have heard Sudhanshu Trivedi loud and clear.
09:41And our task here on the news today is simply to ask the questions.
09:45And we expect the politicians to answer all the inconvenient questions we pose to them.
09:52I appreciate both my guests joining us.
09:55Are we turning slowly but surely into some kind of a police state?
09:59You decide I won't.
10:02I know where I stand on it.
10:04I gave my take yesterday.
10:05It's now for you, the viewer, to decide.
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