Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Power of Protest
Just before Christmas Day 2012, I was standing on a Sunday evening with a thousand or
more peaceful demonstrators near the ceremonial arch of India Gate - Delhi's equivalent
of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris - when we were swept from the area by the force of a
massive water cannon and by a horde of police and paramilitary wielding the lathis that
ors, many of them young women, had been clustered in groups, some singing and some
listening to speeches on the theme of 'Give us justice'. Others stood around television cam-
eras, watching interviews. Sellers of chai, sweet potato and other snacks were doing a brisk
business. No one expected that the security forces, who were attempting to clear serious
troublemakers a few hundred yards to the west, would come round the monumental arch.
'Stay by our installation and you'll be okay,' joked Jehangir Pocha of the NewsX TV sta-
tion who was broadcasting on the event.
When it became clear that NewsX's trestle table and equipment were not a safe haven,
I turned and ran with the crowds till the police, lashing at anyone they could reach, caught
up with me. It was then safer to turn and walk towards the charge, rather than to appear
to be running away - which I did, with my hands half-raised, saying 'press, press'. The
police dodged round me, swiping their sticks against those in their way. They continued
irrationally to beat individuals, including women, who were leaving the surrounding area
- a verbal instruction to go would have been enough. Tear gas shells could be heard going
off nearby to deal with other demonstrators.
Brutal policing is commonplace in India, but that evening was significant because it
was such an outrageously crude and vicious way to try to end the focal point of six days
of countrywide mass protests that had been sparked by the gang rape and battering of a
23-year-old paramedical student. Driven around Delhi in a curtained bus, the student had
been dumped with a male friend, virtually naked, on a dirt track beside a busy highway to
the city's airport. This provoked a national outcry and intense international and local me-
dia attention that generated continuing coverage of atrocities against women for months.
The student - called Nirbhaya (fearless) and Braveheart by the media before her name,
Singapore hospital. Three days earlier, she had been controversially flown there - a journey
of 2,500 miles - after intelligence agencies apparently advised the government that there
