AA Edit | Protest Bans Won’t Curb Dissent
A parliamentary panel has now come out with a recommendation that district administrations should withhold permission for rallies, processions or public gatherings on days of crucial competitive examinations. The purported aim is to ensure smooth traffic flow and adequate law-and-order arrangements are in place so that no candidate is affected by external disturbances
No freedom is absolute in a democracy; it comes with riders. It is incumbent on people on both sides of the fence to be responsible to fellow citizens while exercising and regulating those freedoms. The greater responsibility rests with regulators who are paid to do their jobs to ensure that they put in place a fair mechanism that serves all.
A parliamentary panel has now come out with a recommendation that district administrations should withhold permission for rallies, processions or public gatherings on days of crucial competitive examinations. The purported aim is to ensure smooth traffic flow and adequate law-and-order arrangements are in place so that no candidate is affected by external disturbances.
True, traffic congestion or disruptions caused by people’s assemblies may have created issues for candidates rushing to examination centres. But the solution lies not in banning but in regulating such events. The authorities can impose restrictions on the organisers in such a way that rallies and processions do not interrupt normal life or traffic.
Given a choice, the Indian bureaucrat would love to impose a curfew anywhere at will. That is easy to do, but anticipating a situation and coming up with a balanced solution which can protect the rights of all people is a tough job which they would dodge if possible. It is curious that a parliamentary committee has come up with such a proposal.
The committee has made some well-intentioned recommendations for allowing candidates who reach the examination centres a bit late to take the examination. The government should give it serious thought. There are better examination practices such as the IIT-JEE which do not make a student's future hinge on a single day's performance.
The government must explore all avenues to make students' lives less difficult but banning all kinds of public gatherings on examination days is not the best of ideas to achieve the target. No one in their right mind will propose throwing the baby out with the bathwater.