Why do we so often see the tantrums of one group or the other play out in the streets? Yesterday, it was against CAA bill. The day before, they stood shoulder to shoulder to bring back article 370 and 35A. Before that the outrage was all about the bill enacted in parliament to ban triple talaq.

Democracy allows people to organise protest and declare strikes to bring pressure to bear on the government in power. The protests should have proper logic behind them. The outrages that are manufactured out of illogic, conspiracy theories and plain lies are surely a cause of concern for any healthy democracy to survive.

Any agitation brings the people who are directly affected by any government policy or a law passed by it, out to the streets. Quite natural as it should be. A few concerned group of citizens might join them in solidarity out of perceived genuineness of their cause.

But what we are witnessing is different. The people who are allegedly affected by any action of the government don’t really know that they are affected. Or if somehow, they have picked up from somewhere a hazy idea of being victims of something, they are found wanting to prove it. It’s people from outside who insist that they are victims of this and that and that they should hit the streets. When the so called victims are asked to explain the reason for the agitation, the outsiders present among them feel that the so called victims’ points of view don’t matter and therefore, they step in with their own set of narratives.

Surprise of surprises, the actors who provoke all Street protest are same everywhere. Anti-CAA protest had brought all Islamic hate-mongers on one stage. You had the vitriolic campaign conducted by Sarjeel Imam, Umar Khaleed, Teesta Setalvad of Gujurat riot fame and many religious hate preachers. They had the solid backing of PFI, Jamia and Aligarh Muslim university students and their faculties. They had backers in the media who sneakily injected so much hate into their campaign of support for the protest that the situation conflagrated in no time. Hate and misinformation are the journalistic domain of Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Rana Ayub, Saba Naqvi and the like, who ably supported by so called secular and liberal figures in the media mounted a high decibel campaign to get matters to a boil. Some in the Bollywood circus like Farhan Akhtar, Javed Akhtar, Swara Bhaskar and many more of such parrots jumped in with half-baked idea or total ignorance about the protest. Common citizens of their community were transported to the protest site, fed for months and made to hear 24×7 rants against the government and Hindu community. The common people were clueless about everything, but they were told to be their indignant and outraged self all the time. Everything else would be taken care of by the managers of the event.

That was an attempt to blackmail the country rather than a protest for a genuine cause. It was designed to block important roads passing through Saheenbagh area. What did the protest achieve? Well, it laid a platform for riots to take place, for conspirators like Tahir Hussain to organise an orgy of violence, arson and killing. Politicians gave it a twist by peddling false narrative to save the rioters and, by that, to earn a boost to their vote bank.

Similarly, the current farmer’s protest is being led by everybody else but farmers. Here the link operating is the Congress-affiliated Kishan union, the middlemen belonging to Congress, Akali Dal and traders of farm produce. Like all other agitations earlier, the Islamists of anti-CAA protest have also made their presence. Everything seems to be fair game for them in the war they have been waging against their perceived enemy. So, the tactical show of solidarity with their new-found Sikh brothers and their eyes melting with emotions for the perceived persecution of farmers. They want Sikhs to get together with them to isolate Hindus. They openly embrace Khalistani separatists who have become suddenly active in our country and abroad.

Here too, the actors are linked to extremist fringe and their ideological brothers and sisters. One has to follow carefully selected social media messaging by Rana Ayub, Saba Naqvi, Zubair Khan etc to know what they are up to.

The plot and stage keep on changing. The actors who are always found in the center-stage are chameleons like Yogendra Yadav, the goon on hire, Chandrasekhar Azad, who is the self-appointed Dalit leader and communist hacks like Kavita krishnan and her hateful comrades.

The government must recognise the disruptive power of the adversary. They must come up with smart solutions to nip the problems in the bud. The conspirators should not feel emboldened enough to lay siege to our streets to block our lifelines.

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