‘It’s about saving this country’: Why they marched to the Supreme Court

While Saturday witnessed an unprecedented fortification of Jantar Mantar - followed by right-wing goons attacking protesters on Sunday, the march of INDIA bloc leaders from Barakhamba Road to the Supreme Court took place smoothly on Monday. 

There was little police deployment, roads in central Delhi were mostly open, and no detentions took place during the march. 

Newslaundry was on the ground to speak to workers of the Congress party, All India Students Association, Fraternity Movement, and common citizens who came to share their solidarity on the issue of “vote chori” (vote theft). What emerged was a protest that meant different things to different people. 

For some, it was about deleted names from electoral rolls. For others, it was about the Election Commission. For several, it had become a fight over the right to protest itself. And for some, “vote chori” had become a shorthand for a much larger dissatisfaction with the government.

‘People are not scared anymore’

Speaking about the way Delhi Police had behaved over the preceding days, Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar said the police were acting on the government’s instructions.

“The police are not acting on their own. This is Amit Shah’s mindset. He has been a tadipaar (legally exiled or banished). He does not understand democracy and wants to turn a people’s state into a police state. They are scared because people have stopped being scared of them,” he said.

Kumar said the demand for Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation was ultimately about restoring faith in democratic institutions.

“This country is through Satyagraha – through democracy, truth, and non-violence. Our democracy will endure. We are demanding Gyanesh’s resignation not for our own sake, but to uphold the credibility of the Election Commission. We want their credibility restored, and the credibility of democracy in this country restored; we want ordinary citizens to feel that this is indeed a democracy where they can raise their voices peacefully.”

That idea – that the protest was about more than the Congress or the INDIA bloc – came up repeatedly.

A 26-year-old software engineer from Varanasi, who has lived in Delhi for 10 years, said his family’s names had remained on the voter list because their neighbourhood was Hindu-majority. But, he claimed, areas with larger Muslim populations had seen more deletions.

“I have been raising my voice since 2019 during the anti-CAA protests. People now believe that a change is about to come,” he said.

But he added that his support for the protest was not an unconditional endorsement of the Congress.

“It’s not that if Congress comes to power, we will not question them. But the BJP is arrogant. They do not answer anything, nor do they carry out press conferences. We have to show them the power of the youth.”

‘They are free, you are not’

For some protesters, the events of October 10 and 11 were as important as the electoral roll issue itself.

Shahid, 30, from West Bengal, said he had been at the protests for the previous three days.

“The police are giving protection to goons who support BJP and RSS while they run after and beat any lone protesters they see. The police then detain the person who was beaten. Even journalists were not spared,” he said.

“When we complain to the police they ask us to move away. Senior police officials said it to my face, ‘they are free, you are not.’”

Shahid said he came from a Congress-supporting family but did not see his presence at the protest as being about the party. “It is not about the party, it is about saving this country. This is a tanashah (dictator) government and the BJP needs to be thrown out,” he said.

Students who had been detained on October 10 described similar experiences on Monday.

Pari, 19, a BA Political Science student at Delhi University, Indrani, 21, an English Honours student, and Aditya, a sociology student at Jamia Millia Islamia, said they had come to show solidarity with the protest.

“Our experience has been brutal. The police have detained students and even female protesters as if they were terrorists. And dropping them off in far away areas, late in the evening,” they said.

Aditya, who was detained on October 10, said a group of students had been assembling at Paharganj to head towards Jantar Mantar when a police van arrived.

“A police van came and directly asked us for our phones. We resisted and asked them why. They started abusing us with casteist and personal comments. We even had two minors with us but they were detained too. What trauma will they remember?”

According to Aditya, the group was taken to Subhash Palace police station.

“There was a Muslim boy among us. The police didn’t ask for anybody’s ID except his and checked only his phone.”

The group was finally released around 7 pm, he said. He claimed the police also wanted to seize their phones, but a CPI(M) MP intervened and prevented it.

“The government is trying to set an example by harassing students so that they never come out on streets again,” Aditya said.

‘My house lost 10 names’

Not everyone at the march agreed that the SIR process was problematic.

Dilip Kumar Gupta, 52, an office worker, said there was no reason to protest.

“We vote and there is no question of theft. All of our names have come,” he said.

Asked about the deletion of around 47 lakh names from Delhi’s draft electoral roll, Gupta said, “People who are outsiders will of course have their names cut.”

On people whose names might have been deleted unfairly, he said: “If a mistake is made, then the name can be added again. It’s not a big deal. Everything has a process. The protest shouldn’t happen. This is wrong.”

As he spoke, another person began confronting him.

“The way SIR is carried out, that’s wrong,” the man said.

He identified himself as Rajinder Kumar Bharadwaj, 74. He moved to Delhi from Aligarh in 1989 and said he had been associated with the Jana Sangh since 1962 and then with the BJP. “But when Modi came, I was disappointed and left it,” he said.

Bharadwaj said he was not a Congress member but had come to support the protest.

“In my house, six names were deleted before SIR. And four more names during SIR. We paid Rs 200 each at a cyber cafe to fill the new voter form.”

‘That’s too small an issue’

Some people at the march were much more explicit about the political stakes.

Dileep, 71, a resident of Mumbai who had come to Delhi for the CJP protest, was asked how long he thought it would take for Gyanesh Kumar to resign. “That’s too small an issue,” he said. “This government has to go. I’m with any issue, any party who works on that.”

Fida Bilal, 23, from the Fraternity Movement and a student of mass communication and journalism, said she had been attending protests for the past few days.

“Our demands are simple – the inclusion of everyone who was unfairly deleted and the resignation of the CEC,” she said. Bilal had come to Delhi to collect her certificates and also show solidarity with the protest.

Isha, 26, a volunteer with the Immediate Response First Aid Network (IRFAN), was at the protest primarily in case medical assistance was required.

“I’m also protesting but here primarily to provide aid. The SIR should be abolished. It is not constitutional. It is not that electoral rolls weren’t cleaned earlier but the way it is being done is the problem. That is what people are protesting against.”

“This will definitely be successful because if not, then people will lose faith in the electoral process. The accountability lies with the government and the EC. It is they who have to prove that the process is free and fair,” she added.

‘You peripheralise opinions you don’t like’

A 39-year-old urban geographer and researcher who came to show support said the events of October 10 had been unlike anything she had witnessed before.

“This is not my first rodeo (protest) but I haven’t seen anything like what we saw on 10th October. I was here at 7 am that day and was able to enter Jantar Mantar since nobody was there. The kind of locking down of Jantar Mantar is ridiculous and unprecedented,” she said.

Speaking about the de-notification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site, she said, “There’s a long history of moving protesters and pushing them to the peripheries. That is something the state has done for a long time. So any thoughts and opinions you don’t like, you peripheralise them.”

Another interviewee, a working professional with a master’s degree in criminology, was a woman from Jharkhand who has lived in Delhi for the past 10 years. Her vote remains registered in Jharkhand.

Unlike Delhi, she said, voters in Jharkhand cannot fill the relevant form online and have to approach the BLO. “Migrating women face the most consequences. We have seen this in the SIR pattern also. Migrating women form a big section of those disenfranchised. It is very difficult to take a break from my job and then go complete my SIR. Even officials don’t know the process properly.”

Her concern was less about party politics and more about the practical burden of proving one's eligibility to vote.

“There is a trust deficit in terms of what we were taught democracy looks like and what we were entitled to. And now that the democratic dream is shattering, we want answers.”

Over three days, the language of the protests changed – from the mass mobilisation planned for October 10, to flash protests and clashes on October 11, and finally the INDIA bloc’s march on October 12.

But among the people who continued to turn up, the concerns increasingly overlapped.

For some, it was about a deleted name. For others, an arbitrary detention. For some, the credibility of the Election Commission. And for others, simply the belief that they should still be able to take to the streets and demand answers.

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