 The recently concluded Parliament session was momentous. Several bills, greatly advancing the agenda of the BJP and allies in the Sangh Parivar were passed. Spotlight is on abrogation of Article 370 and snatching statehood from Jammu and Kashmir. But other legislations too need to be recalled. The amendment to the Right to Information Act mutilated the original law. Despite another bill, now a law is the amendment to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act or the UAPA. Legislations which give sweeping powers to the state to label citizens or their groups is undemocratic. In more than half a century of its existence, UAPA has been misused repeatedly to crush people's movements. The government can now unilaterally designate any individual as terrorists and jail the person without trial or conviction. The National Investigation Agency or NIA now has powers to investigate cases falling under the domain of state police. This will weaken India's federal character and result in greater centralization. All citizens and organizations raising uncomfortable questions will be more vulnerable to intrusive arms of the state. The new law may well be the last nail in the coffin of free speech, political dissent and even mild criticism. Watching India today, I am reminded of events exactly a century ago. In April, the government marked the centenary of the Jaliyawala Bagh massacre. As shed copious amounts of tears in memory of martyrs. Little mention was however made about the backdrop to the assembly in Amritsar on Besakhi day. No leader of this government reminded people that hundreds of innocent people were gunned down because British officials feared the nationwide campaign against a role-attacked. Asked by the Imperial Council in London in March 1919, the act indefinitely extended emergency measures enacted during the First World War. This law criminalized dissent and tried alleged dissidents without juries and in camera. The press and public were excluded from these trials. The law empowered the government to designate anyone a terrorist. A person could be jailed without trial for up to two years. A Lahore newspaper gave one of the most famous headline savers. No Vakil, no Dalil, no appeal. The setting was perfect for Mahatma Gandhi to take the lead. The role-attacked or the role at Satyagraha was the first all India upsurge against British colonialism. Despite the Jaliyawala massacre, the role at Satyagraha continued and eventually forced the British government to repeal the law. I will discuss similarities and dissimilarities between India now and 100 years ago with my old friend Rizwan Kesar. He teaches at the Jamia Milia, Islamia. Rizwan let's talk about, I have talked about a bit of similarities. I want to hear from you the similarities as well as dissimilarities. What lessons can we learn from what happened in 1919? Right, very quickly two dissimilarities. One in 1919 we have an alien government, a colonial government. In 2019 we have a sovereign government. We became independent in 47 and journey of 70-72 years is still actually nothing in the life of a nation. Number two, Gandhi responded to the role-attack not after its enactment. As a matter of Gandhi had started preparing a kind of an opposition even while the legal processes were on. He did not wait for it to become law. He did not wait for it to become law. So right in the month of March 1919, Gandhi had started mobilizing, communicating with all kinds of people including the voice right and other government officials about the draconian nature of rolet bills which were under consideration to become an act and that is where Gandhi said. When you Gandhi is someone who in 1916 and 17 is a kind of a friend of the British. In the sense if you look at Gandhi's appeal to Gujarati young men to join the British Indian army in the context of the First World War, now turns against the government. Turns against the government in the hope that people will rise against such draconian law. Number three, unfortunately there is another dissimilarity. Indian members of the Imperial Legislative Council unanimously spoke against the bills when they were under consideration saying that it will straight away eat into individuals, civil rights. All such a position was ignored. The unfortunate dissimilarity is that in parliament even though lot of people raised such voice even that time people had recommended its reference to select committee. This time claim to or refer it to the select committee was rejected on the floor of the Rajya Sabha. I think that's another dissimilarity. The floor of the Rajya Sabha also because of a lot of opposition members going along with the government. That's that. Now the question is that then it was a nation in the making today we are already a nation in the made one fears are we into some kind of reverse journey. Another thing that we have to then we were we as a nation Indians were fighting for our democratic rights and to earn sovereignty. Now today the world knows as India's world's biggest democracy. In world's biggest democracy you have a draconian law by way of you know amendment. But then the very fact that amendment has been enacted we realize that the citizen is so vulnerable not only because of the government but also because of the collusion of the large number of opposition. Let's try to go back to 1990 and try to understand the political process of that time. You had the first world war in which a large number of Indians participated in the war after that they felt that the measures which had been imposed by the British would be taken off but they were not. This is also the time that there was actually no national movement at that time Gandhi after his return you know he had just gone on a what we call you know the Bharat Yatra you know where he went across and very poignantly shot in Richard Attenborough's film The Gandhi. What really propelled the British to enact the roll attack? What were the scared of? Two things number one the British had extracted a lot of resources from India to supply to the first world war resources economic resources food whatever etc etc they had mobilized large large number of human resource in order to supply them to sustain the war in different places and this had led to a lot of misery in different parts of India very especially in the Punjab because Punjab was the kind of a backbone of supplies man power supplies as well as other kinds of resources. Now after the war ended everybody was so uneasy they had started you know like rising in many rebellion of kind he said that too much of reparation that has taken place now. Mind you Indians were subjected to all kinds of humiliation they were made to crawl in the streets of different cities of Punjab and therefore it doesn't come as a surprise that Roller Satya Agra as launched by Mahatma Gandhi had reverberation in different parts of India including in Punjab but Punjab there was a massive concentration precisely because there was this upsurge among and that is why General Dyer got scared that General Dyer the whole Punjab administration is actually a political demonstration whole and that is where the declaration of the martial law right in especially in Punjab they didn't declare martial law in any other city of India but in Punjab they declared it martial law and made any such assembly an act in illegality Rizwan the possibly the biggest dissimilarity between 1990 and 2019 is that there is no Gandhi amongst us that's very true but we let's try to understand how did Gandhi awaken a people who did not understand modern political concepts like freedom of speech this dissension dissidents these are you know freedom these were ideas which were alien to an Indian India which was still undergoing a social transition from a semi feudal country into a modern country where democracy as an idea had not yet become there was no consensus on it as a political philosophy how did Gandhi do it if I can use one word I would say courage okay Gandhi's courage is inimitable for variety of reasons he got it from within or from the people only got it from within and there was he was hoping that people to respond mind you at that time he decided to launch Royal at Satya Garay he didn't have any mechanism of support from the Congress party the Social Congress party there is absolutely no use of it with the Congress party all that you know like Gandhi succeeded in mobilizing is the existing network of home rule League movement as launched by Lokman et al and Mrs. Annie Besan that's the only kind of tentative kind of a network already you know home rule League movements had died down quite a while ago but they were surviving Gandhi was able to mobilize that but mind you Gandhi was also into building new networks yes and mind you in say place like Delhi doctor Muhtar Ahmad Ansari in Punjab you have Saifuddin Saifuddin Kichdiya and Dr. Saqbal and large number of other people there are as you know which actually angered people in Punjab which led to such a massive congregation but then I mind you the launching of the Satya Graham movement wasn't an abrupt thing first thing that he decided was to establish a small body called Satya Graham Sabha right with the head of Satyagra pledge and the pledge that the Indians will not submit to this and will seek freedom and till the time freedom is not you know given to them they shall continue to court arrest till the time at least there are no and Gandhi in his very characteristic style kept on communicating with the voice of the time that very soon he would be launching Satya Graham the kind that he did so anyway you can say people say mother courage I would say father courage Gandhi Gandhi was an embodiment of that courage and it is personal courage of Gandhi which mobilized large number of people against you know if you go back to available material of that time what was going through Gandhi what was he writing in letters in various speeches which was making you know some innate political wisdom he tells the British in one of the letters that he writes is that no matter how autocratic you are you will ultimately have to bow to the will of the ordinary people you know such immense political wisdom and confidence that ultimately people's will will prevail I think these are great lessons for modern democracies across the world which is seeing a huge wave of populist nationalism nationalism which is basically you know being used to consolidate power and impose authoritarian regimes across several countries in the world. Two very quick points Nilanjan if one was to go through even today the he's or I that Gandhi first wrote in Gujarati translated into English a year later so it is like 1908 1909 right very interesting observation that he makes he said that it is not that the British had one us they were not victorious over us we handed over India to them right so anyway what he's implying is that what you did in the past handing over India to them is time for you to reclaim number two right very interesting observation equally interesting observation that he makes in Hinsoraj fine now that the British have become the rulers they better serve us according to the wishes of the people mind you something like this somebody talking as early as 1908 1909 when it shows when Gandhi has this understanding of politics not only tremendous understanding the very fact that he is showing a mirror to the British right he Gandhi has not returned from South Africa to India yet I mean after all India is the motherland South Africa is not but I would say as regards Gandhi's politics while India was his mother Bhoomi South Africa had become the karma Bhoomi and Gandhi was able to derive a lot of his strength from his cultural background and from the kind of political self-training that he had in South Africa that gave Gandhi courage to show that mirror to the British that you better serve the people not that you have become master here so anyway you know like we handed over India to them right and therefore by you know like implication saying you can reclaim your sovereignty exactly from them and mind you it grows into another phase of very interesting movement Gandhi decided to call the bluff of the British say that we are not going to cooperate with you in 1920 exactly so 1990 and 1920 they are very very close time you know immediately after the Jaliyawala bug the focus shifted away from the roll attack because immediately the attention was on the carnage and on the investigation the hunter commission various things happened but it must be said you know that the nationalist leaders of that time did not lose sight that these laws must go roll it cannot continue they kept the pressure on eventually forcing the British to actually repeal the act in 22 how did this process happen what was it sustained pressure how was this pressure created one very interesting development that took place as a consequence of Jaliyawala bug massacre that the British parliament debated the issue extensively and the prime minister at that point time and lot many other leaders they all made speeches is that what has happened in Jaliyawala bug is terrible and there is one political leader I shall get the name of that gentleman who made that speech on the floor of the parliament that for the rest of your life you may go on claiming that you have done great things to India and the moment you make these claims any Indian will come and give you a tight slap off Jaliyawala bug massacre because it was so unprovoked and in a way in a way it disturbed the British conscience also because after all they had the pretensions of being a liberal democracy being the mother of democracy and liberal democracy and they were also you know sort of propagating that we have been able to extend democratic institutions to India and there you realize that you have done such a dastardly and barbaric thing that those people global condemnation all global condemnation condemnation all that so in a way British parliament was also sieves of the matter apart from the fact that the next year that is 1990 the same year 1990 the annual session of the Indian National Congress was held in Amritsar in order to express solidarity with the people and by the time Gandhi had moved you know brought in also the Khilafat movement and there was a lot of fermentation in the country right in terms of political mobilization and the possibility of mounting another movement etc. So in a way this massacre did not deter Indians as a matter of fact it involved in them moreover the wide washing of the Hunter Commission that was further indication of the fact that the colonial institution care to hoots about Indians right to civil liberties and their democratic rights. So in a way in a way you know the morality question also came in even for the British politicians just not in India but in England and they finally they saw that there was hardly any room for success. I have not been able to understand the question in the contemporary context civil liberties was not a talking point a hundred years ago but for the last 40 years at least it has been a major reference point all the time you have had virtually every political party you know saying that civil liberties have to be upheld everyone in this country keeps talking about the very dark days during emergency when fundamental rights were curbed by the people and we keep saying that never again there shall be emergency yet when we talked about Jalyanwala Bagh just three months ago why is it that the opposition to roll attack did not become part of the national discourse around that time is it because the leaders of today do not want people to remember what all Indians fought in the past and not just that it was not only a fight against the British to remove them from the country but they fought on very basic issues which included freedom of speech. As a matter of fact if you look at the provisions of you know the amended component of you find very disturbing parallels very very disturbing parallels and also the kind of clauses which are there in a way extremely frightening in the sense is the same thing is like now Vakil now appeal not Dalil if you look at the government would declare anybody a terrorist and can pick up that person right and then the same thing what the paper headline now put a label that he's at table you know for the last several years we have been listening to one label after another you know you have anti-national you have urban noxals you have just about anything that you might know there has been a tendency especially in the realm of state agencies to consolidate more and more power but in fact that it is being done on the democratic floor of India's parliament where such tendencies parliament is party to it parliament is party to it in a way that time it was an alien government here is our own government here is our own parliamentarians and they care to hoots tomorrow they can turn around legal process is being short circuited legal process was mind you those two bills one particularly talked about short circuiting the legal process one was to prevent any such activity from taking place number two was to short circuit the legal process the amended portion of ua pa is actually to short circuit the legal process nobody knows they say that there are four tiers of checks and balances right but then those four tiers can be torn apart if the government decides so to declare anybody right any group any such you know like formation or terrorist organization so anyway is to draconian in law to be adopted in the year 2019 when number one institutions are strong individuals are far more aware and citizens must be more empowered with civil and democratic rights and here you realize here is a piece of legislation which undermines all that India has stood for for the last 72 years and if you stretch it back from that time of 1919 India that you and I have known has been consistently fighting and that is where we feel that the parliamentarians have not really stood with the people of India. Well thank you Rizwan you know for shedding light on what had happened in 1990-1900 years ago in India and what is not happening in India in contemporary times Rizwan Kesar it is always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. Time flies that is what they say a hundred years have passed since the agitation of a royal attack triggered the eventual demise of the British Raj this year is the 150th birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi the prime minister has asked his party MPs to undertake 150 kilometer paddyatras through their constituencies it would also be nice if he asks people to abide by the spirit of Gandhi's pledge of April 1919. Thank you so much for watching this program.