Amnesty International, Bharat Does Not Need a Permission Slip from London
By Binod Anand
Every few weeks, like a monsoon that arrives only when it smells a crisis, Amnesty International rediscovers India. A press release is issued, a chairman is quoted, the word “lockdown-like” is placed carefully for headline writers, and the international media obediently copies it. This month, the Delhi Police took precautions before yet another mass march on the capital, and Amnesty was ready with its usual verdict: India is suppressing dissent.
One must admire the consistency. Amnesty has not had a functioning operation in India since September 2020, when it shut its office after its accounts were frozen over alleged FCRA violations. It cannot keep its own books in order under Indian law, but it is perfectly confident about how the Indian state should keep order on Indian streets. The organisation that could not comply with one Act of Parliament now lectures us on the Constitution.
The Constitution, selectively quoted
Amnesty likes to remind us that the right to protest is protected by India’s Constitution. Correct. Article 19(1)(b) guarantees the right to assemble. But a quotation should not stop where it becomes inconvenient. The same Article says “peaceably and without arms,” and Article 19(3) allows reasonable restrictions in the interests of public order and the sovereignty and integrity of India. The Supreme Court in Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (2018) said protest and the rights of residents must be harmonised, and in the Shaheen Bagh case (Amit Sahni, 2020) it said public ways cannot be occupied indefinitely. Amnesty reads the first half of the sentence and treats the second half as a colonial-era footnote.
Perhaps they would like to explain this to London first. Organisers of a public procession in the United Kingdom must give the police advance notice under the Public Order Act, and the Act of 2023 added more powers still. Nobody in Amnesty’s headquarters calls Westminster a “lockdown.” Notice in London is administration; precaution in Delhi is tyranny. The rulebook changes when it crosses the Arabian Sea.
What Amnesty did not see
Amnesty’s statements show a remarkable talent for selective vision. They saw barricades. They did not see what happened in July, when stones, bottles and tree branches were thrown at Jantar Mantar, two Assistant Commissioners of Police were injured, batons were snatched from Delhi Police and RAF personnel, and swords and khukris were reportedly brandished. The police themselves said anti-social elements had entered the site and organisers could not control the crowd. Clashes went past midnight into Connaught Place; a police vehicle was stoned near Janpath.
Is the policeman not a human being? Does the ACP hit on the head by a stone not have human rights? Apparently not, if he wears khaki and his country is India.
Nor does Amnesty see the other citizens of Central Delhi. The rickshaw puller who loses a day’s earnings when Metro stations close. The shopkeeper on Janpath whose shutter stays down. The patient whose ambulance is stuck behind a barricade that would not be needed if the march had been peaceful. These people have rights too, under Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21. But they do not trend on X, they do not have a press office, and they do not fit the template. So they do not exist.
A grievance is real; a hijacking is also real
Let us be fair, since Amnesty will not be. Students angry about paper leaks have a genuine grievance. Citizens worried about the electoral rolls have every right to raise their voice. No one in this country, and certainly not civil society, wants their mouths shut.
But democracy distinguishes between a protest and a siege. When a march is pointed at Parliament, in the most sensitive security zone of the Republic, when the crowd exceeds the capacity of a narrow road, and when unknown elements arrive with weapons, the state has not merely a right but a duty to regulate. The answer is a large, equipped ground such as Ramlila Maidan or Burari, with water, shade, ambulances and a media enclosure, not an unlimited licence to choke the heart of the capital. That is facilitation, not suppression. Amnesty knows the difference. It simply finds the difference unprofitable.
The real business model
Here lies the truth. Amnesty does not issue statements on India; it issues statements about India, for an audience outside India. The product is a narrative: a fragile democracy, a brutal police, a silenced people. The narrative is then exported to Geneva, to Brussels, to university panels and foreign donors, and imported back as “global concern.” It is a value chain, and India’s image is the raw material.
In the language of Fourth-Generation Warfare, one need not fire a bullet to weaken a nation. It is enough to convince its citizens, and the world, that their own institutions are illegitimate. Every one-sided press release that turns a stone-pelting episode into a “crackdown” is a brick in that wall.
So let it be said plainly. This country does not belong to Amnesty’s board, its donors, or its press office. It belongs to 1.4 billion Indians, including the protester, the policeman, the shopkeeper and the patient. The Constitution that protects the right to protest was written by Indians, is interpreted by Indian courts, and does not need annotation from an organisation that could not respect Indian law long enough to keep its own office open.
If Amnesty truly cares about Indian democracy, it may file its affidavit before the Supreme Court like any other party, submit to Indian scrutiny, and accept the verdict. Until then, its sermons are what they have always been: noise from outside the room, pretending to be the conscience within it.
(The writer is Secretary General of the Confederation of NGOs of Rural India and Founder of the World Cooperative Economic Forum.)
