‘Regimes Mustn’t Take Power for Granted, It Is Fickle’

Sandeep Pandey is a Gandhian and an activist who won the Magsaysay award in 2002 in the ‘emerging leadership’ category. In August, he organised a protest in Lucknow against the central government's move to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. The Uttar Pradesh police and administration cracked down on his protest. In this context, Pandey talks about the relevance of protests – especially at a time when the state begins to manufacture large-scale consent and institutions fail to protect the basic rights of people. Protest has value in the context of Kashmir because the people of the Valley themselves are not being allowed to speak out. Protest has political value because it expresses what the citizenry wants, not just what the state wants, says Pandey.