Why are you so scared, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma?

On August 21, Assam police “arrested” several individuals because they had sent a “threatening” message to Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Education Minister Ranoj Pegu. We are still not sure if they were arrested or not because two conflicting statements have come from the government machinery. Assam Police chief Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta says that arrests were made because—hold your breath—they had threatened to stage big protests. But Chief Minister Sarma told India Today NE that these individuals were counselled and later released.

But what warranted the counselling of these men and women?

These young people, aspiring to get recruited as teachers in government schools, sent exactly this message to Sarma and his Cabinet colleague Pegu through WhatsApp: “Respected Education Minister Sir, why can’t you appoint teachers without holding the Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) even though there are nearly 30,000 TET-cleared candidates for lower primary and upper primary? We tried every possible means to discuss this matter with you but never got a satisfactory response. Finally, we have decided to move to the High Court and start an agitation. This will be the biggest agitation in the history of Assam. Nearly 30,000 TET-passed candidates have decided to stage a protest in front of the Directorate of Elementary Education Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (sic). We are demanding what is due to us. There will be such an agitation that Guwahati will come to standstill. This agitation will be registered during the BJP rule. We will bring this to the notice of the national media too. Give us jobs or shoot us dead. We are not opposing the TET. Give us our due and then hold the TET. The consequence of giving us false hope will be very dangerous.”

No matter how right or wrong this demand was, the text and tone of this message, at worst, could be interpreted as a desperate and, to some extent, an uncivil attempt to make themselves heard. But Assam government found it to be a big threat to the law-and-order situation of the state. So, they decided to contact several of those individuals who had circulated the text. We still don’t know who is making a factually incorrect statement—DGP Mahanta or Chief Minister Sarma, who also happens to be the state’s home minister. It’s a dangerous situation that the home minister and the police chief have contradictory information about the same incident. This indicates a complete lack of coordination or one of the two is deliberately offering misleading information.

But what’s worse than this is the counseling or the arrest. This act is a serious threat to our constitutional democracy. Those individuals merely declared their intent to stage a massive protest of 30,000 aspiring teachers. That’s a basic right of a citizen in a democratic country. Of course, they cannot disturb the law-and-order situation, but they have not yet taken the step. They have merely issued a warning.

The government machinery points out their threat to bring Guwahati to a standstill. “You cannot disturb the normal life of the city. People come here to hospitals, schools, and offices. You cannot disturb their lives,” says CM Sarma. He is right, but those aspiring teachers still have not done that. They have expressed their intent to do so. They could certainly be counselled, and it is important for the government to start a dialogue with these disgruntled individuals, irrespective of the merit of their demands. But dialogue cannot happen in detention though the CM says they were merely counselled and released. “I’m not aware of any detention,” he says.

It’s his constitutional duty to ensure social order in the state. But the model of doing this is not by creating a police state. Before making any arrest, the state government should have questioned the trio about how they wanted to bring Guwahati to a standstill. That was the only objectionable part in their message. And the state government has a strong enough machinery to take preventive measures to ensure that 30,000 individuals don’t throw normal life out of gear in Guwahati. A dialogue without the detention could have been a good starting point. The government could even have moved the court, seeking a restrictive order.

But then police terror seems to have been the most preferred model of governance for Chief Minister Sarma. Encounters have been patronised as the popular way of delivering instant justice. Stringent laws are slapped even for social media posts. This is ironical for a chief minister who started his political career at the age of 10, as part of the famous Assam Agitation led by student groups in the state. Today, he his emulating the forces that he fought against as a teenager.

Such actions are mostly taken by chief ministers or political leaders who are unpopular, face dissents from multiple corners and are constantly insecure about continuing in the top chair because there are several equally powerful claimants. Sarma is a hugely popular leader. The recent India Today Mood of the Nation poll found him to be the second most popular CM in the country. He doesn’t face any dissent within the party. The Opposition is almost non-existent in the state. Under these circumstances, it’s really intriguing that the Sarma government resorts to such punitive actions even at the slightest hint of any voice against the political establishment. This fear is perplexing.