BENGALURU: If numbers could narrate a story, this one’s telling. Tamil Nadu, which is now witnessing large-scale jallikattu protests, was found as the most restive state in the country in 2015.
As per Union home ministry records, Tamil Nadu topped the list with 20,450 agitations. Punjab (13,089) and Uttarakhand (10,477) got the second and third spots respectively in the hall of shame.
Surprisingly, traditional hotbeds of agitations and protests- Kerala (3371) and West Bengal (3089)- did not figure among the top ten states.
Karnataka (3,971) found itself in the ninth position. Majority of the agitations in the state were conducted by communal groups (1,263), political parties (361) and students (285) during 2015.
Records reveal the number of agitations staged across the country has witnessed a sharp spike in the last three years. While 75,991 protests were registered in 2013, the figure rose to 87,486 cases in 2014. In 2015, it crossed one lakh figure. As many as 1,09,423 stir-ins were registered that year. It translates to an average of nearly 300 protests a day.
Majority of the protests were conducted by political parties (32,339), government employees (17,628), labour unions (13,361), students (9,454) and communal (8,061) groups.
Venkatesh Nayak of an NGO Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) feels that the increase in the number of agitations in the country is mainly because of the ineffective system.
Activists say protests led by students are comparatively less mainly because of the ban on students politics in most campuses.
Former president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union(JNUSU) Kanhaiya Kumar had recently said at an event in Bengaluru that most politicians are opposing polls on campuses because they don’t want to see the rise of new leaders.
CITU Karnataka General Secretary VJK Nair says: “We have been fighting for the rights of the workers through various agitations but many demands are yet to be materialised”.
Jayaram Venkatesan, convenor of Chennai-based NGO Arappor Iyakkam, says: “People in Tamil Nadu are frustrated because of the ineffective governance. Their anger is now spilling out on streets. Many people who gathered for Jallikattu protests are also angered by several other issues, including farmers’ suicides.”
A senior official of Tamil Nadu government, however, feels that TN topped the list of maximum agitations because of the better reporting system.
“All organizations staging protest have to mandatorily take permission from police. We also have dedicated places for protests so stirs do not affect public life much here,” he says.