Delhi Police have de-notified Jantar Mantar as a designated site for protests and demonstrations, ending its long run as the capital’s main protest ground and moving such gatherings to three other venues.
According to an order dated October 11 and signed by Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar, the new designated sites are Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground in East Delhi. The order says the Ministry of Home Affairs had set up a committee to look at alternative venues where citizens could exercise their right to protest, in place of the existing site. Delhi Police acted on that committee’s recommendations.
The police said a detailed, revised standard operating procedure for holding demonstrations at the three new grounds will be issued separately. Until it is released, it is not clear what rules on permissions, crowd size, timings or notice will apply to organisers.
Jantar Mantar has been the main protest venue in New Delhi since 1993. It took on that role after demonstrations were restricted at the Boat Club lawns near India Gate, following a huge farmers’ protest led by Mahendra Singh Tikait in 1988. Since then, farmers, students, workers, political parties and civil society groups have used the site to press their demands before the government.
Its status has been challenged before. In October 2017, the National Green Tribunal ordered a ban on protests at Jantar Mantar and directed that they be moved to Ramlila Maidan. In July 2018, the Supreme Court set aside that blanket ban and allowed peaceful protests there, subjecting to some regulations.
Ramlila Maidan, one of the three new sites, is also well known in Indian political history. It hosted Jayaprakash Narayan’s 1975 agitation against the Indira Gandhi government, and Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement in 2011.
The decision comes after a tense few weeks at Jantar Mantar. Police officials have been dispersing scores of protesters since September 25 against the Chief Election Commissioner over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, and the journalists covering it said they were detained and manhandled.
On September 29, activists were stopped from joining a protest at Jantar Mantar against attacks on places of worship, and the Cockroach Janta Party has also been involved in a standoff with police at the site.
Security around Jantar Mantar was reported to have been tightened ahead of the CJP’s latest call to protest. The order does not link the de-notification to any of these events, and it does not say why the change was made.
Jantar Mantar sits in the heart of central Delhi, close to Parliament and the offices of ministries, and protesters have long valued that proximity. Burari and East Delhi’s CBD Ground are much further from the centres of power.
There has been no official reaction yet from opposition parties, civil society groups or farmers’ organisations. The police have also not said what will happen to protests already planned at Jantar Mantar.
