Protests are held in front of the Secretariat, which is the administrative centre every other day of the year, except Sunday. Sometimes they result in great conflict. It starts with an attempt to cross the police barricade. It is a common sight for the police to use force to stop the protestors, to chase them away by using water canons and to use teargas and lathis when that is also not enough.

It is not uncommon for protesters and police officers to be injured. It is enough to see this as part of our democratic system. However, the arrest of Youth Congress president Rahul Mamkootathil after surrounding his house in Adoor and taking him to Thiruvananthapuram jail in connection with the Youth Congress protest march held in front of the Secretariat on December 20 can only be seen as an act of revenge. It is clear that the measures have been taken with the deliberate intention of putting the Youth Congress leader in jail. It turned out to be an absolutely ludicrous action, regardless of whose instructions it was. It is clear that the malicious intention behind this is to create provocation. The protests created by the arrests are crying about it.

Not only the Youth Congress, but all the political parties and innumerable organizations in the state come straight to the gates of the administrative centre to bring their demands to the attention of the government. There is no difference between the opposition and ruling parties in this regard. A march was held in Thiruvananthapuram under the leadership of the Congress and Youth Congress leaders on December 20 to protest against the brutal beating of the Youth Congress workers who showed black flags against the Chief Minister in connection with the Nava Kerala Sadas. The truth is that there was no conflict on an unusual scale that day. People saw it live on television. Youth Congress president Rahul is only the fourth accused in the case filed by the police in this regard. The first accused is opposition leader VD Satheesan. The second and third accused are MLAs Shafi Parambil and M Vincent. A case has been filed against Rahul on charges punishable with imprisonment of up to ten years. Everyone knows the outcome of cases involving politicians like this. No one has forgotten the case related to the ruckus, which was staged in the Legislative Assembly by the then-opposition members many years ago. Looking at all this, anyone can understand the pride of power behind Rahul being woken up and taken into custody before dawn like a fugitive.

Protests are nothing new here. This is a state that has seen many arrests and imprisonments. There is not going to be any benefit other than to mount a mountain of small incidents and to extinguish the spirit of society by going after them. It would be good to introspect how desirable it is for politicians to take to the streets daily to increase their mileage while ordinary people are hustling for a living.