The right to peaceful protest is essential for a healthy democracy

Greenpeace India stands in solidarity with students in Delhi exercising their democratic right to peacefully protest and calls for accountability over the harm caused to young protesters.esters. 

A country’s confidence is measured by how it answers its young people, not by how quickly it clears them from the street.

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Peaceful protest is an essential part of a well-functioning democracy. 

The right to speak freely and to assemble peacefully is guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution. Those rights do not lapse when the people exercising them are young, or when what they are asking is inconvenient.

We call on the Prime Minister or the relevant authorities to step in and protect the democratic right to peaceful protest. He may not agree with what the students have to say, but their right to say it should be protected.

History has shown time after time that the right to peaceful protest is one of the best tools we have to change society for the better, no matter our political leaning. 

India itself has a long and proud history of peaceful protest winning positive change for all of us.

• Mahatma Gandhi’s peaceful protests turned world opinion in India’s favour, ultimately helping win our independence back from British colonial control.
• The Chipko movement in the 1970s used peaceful protest to stop deforestation in the Himalayas by hugging trees to stop them from being cut, and from that came important new laws protecting forests – and the well-loved moniker of tree-hugger’ has been adopted worldwide by advocates of nature
• Ekta Parishad has used peaceful marches to push for land rights for poor farmers, and they’ve successfully won land back for thousands of families.

Globally, peaceful protest has won women the right to vote, the right of workers to have weekends, the end of commercial whaling, the end of nuclear testing in the Pacific and, more recently, a historic Global Oceans Treaty that is now officially in force to protect 30% of global oceans by 2030.

Greenpeace itself was founded on the belief that peaceful protest can change the world for the better. We therefore urge the authorities to exercise restraint, ensure care for everyone injured, independently investigate credible allegations of excessive force and engage seriously with the concerns being raised by students.

Young people asking for fairness and accountability should be heard, not harmed.