By Jeremy Kahn
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Indian police were ready for protesters
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As the day drew near for the Olympic torch to be carried through the heart of India's capital, New Delhi, Indian government officials had grown apprehensive. India is home to the
world’s largest number of Tibetan exiles, including Tibetan Buddhism’s
most revered figure, the Dalai Lama, and it has also sought to avoid antagonizing its
big neighbor to the north. Indian officials feared the worst--including the prospect that Tibetan monks might immolate themselves in protest on the city’s streets. In the end, however, the torch relay here went off without disruption, thanks to the extraordinary security measures the Indian government laid on for the event.
Officials left nothing to chance. The run was shortened to just two kilometers along the city’s central vista – the Rajpath -- meaning that each of the 70 torch bearers held the flame for just seconds before handing off to the next runner. (A few prominent Indian athletes refused to participate in the torch relay out of sympathy for the Tibetan cause.) All the streets leading into the area were closed, as were two major subway stops near relay route. Government offices that occupy this central zone were shuttered in the afternoon as well. In contrast to its normal weekday bustle, the center of the city took on the deserted feel it often has at weekends.
The government deployed 15,000 police officers, many clad in riot gear and carrying long bamboo poles, to deter any disruption. Throughout the run, the torch bearers were surrounded by a Chinese security team, which itself was guarded by an Indian security team. Security was so tight that even people holding passes issued by Olympic sponsors – such as the computer company Lenova – were turned away at the police barricades erected to control access to the torch run. In a city of 15 million, only a couple hundred people, most affiliated with Olympic sponsor companies, were able to witness the relay. The rest had to settle for TV.
There were a few tense moments: early in the day, a small group of Tibetan exiles attempted to storm the luxury hotel where the Olympic flame had been sequestered under guard since arriving in India last night. But they were quickly arrested. Later, about 30 protestors tried to breach a police barricade near the relay route, but they were turned back with truncheon blows and arrested too. At one point plumes of black smoke rose from behind a group of protestors, causing a stir among the police and the assembled media hordes: were protesting monks setting themselves alight? No, it turned out just to be an unrelated firefighting demonstration being held as part of New Delhi’s “Firefighter Appreciation Week.”
For the most part, New Delhi witnessed only peaceful and lawful protests. A few streets north of the relay route, several hundred people, including monks in saffron robes and others wearing white “Torch 4 Tibet” T-shirts, peacefully paraded continuously around a city block shouting “Free Tibet, Free Tibet,” and “Who is the butcher? Who is the killer? China, China, China.” The demonstrators made little attempt to confront the almost equal number of police officers who blocked them from getting anywhere close to the Rajpath. Elsewhere, a few thousand people, including several Indian celebrities and members of a Hindu-nationalist political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has generally been more supportive of the Tibetan exile’s cause than the current Congress Party-led government, held other pro-Tibet rallies.
Indian government officials will no doubt be patting themselves on the back tomorrow. They have done their part to protect the Olympic flame. But the question remains: what have they done to protect democracy?
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