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Last Sunday evening, Kenyans witnessed a civilian coup. As he announced the final results of the 2007 presidential election, Electoral Commission Chairman Samuel Kivuitu was interrupted by members of the Orange Democratic Movement. They claimed that the results he was reading out were bogus.

Minutes later, General Service Unit troops stormed the Kenyatta International Conference Centre plenary hall and ejected t party agents, politicians and journalists including the numerous television crews that had been filming the results live. Samuel Kivuitu was led into the VIP lounge, where he proceeded to declare President Mwai Kibaki the winner of the election, before the State-run Kenya Broadcasting Corporation and a select number of election observers. Half an hour later, the Chief Justice swore in Mwai Kibaki. Minutes later, the country exploded.

As the President took his oath of office, ten people were killed in Kisii in western Kenya. Rioting was reported in several areas countrywide. What followed was an orgy of ethnic violence on an unprecedented scale. In the Rift Valley, western Kenya, Coast province, Nyanza and the slums of Nairobi, members of Kibaki’s Kikuyu people were murdered and their homes -and businesses torched. Bands of youth took to the streets all over the country protesting the results. A circular issued from the Ministry of Information on instructions from the Minister of Internal Security banned all live broadcasts. The public was also warned against spreading hate messages via SMS. Rumors began to serve as news as the country fell into a terrible silence.

Five days later, the death toll is over 300 around the country, and rising. There are an estimated 70,000 displaced people all over the country. They are mostly Kikuyu but not exclusively so. Beyond ethnicity, their common label is supporters of the Party of National Unity, the vehicle President Kibaki used for his re-election campaign. Towns and businesses have been shut down across the country. Transport has been paralyzed. The opening date for schools has been postponed.

Events have moved at an astonishing speed this past week. The EU’s observer mission cast serious doubts over the election result. After two days, Election Commission Chairman Samuel Kivuitu, in an astonishing admission, said that he could not be sure who had won the election. He also revealed that he had been under intense pressure to declare the results as quickly as possible, despite having grave misgivings himself. He has, however, refused to resign. The leaders of the Orange Democratic Movement have declared that Raila Odinga is the legitimate winner of the election. Both Raila and Kibaki have accused each other of violence.

Now as the violence and humanitarian crisis continue to grow, numerous lobby groups are appealing for peace. International mediation, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and urged on by western leaders, may provide a resolution. However, it is clear that any way out of the crisis must involve a retreat from hardline positions and willingness on both sides to a recount.

It is important that we remember where the rain started beating us. Post-independent Kenyan politics has been characterized by bad faith, deal-breaking and betrayal, all done in the name of ethnic jingoism. These were Kenya’s first truly democratic polls. Millions of Kenyans went to the polls and voted - a unifying cause. There was no wily autocrat to force out of office; no detention laws to rail against; no restrictions to basic freedoms. Beyond ethnicity, these elections ‘also pitted a nationalist gerontocracy against the youth. Now the youth, schooled in the ethnicity of their fathers are reacting to the electoral robbery they have perpetrated.

What is encouraging is the speed in which groups are organizing around a peace agenda. Dozens of professional groups, retired military officers, church leaders and politicians from minority pare ties, as well as musicians and other celebrities and media houses are pushing for dialogue and an end to the violence. In this lies the hope that this most stable of East African countries will not go down in flames.

The Delhi Prevention of Property Defacement Act 2007, introduced in the Delhi Assembly recently, makes a depressing reading. According to its provisions, a mere act of putting posters on the walls or writing anything with chalk, paint or any other material can make you liable for a punishment of one year in jail. Additionally, you can be asked to pay a fine of Rs 50,000.

The proposed Act is said to be an improved version of the earlier Act in operation in the state, which was considered lenient. Now, any defacement will be a cognisable offence, which means you can be arrested without even getting into the formality of preparing a warrant.

The Delhi Government had adopted the West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act 1976 to penalise those people who were found to be engaged in ‘defacing public property’. It duly arrested around 2,802 people during a short span of two years (2001-2003) while 1,925 people were punished for wall writing, putting posters, stickers and banners.

Looking at the stringent provisions in the proposed Act and the way in which a mere act of putting posters would be bracketed as ‘cognisable offence’, one can easily see a spurt in the number of people getting arrested or punished.

Interestingly, the period during which this draft Bill was put before the House for discussion, one came across another decision of the government that talked of the government’s move to allow putting ads behind auto-rickshaws. The government expects that it could see a quantum jump in. its revenue. A few months back, the local Municipal Corporation had also decided to allow putting of ads on the radio taxies to increase the size of its coffers.

Any layperson could comprehend the rationale behind the contrary approach adopted by the people in power. While on the one hand, it seeks to penalise those people under the spacious plea of ‘defacement of public property’, it has no qualms of any sort about propaganda, if you are in a position to pay for it.

It is clear that only moneybags or big corporate houses would be able to avail this opportunity of putting across their message by paying for it and a large majority of the working population of the city who has to struggle hard to make both ends meet would be denied any such opportunity. In the changed ambience, where one is finding ‘criminalisation’ of the right to t freedom of expression granted by the Constitution, it would be increasingly difficult to express one’s disenchantment with the state of affairs.

One cannot expect ordinary people would ever find themselves in a position to express their stand vis-a-vis the custodians of democracy. Few years back, thousands of people working in different factories in Delhi were asked to either shift to new a places of work or get ready to leave the job altogether, as the powers that be had decided to close the factories t1 supposedly to ‘control pollution’.

One also saw the well-planned drive n by city authorities to demolish slums and ‘decongest the cities’. A senior judge had no qualms in comparing slum dwellers with pickpockets denying them any alternate accommodation claiming that it would be ‘rewarding the pickpockets’.

Imagine a similar situation where the people on the margins of society want to express their discontent about the state of affairs. How do they do it if they are denied even the opportunity of putting posters? Do they have any way out before them than getting ready to get arrested and pay a hefty fine for daring to put a handmade poster?

Anybody can see that the situation that seems to be emerging cannot be said to be a sign of healthy democracy, which is considered to be a ‘rule of the people, by the people and for the people’. How can it be called a ‘real democracy’ if its citizen are even denied the opportunity to exercise their political rights?

Everybody knows that the concept of citizenship has evolved down the ages and being a citizen of any country imbues you with political rights. And if we limit the idea of political rights to mere right to vote occasionally, then one is making a travesty of the definition.

The key thing to be noted in this debate is that under the present phase of neo-liberalism - where market forces have been given a free play and the state seems to be withdrawing from key sectors of running the government - the very move ‘to ‘criminalise’ right to’ freedom of expression is a sign of the hollowing out of the idea of citizenship.

It is evident that by putting someone in jail for putting posters would not only deny the citizen the right to be freedom of expression, it would deny her/him the ‘ethical and moral duties’ of a citizen.

Questioning the manner in which ‘public is being differentiated into a hierarchy of individuals’ under a neoliberal regime and also substituting ‘citizen with consumer’. But can we have democracy without ’society without a modicum of equality of status and condition, secured by universal public services, and a significant degree of social solidarity based on this? It seems unlikely.

To save itself from the charges of throttling the right to freedom of expression’, the Delhi Government plans to develop around 150 notice boards (5 ft long and 15 ft broad) spread over Delhi whose population is moving rapidly to touch the 1.25 crore mark. Anyone can comprehend that it is a mere formality.

To conclude, all these moves are a part of a wider game plan of ‘beautification of the city’ to prepare itself for the Commonwealth Games to be held in 2010. There could be no doubt that they may help ‘beautify’ the city outwardly by removing ‘unwanted/illegal structures’, but it would also help reveal the larger anomalies inherent in the society and the party.

The Union Government is not in the habit of explaining all its decisions that have a bearing on vital public interest. If the confidence motion that Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio won on December 13 last was controversial, President’s rule now imposed by the Centre in the state is no less contentious.

No wonder, Mr. Rio and his supporting parties like the BJP are shouting blue murder. They have a point when they say that if the decision of the Speaker to debar three Independents and nine dissidents of the ruling NPF from taking part in the December 13 voting was wrong, then so was a similar decision taken in Goa some time back. But there the Congress government has been allowed to function smoothly.

There cannot be separate sets of rules for states ruled by the Congress and other parties. It is really intriguing why the Congress has again opened itself to allegations of gross impropriety by dismissing Mr. Rio just about six weeks before his term was scheduled to end in any case and Assembly elections were due.

Not only that, former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A.Sangma has alleged that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Center did not consult its partners while recommending imposition of President’s rule. His party and the Left parties had vehemently opposed this move. In fact, the Union Cabinet had taken up the matter last week and had devoted considerable time to it. It was felt that the imposition of President’s rule would be politically incorrect as the decision of the Speaker should not be confronted by the Central Government. But later, it succumbed to the pressure exerted by the State Congress leadership.

The turbulence caused by the decision has added substance to the allegations by the ousted Chief Minister and Mr. P A Sangma that the Congress is planning to rig the elections. After all, the dissidents of the NPF had sided with the Congress-led Nagaland Progressive Alliance. That made a mockery of anti-defection law.

The bigger worry is that the uncertainty brought in by the decision will affect the law and order situation in the highly sensitive North-Eastern state.