Of the people, by the people, for the people – is a popular line that many in India hold to be a sort of credo for the country’s democracy.

Of course, ‘people’ here refers to all the people of the country and not just a privileged class or section, one would assume.

But often enough, events occur that challenge our notions of our government, and by extrapolation, of ourselves being democratic. There’s no need to look far back for evidence. The June 4 crackdown on the protest at Ramlila Maidan is one such incident.

Thousands of protestors were beaten, tear-gassed in the police action and mauled in the stampede that resulted. They were there, staging a democratic protest, demanding that a government elected by them to serve them do whatever is necessary to check corruption.

In the aftermath, the outrage against the police brutality was muted, with condemning notes rising and quickly ebbing mostly in news studios. The government version of the midnight crackdown was designed to raise questions, damaging, if not damning ones, on Ramdev. What was interest in the issue? Why did he run? Why did he stage a protest at the Maidan even though permission was only granted for yoga?

But equally uncomfortable questions can be asked of the government itself. Where was the government when Ramdev’s fast was going on during the day? Did the government feel so threatened by a yoga camp that union ministers rushed to meet the yoga entrepreneur at the Claridges? Why did the government brutalise and vilify the same man it received at the airport? If the UPA is keen to talk to Pakistan, despite its marked insincerity, why does it shy from talking to Indians, to citizens? And was the midnight action really necessary? After all, the protestors were sleeping.

If the government knew better than to hide under flimsy reasons, it would have known that the Asthanna yoga includes fasting and meditation. MCD had granted permission for yoga, with no specification on the form.

The government did know of the protest – there were posters lining walls in Delhi – and it did try to quell it at first. And then when it failed, it tried to crush it. With the crackdown, it also crushed democracy - the people’s right to hold a government that they elected accountable, to protest its corrupt ways.

So, it has come to such a pass in our country that a rapist may go free because of lack of evidence, but unarmed people demanding clean governance will be thrashed black and blue.

Democracy remains meaningful as long as the people are the focus. The independence struggle was democratic. But is independent India of 2011 so?

Abraham Lincoln once said, “No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.”

When India got independence, the population was less than 60 crore. Today, it stands at 120 crore. Even if this government is favoured by one crore people, in whose interests corruption is, there are a hundred times more against graft. They do not stand with the government on this issue.