The Special Executive Magistrate asked me to explain why I should not be required to execute a bond of Rs 10,000, with a surety, to maintain peace during an inquiry.The notice leaves me with a simple question. What is this peace that I am being asked to maintain? And what have I done to threaten it? To understand this notice, one must first understand why we have been protesting.AdvertisementAlso Read | We, the students, looked fear in the eyeStudents, activists, lawyers and concerned citizens have gathered on the streets of Delhi to question the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the threat of disenfranchisement, and the accountability of the Election Commission. Our concern is that people may be deprived of one of their most fundamental democratic rights: the right to vote. For someone whose name is removed from an electoral roll, this is not merely an administrative matter. It is about whether they have a voice in deciding who governs them. Whether they count as equal citizens. Whether democracy will honour its promise of political equality.We demanded accountability from the Chief Election Commissioner because an institution entrusted with safeguarding free and fair elections must remain answerable to the people. We were not protesting against democracy. We were protesting to defend it. Can demanding free and fair elections disturb public tranquillity? Can questioning constitutional authorities threaten public order? Is strengthening democracy antithetical to maintaining peace?And then there is what happened to us on the streets. We were repeatedly stopped, dragged, detained and prevented from reaching protest sites. I have been physically manhandled by police personnel and have shown the scratches and bruises left on my body. Other women protesters and journalists have also alleged police misconduct. On October 16, I was detained at Mandi House and remained in police custody overnight. And after all this, I was served a notice suggesting that I was likely to breach the peace.AdvertisementAlso Read | At Jantar Mantar, the story isn’t just the demands — it’s people finally showing upAre my slogans demanding Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, rollback of SIR and repealing the 2023 EC appointment Act likely to breach the peace? During the protests against the NEET paper leak, I sat on a 23-day-long hunger strike, choosing to endure hunger myself in the hope that our demands for justice would be heard. I have never sought to disturb peace. I have only refused to accept that peace requires us to remain silent in the face of injustice.The grounds reported in the notice point to protests, slogans and gatherings, not violence committed by me. Meanwhile, photographs, videos and accounts document the force used against protesters, including myself.I am being asked to prove that I will maintain peace, while the violence we have experienced at the hands of those entrusted with maintaining public order is left without similar accountability. What, then, have we begun to understand by peace? Is peace simply the absence of people on the streets? Is it the silence that follows when protesters have been dispersed, detained or frightened into staying home? Can we call a society peaceful because those experiencing injustice have been prevented from speaking about it?History offers us a troubling understanding of peace. The Roman Empire celebrated what came to be known as Pax Romana, or Roman Peace. It was associated with stability and order, but sustained also through slavery, conquest, military domination and the suppression of resistance. The peace celebrated by those who ruled was not necessarily experienced as peace by those subjected to their power.It is possible, then, to impose order without creating justice? To silence resistance without addressing the suffering that gives rise to it. To declare peace while leaving untouched the inequality and violence on which that peace rests. But surely this cannot be our understanding of peace in a democratic republic.Martin Luther King Jr., writing in Stride Toward Freedom (1958), reminds us: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” In his Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963), King further distinguished between negative peace, understood as the absence of tension, and positive peace, grounded in justice.Protest does create tension. It makes people uncomfortable. It compels those in power to confront questions they may prefer not to answer. But the discomfort created by questioning injustice cannot be equated with the injustice itself.I am also reminded of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s Rashmirathi, where Krishna travels to Hastinapur not to provoke conflict but to seek a just settlement that might prevent war. Even when a fair division seems impossible, he appeals for five villages. The demand for justice is an attempt to preserve peace. It is the refusal to recognise even that demand which makes a peaceful resolution impossible. In Kurukshetra, Dinkar writes: “Shaanti nahin tab tak, jab tak, sukh-bhaag na nar ka sam ho.” (There can be no peace until every person has an equal share of prosperity and well-being.)Peace cannot simply be declared by those who hold power. It must be experienced by the people, in the assurance of equality, in the fairness of institutions, in the dignity of being heard, and in the knowledge that one’s rights will not disappear for asking difficult questions.Our Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) and the right to assemble peacefully and without arms under Article 19(1)(b). These rights are subject to reasonable restrictions, including those necessary for public order. But such restrictions cannot justify routinely preventing citizens from exercising their freedoms. As many advocates like Vrinda Grover have pointed out, police orders and actions restricting peaceful protest must meet the tests of legality, reasonableness, validity and proportionality. The existence of a prohibitory order cannot by itself settle whether restrictions on constitutional freedoms are justified.The state has a responsibility to prevent violence. But that responsibility must also include protecting citizens from excessive police force and ensuring that they can exercise their constitutional rights safely.My challenge to the notice, therefore, is not simply about a Rs 10,000 bond. It is about whether preventive powers can portray people exercising democratic rights as threats to public peace, without credible evidence of likely harm. It is about what happens when questioning those in power is treated as more threatening than the exercise of power itself.Democracy does not promise us a society without disagreement. It promises us a way of living with disagreement without denying one another dignity, freedom and equality. Our streets will sometimes be filled with slogans. Our institutions will be questioned. Those in government will be criticised. These are not signs that democracy is failing. They show that people still believe their voices matter and that collective action can bring change.you may likeWhat should worry us is not that people continue to protest. What should worry us is when they begin to fear doing so. I want to live in the country Rabindranath Tagore imagined, “Where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high.” A country where citizens can ask questions without fear. Where young people can gather to defend the Constitution without being beaten or detained. Where the police protect citizens, including those who disagree with the government. Where maintaining peace does not mean maintaining silence.We came to the streets because we believe democracy is worth defending. We will continue to ask questions because the right to question is inseparable from the right to shape our collective future. Peaceful protest does not threaten the peace of a democracy. It is one of the ways we struggle to make that peace meaningful for everyone.The writer is the national president, All India Students Association