Before the sun could rise over Itanagar on September 24, the administration had already made its position crystal clear — this bandh isn’t happening. Not legally, at least.
The District Magistrate of Itanagar Capital Region, Toko Babu, issued a firm order on September 23 declaring the 12-hour bandh announced by the All Nyishi Students’ Union (ANSU) as illegal and unlawful. The bandh had been scheduled to run from 5 am to 5 pm across the Itanagar Capital Region, but the administration wasn’t having any of it.
The order, invoked under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, didn’t mince words. It pointed directly to the disruption such a shutdown would cause — not to politicians sitting in comfortable offices, but to the everyday people who have no stake in this standoff. Daily-wage workers who lose a day’s earnings can’t recover it. Patients who miss critical medical appointments don’t get a second chance. Small business owners who shutter their shops for the day take a hit they may not easily absorb. The DM cited all of these concerns in laying out the administration’s reasoning.
There was also the matter of law and order. Any bandh enforcement, the order noted, risks turning streets into flashpoints — and that’s a risk the administration clearly isn’t willing to take.
Legally, the administration leaned on solid ground. The order referenced the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Civil Appeal No. 7728/29 of 1997 — CPI vs Bharat Kumar and Others — which has long been used to establish that bandhs, when enforced coercively, are unconstitutional. It is a well-worn legal sword, and the administration wielded it without hesitation.
The DM’s directions were direct: ANSU organisers and all associated persons must not enforce, support, or even participate in the proposed bandh. They were ordered to withdraw it with immediate effect. Anyone who defies the order faces penal consequences under the law. The Superintendents of Police of both Itanagar and Naharlagun were simultaneously directed to enforce the directive and ensure peace across the capital region.
What brought ANSU to this point matters. The union has been pressing the state government over the state of education infrastructure in Nyishi-inhabited areas — a concern that, on its face, is legitimate and worth addressing. Just a day before the DM’s order, on September 22, state government representatives sat down with ANSU and urged the organisation to reconsider the bandh call. Clearly, those talks did not produce a breakthrough.
As of the time of reporting, ANSU had not issued a formal response to the DM’s declaration.
The standoff puts a spotlight on a familiar tension — between student organisations using their most powerful pressure tool and an administration determined to protect daily life from disruption. Both sides, in their own way, believe they are fighting for the people of this region. The question now is whether ANSU will back down, defy the order and risk legal consequences, or find a middle path before the clock runs out.
Whatever happens, the people of Itanagar woke up on September 24 knowing one thing for certain — someone was going to blink first.
