It’s been over a fortnight, but I am still coming to grips with the unusual enormity of what transpired on 20 July 2026 at Jantar Mantar at the political epicentre of India. No, it wasn’t a violent, revolutionary upsurge; and it wasn’t an “Indian Spring” aimed at a regime change.
Instead, it was a vigorous, visible assertion, a cry of anguish coated under a celebratory veneer, delivered in the Gen Z grammar of protest music and satirical memes. It breathed life back into India’s comatose democracy.
Unfortunately, the state trotted out medieval instruments of coercion—canes, nailed batons, water cannons, tear-gas, and pellets—to quell the “mob”. Eventually, as spirits remained uncrushed in battered young bodies, the state conceded.
Lessons From History
What happens now? Does history foretell the next steps? Yes, it does, because students’ protests have a rich legacy to learn from. Some of them had eerily similar dynamics to what transpired at Jantar Mantar.
In 2010, Britain’s conservative government hiked tuition fees and cut education spending. Students pushed back with mounting aggression. Police were attacked, parliament was threatened, and the ruling party’s headquarters at Millbank were occupied and damaged. The state hit back with force. Besides the usual batons, a new weapon of containment, or “kettling”, was devised. Demonstrators were herded into small, designated areas and not allowed to leave. It was a starvation/claustrophobic strategy to “tire ‘em out”. It succeeded to an extent since the movement bled out. The British parliament thumbed its nose at the protestors by approving higher tuition fees.
Elements of “kettling” were on display at Jantar Mantar too, as the police tried to shut off neighbourhood markets, metro/internet connectivity, and food supply from online vendors—but Indian providers proved more resourceful in getting through.
A more evocative example comes from Taiwan’s Wild Lily movement of 1990. Thousands of university students had laid siege to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei. At that point in time, Taiwan had transitioned halfway to a democracy with opposition parties and competitive politics, but students were impatient to end the constitutional emergency and get on with fully popular elections. The crowds swelled to over twenty thousand. President Lee Teng-hui had stark options—order his troops to clear the square or extend an olive hand. Mercifully, he chose the latter. He invited a delegation of student leaders and promised them accelerated democratic reforms. He committed to convening a National Political Conference to implement direct elections for various legislatures. The students withdrew peacefully. To Lee’s credit, he stuck to his promise.
A nagging question is troubling me now. What if Prime Minister Narendra Modi had followed President Lee Teng-hui’s example?
What if he had invited a “delegation of cockroaches” to meet him a week after the siege began? I know it’s futile to delve into the “what ifs” of history, but I reckon one thing is certain—the tragedy of 20 July 2026 would have been pre-empted and deflected to a less combative trajectory.
Perhaps the most telling lesson comes from South Africa’s #FeesMustFall movement. From 2015 onwards, students started demanding free and “decolonised” education. As it gathered pace, the government cancelled fee increases for 2016.
But that proved to be a short-lived palliative.
Within a few months, students re-grouped and launched a violent backlash. Arson and destruction followed. The state came down hard on the protestors, using rubber bullets, stun grenades, tear-gas and mass arrests. The assault forced students into submission and the movement withered away.
But then, the South African government adopted “grace” in “victory”. It gave substantial concessions. By 2017, poor and working-class students were given free higher education. Herein lies a critical “what next” prompt for the Modi government. Jantar Mantar may have become peaceful, but that’s an opportunity to seize, to engage with students and co-opt them into pushing through honest and transparent education reforms.
Is Coercion Inevitable, Even Necessary?
Let me now switch from the tactical to philosophical. There’s a raging debate on whether the state can or should be a total, completely benign, peacenik? Or whether some coercion is inevitable, even necessary, to cut a quick path to peace and calm? That without an initial bout of coercive power, it becomes impossible to contain a movement, which then could spiral out of control, creating more mayhem and destruction than the first few police blows?
The infamous Niccolo Machiavelli pulled no punches: “A ruler should inspire fear while avoiding hatred”. Thinkers like Thomas Hobbes are hawkish: “Covenants, without the sword, are but words”. These dictums have survived for 500 and 375 years, respectively—i.e., unless a state has the capacity to enforce its writ, any commitment or guarantee is meaningless—they also find resonance in the modern era. For instance, Ronald Reagan, in an unguarded moment, while dealing with campus unrest in California in 1970, said: “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with. No more appeasement.”
Of course, he had to do much hand wringing to distance himself from the literal meaning of “bloodbath”, saying he had merely used it as a “figure of speech”.
So, is coercive force inevitable, necessary? Nelson Mandela, whose successor in South Africa had mitigated the #FeesMustFall movement with a calibrated mix of coercion followed quickly by substantial concessions, was a great advocate of essentially peaceful resolutions. “No problem is so deep that it cannot be overcome…through discussion and negotiation rather than force and violence,” said Mandela.
As usual, Mandela took his cues from Gandhi: “This repression cannot be prolonged without further embittering the already bitter relations between the two peoples.” And from Martin Luther King: “Riots grow out of intolerable conditions.”
Wise counsel is echoing from these sage words for the Modi government. Do not create intolerable conditions. Do not allow bitterness to harden. Do not believe the problem is too deep and irretrievable. Move beyond coercive power. Engage sensitively and honestly. Every grievance is a mighty opportunity!