November 07, 2026

Anarchy, Peaceful Protest And Democracy

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2026-10-10 14:14:07

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

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Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad has argued that the crackdown on CJP protesters was necessary because democracy runs from Parliament and not from the streets, and that no government can permit a state of anarchy. That argument has merit, but it tells only half the story.

Those who enter Parliament have themselves taken to the streets during campaigning, so the road to the House runs through them. India also has no right to recall, which leaves peaceful protest as the only channel through which citizens can register disappointment with how their elected representatives conduct themselves between elections.

The charge of anarchy, moreover, has not been made out. It now appears that the CJP is something of an A Team of AAP, a description I use deliberately because Arvind Kejriwal's main team has lost its mojo, since both Abhijeet Dipke and Ajinkye Shinde, whom Dipke chose to lead the protest after his arrest, are former AAP members. That affiliation is in the past, however. The two are presently unattached to any party, the movement arose spontaneously after CJI Surya Kant described unemployed youth as cockroaches, and its demand is a narrow one: that CEC Gyanesh Kumar resign over the allegedly faulty decisions taken during the SIR. Anarchy denotes a breakdown of governing authority, ordinarily marked by widespread lawlessness, and nothing in the rallies suggests that the State has lost its capacity to govern. The disturbances in Delhi and Kolkata, which are attributed to outsiders who are alleged to have infiltrated the gatherings, would on the distinction drawn in Ram Manohar Lohia and Arun Ghosh amount at most to a problem of law and order, which sits well below a threat to public order, and further still below anarchy.

The movement nonetheless carries a difficulty of its own. The CJP presents itself as an educated, legally aware Gen Z group with the backing of prominent Supreme Court advocates, and such a group must know that a CEC can be removed only through Parliament, in the manner and on the grounds applicable to a Supreme Court judge under Article 324(5), making a demand for his resignation a call for voluntary action by Gyanesh Kumar, not something the government can enforce. Its grievance is that he decided matters unilaterally, contrary to the statutory requirement that Election Commission decisions be unanimous or by majority. The Indian Express has reported that the other two Election Commissioners lodged protests against several decisions, yet that does not establish that those decisions lacked a majority or unanimity, and the question is now before the Supreme Court. The right to protest is not diminished by the pendency of that case. What the pendency alters is the likely effect of the protest: pressure of this kind can persuade an office-holder only if he finds the objection to his conduct credible, and the Court's eventual finding on the legality of those decisions will help determine whether that credibility is justified.