On July 27, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant said the right to peaceful protest is absolutely guaranteed and that agitation alone cannot excuse police excess. Delhi has tested that assurance almost without pause since.
It began with the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar in June and still continues. The capital has recently seen a succession of spontaneous, often ephemeral outbursts: students’ agitations after the Satya Niketan building collapse, anti-reservation demonstrations, anti-Gyanesh Kumar marches, and protests by students of premier colleges such as Lady Shri Ram (LSR) and Miranda House seeking women’s safety.
This unrest has set nationwide trends with viral moments with Gen Z saying they forced a union minister to resign. They have also showed how fraught the relationship between dissent, policing and public space has become. However, the state’s increasingly restrictive response raises a fundamental question: how much physical and political space is a democracy willing to give dissent?
A remark to a movement
On May 15, during a Supreme Court hearing, remarks by the Chief Justice of India sparked a wave of public anger that soon grew into a full-scale movement. The agitation, however, had a trigger—the NEET-UG 2026 examination, held on May 3, was cancelled on May 12 following allegations of a paper leak, forcing more than two million candidates to prepare for the exam again. A retest was eventually held on June 21, but the movement had gained momentum.
Students gathered at Jantar Mantar under the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) banner on June 6, and an indefinite sit-in protest began on June 20, this year demanding education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, a judicial probe into the examination and wider reforms. Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk too joined the protest and began a hunger strike at the site on June 28.
The ‘Chalo Sansad’ march on July 20, the opening day of the monsoon session of Parliament, was the movement’s climax. More than 10,000 people gathered despite police refusing permission, with Section 163 orders in force and mobile internet shut down around Jantar Mantar. When protesters pushed against the barricades around Parliament Street, police used batons, water cannon and tear gas.
Delhi Police said 118 of its personnel were injured; Reuters reported about 60 protesters hurt. The protesters and the police traded charges, with the cops initially denied using force at the site. Later reports described pellet-like injuries among protesters, with a student’s family fearing he could lose an eye. Pressure built over the next five days.
Union ministers J P Nadda and Jitendra Singh held talks with CJP representatives. On July 25, the 36th day of the sit-in protest, Pradhan resigned, hours before a third round of a nationwide march. The CJP ended its agitation after the government accepted its key demands: accountability for the exam crisis, compensation for families of students who died by suicide, and protection for protesters.
The wave that followed
The template travelled, and meme culture met dissent in the most unique possible ways. In Patna on July 22, a march towards the Raj Bhavan met water cannon, tear gas and a baton charge. The next day, Patna’s protest went viral on social media with the protesters taunting police over the missing water cannon during summer heat, dancing gleefully under its spray and treating barricades like playground equipment.
In Ranchi, aspirants held an indefinite sit-in at Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium over alleged irregularities in Jharkhand’s public service examinations. After six rounds of talks, on August 9, the state agreed to cancel the 14th JPSC examination and two backlog recruitment exams. Three commission members resigned, the CID was told to investigate, and an expert panel drawing on IIT-ISM, IIM Ranchi and XLRI was proposed. The government said it had accepted 98% of the demands; students pressed on for a CBI probe and cancellation of the JSSC-CGL exam. Protest leader Devendra Nath Mahto, on hunger strike, joined an Assembly march in an ambulance.
In September, the city witnessed widespread student protests yet again. On September 6, the collapse of Hostel Daze, a five-storey paying-guest facility in Satya Niketan, resulted in multiple fatalities and led to the owner’s arrest. It drew sharp outrage, with student organisations like ABVP, AISA, and NSUI staging protests, sit-ins, and candlelit marches to demand accountability from authorities. Audits were announced, a digital portal to monitor PG facilities is underway, and universities called for a better residential infrastructure, among others.
On September 21, a 17-year-old girl was gang-raped in Aastha Kunj Park by men impersonating police officers. Students held major rallies, including a march toward Moolchand metro station and SFI’s ‘Campus Justice March’ in North Campus. The agitation culminated on September 28 with Miranda House leading the massive ‘Auratein Aazad Hai’ march, protesting systemic harassment, inadequate lighting, and restrictive safety curbs. Addressing the outrage, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta acknowledged security lapses, while the Supreme Court described the incident as a failure of law enforcement.
Apart from the physical space, the rage and political opinions made rounds on social media, with people from all over the country joining in.
Recently, the Election Commission has drawn protests after an investigation reporting stating that two election commissioners had objected to decisions made during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls exercise.
On September 25, a demonstration at Jantar Mantar demanded the arrest and resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and a rollback of the SIR. Police detained more than 60 people. That day Dipke set an ultimatum: resign, or the CJP would start a nationwide protest from Mumbai on October 2. Mumbai Police refused permission for a Shivaji Park rally, prompting Dipke to announce a ‘Jail Bharo Andolan’ for Gandhi Jayanti, while Delhi Police had not cleared a parallel Jantar Mantar protest on September 29.
However, people hit the streets and claimed the space with placards and slogans. They were detained and manhandled with heavy deployment of police blocking all routes to Jantar Mantar.
Verdict of the streets
The headline gain of the CJP July protest was Pradhan’s exit. The National Testing Agency terminated 47 officials, and the government announced steps to ameliorate the exam crisis, including an anti-paper-leak bill, a CBI handover of exam-irregularity cases and fast-track courts. The Centre also promised compensation for families of students who died by suicide.
Within days of the LSR protests, Lieutenant Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu ordered a safety audit of all Delhi parks within a week, with Pink Police deployed around them. The DDA announced controlled entry to its parks after sunset, and police combing operations apprehended 379 people in two days under the Delhi Police Act.
Delhi Police said they had stepped up ‘visible policing’ and patrols. The gains also travelled as slogans. The LSR and Miranda House marches caught on through mordant chants: ‘Ek Kachauri Do Samosa, In Mardon Ka Kya Bharosa; Ek Sutta Do Chai, Mard Samaj Haai Haai!’ Social media flooded with posts, and even if there is no immediate change—solidarity for a cause is exposing a growing tension between the constitutional right to dissent and the state’s control over public space.
The right to protest
A Supreme Court bench that affirmed the right to protest on July 27 also spoke of a protocol, a space for demonstrations and self-evolved discipline. The court’s 2020 Shaheen Bagh ruling had held that public ways cannot be occupied indefinitely.
After July 20, Delhi Police lodged multiple FIRs against scores of protesters, and cases followed in other states. Social media filled with videos of baton charges and tear-gas shells, some used by personnel without uniform or name tags. On July 28, the Supreme Court directed against doxxing of protesters and the preservation of CCTV footages and other material.
Invoking Article 142, the court quashed FIRs nationwide, on Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s request on behalf of the Centre. It allowed Delhi Police one fresh FIR against 2,873 people with serious criminal antecedents and said the order rested on peculiar facts and was no precedent. The CJP called off its September 5 march. Separate petitions before the court seek nationwide guidelines for policing protests, among them a bar on plainclothes personnel in crowd control, safeguards on Section 163 orders and an independent probe into July 20.
Accountability fights continued. A victim of pellets sat on a dharna with LoP Rahul Gandhi and others at Parliament Street police station to have an FIR lodged. On September 4, the CJP protested at the same station, demanding arrest of Hindutva influencer Swatantra Bhardwaj, who had boasted in an interview of cracking the skull of student activist Nishu Azad’s father on July 20. Police had called the injuries simple, caused by a steel bracelet. Bhardwaj was detained and a city court later granted him three weeks of interim bail.
Barricades and blackouts
On protest days, Delhi Police impose Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) in the New Delhi district, barring gatherings of five or more people, processions, demonstrations, dharnas, slogans and speeches. Internet services are suspended around the protest site, barricades go up across the city, and the roads to Jantar Mantar are sealed. Such a litany of restrictions can exacerbate the friction it is meant to prevent.
The latest test came on October 2. Police sources said around 700 people were detained across Delhi as AAP leaders and members of AISA, the SFI, the NSUI and other groups tried to reach Jantar Mantar. The Delhi Metro closed entry and exit gates at 12 central stations, among them Rajiv Chowk and Central Secretariat.
The site is now contested. On August 3, the Supreme Court agreed to examine a PIL on whether Jantar Mantar remains a suitable protest venue. On August 7, hearing a plea by the All India Dalit Christian Rights Protection Committee, whose application police had left undecided since July 9, Delhi High Court Justice Amit Mahajan asked why the government was not considering closing the site.
“Why should the city be put to ransom unnecessarily?” he asked, adding that it was the government’s call. Police refused the Kshatriya Karni Sena permission to protest at Jantar Mantar against reservation policies and the UGC Regulations, 2026: first for September 6, citing the BRICS summit, then for September 20, after initially clearing the date, calling the area sensitive.
On September 17, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma asked how there could be a “blanket ban”, noting that police could set conditions or suggest another venue. Police said they would seek fresh instructions. Two benches had pulled in different directions, and the ramifications reached well beyond one site.
However, nothing suggests a retreat. The movement is peripatetic, and its next stop looks inexorable. On October 2, after Mumbai Police denied permission, Dipke addressed thousands at Shivaji Park. He announced that if Gyanesh Kumar does not resign, the CJP will return to Jantar Mantar on October 10, a protest he has promised will be peaceful. If police stop the marchers, he has said, wherever they halt will become their Jantar Mantar.
If Jantar Mantar is closed, shifted or sealed on protest days, where in Delhi is dissent meant to stand, and who gets to decide?