Part 2: Overcoming loneliness, anxiety and the criminalisation of public discourse

P: Our next focus is on the police response. It has come under criticism on several occasions. What do these incidents tell us about the state of democratic power in India today?

A: The problem is that our investigative agencies and the police still function like colonial institutions. Unlike many other democracies, they have failed to develop an ethic of democratic citizenship.

The police do not always recognise that the people they are dealing with are citizens who possess rights. Their mandate is to maintain law and order. The phrase itself is important—it is law and order, not merely order.

Too often, they focus only on restoring order and assume that they have a free hand to do whatever is necessary. We do not know whether such behaviour is explicitly communicated to them or whether it reflects the institutional character of our police forces. Once they are instructed to act, they often believe they have unrestricted authority.

The videos that have emerged are deeply disturbing—women being touched inappropriately, someone being struck with a baton, someone else being slapped. These are not isolated incidents.

People also noticed that many police personnel, RAF personnel and security officials were not wearing visible name badges. Ordinary citizens observed these details. They may not be lawyers or civil rights activists, but they noticed everything.

That also demonstrates the democratic power of technology and social media. Technology has been used effectively to document events and expose every detail.

Just today I watched a video that appeared to show police personnel damaging their own vehicle. Earlier, another video showed a truck loaded with large stones.

P: They are also desperate to create a narrative.

A: Yes. Government spokespersons continue to repeat the same claims on television debates. They still insist that these protesters are anti-social elements, hired people or political workers backed by opposition parties.

But it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain that argument because this is clearly a popular uprising assembled by ordinary people.

They still want to justify the excessive use of force. They are trying to recreate the same narrative that was used during the farmers' movement, when protesters were labelled Khalistanis.

P: They are trying to create a narrative that this is funded by China and all that.

A: China, Pakistan—yes. But now you can see very clearly that those who once consumed those narratives are the very same people who are now protesting.

These were the consumers of those narratives. Do you understand how those narratives worked? Now they themselves have become implicated in those narratives.

You will find many people in the crowd saying, We were all followers of the BJP. We admired Modi. We voted for him. But now they have realised, through first-hand experience, what these narratives mean.

P: Absolutely.

A: So they now understand that everything they were told about Muslims, about JNU students, and about others was part of a particular political narrative.

Now they realise what kind of false narratives were created. Earlier, those who protested were called names. Today, they themselves have become victims of the very same narratives.

So we have come full circle.

First it was Muslims. Then it was the farmers. Then it was the students. Then it was the workers in Noida.

P: Yes, now...

A: ...now it has reached the youth. The circle is complete.

Here you have middle-class families, women and parents all participating. Imagine that even middle-class citizens are now being labelled Pakistanis

So the question becomes: who, then, is recognised as a citizen?

This brings us full circle. The message seems to be that your citizenship must constantly remain in doubt and suspension, so that everybody lives in fear.

I think this design has now become very clear to a large section of society.

Government narratives will no longer work because the very consumers of those narratives are now themselves being targeted with the same language. Who, then, will believe those claims?

There is no longer a reliable audience for that narrative. Everybody has become a suspect.

P: Credibility…

A: Exactly. The excessive use of security narratives and the securitisation of public discourse eventually become counterproductive because there is hardly any section of society left untouched.

Farmers, workers, students, young people—everyone has experienced it. Perhaps only a small conservative section continues to believe those narratives.

P: The rest...

A: ...the country has changed. The old 80–20 political formulation has effectively become 10–90 That is the story of how the situation has turned on its head.

P: Since we were discussing narratives, my next question is this: How would you assess the role of the mainstream media in covering this movement? Where has it done well, and where has it fallen short?

A: It has been entirely predictable.

The television channels continue to reproduce the same official narrative. Even after students have been beaten, they continue repeating that the protesters were violent and that more than a hundred police personnel were injured and hospitalised.

But once people begin to see reality differently, those narratives no longer work. You can continue saying the same thing repeatedly, but if people have stopped believing you, what is the purpose?

That is why I think the government has lost its bearings. It has lost touch with reality.

The problem is that this entire model of governance has been built around the image of an infallible leader—someone who is above criticism, above accountability and surrounded by absolute adoration.

In such a model, dialogue itself appears as weakness.

The government could easily send a deputy or a junior minister to hold talks. But it cannot do so because it has invested everything in maintaining this larger-than-life image.

In this model, politics becomes a zero-sum game: either I win or you win.

Engaging in dialogue is interpreted as admitting weakness. Stepping down from that high pedestal is seen as surrender.

A genuinely democratic leader would simply invite representatives for a conversation.

Instead, yesterday even the Leader of the Opposition was detained.

That itself reveals the government's insecurity.

Leaders who govern through fear often externalise their own internal fears onto society. They create fear because they themselves are fearful.

Now, however, society has begun to overcome that fear.

So the response has been to create even more fear.

If a confident leader saw the Leader of the Opposition approaching, he would invite him in for a cup of tea and a conversation.

Instead, confrontation escalates. One crisis leads to another. More force is used. Another crisis is manufactured.

The government now appears to survive from one crisis to the next.

I think that model has reached its limits. It is exhausting.

This model of governance has become exhausted.

A: Now we must wait and see what direction the government chooses in order to rescue itself from this situation.

Will it attempt dialogue? Will it continue to be a confrontation? That will give us an important clue about how this model of governance will function over the next two years before the general election in 2029.

P: What would success look like for this movement? Is it only about achieving policy change, or is it about changing the way people think about democracy and citizenship?

A: It has already achieved something.

P: What?

A: It has already succeeded in throwing the burden of fear back onto the rulers.

If people have liberated themselves from fear and reclaimed the spirit of politics, if they have reclaimed that sense of celebration and humour, then they have already achieved something fundamental.

The idea of a nation is togetherness and a sense of belonging.

P: Absolutely.

A: And that broader democratic spirit was being systematically undermined. The nation was being equated with the government, the state and the ruler.

P: The nation is the government, I mean...

A: The government, yes. The state is the ruler, and the ruler is treated as infallible.

That model looks very formidable when it is functioning, when people remain under the spell of that hegemony. It appears very strong and irreversible.

I think that spell has now been broken.

So, I would say that the movement is not about waiting for victory. It has already won an important battle.

These are long-term, systemic issues. Institutional reforms may not happen immediately under this government.

But the image that Mr Modi built for himself—that he could do anything and get away with it—has now been challenged.

Once that image of infallibility, that larger-than-life persona, begins to weaken, the nature of leadership itself changes.

For me, as a political theorist, that is an important question to observe.

That aura of unquestioned authority has diminished.

Whatever he says now will be taken with not just a pinch of salt, but a bucket of salt.

Yesterday he made a statement about the paper leaks. The question now is: who is responsible, and what is he going to do about it?

Nothing.

The earlier strategies of relying on mythical language, cultural symbolism, nationalism and religious symbolism have lost much of their persuasive force.

The development narrative has collapsed under the weight of the education crisis and repeated paper leaks.

The older popular narratives, policy statements and promises for the future now stand discredited.

P: Even the welfare schemes as well, in Bengal...

A: That has also been challenged.

People are saying that first their opportunities were taken away, and now they are being told that they are not even eligible for the very benefits that are promised.

That, too, becomes difficult to sustain.

The government's own credibility is now at stake.

People can no longer identify themselves with those narratives.

Narratives do not survive unless they resonate with lived reality.

Whether the government can recover that space remains to be seen.

Perhaps it has some new strategies.

We have to wait and watch.

P: My last question is this. In India After Modi, you argue that when democratic institutions lose public trust, politics increasingly shifts to the streets.

Would you see the CJP-led Jantar Mantar movement as a sign of institutional failure, or as an example of democracy renewing itself through public protest?

At what point does protest become not just a reaction to power, but an essential part of democratic politics?

A: One thing we have to ask is whether these protesters have now stopped believing in the BJP and Mr Modi.

That is one question.

Another question is whether they have discredited the basic ideological framework of the RSS itself.

Or should we instead ask whether any of these protesters will eventually go back and vote for the BJP?

People often see protest and electoral politics as two different things.

That possibility exists.

We saw this during the farmers' movement.

Farmers protested against the BJP for nearly two years. But when elections came in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, some of them voted for the BJP again because they may have thought it was still the best of the available options.

These are the grey areas of democracy.

Democracy is complex.

People do not always think in a single, linear way.

They may dislike Mr Modi, they may dislike the BJP, but they may not trust the opposition either.

P: Yes. Here the responsibility also falls on the opposition.

A: To a large extent, the opposition has failed. That is precisely why an independent mobilisation became necessary. Ideally, these issues should have been taken up and organised by opposition parties. But people repeatedly told me that all parties are the same. So even a crisis of this magnitude has not restored the credibility of the opposition.

That remains an important question for me.

Can this protest naturally weaken the BJP politically?

Or do people separate social protest from electoral politics?

In academic discussions, we often assume that everything fits neatly together.

We think there is a large protest, therefore the BJP will lose power, people will vote against it and remove it from office.

But politics rarely works in such a linear fashion.

Social questions and electoral questions do not always move together.

People may conclude: 'We wanted to make the BJP more responsive. We wanted Mr Modi to become more accountable. We did not necessarily want to remove him from office.'

Some people may still believe that, despite everything, he remains the most capable leader available.

That is also a possible conclusion that ordinary citizens may reach.

As Antonio Gramsci reminds us, common sense is often deeply self-contradictory. It does not function in linear ways.

So the outcome may surprise all of us.

These are questions we will have to wait and observe carefully.

The role of the opposition has been deeply disappointing.

It missed a significant political opportunity.

It could have done much more.

Now we must wait and see how people respond before analysing the long-term political impact of this movement.

— Ajay Gudavarthy in conversation with Paulami Mondal