Jantar Mantar was built to observe the heavens. For three decades, it gave citizens a place to challenge power on earth. Its closure raises an urgent question: can a democracy survive by pushing dissent out of sight?
When electoral revision threatens to exclude legitimate voters, it strikes at the heart of democracy: the citizen’s right to choose who governs.
The lessons in democracy must be learned before the examination begins.
From a 23-day hunger strike to the barricades of Jantar Mantar, Neha Bora has emerged as a striking voice of India’s youth, defending dissent, citizenship and the right to vote.
The contrast could not have been sharper. In Delhi, peaceful citizens agitating against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, faced detention and a heavy police response. In Mumbai, the same protest was allowed to continue despite the police having denied permission.
The SIR controversy is no longer merely about electoral rolls. It is about what happens when an institution entrusted with protecting the franchise exercises the power to exclude citizens from it without sufficient explanation. O
An election can change a government overnight. But if citizens begin to doubt the institution that conducts it, the damage can reach far deeper: it can shake democracy itself.
Ram Rajya existed centuries before the word secularism entered political language. Yet its ideal of just rule, equal protection and the welfare of all can help us understand why secularism has become central to modern India.
When a citizen must sign a declaration before entering a church, India must ask whether freedom of religion is still a constitutional right—or a privilege that minorities must prove they deserve.
As we celebrate Janmashtami, let us look beyond religion and tradition to celebrate Krishna and Christ as two radiant expressions of one Divine Love, guiding humanity towards unity.
Mohan Bhagwat’s New York message on Muslims, universalism and Ramakrishna raises a larger question: Is the RSS redefining Hindutva—or simply reaching out to minorities amid growing criticism of its politics?
Religions have fought over God for centuries. But Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism may have more in common than their followers admit: love, compassion, truth, self-realisation and human unity.
Divine Justice is at play in the sentencing of Tehelka's Tarun Tepal, in an old 2013 sexual assault case
Before Independence satyagrahis stood before a line of policemen with raised lathis. Nearly eight decades after Independence, that haunting image still asks uncomfortable questions of Indian democracy. The greatness of a democracy is measured not by the force it can command, but by the restraint it chooses to exercise.
The Cockroach Janta Party has won its immediate battle. Yet its protest leaves behind a far more important question: does democracy become stronger when governments listen to peaceful dissent?
Four hunger strikes over four decades—from Ladakh to the Ganga to Jantar Mantar—reveal a profound shift in how Indian governments respond to citizens who choose self-sacrifice over violence.
A government loses little by talking to peaceful protesters. It risks much by refusing to listen. For the true measure of a democracy lies not in the power a government wields, but in the dissenting voices it is prepared to hear.
Democracy is not destroyed overnight. It erodes gradually. Each silenced protest, each intimidated dissenter, and each indifferent citizen becomes another nail in the coffin of freedom.
