Judging by the breathless coverage in sections of the media, we would think the Narendra Modi government is on the verge of collapse after the Cockroach Janta Party’s show at Jantar Mantar.
Throw in the customary endorsements from a few familiar celebrity activists, and the impression sought to be created is that India is witnessing the birth of another people’s movement. It isn’t.
A movement without a destination
The first giveaway is the absence of a coherent objective. Depending on whom you speak to, the demand ranges from the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET controversy, to the dismissal of the NDA government, to Modi stepping down. A movement that cannot define its destination is unlikely to inspire a nation.
More importantly, history tells us that governments are rarely overthrown by protests alone. Demonstrations become decisive only after a government has already squandered its legitimacy through dictatorship, economic collapse, rampant corruption, electoral fraud or constitutional subversion. The protests are the final act, not the opening scene.
The ballot buried the Emergency
Bharat itself offers the best example. Indira Gandhi was not voted out in 1977 because people gathered on the streets. She was rejected because the Emergency had suspended civil liberties, censored the press, jailed political opponents and concentrated extraordinary powers in one office. The people used the ballot box to punish authoritarianism.
The Philippines followed a similar script. The People Power Revolution on Manila’s Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) in 1986 did not emerge in a vacuum. Ferdinand Marcos had ruled with an iron hand for two decades.
Marcos’ downfall- the last push
Corruption was rampant, the economy was in distress, opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr. had been assassinated, a disputed election destroyed public confidence, sections of the military rebelled and the Catholic Church openly backed the uprising. The millions who filled EDSA merely delivered the final push to a regime that was already collapsing under its own weight.
Revolutions need fertile ground
The Arab Spring offers another lesson. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen were not swept by revolutions because crowds suddenly discovered the power of street protests. Years of unemployment, soaring prices, corruption, repression and governments that had lost public legitimacy had already brought those societies to breaking point. The demonstrations became the spark because the tinder had been accumulating for years.
Now compare those conditions with Bharath. One may criticise Modi’s policies or disagree with his politics. That is the essence of democracy. But the NDA continues to derive its authority from repeated electoral victories and remains politically competitive across the country.
Bharat is neither a failed state nor an economy in free fall. Democratic institutions continue to function, elections continue to be held and governments continue to change through the ballot where voters choose otherwise.
Legitimacy still matters
Equally significant, Modi has not had to cling to office after losing a popular mandate, nor has any court held him personally guilty of corruption. Agree with him or oppose him, the historical ingredients that usually precede regime-changing uprisings are simply absent.
That is why the latest protest, however noisy, is unlikely to alter Bharat’s political landscape.
Opposition parties have every right to mobilise public opinion. Peaceful protest is an essential democratic freedom. But there is a world of difference between a protest and a revolution, between media optics and political momentum, between wishful thinking and historical reality.
Governments do not fall because the opposition declares them finished. They fall when the people conclude that they have lost the moral authority to govern. Bharat, at least for now, is nowhere near that point.
