The Cockroach Janta Party: A Genuine Youth Revolt or a BJP Trojan Horse?

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Indian politics often asks first who is behind a new movement rather than what grievances produced it. That question now surrounds the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), the youth-driven movement founded by Abhijeet Dipke. It turned an insult into a political identity, a social-media campaign into street mobilisation, and a protest over examination scandals into a wider confrontation over democratic accountability.

The most consequential questions are whether its independence is genuine, whether its leadership is accountable, and whether its activities might inadvertently benefit the establishment it claims to challenge. Is CJP a spontaneous expression of public anger, an instrument of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), or—as sections of the Opposition suspect—a BJP Trojan horse designed to fragment anti-government votes? As of 11 October 2026, none of these theories has been conclusively established. What exists is a political experiment, a divided opposition, a movement under state pressure, and unanswered questions that deserve scrutiny rather than partisan speculation.

From insult to political phenomenon

CJP began on 16 May 2026 after remarks attributed to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant that reportedly likened unemployed young people to “cockroaches” and “parasites.” The Chief Justice later said he had been misquoted. Dipke, a political communications strategist who studied public relations at Boston University and had previously worked with AAP’s social-media team, seized the controversy. The cockroach became a symbol of survival and defiance for young Indians frustrated by unemployment, examination scandals and institutional indifference.

The campaign spread rapidly on Instagram and X, reportedly surpassing the BJP’s Instagram following despite lacking the machinery or resources of a major party. A sit-in at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar lasted about five weeks. Sonam Wangchuk joined via hunger strike. The focus was the NEET-UG paper-leak controversy. On 25 July, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned. The government announced a shift to computer-based testing for NEET-UG and stronger measures against paper leaks. CJP could claim a significant victory by channeling public anger into a movement that imposed a cost on the government. Success, however, placed it in the path of established parties seeking to control, exploit or neutralise it.

Why the Trojan-horse theory persists

The suspicion has political logic, though logic is not proof. CJP emerged amid uncertainty for the Opposition after the 2026 Assembly elections, including Trinamool Congress’s defeat in West Bengal. A digitally sophisticated youth movement could draw volunteers, attention and votes from Congress, AAP, regional parties and the Left. In a first-past-the-post system, even modest diversion of anti-BJP votes in closely contested seats can alter outcomes without the new formation winning any itself. This is the strongest structural argument for the theory. Yet a movement can benefit the BJP electorally without being controlled by it.

A second concern is CJP’s refusal to join the INDIA opposition bloc. On 1 October, Dipke said the movement would not participate in the Opposition’s planned march to the Election Commission on 6 October, insisting it was an independent pressure group, not an electoral vehicle. Independence is legitimate, but it cannot excuse avoiding questions about political consequences. If CJP contests elections, endorses candidates or mobilises selectively against opposition parties while sparing the ruling establishment, the implications would require close examination. Its professionalisation—a 12-member national working committee, spokespersons and campaigns under slogans such as “School Thik Karo” and “Election Commission Thik Karo”—shows it is evolving beyond spontaneous protest. These steps do not prove a covert electoral design, but they raise the question of whether transparent institutions will match its ambitions.

The AAP connection: concern, not verdict

Dipke’s background fuels suspicion. He volunteered with AAP’s social-media team between 2020 and 2023 and served as a communications adviser to Delhi’s education department. Reporting has noted his prior association with Manish Sisodia and that roughly half of CJP’s core committee had AAP links. These facts raise legitimate questions about networks and influence. Former association, however, does not establish present control. People leave parties and build independent movements; treating CJP as an AAP operation solely because of past links is as careless as assuming every former BJP worker remains a ruling-party agent.

Accusations have come from multiple directions. BJP leaders have called CJP an AAP “pet project.” Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis labelled it a “Congress Jitao Programme.” Some opposition supporters claim it is designed to divide the anti-BJP vote. The contradictory charges show established parties struggling to categorise a movement that fits none of their existing boxes—and perhaps seeking to discredit a potential competitor. Neither possibility absolves CJP of the need to disclose finances, explain organisational decisions and clarify long-term objectives.

Money, leadership and accountability

A movement with a large online following and growing protest apparatus requires resources for travel, accommodation, communications, legal aid and organisation. CJP is not a registered political party. An RTI activist complained to the Election Commission in August about its collection of donations. Dipke has said the organisation intends to rely on crowdfunding and maintain transparency, and that his American education was financed by a Boston University scholarship and a loan. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal announced a ₹1 crore legal-aid fund for arrested protesters, but this does not clarify earlier or regular funding.

Allegations have also surfaced that Dipke concentrated decision-making in a handpicked national committee without adequate consultation with volunteers; these claims featured in the split that produced CJP-Democratic. A movement demanding accountability from public institutions must practise it itself. Who decides? Who controls funds? How are office-bearers chosen? Can volunteers question leadership without marginalisation? Without credible answers, a movement claiming to speak for the public risks reproducing the concentration of power it condemns.

The state’s response complicates the conspiracy theory

A substantial counterargument exists to the claim that CJP operates as a BJP instrument. The movement has faced social-media restrictions, police action and public attacks from government representatives. Its X account was withheld in India in May and its Instagram account temporarily taken down in August. Dipke has alleged threats and pressure on himself and his family to join the BJP; these claims remain disputed and require independent corroboration.

More significantly, on 10 October Delhi Police detained Dipke and senior colleagues Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das upon their flight’s arrival in Delhi ahead of a planned demonstration demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Permission for the gathering had been refused and extensive security restrictions imposed. The leaders were released by an executive magistrate on 11 October on condition they maintain peace for one year. The wider protest produced mass detentions; numbers varied by outlet, but the scale of the police operation was considerable. Hostility in one arena does not settle every question of influence, yet repeated confrontation with the authorities must be weighed against the theory of a movement under government direction. The immediate democratic question is whether peaceful mobilisation is being restricted disproportionately and whether stated public-order concerns can be substantiated.

CJP, Congress and AAP: a triangle of mistrust

Relations with the Opposition have been marked by competition and conflicting claims to credit. AAP engaged early: Manish Sisodia expressed support in May and Arvind Kejriwal visited the Jantar Mantar protest in July. BJP leaders later cited disputed video evidence of links. Congress was slower; its senior leaders were largely absent early on. When Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Mallikarjun Kharge staged a separate protest outside the Prime Minister’s residence in July, AAP accused Congress of undermining the Jantar Mantar mobilisation.

By October relations had worsened. CJP co-conveners Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das criticised the “self-declared liberal ecosystem,” widely read as targeting Congress-aligned circles. Congress representatives questioned CJP’s conduct and suggested AAP influence behind its reluctance to engage other opposition leaders. The exchange exposes a recurring Opposition weakness: the inability to separate cooperation on common issues from surrender of organisational identity. CJP need not become an appendage of Congress or AAP; equally, other parties cannot ignore the electoral consequences of its actions. The test is whether they can cooperate on institutional questions without demanding unconditional loyalty.

The CJP-Democratic split

On 3 September activist Manish Brahmbhatt launched Cockroach Janta Party-Democratic, accusing Dipke of concentrating authority and allowing AAP-linked figures to dominate. He also alleged that travel and accommodation expenses had been sponsored by Kejriwal through informal channels. No independent evidence substantiating those specific claims has been publicly established. Dipke rejected the accusations. Brahmbhatt’s own political background has drawn scrutiny; he denies association with the BJP or RSS. The split proves neither AAP control nor BJP manipulation. It reveals a familiar weakness of rapidly expanding movements: charismatic leadership, contested decision-making, resource disputes and underdeveloped internal democracy. A movement may mobilise millions online yet struggle with transparent internal processes. If CJP seeks durability, it must show that its internal culture is more democratic than the institutions it criticises.

The Election Commission campaign: the decisive test

Since late September CJP has demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, alleging that more than 13 crore names have been removed from draft rolls and raising fears of mass disenfranchisement. The government and Election Commission dispute claims of irregularity. These assertions require rigorous examination of records, reasons for deletions, correction procedures and safeguards against wrongful exclusion. A missing name on a draft roll is not automatic proof of deliberate disenfranchisement, but the reported scale makes transparency, accessible appeals and independent scrutiny essential.

The INDIA bloc has also mobilised against the Election Commission. CJP’s refusal to join the bloc’s programme while pursuing a similar demand independently is politically significant. Its subsequent police confrontation complicates the idea that it exists simply to shield the government. The ultimate test will be consistency: Will CJP apply the same standards to electoral administration wherever questions arise, publish credible evidence, demand due process and defend every eligible voter’s right? Or will its scrutiny prove selective? The answers will reveal more than the slogans of supporters or detractors.

Verdict: suspicion is not evidence

The most defensible conclusion is neither uncritical endorsement of CJP nor dismissal of it as a covert operation. No publicly established documentary, financial or organisational evidence demonstrates BJP or RSS control. Competing claims that it is an AAP operation or a Congress vote-splitting scheme also remain unproven.

Four tests should guide assessment. First, CJP must disclose its funding arrangements and establish transparent financial oversight. Second, it must clarify whether it intends to remain a pressure group or enter electoral politics, so voters can judge its objectives and consequences. Third, it must apply consistent standards to governments and institutions regardless of party. Fourth, it must develop genuine internal democracy with accountable leadership and meaningful volunteer participation. Until then, the BJP Trojan-horse theory remains a politically useful hypothesis, not an established fact.

One conclusion is already clear. CJP has exposed the depth of youth frustration over employment, examination integrity and institutional accountability. It has shown the power of digital mobilisation while also revealing the Opposition’s difficulty uniting without competing for ownership of public anger. The movement could mature into a credible pressure group, fracture further, enter electoral politics, be absorbed by an established party or lose momentum. Its future is uncertain.

The larger lesson is plain. In a democracy, new movements deserve scrutiny rather than automatic suspicion; governments deserve criticism rather than automatic condemnation; and political allegations deserve evidence rather than mere repetition. The cockroach may survive through endurance, but a democratic movement cannot survive on symbolism alone. It requires transparency, accountability and the courage to apply its principles to its own leadership. The decisive question is not who first called CJP a Trojan horse. It is whether the movement can demonstrate, through its actions and its accounts, that it belongs to the citizens whose grievances brought it into existence.

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The Barricade Is Not an Argument: The government's “victory” at Jantar Mantar, and what it may cost

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On the evening of 10 October, the BJP could say, with some justice, that it had won the day. Delhi Police had refused permission for the Gen-Z demonstration called by the CJP and imposed prohibitory orders. According to reports, over 60,000 security personnel were deployed. Hundreds were detained, including key organisers, metro stations were shut, transport was choked and mobile internet was suspended in parts of central Delhi. The party's spokesmen called it a "victory of democracy over mobocracy." Jantar Mantar stayed empty of the crowd that had planned to fill it.

But a regime is not judged by whether it can clear a street. It is judged by what the clearing says about it and what the cleared remain free to do afterwards. History's verdict on such days is rarely kind to the side that won them.

The grammar of the show of force

Consider the arithmetic. A state that must deploy tens of thousands of personnel, close a metro network and switch off the internet to stop a demonstration is not displaying strength. It is displaying fear. The protesters wanted to ask questions about the integrity of the electoral rolls and the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner. The government answered by sealing the capital, which converted a niche grievance into an all-Delhi inconvenience and an all-India spectacle.

Every shuttered station and cancelled train carried a message to people who had no stake in the CJP: this is what the government does when asked a question. The commuter stranded on a platform and the shopkeeper whose customers never arrived were not protesters this morning. Governments rarely manufacture protesters directly. They manufacture sympathisers, which is slower and more dangerous.

India's own record shows that this pattern is no accident.

Precedent one: the Emergency

The most obvious precedent is the one the BJP itself has made a cornerstone of its political memory. On 25 June 1975, Indira Gandhi answered the Jayaprakash Narayan movement and an adverse High Court verdict with preventive detention, press censorship and the suspension of civil liberties. In the short run, it worked. The streets went quiet. In March 1977, the same quiet electorate threw her out, and her party was reduced to a rump in the north. The Emergency's lesson is not that repression fails instantly. It is that repression postpones the settlement of accounts and raises the interest on the debt.

A party that spends every 25 June denouncing that era should be uneasy about building an equivalent habit.

Precedent two: the midnight raid on Ramlila Maidan

In June 2011, the UPA government, rattled by Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign, sent police into Ramlila Maidan at midnight to evict Baba Ramdev's sleeping supporters. Tear gas was fired and people ran in the dark. The government believed it had broken a pressure campaign. In fact, it handed the BJP and the Hazare movement their narrative of a government afraid of its own citizens. Within three years, the UPA suffered the worst defeat in its history. The raid did not cause that defeat, but it became a symbol of an administration that mistook coercion for authority. Those who now sit in South Block would do well to remember who benefited from that image.

Precedent three: the farmers' siege

The closest and most instructive parallel is the farmers' agitation of 2020-21. When farmers marched toward Delhi against the three farm laws, the administration answered with water cannon, trenches dug into highways, concrete barricades and iron spikes. The protesters were branded variously as Khalistanis, "andolanjeevis" and foreign-funded troublemakers. Delhi's borders became a siege that lasted over a year, claimed hundreds of lives by the farmers' own count, and made headlines around the world.

On 19 November 2021, Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the laws, saying his government had been unable to convince "a section of farmers." The legislation that had been passed without much debate in Parliament was withdrawn under pressure from people who refused to go home. The barricades had not broken the movement. They had made it famous, then permanent, then victorious. The lesson for any government that thinks a blockade ends a grievance is plain enough.

Precedent four: the generation that does not forget

The most unsettling precedents are those the CJP's followers will have in their phone feeds tonight, and they come from the region the government prefers not to compare itself with.

In Sri Lanka in 2022, a protest movement over economic collapse, the Aragalaya, forced President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country after crowds entered his residence. In Bangladesh in July and August 2024, a student quota protest was met with curfews, a communications blackout and lethal force. The shutdown became the movement's moral centre, and on 5 August Sheikh Hasina left the country after fifteen years in power. In Nepal in September 2025, the government's ban on social media platforms set off Gen-Z demonstrations in which security forces killed protesters, and the prime minister resigned within days.

India is not Nepal, and the Indian state is vastly more entrenched, more institutionalised and more electorally legitimate than any of these. But the common thread matters. In each case, a government met a youth movement with blackouts and force, and in each case the repression became a bigger grievance than the original complaint. The generation now being detained at Jantar Mantar watched all of this unfold on their screens. They have read the playbook. They also know how it ended.

The politics of the unanswered question

The deeper problem lies in the issue itself. The CJP's protest centres on the revision of voter lists and the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner. That is a poor subject on which to rely on policing. Democratic legitimacy rests on a single shared belief: that the contest is fair and the referee is neutral. When citizens begin to doubt that, the instrument for restoring trust is transparency, not detention.

A government confident in the integrity of the electoral rolls would welcome scrutiny, invite the courts or an independent audit, and let the protesters march to an empty ground and go home bored. Instead, the state treated a question about the fairness of elections as a threat to public order. Whatever the merits of the allegations, which remain contested, this response corrodes the very trust it was meant to defend. Every citizen who wonders why a question about voter lists required a security cordon of this size has been handed a reason to wonder more.

This is also why the internet shutdown matters beyond the inconvenience. India has for years led the world in the number of such shutdowns, a record that rights groups such as Access Now have repeatedly documented. A shutdown is an admission that the state cannot win the argument in the open. It tells a connected generation that the government believes its own citizens cannot be trusted with information.

"Peaceful revolution impossible"

John F. Kennedy put the danger in a sentence in 1962: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Indian democracy is not on the brink of revolution, and no serious person should claim it is. But the principle beneath that line is one of the most reliable in politics. When lawful channels of dissent are narrowed, frustration does not evaporate. It looks for other channels, some of them organised, some of them angry, some of them far less predictable than a march to a designated protest site.

Jantar Mantar was for decades India's designated place for dissent, a patch of ground set aside precisely so that anger could be expressed, heard and dispersed in daylight. A government that hollows out the safety valve should not be surprised when pressure builds elsewhere.

What the other side will say, and what it must answer

The government's defenders will make a serious case, and it deserves stating fairly. Delhi Police cited late notice and alleged non-compliance with conditions at earlier protests. Order in a capital of this size is a legitimate state interest, and Delhi has seen demonstrations turn violent before. Supporters argue that a government elected with a mandate cannot allow a self-selected movement to override institutions through street pressure, and that the CJP's claims about the Election Commission are allegations, not findings. They would add that opposition governments have used similar measures when they held power, and that one quiet Saturday does not make a crisis.

Those points carry weight. They do not touch the central problem, though, which is proportion and precedent. Even if every legal justification holds, the choice remains between answering a grievance and merely preventing its expression, and history suggests that only the first ever settles anything.

The verdict that is not yet written

The government won the day. Whether it won anything more depends on what follows. If the organisers regroup, if the courts or independent scrutiny take up the underlying questions, and if Delhi's disrupted citizens conclude the response was disproportionate, then 10 October will be remembered as the day a government spent a great deal of political capital to buy a single quiet afternoon.

The barricade is not an argument. It never has been. The Emergency, Ramlila Maidan, the farmers' siege and the capitals of Dhaka, Colombo and Kathmandu all say the same thing in different languages: a question that is not answered does not go away. It waits, and it grows, and it comes back with more people and a better memory.

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The Indian State’s Might Versus The People’s Rights

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What happened at Jantar mantar on October 10 is a culmination of the State’s excesses since 2014. The country’s capital was converted into a fortress. The mobilisation of security forces was at a war footing. And the enemy was the Indian youth. In and around Jantar Mantar and Connaught Place just about anybody walking the footpath was picked up and thrown into the police buses. It didn’t matter if they were innocent passersby going about their daily work.

A state reveals its character not by the grandeur of its slogans, but by how it treats the powerless: the Muslim trader on a highway, the student in a university, the journalist with a phone camera, the voter whose name vanishes from a roll. In India today, the central question is no longer whether the state has power—it plainly does—but whether that power remains bound by the Constitution, due process and democratic consent. Power without restraint is not strength; it is the slow conversion of republican authority into something closer to arbitrary rule. The record of recent years is disturbing precisely because it is not a catalogue of isolated excesses. It is a pattern in which executive force repeatedly outruns judicial process, institutional neutrality and the presumption of innocence.

Cow-vigilante violence became a visible national pattern during the Modi years. Human Rights Watch documented that, since May 2015, vigilante campaigns linked to rumours of beef or cattle transport had killed at least ten Muslims, while police often filed cases against victims or their relatives under cow-slaughter laws rather than promptly pursuing the attackers. The cases are not abstractions. Mohammad Akhlaq was beaten to death in Dadri in 2015 after rumours that beef had been stored in his home; his son Danish was critically injured, the police still sent household meat for forensic testing, and the family eventually had to leave the village. Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, was attacked on the Jaipur–Delhi highway in 2017 while carrying cattle-purchase receipts; he died two days later. Rajasthan’s then home minister defended “gau bhakts” while blaming cattle trafficking, and the police initially registered a case against Khan and other victims under the state’s bovine law. Sixteen-year-old Junaid Khan was stabbed to death on a train in Haryana after communal abuse; witnesses said the attackers called the boys “beefeaters,” “anti-national” and “Pakistani.” Tabrez Ansari was tied up, assaulted and forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” in Jharkhand in 2019; he died of his injuries.

The Supreme Court itself intervened in Tehseen Poonawalla v. Union of India (2018), warning that “the horrendous acts of mobocracy cannot be permitted to inundate the law of the land” and that a “recurrent pattern of violence” must not become “the new normal.” Yet impunity remained a recurring feature. In the Pehlu Khan case all six accused were acquitted in 2019; a later Rajasthan government alleged that investigative lapses had been left in place to protect them. The deeper failure is institutional. When a mob can kill on rumour, when ministers rationalise violence, and when the first FIR names the victim, the message to minorities is unmistakable: the law may exist on paper, but it will not always protect you. The state’s silence, or worse its selective zeal, converts private hatred into public permission.

“Bulldozer justice” became the emblem of a state that treats accusation as conviction. In Nuh, Haryana, after communal violence in 2023, demolitions removed homes, stalls, kiosks, around thirty shops and a four-storey hotel; mechanic Ali Sahud told reporters that “nobody was given time” because of the curfew. In Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, demolitions followed communal clashes in April 2022, again officially described as action against encroachment. Amnesty International examined 128 demolitions across Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh between April and June 2022, following communal violence or protests. It found that at least 617 people were rendered homeless or deprived of livelihoods, and described the actions as discriminatory punitive demolitions targeting Muslims without due process.

The Supreme Court’s November 2024 judgment was devastating in its language. It held that the executive “cannot become a judge and demolish properties,” called such acts “high-handed and arbitrary,” and described the spectacle of a bulldozer destroying a home without due process as reminiscent of “a lawless state of affairs.” It mandated prior notice, ordinarily fifteen days, and videography of demolitions. Yet judicial correction is not the same as justice delivered. In 2025 the Court criticised Uttar Pradesh authorities for the “unconstitutional” and “inhuman” demolition of five Prayagraj homes and ordered ₹10 lakh compensation for each owner, saying: “There is something called right to shelter, due process of law.” The question that remains unanswered is whether officials who ordered or celebrated such demolitions will ever face meaningful personal accountability. Compensation after the fact does not restore a home or erase the lesson that the state can act first and justify later.

The treatment of student activists exposes another danger: the use of serious anti-terror law not merely against violence, but against political association, speech and protest. Umar Khalid, a former JNU student, was arrested in September 2020 in the “larger conspiracy” case arising from the February 2020 north-east Delhi violence, which left 53 people dead and more than 700 injured. Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider and others were also prosecuted under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Khalid was discharged in one related case in 2022, but remained imprisoned in the UAPA conspiracy case. By 2025, Khalid, Imam and Fatima told the Supreme Court that charges had still not been framed, that hearings had repeatedly failed for want of time or the prosecution’s availability, and that no weapons or incriminating material had been recovered from Khalid. Fatima’s counsel asked the court pointedly: “Why has the trial not commenced yet?”

This is the essence of process-as-punishment: bail becomes exceptional, trial becomes remote, and the citizen’s liberty is consumed by the machinery of prosecution. Whatever the eventual judicial findings, a democracy must ask why people accused in connection with political violence can spend years in prison before trial. The presumption of innocence is not a technicality; it is the difference between justice and vengeance administered by the state. When the process itself becomes the penalty, the distinction between accusation and conviction collapses, and the courtroom is reduced to a delayed formality.

The Chandigarh mayoral election of January 2024 is a case study in how democratic forms can be hollowed out at the most local level. Thirty-six votes were cast. The presiding officer, Anil Masih, declared eight ballots invalid, giving the BJP candidate 16 votes against the AAP-Congress candidate’s 12. The Supreme Court examined the ballots and video footage. It found that Masih had marked eight ballots cast for Kuldeep Kumar, thereby creating a false basis to invalidate them. The Court held that he had made “a deliberate effort to deface” those ballots to alter the result, and declared Kumar elected with 20 votes to 16. Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud’s observation during the hearing was blunt: “This is a mockery of democracy and murdering democracy. We are appalled.” In its final judgment the Court said that the “little cross” on the ballot must be made only by the voter—“the metaphorical ‘little man’ walking into the ‘little booth’—and no one else.”

Chandigarh matters because it was not a rumour or a partisan allegation. It was electoral manipulation visible on video, corrected only because the Supreme Court intervened. Local democracy is the citizen’s first encounter with the state; when it can be subverted so casually, the damage travels upward. If the smallest elective office can be stolen in plain sight, the claim that larger institutions remain insulated becomes harder to sustain.

The claim that “more than 130 million voters have been disenfranchised” must be handled with precision. Reports on the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision say that around 130 million names were left out of draft electoral lists as the exercise expanded beyond Bihar. That is a grave warning sign—but it is not yet proof that 130 million eligible citizens have been permanently stripped of the franchise. The Election Commission says the exercise is intended to remove dead, duplicate or ineligible entries, and that wrongly excluded voters can appeal and re-register. Critics respond that document requirements may fall hardest on poor, mobile, marginalised and Muslim citizens who lack easy access to records. The fair formulation is therefore this: a mass exclusion from draft rolls creates a presumption of risk, not a proven fact of disenfranchisement. The burden is on the Election Commission to publish transparent, disaggregated data, ensure accessible correction and appeals, and demonstrate that no community is being selectively purged. Electoral rolls must be accurate; but accuracy cannot become a euphemism for exclusion.

The Jantar Mantar protests of October 2026, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the voter-roll revision, illustrate how quickly democratic dissent can be met with coercive policing. Delhi Police detained more than 700 protesters on 2 October, including former Delhi Chief Minister Atishi, after denying permission for the gathering and imposing restrictions on assemblies of more than five people. Three women journalists alleged sexual harassment by police personnel while covering the detention of student activist Neha Bora. Delhi Police said the complaints had been referred to the Crime Branch for a “fair and impartial enquiry”; it did not publicly respond to the specific allegation. The Press Club of India expressed “shock and dismay” and demanded swift action. Whether the allegations are ultimately substantiated or not, the pattern is familiar: protesters are detained, journalists are obstructed, and the burden of proving abuse falls on those with least power. A democracy that fears cameras, satirists, students and peaceful assemblies is not protecting order; it is protecting itself from scrutiny.

The Indian Republic was not founded on the idea that the state is always right. It was founded on the opposite premise: that the state is powerful, therefore it must be restrained—by courts, elections, federalism, a free press, and above all by citizens who refuse to be intimidated. The Supreme Court’s own words offer the standard. In the demolition case: “The executive cannot become a judge.” In the lynching case: mobocracy cannot become “the new normal.” In Chandigarh: the voter’s mark belongs to the voter alone.

Whether it was the British Raj or the Soviet State, people’s will prevailed ultimately. The state’s might may bulldoze homes, delay trials, invalidate ballots and clear streets. But it cannot permanently bulldoze the democratic imagination. The people’s rights will triumph only if citizens treat every assault on due process—not merely as someone else’s misfortune, but as an attack on the constitutional promise owed to all. Might without legitimacy is temporary. Rights without vigilance are fragile. The choice between them is still open, but only for as long as citizens insist on keeping it so.

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Narendra Modi’s 25 Years in Power: Transformation, Polarisation, & the Contested Legacy of India’s Dominant Leader

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Narendra Modi’s quarter-century in power—from his appointment as Gujarat’s chief minister in 2001 to the start of his third term as India’s prime minister in 2024 and the continuation of that tenure into 2026—constitutes one of the most consequential, polarising, and institutionally transformative periods in independent India’s history. Supporters credit him with remaking the machinery of governance, accelerating infrastructure and digital public goods, and restoring a sense of national confidence after decades of coalition uncertainty. Critics point to deep social polarisation, the erosion of institutional checks, uneven job creation, and the enduring shadow of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Whether Modi remains “invincible” or is gradually “on the way out” depends less on the cult of personality that has surrounded him than on the hard arithmetic of coalitions, the quality of economic performance, and the resilience of institutions after him.

The Gujarat Years (2001–2014): Foundations and Fractures

Modi’s ascent began in the aftermath of the devastating 2001 Bhuj earthquake. As chief minister, he inherited a state still recovering from natural disaster and political turbulence. The record of those thirteen years contains both tangible developmental achievements and a moral and political controversy that has never fully dissipated.

On the credit side, the Jyotigram scheme of 2006 delivered reliable three-phase electricity to villages, enabling non-farm economic activity and reducing the fiscal burden of agricultural power subsidies. Coastal and irrigation initiatives such as Sagarkhedu and the annual Krishi Mahotsav expanded livelihood opportunities in rural and coastal areas. The Vibrant Gujarat investment summits, combined with administrative streamlining and a widely perceived improvement in law-and-order conditions, attracted significant domestic and foreign capital. Between 2004 and 2011, Gujarat’s GDP growth averaged roughly 10 percent, comfortably above the national average. Welfare innovations such as the Garib Kalyan Melas—mass outreach camps that combined direct benefit delivery with political visibility—later informed the architecture of national direct benefit transfer programmes.

Yet these gains coexisted with serious shortcomings. The 2002 communal riots remain the deepest stain on Modi’s record. Estimates of deaths range from over 1,000 to nearly 2,000, the large majority of them Muslim. Administrative failure was widely documented; allegations of political complicity have persisted despite judicial processes that did not result in personal conviction. High growth also coexisted with relatively weak public investment in health and education. Critics have long argued that the celebrated “Gujarat model” was capital-intensive and business-friendly, that some of its growth drivers predated 2001, and that it was not easily transferable to the rest of India without significant social trade-offs.

The Prime Ministerial Years (2014–2026): Scale, Reform, and Constraint

When Modi became prime minister in 2014, the Gujarat template was scaled to the national level. The results have been mixed, ambitious in design, and highly uneven in outcome.

Digital public infrastructure stands as one of the most durable achievements. The Aadhaar-linked direct benefit transfer system, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the rapid expansion of Jan Dhan bank accounts, and large-scale schemes for cooking gas, toilets, and housing dramatically expanded the reach of the state while reducing leakages. Government claims that more than 25 crore people have been lifted out of multidimensional poverty rest heavily on these platforms. Structural reforms followed: the Goods and Services Tax unified a fragmented internal market; a new set of criminal laws replaced colonial-era codes; the National Education Policy sought to reorient schooling and higher education; the abrogation of Article 370 altered the constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir; and the Women’s Reservation Act promised a long-delayed expansion of political representation. Infrastructure spending on national highways and rural connectivity accelerated, while the government’s national-security posture became markedly more assertive, including publicised cross-border responses.

Politically, Modi delivered single-party majorities in 2014 and 2019, ending decades of coalition volatility. Even after the 2024 election, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party fell to 240 seats and required allies to form a government, he retained the premiership. Continuity of leadership at the apex of Indian politics for more than a decade is itself historically unusual.

The debit side is equally substantial. Growth has not generated sufficient formal employment. Youth unemployment stood at 16.2 percent in June 2025, and roughly one in four young Indians remains outside education, employment, or training. Critics argue that religious-political polarisation has intensified, that constitutional checks have been weakened, and that a compliant media environment—sometimes derisively called “Godi media”—has contributed to democratic backsliding. The National Education Policy has been accompanied by allegations of ideological interference and implementation gaps that leave human-capital outcomes lagging. The 2024 electoral result marked a clear break: the era of an outright single-party majority ended, and coalition constraints returned to the centre of governance.

Invincible or on the Way Out?

Modi is no longer politically invincible in the sense that he appeared after the emphatic victories of 2014 and 2019. The 2024 result demonstrated vulnerability: the BJP lost its exclusive majority and now depends on alliance partners whose demands can limit unilateral action. A further erosion of the BJP’s seat share would tighten those constraints still more. At the same time, Modi remains the dominant figure in Indian politics. His personal brand continues to drive turnout, set the national agenda, and dominate media cycles. No alternative leader currently commands comparable national recognition or organisational machinery.

Three variables will largely determine whether the current phase is a temporary plateau or the beginning of a longer decline. First, economic performance and jobs: if youth unemployment remains elevated and growth continues to feel jobless, anti-incumbency will accumulate, particularly among first-time voters who have known only the Modi era. Second, coalition dynamics: allies extract policy concessions and constrain the pace of majoritarian legislation; the more the BJP relies on them, the less “presidential” the system becomes. Third, institutional resilience: the behaviour of courts, the Election Commission, the media ecosystem, and the civil service will shape how much of the centralised “Modi system” outlasts the individual who created it.

In short, Modi is less unassailable than in 2019, yet far from finished. Indian politics is shifting from a one-man centre of gravity toward a more negotiated, coalition-tempered executive.

How Future Generations May Remember Him

Historical judgment will almost certainly fracture along three overlapping lenses.

One lens will portray Modi as a nation-builder and moderniser—the leader who scaled digital public goods, formalised welfare delivery at unprecedented volume, pushed physical infrastructure, and reasserted India’s strategic posture on the world stage. If UPI, the DBT architecture, highway networks, and certain security doctrines prove durable and are deepened by successors, “developmental statecraft” will occupy a prominent place in the narrative.

A second lens will emphasise polarisation and institutional stress-testing. This reading will associate Modi with heightened majoritarian politics, contested media independence, and sustained debates over the balance of constitutional power. If those costs prove lasting, his tenure will be remembered as a period in which democratic norms were tested under pressure.

A third, more technocratic assessment will focus on the mixed socio-economic ledger: high-visibility schemes and measurable reductions in multidimensional poverty alongside persistent joblessness and human-capital shortfalls. Historians tend to judge leaders by what endures. The final verdict will therefore hinge on whether the administrative and technological plumbing outlives the political style that produced it, or whether the social and institutional costs come to define the era.

Modi’s twenty-five years have already altered the grammar of Indian politics—centralising executive power, elevating the primacy of delivery over deliberation in public discourse, and embedding a new repertoire of digital and welfare tools into the state. The system that emerges after him will reveal whether those changes constitute a durable modernisation of governance or a more ambivalent legacy of transformation paired with democratic strain. The answer will be written not only by the man who has dominated the stage since 2001, but by the institutions, the economy, and the voters who will eventually succeed him.

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