Mass protests in India pressure Modi government; police detain thousands

Tens of thousands are protesting against the head of India's election commission, who is suspected of having manipulated voter rolls.

Protest outside the Supreme Court in New Delhi on October 12. Photo: Priyanshu Singh/Reuters

By Natalie Mayroth, Mumbai

On Tuesday, several young men climbed over a locked gate onto the grounds of Jantar Mantar in Delhi. The historic observatory had until now been the official site for protests in India's capital, but it had been closed off. Among the men who defied the closure were Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, spokespersons of the so-called Cockroach Movement (Cockroach Janta Party – CJP). Waving national flags, they chanted slogans against the head of the election commission, Gyanesh Kumar, at the former protest site until they were arrested. On Wednesday, they were taken to Tihar Jail for five days.

Already on Saturday, authorities had attempted to violently suppress a major demonstration. Several thousand people were arrested, including briefly CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke. The protests were directed against the election commission's revision of the voter rolls. The lists were missing 133 million entries. Officially, the aim was to remove deceased persons, those who had moved away, and duplicate entries.

However, opposition figures and activists fear that the names of eligible voters with suspected sympathies for the opposition were also struck from the rolls, particularly members of minorities. The election commission is accused of having thereby favored the Hindu-nationalist People's Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Both the commission and the government deny this.

According to research by the newspaper Indian Express, however, election commissioners repeatedly raised objections during the revision of the lists against decisions made by their chief, Kumar. The opposition is therefore demanding an independent investigation, which it cannot push through on its own given the majority circumstances.

The Protest Is Also About "Saving Democracy"

What began in the summer with Cockroach Movement protests against grievances in the education system has long since moved beyond concerns about allegedly manipulated voter rolls. Under the slogan "Save Democracy," students, young professionals, civil society initiatives, and the political opposition are coming together. Already during the 2024 parliamentary election, the defense of democratic rights had mobilized people.

In the most recent regional elections, however, this had faded into the background: The BJP celebrated several victories at the ballot box. Some were subsequently questioned by the opposition, which suspects—as in West Bengal—that a manipulative revision of the voter rolls helped the BJP.

The CJP had already achieved a success at the end of July: Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan (BJP) was forced to resign after weeks of protests. Now the movement is targeting election commission chief Kumar. But the government does not want to give in again; instead, it removed Jantar Mantar as a protest site and banned demonstrations from the city center.

At the same time, the government mobilized not only thousands of police officers but also 23,000 paramilitary forces last weekend. Metro stations were closed, train connections canceled, and mobile internet access restricted. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also documented 35 detentions of media workers.

After the arrest of CJP spokespersons Das and Ranka, founder Abhijeet Dipke traveled to Delhi: "I call on Modi to declare the official state of emergency," he said. He called for further protests in Delhi next Friday.

Opposition Leader Gandhi Calls Government "Cowardly"

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party condemned the arrests as "an act of cowardice" and announced he would "reclaim" Jantar Mantar. On Monday, his opposition alliance marched to the Supreme Court to take action against the revision of the voter rolls.

So far, the Congress Party has approached the young movement with caution—also because of its experiences with the anti-corruption movement, from which the later rival Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged. Not only Dipke has connections to the AAP.

By suppressing the protests, the government appears to want to buy time. But it is not dispelling doubts about the election commission and concerns that people could lose their voting rights. Rather, the protests now demonstrate open resistance against the Modi government—across social classes and party lines—unlike ever before.