In a democracy, an election’s credibility depends not only on the votes cast by citizens, but also on their confidence in the institution responsible for conducting it. India’s Election Commission (EC), a constitutional body entrusted with safeguarding the integrity of elections, is therefore expected to stand above partisan interests. Yet, allegations by opposition parties and activists that the EC has favored the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in elections as well as processes determining who can vote, alongside questions about electoral transparency and institutional independence, have brought this constitutional responsibility into sharp public debate.
The concern extends beyond any single election or political party. When citizens begin to question whether institutions designed to act independently are functioning impartially, the issue becomes larger than electoral competition. There is something deeply political about being made to stand outside, whether outside parliament, outside a university auditorium, outside government offices, or outside the very institutions that claim to represent you. In a democracy, the distinction between being inside and outside is never merely geographical.
India is a constitutional republic founded on popular sovereignty. The opening words of its Constitution, “We, the People of India,” establish that political authority ultimately derives from the people. Yet, we often reduce democracy to a single moment, the casting of a vote. We elect our representatives, celebrate electoral victories and expect the machinery of governance to function. But what happens between elections? What happens when citizens believe their representatives have failed them? What happens when people must stand outside the corridors of power to make themselves heard? A vote determines who governs. But a voice determines whether those who govern remain accountable.
Disagreement is natural in a plural society. The problem arises when criticism is treated as disloyalty, opposition to government policy is confused with opposition to the nation, and peaceful protest is viewed as a threat simply because it challenges authority. A government may win an election, but it cannot claim ownership of the republic.
When the People Challenge Power
India’s democratic history cannot be told through elections and parliamentary proceedings alone. It must also be told through the people who marched, organized, protested, and challenged the established order. The freedom struggle transformed streets, villages, and public spaces into arenas of resistance against colonial rule. Ordinary people did not wait for permission from those in power to demand freedom. Their participation was central to the making of independent India.
One of the most consequential examples of public resistance in contemporary India was the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare and his colleagues in 2011. During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tenure, thousands gathered at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and then at Ramlila Maidan demanding a strong Lokpal institution to investigate corruption. The movement emerged amid major corruption controversies and growing public dissatisfaction with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
The confrontation was not without controversy. Hazare was arrested in August 2011 during a hunger strike, provoking further demonstrations. Yet, the movement could not simply be dismissed. Public pressure brought institutional accountability to the center of national debate, and the UPA government enacted the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act in 2013. The movement also contributed to the wider anti-establishment sentiment preceding the 2014 change of government, although it was not the sole cause of that electoral outcome.
The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) movement stands as another powerful reminder that democracy is not secured by elections alone, but by citizens’ ability to question power. Beginning in Rajasthan, rural workers and farmers peacefully demanded access to official records on wages and development spending, exposing corruption through jan sunwais (public hearings) and a historic 40-day dharna (sit-in) at Beawar in Rajasthan in 1996. Their discipline, courage and refusal to retreat showed that a protest can transform a local grievance into a national democratic demand.
The first UPA government responded by enacting the Right to Information Act in 2005, converting a citizen’s moral claim into a legal right. This landmark law empowered ordinary Indians to inspect government records and hold public authorities accountable, proving that protest remains essential to protecting transparency, justice, and democracy itself.
The lesson is significant. A government can disagree with a movement, but it cannot expect public anger to disappear merely by containing it. The MKSS movement demonstrated how resistance can compel political institutions to confront uncomfortable questions. Democracy is strengthened when public demands find meaningful institutional responses.
The same lesson emerges from the defense of civil liberties during the Emergency of 1975-77. The suspension of fundamental freedoms and restrictions on the media demonstrated how quickly democratic institutions can be weakened when political authority becomes concentrated.
The electoral defeat of Indira Gandhi’s government in 1977 subsequently showed that citizens could use the ballot to reject authoritarian excesses. Indian democracy has endured not because dissent disappeared, but because people continued to demand their constitutional rights.
Dissent Is Not Disloyalty
The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression and the right to assemble peacefully and without arms under Article 19, subject to constitutionally permitted reasonable restrictions. These freedoms are not absolute, but restrictions cannot become a convenient instrument for silencing criticism. In Amit Sahni v. Commissioner of Police (2020), concerning the Shaheen Bagh protest in the national capital, New Delhi, the Supreme Court addressed the limits of indefinitely occupying public ways. The democratic challenge is to protect peaceful dissent while respecting the rights of other citizens.
Recent events in India’s neighborhood offer a sobering warning. In Bangladesh in 2024, student protests over government job quotas escalated into a wider uprising against Sheikh Hasina’s government. A violent crackdown and mounting public anger preceded her resignation and departure from the country. Likewise, Nepal’s Gen Z-led protests in 2025 exposed the dangers of political alienation and declining public confidence in established leadership.
These events are not templates for India, nor should violence be romanticized. India’s political and societal culture is different. They demonstrate, however, that suppressing grievances does not necessarily extinguish them. When peaceful channels of dissent are obstructed, institutions fail to respond, and citizens lose faith in the possibility of change, a political crisis can grow beyond the control of those governing. Governments that mistake silence for consent may discover too late that public anger has merely accumulated.
Democracy is not merely an administrative arrangement; it is an inheritance secured through struggle and sacrifice. A republic needs institutions where decisions are made, but it also needs doors that remain open, and institutions willing to listen when concerns go unanswered. A vote is an act of citizenship, but so is a question put to a minister, an investigation published by an independent journalist, a student assembly, a worker’s march, or a peaceful protest outside the gates of power.
The republic belongs as much to the critic as to the supporter, and as much to the citizen standing outside as to the representative seated inside. Its strength will be measured not only by how people vote, but by whether they remain free to speak afterwards, and whether those in power are willing to listen. A vote gives a government the authority to rule. It does not give it the right to silence the people.
