New Delhi, Aug. 21 -- It is often said that studying the past is key to understanding the future, because history has a way of repeating itself. Those who fight hardest to dismantle an old order often become its most careful guardians once they inherit it.

This pattern is most visible in political revolutions but can also be seen across movements, workplaces and institutions. The outsider, the rebel, the revolutionary, once inside, often turns into the staunchest defender of the gates they once struggled to open.

"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution." - Hannah Arendt.

This line appears in Hannah Arendt's (1906-1975) work, Civil Disobedience, an essay published in the New Yorker on 12 S...