India, Aug. 10 -- Protest is essential to a healthy republic, but so are restraint, verification and responsibility. The real test, therefore, is not whether citizens protest or governments respond, but whether both sides can resist the easy certainties of anger and authority-and find a way from confrontation to justice

A protest looks like two different events depending on where you are standing. From the street, it is often the last language left to people certain they have not been heard. From the government's side of the aisle, the same event raises other questions too, that of law, of evidence, of public safety, and of the rights of those who never joined the dispute. For those who work at the anvil of due process, these are not inc...