New Delhi, July 21 -- Monday, July 20, 2026 will be long remembered as a black day for Indian democracy. The images on social media being shared from Jantar Mantar in the national capital were hard to watch: young students, some of them girls, being pushed, dragged and hit with lathis (long bamboo sticks) by the Delhi Police and paramilitary forces. The security forces were ordered to prevent the protesters from proceeding on a peaceful march to Parliament.

As a septuagenarian who grew up in a very different and inclusive India, there is a deep sadness in seeing the State - the constitutional guardian, turn on its own citizen like a predator. And yet, paradoxically, there was also a sliver of hope. Because Jantar Mantar - the site of an ...