The shocking violence that occurred during the protests led by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), which left 118 policemen injured in Delhi, raises an uncomfortable question: why does the national capital repeatedly become the stage for protest movements that cross the line from dissent into disorder? When a demonstration against educational reforms results in scores of injured policemen, the issue becomes a serious question of public order and accountability. The geography of this violence is hardly accidental. Delhi has long served as the grand amphitheatre for India’s political performative class - the ‘Cadillac left-liberals’ who despise Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with an intensity that outstrips their electoral relevance. In the capital, protests are not merely expressions of grievance but are status symbols. Supported by a sympathising ecosystem of urban intellectuals, activist-lawyers, and media enablers, these movements operate under an implicit guarantee of soft handling. Outrage that would draw harsh crackdowns in any state capital is treated in Delhi as a vibrant exercise in civil society. By dithering on firm legal action against key conspirators and their shadowy handlers and focusing instead on standard, low-level FIRs against the front-line stone-pelters, the government hands an ideological victory to the agitators. It broadcasts a message of vulnerability. The troubling question is why protests in Delhi repeatedly escalate into such clashes. The responsibility cannot end with statements of regret after violence has occurred. Those who organise, finance or encourage unlawful actions must face scrutiny under the law. The government’s response matters enormously here. If it appears hesitant to pursue those who may have planned, encouraged or financed unlawful actions, it creates the perception that political pressure can dilute legal consequences and that disorder in the capital can be an effective instrument of mobilisation. That perception is corrosive. A state that hesitates to enforce the law consistently eventually encourages those willing to test its limits. The police, meanwhile, cannot be treated as expendable symbols of state authority. The 118 personnel injured during the clashes were not faceless instruments of power. They were citizens carrying out one of the most difficult constitutional responsibilities of maintaining order amid political conflict. Assaulting them is an attack on the very institution responsible for protecting democratic freedoms. India’s democracy is robust enough to accommodate fierce disagreement. But democracy does not mean a permanent licence for street confrontation. Delhi has witnessed too many moments of such anarchist protests under the garb of liberality. The capital of the Indian Republic cannot become the capital of impunity. The rule of law must apply equally to politicians as well as ‘activists’ who break the law in seeking to garner public attention.
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