India does not have a protest problem. It has a responsiveness problem that periodically expresses itself through protest. The distinction matters. Democracies are designed to absorb dissent.

Across the country, in recent months, one has seen a wide spectrum of mobilisations. Students have agitated over campus decisions and living conditions; anganwadi workers have pressed for long-pending honorarium revisions; farmer groups have signalled renewed anxieties over trade and procurement frameworks; youth activists have experimented with theatrical forms of protest to capture attention in an algorithmic age; and universities have attempted temporary restrictions, triggering counter-accusations of democratic overreach. Each of these movements has adopted a different form, scale, and emotional pitch. Each has drawn a different institutional response, ranging from engagement to prohibition to policing. Yet, in the relentless churn of the news cycle, the deeper question often goes unasked. Do we, as citizens, meaningfully examine these signals unless the disruption enters our own daily lives?

Consider the recent aggregator taxi strike in Mumbai. Large numbers of passengers were stranded, fares surged unpredictably, and urban mobility tightened with very little visible coordination to cushion the citizens. Drivers argued economic distress and platform asymmetry. Aggregators cited contractual frameworks. State agencies largely confined themselves to doing almost nothing. When competing economic actors withdraw service in a regulated urban ecosystem, where does responsibility for continuity of public convenience ultimately reside?

This is not an argument against the right........

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