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On July 20, the long-running protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar took a dramatic turn. For nearly three weeks, an uneasy calm had prevailed around the indefinite fast of Sonam Wangchuk and three students demanding accountability for repeated examination leaks and the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The original permission to assemble had long since expired, yet, curiously, the police allowed the protest to continue, perhaps calculating that it would eventually lose momentum.

Instead, the opposite happened.

The crowds went on swelling, attracting wider public attention and even support from mainstream opposition parties, the state’s response changed. On the eve of the proposed march to Parliament, Wangchuk was forcibly removed from the protest site and taken to Safdarjung Hospital. The action provoked widespread outrage. The following day, thousands converged at Jantar Mantar, determined to march towards the parliament. They were met with tear gas, lathi charges and mass detentions. Simultaneously, in Mumbai, students attempting to organise a solidarity march to Chaitya Bhoomi, the site of Ambedkar memorial, were detained before their demonstration could even begin.

A Delhi Police personnel throws a tear gas shell during a march towards Parliament demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over irregularities in the NEET examination and expressing support for climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, near Parliament House, at the Windsor Place roundabout, Le Méridien hotel, in New Delhi, Monday, July 20, 2026. Photo: PTI/Atul Yadav.

The constitutional paradox

For most observers, these events represented yet another instance of police excess. They are indeed that. But they also expose a much deeper constitutional question: why must citizens seek police permission to protest against their own government? More fundamentally, can the sovereign people of a democratic republic be required to obtain the executive’s permission before exercising their sovereignty?

The question appears absurd when stated plainly. Yet it describes the everyday reality of Indian democracy. Every political organisation, trade union, student body or citizens’ collective wishing to hold a public demonstration is routinely instructed to obtain prior police permission. Permission may be granted, delayed, restricted, hedged with conditions or refused altogether. If a gathering proceeds without permission, it is readily declared “unlawful”, furnishing the legal pretext for dispersal, detention and criminal prosecution. What should have been regarded as an extraordinary restriction upon democratic freedom has become accepted as ordinary administrative procedure.

Consider the paradox. The constitution opens with the declaration, “We, the People of India.” Sovereignty does not reside in parliament, the prime minister, the cabinet, or the police. It resides in the people themselves. Governments possess no independent authority; they derive their legitimacy from the temporary delegation of power by the sovereign citizenry. Elections do not transfer sovereignty to rulers. They merely authorise governments to exercise limited powers on behalf of those who remain sovereign.

If that constitutional principle is taken seriously, the prevailing practice becomes deeply puzzling. Why should the principal require permission from its agent? Why should those from whom all state authority ultimately flows have to seek the state’s approval before assembling to criticise the manner in which that authority is exercised?

Imagine a company in which shareholders were required to obtain the managing director’s permission before convening a meeting to question his performance. No student of corporate governance would hesitate to describe such an arrangement as absurd. Yet this is precisely the logic that has become normalised in Indian public life. Citizens who are constitutionally sovereign must first persuade the police that they deserve permission to express dissatisfaction with the government.

The absurdity is so familiar that it rarely provokes reflection. Instead, public debate generally begins from the opposite assumption. Whenever a protest is dispersed, the first question asked is whether the........

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