When Governments Fear Students, Democracy Is Already in Trouble!

There is something deeply disturbing about a government that sees students as a threat.

Every democracy has been shaped by student movements. Every single one. Students were part of India's freedom struggle. They stood against the Emergency. They marched for transparency, against corruption, for social justice, for better education, for the rights of marginalized communities, and whenever they believed the Constitution was being betrayed. Whether one agreed with their politics or not was beside the point. Their right to protest was never supposed to depend on who occupied the Prime Minister's Office.

That is what democracy looks like.

The reported attempt by the Delhi Police to arrest former JNU Students' Union president Aishe Ghosh over a protest related case is yet another reminder of how dissent is increasingly being treated as something to be policed rather than heard. If governments begin to treat every protest as a law-and-order problem instead of a democratic conversation, they stop governing citizens and start governing subjects.

Aishe Ghosh is not important merely because she was the president of the JNU Students' Union. She represents thousands of young women and men across India who refuse to believe that citizenship ends at casting a vote every five years. They organize, question, debate, protest, and demand accountability because they care about the future of the Republic. Whether they belong to the Left, the Right, the Centre, or no political organization at all, they embody a democratic tradition that is far older than the present government and will outlive it. Democracies need such young people. They are not enemies of the nation. They are among its most engaged citizens.

Let us be clear. If anyone commits violence or breaks the law, the law must take its course. That principle applies equally to everyone. But peaceful protest cannot be placed in the same category as criminality. When police action appears to disproportionately target activists, students, journalists, academics, or opposition voices, citizens have every right to ask whether the law is being enforced impartially or politically.

Student politics has never been comfortable for those in power. It is noisy. It is idealistic. It asks inconvenient questions. It refuses to accept official narratives simply because they come from authority. But that is precisely why democracies need students. A campus without debate is not a university. A country without dissent is not a democracy.

Look around the world. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, the protests of May 1968 in France, the pro-democracy demonstrations in South Korea, Hong Kong, Chile, Serbia, and countless other places all had students at their heart. History rarely remembers the governments that tried to silence them with admiration. It remembers those who stood up despite intimidation.

The tragedy of our times is that disagreement is increasingly being portrayed as anti-national. Criticism is branded as conspiracy. Protest is labelled disorder. Opposition is treated as an enemy instead of an essential pillar of democracy. That is a dangerous political culture because democracies are strengthened by criticism, not weakened by it.

A government that cannot tolerate peaceful protest reveals its own insecurity. Confidence is shown through dialogue. Insecurity is shown through intimidation.

Governments change. Political parties rise and fall. But the damage done to democratic institutions can take generations to repair. When police, investigative agencies, and other state institutions are perceived as instruments of political retaliation rather than impartial institutions of the Republic, public faith in the rule of law begins to erode. Once that trust is lost, rebuilding it is far harder than winning an election.

The attempt to criminalize peaceful democratic dissent deserves unequivocal condemnation. A government that responds to students with police action instead of political engagement does not display confidence in its own legitimacy. It displays an intolerance of scrutiny that should concern every citizen, irrespective of political affiliation. The question is not whether one agrees with Aishe Ghosh or with the politics of JNU. The question is whether we are prepared to defend the democratic rights that protect all citizens, especially those with whom we disagree.

History has always delivered the same verdict on governments that mistake fear for strength. They may command police forces, control institutions, and dominate headlines for a time, but they cannot extinguish the human desire for freedom, dignity, and justice. Every attempt to intimidate peaceful dissent leaves a stain on the democratic conscience of the nation. Every attempt to silence a student is an admission that ideas have become more powerful than authority.

If a government begins to fear placards more than poverty, slogans more than unemployment, and students more than injustice, then it has lost sight of the very purpose of democratic governance.

The police may disperse a protest. They may file cases. They may attempt arrests. But they cannot arrest an idea whose time has come. Democracies do not die only when tanks roll through the streets. They also erode when ordinary citizens begin to accept the criminalization of dissent as normal. That normalization must be resisted. Not tomorrow. Not when another student is targeted. Now. Because silence in the face of democratic erosion is not neutrality. It is surrender. #Democracy #RightToProtest #FreedomOfExpression #IndianDemocracy #StudentProtests #DemocraticRights #Constitution #DissentIsDemocratic #RuleOfLaw #StandForDemocracy