6 min readOct 9, 2026 07:03 PM IST First published on: Oct 9, 2026 at 07:03 PM ISTIn India, mass movements have often collided with the state. But the protests on October 10 by the Cockroach Janta Party, and continuing protests by Opposition parties, have produced a unique deadlock. The CJP has managed to combine two sources of public anger, against the conduct of exams and the conduct of the SIR, into a singular crisis of public trust. Policy gestures alone cannot resolve this crisis of trust. The crisis of trust does not just extend to the government. It now engulfs independent institutions like the Election Commission and even the Supreme Court of India. The protest is, in part, a consequence of the Court not safeguarding the constitutive rules of democracy.The SC can still reverse its previous rulings on the conduct of the SIR and the mode of selection of Election Commissioners, and take the sting out of the crisis. Such a reversal would be unprecedented. But it is unlikely. It will constitute a severe indictment of the Election Commission and the government. The only way these institutions will be able to recover their credibility is through resignations of the relevant officials. But historically, the SC, even when it takes corrective measures, is loath to take a strong and principled stand against the government. So, the best you can hope for is some palliative half-measures. It might allow the show to go on, but it will not address the underlying crisis of trust.AdvertisementThe protest movements have dented the government’s authority, lifted the pall of fear, and energised young citizens. But they collide with the reality of an immovable state. Narasimha Rao used to say the Indian state is like an elephant; it can sit on any problem long enough with overwhelming weight till it goes away. That weight will manifest itself in the physical suppression and containment of dissent: Arrests, intimidation, deployment of thousands of security personnel in the national capital, as if the state were facing some invading foreign army, not young people making reasonable and non-revolutionary demands. The protest movements have been going on for weeks now. The government is counting on the fact that constant movements are very difficult to sustain. The farmers’ movement succeeded in getting the government to withdraw agriculture reform bills for three reasons. First, it was a policy move, not a generalised institutional crisis. Second, the farmers could, to a partial degree, create an economic chokehold on the Delhi border, and the threat of significant violence became palpable. And finally, the government was worried about the electoral repercussions of a continuing movement. The movement had real leverage.Also Read | Election Commission and Court make it harder, not easier, to believe in independent institutionsIn this case, all three conditions play differently. The principal leverage the CJP has is the reasonableness of its cause and the sight of young people trying to craft a democratic future. There are lots of different actors, political parties, student groups like AISA from the Left, that are speaking in their own voices. At one level, this is an advantage. It conveys the idea that this is not a partisan struggle but a generalised crisis of trust, which different groups in society can experience from their vantage point. The CJP has been acerbic in its critique, but has stayed resolutely non-violent and non-coercive. No blockades, no blocking of highways. In fact, it is the government that, by not providing any space reasonably for the right to assembly, is creating the blockade. Only more people turning out can give the CJP more leverage. This is important for those who care about these causes.But on the electoral repercussions front, the story is mixed. The government is vulnerable in states like Uttarakhand. But ultimately everything turns on Uttar Pradesh. If the government manages to hold on to UP, it will claim its popular authority has been restored. The government may well conclude that it just needs to exhaust society till its electoral machinery can once again assert its authority. Conceding the critique of the SIR is not like conceding a policy reversal. It will be an admission that the state has betrayed the trust on which its credibility rests. It will also signal a weakness from which the government will not recover. It will create the seeds of more internal discord: Once the state starts sacrificing its most loyal henchmen, the incentives for loyalty internally will diminish.AdvertisementThe government will seek to discredit the movement as the work of a foreign hand, invoking conspiracy theories and alleged external intervention in Nepal and Bangladesh. But in both cases, the depth of popular grievance was there for anyone willing to look. The greater danger is that the Indian government comes to believe its own propaganda, ignoring genuine discontent.you may likeThe needle may move if the government gets convinced that this may have serious electoral repercussions. So far, they are convinced that the logic of protests and elections is not the same. It could move if there are voices within the government, or even in the RSS, that think of their future beyond Narendra Modi. But it is unlikely those voices can compel the government to eat humble pie; nor are they courageous enough to dissent. We also know from history that the grammar of social movements is often determined by unpredictable events, an act of violence by the state that sparks outrage, a moment of courage that captures the national imagination. Every managed protest acquires a life of its own. We may only be a slender thread away from that moment.So, we may be in for a new era where mass mobilisation meets an immovable state, because even palpably reasonable demands undercut the state’s legitimacy. This may increasingly be a global condition of governance, if formal institutions deliver less and less. The only way out of a protracted, exhausting, and potentially volatile limbo is this: Society will have to speak loudly and clearly, leaving the government no room to evade the message or misrepresent the stakes. For now, the state thinks it can ignore or intimidate its citizens into compliance.The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express