India is in rebellion. At stake is the very future of the country’s democracy and the potential of its renewal. The mass protests that have unfolded in Delhi since July and flared again this month are nothing less than a contest over the foundations of the Indian state and whether it lives up to its constitutional commitments.

Demonstrations began in the summer as students decried perceived unfairness in the country’s examination system. They have now widened to a struggle over the integrity of India’s elections, after authorities began to purge over 130 million people from draft voting lists over the last year. Many of those stripped from the electoral rolls are appealing their removal—an often laborious process—but the possibility of mass disenfranchisement is real. Tens of thousands of mostly young people have taken to the streets in Delhi in the past week, with protests now spreading to other major cities. The demonstrators are demanding the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner and questioning the credibility of India’s ostensibly independent institutions. And they are holding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly responsible, accusing him of “stealing democracy.” In their rejection of the country’s current trajectory, the protests pose the most significant challenge to Modi’s authority since the prime minister came to power in 2014.

The main opposition parties, which have never come close to dislodging Modi in national parliamentary elections, put up a united front under Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Congress party, and an impressive show of force at a rally in Delhi on October 12. But the real heart of the protest is the intense political energy and inventiveness shown by Gen Z students. These young people have defied prohibitions on protest, breached draconian security clampdowns, and endured detentions to relentlessly question the government’s authority.

The government, for its part, also sees this confrontation as an existential battle. This is evident in its determination to contain the protests, deploying over 40,000 security personnel, closing down metro and train stations, barricading central Delhi, suspending mobile Internet, and detaining over 7,000 people. It has doggedly defended the chief of the Election Commission and it has refused to talk to the opposition or the youthful protesters about their demands.

Modi is in no danger of falling; this will not be a rerun of recent Gen Z protests in neighboring Bangladesh and Nepal that successfully toppled governments. But the Indian government faces a subtler danger: its writ no longer carries unequivocal sway. A strongman such as Modi likes to project unquestioned personal authority. Since 2014, his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has consolidated and centralized power to an unprecedented degree. For the government, the open defiance of young people—who come from all class, religious, and caste backgrounds and cannot easily be dismissed or stigmatized as belonging to an “antinational” group—is an unprecedented challenge. It makes the Modi government’s once adamantine grip on power seem more fragile. The future of Indian democracy hinges on whether this contest opens up more democratic space or leads to greater repression.

THE PROMISE OF EQUALITY

Modern India is founded on two legitimizing institutions: elections and exams. Since its independence in 1947, India has maintained a reputation for conducting free and fair elections. The Election Commission of India, an independent constitutional body, has sweeping powers to ensure that the polls remain beyond reproach. The credibility of the commission has been central to the credibility of Indian democracy.

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