Any game, or contract, is based on, and presupposes, mutually accepted rules which govern and bind the participants. Democracy is one such contract, the ultimate social contract, in which the citizens (the ruled) give up their individual powers to the elected government (the ruler) in return for the protection of their rights, freedoms and the pursuit of happiness in their own individual ways.

In India, so far, for the last 75 years, this contract has held together, though it has come under strain many times. The credit for this goes to enlightened leadership and constitutional institutions that have usually worked, notwithstanding some blips and glitches.

But over the last decade or so, the authoritarian, unilateral, anti-federal and non-accountable governance style of the NDA government has put this contract under immense strain, and on 20 July it came close to breaking point.

The impetus behind it is the Modi government's paranoia about any kind of protest or opposition to its policies and diktats — it views them as challenges, and not as opportunities to introspect and/or self-correct. This happened with the Assam NRC, the CAA, Covid, Manipur, Article 370 and Kashmir, SIR, and the Ken-Betwa protests.

But on 20 July, this paranoia reached new heights (or lows) when the full might of the state was unleashed on young students, and blood was spilt on the streets of Delhi, all over a protest against India's rancid and corrupt examination system.

By this unjustified violence, the government has broken the contract with its citizens. Sovereign violence is to be used against enemies of the state, and not against its own children. A government which cannot differentiate between the two has finally exposed its fascist, illiberal, intolerant and dictatorial nature, and the Jantar Mantar protests have shown it in all its ugly nakedness.

Despite the prostitution of the darbari media and TV channels, the internet and YouTube have brought this to the doors of every Indian, and support for the students is only growing.

The unkindest cut of all (to the spirit of democracy) has been inflicted by none other than the........

© National Herald