Opinion | Delhi & Paris: When The Street Threatens To Overrule The State

There is nothing democratic about using the street to replace the institutions that democracy has created to settle political disputes

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The visual evidence is striking. It speaks of a surprising commonality. The two cities may be thousands of miles apart, on different continents, but Paris and Delhi are both bestirred by the same impulse: a redoubtable faith in the power of the street to deliver justice. A misplaced belief that the rabble can bypass democratic institutions and provide governance solutions to address complex problems.

There is also another easily visible correlation: the means employed to realise these fantastical ends.

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First, in both Delhi and Paris, the police and other state security forces have been targeted to intimidate and immobilise the state. Second, the hard Left is providing the ideological and physical muscle. And third, a tier of advocates for Islamic rights has entered the protest ecosystem.

In France, the protests are about the education system. In Delhi, they began with student frustration over paper leaks and are snowballing into a........

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