Youth protests: Why India’s streets have become the new floor of the House

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Every democracy has two arenas of politics. One is formal: legislatures, courts, committees, elections and party offices. The other is informal – streets, campuses, public meetings and citizens’ movements. The health of a democracy depends on the relationship between these two spaces.

In a functioning republic, parliament absorbs public anxieties and converts them into debate, legislation and accountability. Movements outside parliament push institutions when they become complacent. The two are part of the same democratic ecosystem.

India’s present crisis lies in the weakening of that relationship.

Social scientist and activist Yogendra Yadav recently argued that the Opposition must stop viewing elections as the beginning and end of politics and rediscover the tradition of democratic resistance. It is an argument with deep roots in Indian political history.

The freedom movement was not a parliamentary exercise. The movements against the Emergency were not conducted through legislative procedure. Many of India’s most significant democratic gains came when citizens stepped outside formal institutions and demanded that those institutions live up to their constitutional promises.

The question before the Opposition today is whether it can recover that political imagination.