FARHAN BUKHARI
The true test of democracy does not come when citizens are satisfied with their government. It comes when they are angry, when they take to the streets, when they challenge authority and demand answers from those in power.
It is in such moments that the character of a political system becomes visible.
The contrasting handling of recent protests in India and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir offers a striking illustration of this difference. On one side stands India, a constitutional democracy where protests can become intense, police and protesters can clash, and public order can be challenged—but where political institutions ultimately retain the capacity to engage, negotiate and respond to public pressure. On the other stands Pakistan, where an agitation in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir reportedly ended with 11 deaths and nearly 70 injuries, while the wider grievances that brought people onto the streets remained substantially unresolved.
The contrast is not simply about crowd management.
It is about the relationship between the citizen and the state.
It is about whether dissent is regarded as a legitimate component of democratic life or as a threat to be crushed.
And it is about whether a government answers an angry citizen with a negotiating table—or with force.
Jantar Mantar: Protest Without Fatalities, Politics Through Dialogue
The recent agitation at Jantar Mantar provides an important example of India’s democratic resilience.
The protest witnessed confrontation. There were injuries, detentions and clashes between protesters and security personnel. Delhi Police reported that more than 118 police personnel were injured, while around 60 protesters were also reported injured. There were also allegations and counter-allegations surrounding the use of force and crowd-control methods.
None of these aspects should be ignored.
But there is one crucial fact that deserves emphasis: there were no reported deaths among the protesters at Jantar Mantar.
That distinction matters enormously.
India’s security forces confronted a difficult law-and-order situation while the country’s political system continued to function. Protesters were able to make their demands publicly.
The agitation received widespread attention. Government representatives engaged with the protesters. Negotiations continued despite the confrontation.
And eventually, the political process delivered a significant outcome.
The protesters had demanded accountability at the highest political level, including the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. That demand ultimately materialised when Pradhan resigned.
This is the democratic mechanism at work.
The government did not have to accept every demand of the protesters. Nor does any democracy require the state to surrender its responsibility to maintain public order.
But the political system demonstrated something much more important: citizens can challenge the government, governments can engage with citizens, and political accountability can follow public pressure without the disagreement ending in a bloodbath.
That is not a weakness.
It is democratic strength.
Pakistan Occupied Kashmir: When Protest Turns Deadly
The picture emerging from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is dramatically different.
Recent protests led by the Joint Awami Action Committee reportedly resulted in 11 deaths and nearly 70 injuries amid clashes with security forces.
The movement was not built around an insignificant or isolated grievance. Protesters raised a wide range of concerns through a 38-point charter, including electricity prices, taxation, governance, political representation, healthcare, education and public welfare.
These are matters that directly affect people’s daily lives.
When citizens come onto the streets over such issues, the first responsibility of any government should be to understand why its people feel compelled to protest in the first place.
The state should listen before frustration becomes confrontation.
It should negotiate before confrontation becomes violence.
And it should resolve grievances before violence becomes tragedy.
Yet the protests in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir descended into deadly clashes, with 11 people reportedly losing their lives.
The most disturbing aspect is that the loss of life did not automatically resolve the political grievances behind the movement.
That is the fundamental failure of repression.
Force can disperse people; it cannot resolve their grievances.
A security response may temporarily empty a street, but it cannot make electricity cheaper, governance more accountable, public services better or citizens more politically empowered.
If anything, the use of lethal force can deepen mistrust between citizens and the state.
India’s Democratic Advantage
India’s response demonstrates why democracy is ultimately stronger than coercion.
The Indian state has enormous constitutional authority. It has security forces capable of maintaining public order. It has institutions capable of dealing with disruption. Yet the political system also recognises that public protest, when peaceful, is an important democratic instrument.
This is the India that deserves to be recognised.
A country of more than 1.4 billion people cannot possibly be free of disagreements. Different communities, political groups, students, workers, farmers and civil society organisations will inevitably have different demands.
The strength of India lies in having democratic institutions through which these disagreements can be processed.
The Parliament debates.
The courts adjudicate.
The media scrutinises.
Opposition parties challenge.
Civil society mobilises.
Citizens protest.
And governments, when faced with sustained public pressure, can change decisions and accept political accountability.
That is the architecture of a functioning democracy.
India’s democratic maturity should therefore not be measured by the absence of protests.
It should be measured by its ability to absorb protests without allowing disagreement to destroy the democratic system itself.
The Jantar Mantar episode demonstrates this capacity.
Even when the situation became tense, the political process did not collapse. Dialogue remained possible. Negotiations remained possible. Public pressure remained possible. And ultimately, a major political demand was fulfilled.
That is precisely what makes democracy resilient.
A Government Need Not Fear Its Citizens
A confident democracy does not fear criticism.
It does not regard every protester as an enemy.
It does not treat every disagreement as sedition.
It understands that citizens sometimes take to the streets because they believe institutional channels have failed to address their concerns quickly enough.
The appropriate response is therefore to strengthen those channels—not to eliminate the voices demanding change.
India has repeatedly demonstrated that its democratic system is capable of doing precisely this.
The country has seen massive farmers’ movements, student protests, political agitations, labour demonstrations and campaigns on issues ranging from corruption to examinations and employment.
Not every protest has ended in agreement.
Not every demand has been accepted.
Not every confrontation has been peaceful.
But the essential democratic space remains.
Citizens can protest.
The government can respond.
The courts can intervene.
The media can question.
Political parties can mobilise.
And ultimately, the people themselves possess the most powerful instrument in a democracy—the vote.
That is why India should not be judged by whether protests occur.
The existence of protest is itself evidence that democratic space exists.
The real question is whether that space remains open when citizens become inconvenient to those in power.
India’s answer, despite the inevitable imperfections of such a vast democracy, is fundamentally affirmative.
Pakistan Occupied Kashmir Raises a Different Question
The deaths in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir raise a much more troubling question about Pakistan’s approach to dissent.
If a government genuinely believes that its policies enjoy public legitimacy, why should citizens demanding change have to face deadly confrontation?
If grievances are unfounded, why not defeat them through facts and dialogue?
If demands are unreasonable, why not explain why they cannot be accepted?
If the government believes it is right, why not meet the protesters and persuade them?
A democratic government possesses a powerful weapon that authoritarian systems often lack: legitimacy derived from dialogue and consent.
It does not need to win every argument through force.
It can win arguments through institutions.
This is precisely why the events in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir deserve international attention.
The issue is not simply that protesters and security forces clashed.
The issue is what the clash reveals about governance.
Eleven reported deaths represent an enormous human cost for a political disagreement that should ideally have been settled through dialogue.
The broader question is whether the authorities have learned from the unrest—or merely attempted to suppress it.
Because a government cannot permanently resolve political grievances by treating them as security problems.
Democracy Is More Than Elections
There is another lesson that Pakistan must confront.
Democracy is not merely the holding of elections.
It is not simply the existence of political parties.
It is not the presence of assemblies or the existence of constitutional documents.
Democracy is a culture of accountability.
It is the ability of citizens to question authority without fearing lethal retaliation.
It is the ability of a government to tolerate criticism.
It is the ability of institutions to investigate allegations against those exercising state power.
It is the ability of protesters to demand change.
And it is the ability of governments to change course when citizens make a compelling case.
By that standard, India’s democratic system possesses enormous advantages.
India’s institutions have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to absorb political turbulence without allowing the country to descend into systemic breakdown.
That is a remarkable achievement for the world’s largest democracy.
With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, enormous geographical diversity, multiple languages, religions, political ideologies and regional interests, India has maintained a constitutional democratic framework in which disagreements can be contested publicly.
That should not be underestimated.
It is precisely this institutional resilience that distinguishes India from regimes where dissent is treated primarily as a threat to state authority.
India Must Continue to Protect Its Democratic Space
The positive comparison with Pakistan should not lead to complacency.
India must continue strengthening its democratic institutions.
Police action must remain proportionate.
Allegations of excessive force must be investigated.
Peaceful protesters must be protected.
Public property and the safety of security personnel must also be safeguarded.
The government must remain open to dialogue.
These are not contradictions.
They are the foundations of a mature democracy.
A strong Indian state does not need to fear peaceful dissent because its legitimacy is not dependent on the absence of criticism.
Indeed, the ability to tolerate criticism is a demonstration of strength.
The ability to negotiate is strength.
The ability to acknowledge a mistake is strength.
The ability to change policy in response to public opinion is strength.
And the ability to resolve a protest politically rather than through fatalities is perhaps the greatest strength of all.
The Moral Difference
The moral difference between the two episodes is therefore impossible to ignore.
At Jantar Mantar, there were clashes and injuries, but no reported protester fatalities. More importantly, the agitation retained a political pathway. Negotiations took place, demands were heard and a major demand for ministerial accountability was ultimately fulfilled.
In Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, the reported death of 11 people and injuries to nearly 70 others transformed political discontent into a human tragedy, while the larger 38-point charter remained a source of contention.
The contrast is not that India has no challenges.
The contrast is that India’s democratic system provides mechanisms through which challenges can be confronted politically.
That is the distinction worth highlighting.
The strength of India lies not in pretending that its democracy is flawless, but in the fact that it has institutions capable of correcting flaws.
India does not need to claim perfection.
It needs to continue demonstrating democratic resilience.
And the Jantar Mantar episode, despite the tensions surrounding it, offers precisely such an example.
The Street Is Not the Enemy
Governments across South Asia should understand a simple truth: protests are often symptoms, not causes.
When citizens protest, governments should ask what brought them there.
When students protest, authorities should ask what has failed in the education or examination system.
When workers protest, governments should ask whether economic grievances have been ignored.
When people protest over electricity, taxation or governance, authorities should ask why existing institutions did not address those concerns earlier.
The answer to protest should therefore be institutional responsiveness.
That is what makes India’s democratic model so powerful.
The Indian state can be firm without being repressive.
It can maintain law and order without abandoning dialogue.
It can protect public property while respecting democratic freedoms.
It can disagree with protesters without treating them as enemies.
And it can ultimately respond to public pressure through political accountability.
That is the India that the world should recognise.
A Table, Not a Trigger
The events in India and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir offer a larger lesson for the democratic world.
When citizens speak, governments should listen.
When grievances deepen, governments should negotiate.
When protests become tense, authorities should exercise restraint and proportionality.
And when mistakes occur, institutions should investigate and correct them.
India’s experience demonstrates that democratic politics can accommodate dissent without turning political disagreement into a human catastrophe.
The experience in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir demonstrates the terrible consequences when grievances are allowed to escalate into confrontation and the state responds with deadly force.
A government may control a crowd through coercion.
It cannot win the confidence of its people through fear.
It may silence a street.
It cannot silence a grievance.
It may suppress a protest.
It cannot suppress the political question that created the protest.
That is why the contrast between India and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is ultimately a contrast between two approaches to citizenship.
One trusts institutions.
The other relies on coercion.
One allows public pressure to produce political accountability.
The other risks turning political demands into security confrontations.
One recognises protest as part of democratic life.
The other risks treating dissent as a threat.
India’s greatest strength is that its democratic system allows disagreement to remain disagreement—rather than allowing it to become a battle between the citizen and the state.
The lesson from Jantar Mantar is therefore not that India has no problems.
It is that India has democratic mechanisms through which problems can be confronted, debated and, when necessary, corrected.
That is the essence of a living democracy.
And that is precisely why the tragic events in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir should serve as a warning: when a government answers the voice of its people with force instead of dialogue, it may suppress a protest—but it does not resolve the grievance.
Democracy listens.
Democracy negotiates.
Democracy accommodates dissent.
Democracy accepts accountability.
And when citizens raise their voices, the strongest state does not reach for the trigger.
It reaches for the table.
