The distinction between a democratic majority and a vocal minority is crucial. Democracy must protect the majority’s mandate against coercion by vocal minorities seeking power through intimidation. A democracy protects the majority's mandate while safeguarding minority rights; it does not permit an organised minority, however noisy or intimidating, to substitute its demands for constitutional processes. If violence or the threat of disruption becomes the currency of political influence, the result is not popular sovereignty but the rule of intimidation.
The recent experience of the CJP ought to provoke this debate. Its agitation secured the resignation of the Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, following controversy over examination irregularities. Accountability for administrative failure is legitimate. But if a minister's resignation becomes merely the first trophy in an expanding campaign against constitutional authorities, should democracy applaud—or pause to consider where this logic leads?
First, the Chief Election Commissioner becomes the target. Then, the Home Minister and the Prime Minister are said to be the ultimate objectives. Even the Chief Justice of India has attracted personalised ridicule. The insinuation is difficult to miss: concede one demand, and another follows. One is reminded of the futility of appeasing a crocodile in the hope that it will eat you last. Appeasement may postpone the appetite; it rarely abolishes it.
The crucial question is not whether governments and institutions can be criticised. They must be. It is whether political dissatisfaction entitles an organised movement to make institutional capitulation the price of public peace. If that principle is accepted, what remains of constitutional government?
Consider
the Supreme Court. When a favourable order, such as the grant of bail to Teesta
Setalvad, is welcomed, the Court can be celebrated as a guardian of liberty.
When its reasoning or judgement disappoints particular political expectations,
the same institution risks becoming a villain. A democracy cannot function on
such transactional reverence. Courts are not infallible, and their judgements
may be contested. But their authority cannot sensibly depend on whether every
litigant, faction or street movement leaves satisfied.
The pun on the CJI's name, made by no less than an opposition MP, illustrates how institutional disagreement can degenerate into personalised ridicule. Satire is part of free expression; no judge is above criticism. But when criticism becomes an exercise in belittling the person who occupies a constitutional office, it risks undermining the dignity of the institution itself. The question is not whether a politician may mock a judge, but whether such conduct contributes anything to reasoned scrutiny of the judiciary—or merely feeds public contempt for it.
Look beyond India. France, Belgium, Italy and Albania have witnessed protests driven by varied grievances, with some demonstrations escalating into clashes, vandalism and destruction. The circumstances in these countries differ, but street violence must never be mistaken for legitimate peaceful protest. Citizens struggling with economic insecurity, unpopular policies or failures of governance have every right to demand change. But when public anger spills into arson, looting and the destruction of public property, the distinction between democratic protest and destructive coercion becomes impossible to ignore. The progress built over decades cannot be taken for granted when disorder puts livelihoods, public infrastructure and social stability at risk.
Is that democracy—or the erosion of the conditions that make democracy and development possible?
The more unsettling question concerns precedent. Suppose sustained street pressure could compel the replacement of a government. What guarantee would exist against another movement using precisely the same tactics to dislodge its successor? Would the next government govern by constitutional mandate or by anticipating the next siege? Would the Election Commission administer elections independently, or calculate which decisions might provoke the next mobilisation? Would judges decide cases according to law, or wonder whether an unpopular judgment could make them the next target?
A method
that one faction celebrates as democratic resistance today can become an
instrument of intimidation in another faction's hands tomorrow. No
constitutional privilege belongs to the first agitator. Once the principle is
conceded that street pressure can override institutional processes, every
political group acquires an incentive to repeat the experiment. Government then
becomes a revolving door operated by agitation rather than elections, and the
people’s mandate is reduced to a temporary inconvenience.
This is not an argument for complacency or for treating institutions as sacred. A compromised Election Commission must be scrutinised; judicial misconduct must invite appropriate remedies; administrative failures must attract accountability. But the corrective must be constitutional: evidence, investigation, judicial review, legislative oversight, lawful removal procedures and, ultimately, elections. Peaceful protest can draw attention to injustice and demand these remedies. It cannot become a licence to dictate institutional outcomes by intimidation.
The distinction is decisive. Institutions must answer to the Constitution, not to political convenience; governments must answer to the electorate, not to whoever claims to speak for the street. Citizens, meanwhile, must insist on both propositions simultaneously. Those who invoke democracy cannot defend coercion simply because it serves their political purpose. The test of principle is whether one accepts the same rules when the opposing camp uses them.
Democracy does not require us to applaud every institution. It requires us to preserve the rules through which institutions can be corrected without being destroyed. If every defeat becomes evidence of conspiracy and every concession invites another demand, the ultimate casualty will not be one minister, one commissioner or one government. It will be the constitutional order itself.
The street may awaken democracy, but it cannot be permitted to become its sovereign.
Keywords: #Democracy and constitutionalism #Constitutional democracy #Institutional accountability #Political protests #Rule of law #Constitutional institutions #Street politics #Democratic accountability #Judicial independence #Institutional integrity
The article is republished form TheTimes Of India Blogs
