How resistance takes root and grows shoots

A mature democracy stays alive through informed civic participation, freedom of thought and respect for dissent. Resistance, therefore, is not an aberration or an anti-system activity but a necessary part of democratic life. When those in power begin to suppress and discredit dissent instead of engaging with it, resistance becomes an essential instrument of democratic citizenship.

But what kind of resistance? What puts real pressure on power, and what makes news briefly before fading away? Are numbers decisive? Is non-violence always more effective? And when governments have not just the police and the administrative machinery but a surveillance apparatus, a propaganda machinery and enormous economic resources, what can effective resistance look like?

The history of India’s freedom struggle is instructive. Freedom was not won by a single method, organisation or leader. It encompassed mass movements, satyagraha, non-cooperation, boycotts, underground activity, revolutionary violence, attempts at military rebellion and ultimately a swell of popular political pressure. To reduce it to Mahatma Gandhi and non-violence oversimplifies history; to see it as a story of revolutionary courage is equally flawed.

Perhaps Gandhi’s greatest political achievement was to take resistance out of the hands of a few courageous individuals and situate it among ordinary citizens. Satyagraha was not simply about fasts or demonstrations. Its central principle was non-cooperation with unjust authority. Boycotting government institutions and foreign goods, supporting swadeshi and encouraging mass participation were all part of this strategy. The Salt Satyagraha turned an ordinary commodity into a political symbol of resistance.

Crucially, Gandhian resistance required neither weapons nor wealth nor specialised training. Farmers, workers, students, traders, women and ordinary citizens could participate. Resistance thus acquired a broad social base.

This is where numbers matter. A state can suppress a small group through arrests, prosecutions and administrative controls. But when dissent spreads across different sections of society, it ceases to be merely a protest and becomes social unrest.

Research by political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan has similarly highlighted broad civic participation. Studies of largescale resistance have found non-violent mass campaigns more effective than violent ones in many circumstances. NAVCO 2.1, the updated dataset tracking mass movements, covers 389 violent and non-violent campaigns between 1945 and 2013. It notes greater participation and far fewer deaths per capita in non-violent campaigns, though their success rate declined after 2001.

The larger lesson is that numbers do matter, but numbers alone are not enough. Millions taking to the streets for a day may achieve less than sustained, organised and disciplined non-cooperation. Numbers become political power when combined with diversity, organisation, continuity and a clear objective.

Gandhian movements mattered not simply because they mobilised large numbers, but because they pressured the structures that enabled British rule to function. Administration, taxation, transport, commerce, labour and political legitimacy all depend, in some measure, on civic cooperation. Non-cooperation and boycott could therefore strike at the social and economic foundations of power.

The revolutionary current had a different role. Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan and others chose armed resistance and audacious action against colonial rule. They challenged its legitimacy, inspired young people and sharpened the demand for independence. Bhagat Singh’s thinking extended further to questions of social and economic transformation.

Yet revolutionary actions alone could hardly have forced the British out of India. Their popular base was not comparable to that of Gandhian mass movements. Both traditions need to be understood in terms of their contribution and limitations.

It’s important to understand that non-violence does not mean passivity. It can be intensely active, disciplined and strategic. Its purpose is not merely moral persuasion but to exert pressure on the functioning and legitimacy of power. Strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, peaceful demonstrations, electoral interventions, consumer non-cooperation and institutional resistance can all serve this purpose.

The nature of power, however, has changed. Twentieth-century movements confronted police, armies, administrations and censorship. Governments today have at their command a surveillance apparatus, big data and data analytics, media cells to unleash propaganda via social media and instant information. Simply putting a large crowd on the streets is no longer enough.

Yet the street remains important. Large protests across the world, including the ‘No Kings’ protests in the United States in 2025 and 2026, show that public spaces remain an arena of democratic power. But resistance today must connect the street with society, institutions, the economy and the information sphere.

Strength in numbers thus means social breadth, not merely a crowd. A movement confined to one organisation or social group can easily be dismissed as the work of a disgruntled minority. When students, farmers, workers, women, employees, intellectuals, small traders, professionals and ordinary citizens participate, it becomes much harder to marginalise. Diversity can sometimes matter more than sheer numbers.

Continuity is equally important. Scattered protests can be contained through arrests, negotiations, vilification or selective concessions. The weakest protests are typically those that erupt over one event and then disappear. Effective resistance makes the issue bigger than an individual and broader than an event.

Digital media have created both new possibilities and vulnerabilities. Social media can carry a message to millions, but can also expose movements to rumours, frenzy and disinformation. Going viral is not the same as becoming politically effective. Digital resistance must connect with verified information, independent journalism, legal assistance, public debate and grassroots organisation.

Economic non-cooperation can also exert pressure because power depends on economic activity and civic cooperation. Peaceful strikes, consumer boycotts and institutional dissent can affect the networks that sustain power. But such action should not impose its greatest cost on ordinary citizens. Democratic resistance must pressure power without inflicting unnecessary violence or destruction on society.

This brings us to violence. History has certainly seen political change accompanied by violent struggle. But violence may win immediate attention while weakening a movement’s moral legitimacy and giving the state justification for harsher repression. It raises the cost of resistance for ordinary citizens. The more effective democratic path today is probably more civic participation.

The power of resistance can be summed up in five words: breadth, unity, discipline, continuity and legitimacy. Breadth takes a movement across society; unity maintains a minimum common objective despite differences; discipline keeps violence, hatred and chaos at bay; continuity turns protest into a political process; and legitimacy means that a substantial section of society regards its demands as just.

The future of resistance lies neither solely in Parliament, nor on the street, nor on social media, but in a civic energy capable of connecting them.

Elections are an occasion for democracy, not the whole of democratic life. Courts matter, but not every question reaches them. The media are essential, but when they weaken, society must develop independent systems of information. The street matters, but the street alone is not enough.

Effective democratic resistance must turn crowds into civil society, anger into organisation, organisation into sustained action and sustained action into democratic change. Its purpose should not merely be to defeat those in power, but to make power accountable, keep institutions independent, free citizens from fear and preserve space for reason and dissent.

Ultimately, democratic resistance should be judged not by the size of the crowd or the number of arrests, but by what it changes in the conduct of those in power, in public discourse and in the civic consciousness.