Jantar Mantar protest: How Modi govt is burying questions on police brutality

The Modi government, which remained largely absent from Parliament through the just ended monsoon session, chose not to respond to questions over the use of excessive force against protesting students at Jantar Mantar in July.

Despite sustained pressure from the Opposition and repeated disruptions in Parliament over the use of pellet guns, Home Minister Amit Shah did not appear in the House to respond.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah also avoided the media and refused to directly address the controversy. The government was eventually forced to accept the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

But by then, it had lost control of the political narrative. The handling of the student protests and allegations of police brutality had begun to cast a serious shadow over the Modi government.

With the questions refusing to die down, the government has now mounted an apparent counter-offensive—seeking not only to defend the police action but also to construct an alternative narrative around the protests.

Union minister Kiren Rijiju’s recent interview with ANI is part of this effort.

Speaking to ANI, Rijiju on Tuesday, 18 August, claimed that no student had suffered a serious injury during the student protests in July, insisting that the government was ready to discuss the issue in Parliament.

“Not a single person died, not a single person suffered a broken bone. Not a single protester is admitted to the hospital with a serious injury.”

Rijiju also alleged that the protests had been infiltrated by “criminals” and political groups, including the Aam Aadmi Party, the Bhim Army and the Samajwadi Party. He claimed that despite the presence of thousands of protesters and attempts to “provoke” the crowd, there had been no deaths.

The minister went on to contrast the July protests with demonstrations during previous Congress-led governments, claiming that “thousands of people” had been killed during protests then, and praised the Delhi Police for its handling of the Jantar Mantar agitation.

“The Delhi administration deserves praise because not a single lathi was used during the protest. They were stopped only when they forcefully marched towards Parliament,” he said.

The remarks triggered a sharp backlash from students, the Congress and the CJP.

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi accused the government of seeking praise for police action in which, he alleged, pellet guns and lathis studded with nails were used against peaceful protesters.

“Half a kilometre from Parliament, pellet guns were fired at peaceful students, lathis studded with nails were used, one child’s eye was lost, one girl’s ear was severed. Should we praise this brutality?” Gandhi said, referring to the police action on 20 July.

Senior lawyer Sanjay Hegde also questioned the government’s account, asking who had authorised the use of pellet guns and who had ordered the alleged use of excessive force. He asked whether the public had the right to demand answers from the government.

AISA national chief and student activist Neha Bora called Rijiju’s remarks “the height of sycophancy” and shared a couplet by Hindi poet Gorakh Pandey in response.

But the attempt to shape the narrative did not stop with ministerial statements.

A day earlier, The Indian Express reported that the government had issued nearly two lakh orders to social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube between March and July, directing them to take down content. The figure works out to nearly 1,275 orders a day, with each order potentially covering hundreds of individual posts, pieces of content or accounts.

The scale of such blocking orders has assumed greater significance amid the Jantar Mantar protests, as the government faces growing criticism over its handling of the agitation and the police action against protesters.

At the same time, sections of pro-government media have sought to discredit the protesters by branding them “deshdrohi”, while some YouTube channels have targeted CJP leaders, including Saurav Das, portraying him as a “foreign agent”.

Taken together - the refusal to answer questions in Parliament, the avoidance of the media, the carefully planned interviews, the blocking of social media content and the campaign to discredit protesters - these developments point to a broader effort to contain the political fallout and construct an alternative narrative around the Jantar Mantar protests.

But the more the government attempts to suppress the questions being raised, the more those questions appear to spread.

The issue is no longer confined to what happened at Jantar Mantar. It has become a larger question of accountability: who authorised the use of force, why were pellet guns used, who was injured and why has the government refused to answer these questions in Parliament?

The government may attempt to control the narrative. But as dissent grows and the questions refuse to disappear, suppressing the truth is proving increasingly difficult.