Don't mourn loss of Jantar Mantar, it was a terrible protest site anyway

As far as protest sites go, the wide avenues of central Delhi are terrible for protesters. The bad news, though, is that Delhi itself is largely a place where, according to a top historian of people's revolts, it is nearly impossible to ignite a spontaneous protest.

In Short

• The wide avenues of central Delhi are not protest-friendly
• Architecturally, New Delhi is a terrible place to protest
• The city scores badly as a protest-friendly place

Every time a crowd gathers at Jantar Mantar to protest something, I remember Revolutionaries, a book by famed historian Eric Hobsbawm. In particular my thoughts go to what he wrote about Delhi as a place for protests. Comparing various cities in terms of how friendly they are for spontaneous protests, he called Delhi one of the least “suitable locations for spontaneous” protests.

Though he used the word riots, and not protests, because historically and contextually protests and working-class riots have been the same side of the coin. “Few less suitable locations for spontaneous riot can be imagined than New Delhi, Washington DC, Saint Petersburg, or for that matter, the Mall and Buckingham Palace in London,” Hobsbawm wrote in an essay titled Cities and Insurrections.

Delhi was mentioned in the essay as a passing reference, an example of a city that architecturally, as well as socially, was a terrible place from where to mount a challenge to authorities of the day. But when you read through the essay Hobsbawm’s reasoning becomes clear.

His idea was, and it sounded logical, that modern cities like New Delhi and places such as Jantar Mantar with wide avenues, open vistas, and well-defined ingress and egress, are terrible for doing any serious protest against the mai baap sarkar. These places are easily controllable and they offer no element of surprise to protesters. The lack of residential areas near Jantar Mantar also means the entire area can be sealed off without much fuss, often for days and weeks, giving total control to cops.

In fact, going by the logic of Hobsbawm so terrible are places like Jantar Mantar for entrenched and any serious protest that they are even inferior to something like Shaheen Bagh. While it can’t be said with full conviction, there is a possibility that the Shaheen Bagh protest in 2020 lasted nearly four months because its geography helped the protesters. It was carried out at the end of a road behind which there was a river. Hence it could only be approached from the front, which made the job of law enforcement agencies difficult. Similarly, the road was lined with a mix of residential and business areas, and there were narrow alleys all around, which too added to the logistical difficulties for anyone hoping to break the protests by force.

Eventually the Shaheen Bagh protest was ended by Covid. Of course, it would be naive to say the government couldn’t have forcefully uprooted it. Countries are powerful and a few thousand protesters cannot resist the full force of the Indian state. But it was also quite clear that using force in a place like Shaheen Bagh was logistically more difficult and carried the risk of the police losing control, even if briefly. Compared to Shaheen Bagh, managing a protest in a place like Jantar Mantar is manifold easier.

For protests, Hobsbawm favoured old cities like Paris and London over newer ones like New Delhi and Washington DC. The older cities have messier architecture and layouts, which makes it easier for protesters to move through them often on foot. They also, because they have grown organically instead of being planned block by block, possess the kind of composition that makes the job of protesters easier. For example, in areas where there are residences, the protesters can get help (food, sleep etc) from a sympathetic population. Or they can use the establishments around them in a way that makes controlling their movement very difficult. All of it is much easier in old and dense European cities.

But it is not just the architecture that makes Jantar Mantar, or Delhi, a poor place to protest. It is also the way this city is. Or so hints Hobsbawm. In his essay he wrote: “The effectiveness of riot or insurrection depends on three aspects of urban structure: how easily the poor can be mobilised, how vulnerable the centres of authority are to them, and how easily they may be suppressed.”

On all three counts, Delhi scores poorly. Delhi as a city is made up of colonies. But different colonies in Delhi have different socio-economic compositions. And they are very distinct and homogenous in their identities. There are colonies where the rich live. There are colonies where the poor live. There are colonies where the powerful live. There are colonies where merchants live. The segregations make it easier to control Delhi, unlike say a city with a population which is more thoroughly mixed.

In fact, in India the best city for protests is probably Mumbai. Kolkata too could be one, but then it has faded into irrelevance. In contrast, Mumbai is an important city with a geography that favours protesters. It is denser than Delhi, has neighbourhoods with mixed demographics, and is overall a much more protester-friendly place where a few thousand people can create enough nuisance and discomfort for law enforcement to draw attention to their cause. Not that they should, but that is not the point of this piece.

Having said this, Hobsbawm did end his essay with a qualifier. The city matters, but people matter more. And that remains true, whether it is Delhi we are talking about or Washington DC or Paris. “Revolutions arise out of political situations, not because some cities are structurally suited to insurrection,” he wrote. “Still, an urban riot or spontaneous uprising may be the starter which sets the engine of revolution going. That starter is more likely to function in cities which encourage or facilitate insurrection.”

In other words, while it is easier for protesters when the geography of a city is on their side, if the political situation is such that a change must arrive, it may not matter in the end. If there are 5 million people marching through the wide roads of Lutyens’ Delhi, the architecture and city layouts become irrelevant. And if there are 5 million people ready to march, then it doesn’t matter where they protest — in Jantar Mantar, or Burari, or in Borivali. Because when millions hit the road, for the right cause or the wrong, then it’s history that matters and not geography.

(Views expressed in the piece are those of the author)

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