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Jantar Mantar Denotification: Far From A Political Masterstroke
Has the government of “masterstrokes” lost its infallible mojo?
Jantar Mantar is an official protest site no longer, said Delhi Police. And thus brought to a close, at least for the time being, Central Delhi protests and, with it, the possibility of popular criticism piercing through the deaf ears of the people in power, should they choose not to heed critical voices aired through regular means, which, ruefully, have not included the mainstream media since as long back as Gen-Z can clearly remember, notwithstanding the vague recollections of the Anna Hazare Movement that a handful of them might be able to faintly recall.
As expected, the denotification of Jantar Mantar as a protest site has met with opposition on several grounds, the most persuasive of which is that the protests cannot be banished so far away from the centers of power that they are barely visible and can be conveniently ignored by the government.
The Delhi Police, which operates under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, told the Supreme Court that the denotification of Jantar Mantar had come pursuant to the Supreme Court directive of October 9, 2026, by which a Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant had asked the Union government to find a suitably spacious…
