From my daughter’s question, a lesson for the government: Student protest isn’t just about politics

Then I realised that we were having two different conversations. I was thinking about the politics of the protest. She was thinking about the reason for the protest. For her, the real issue was not who stood at the front of the march, but the children whose lives have been shattered — including those who have died by suicide — because the state failed to ensure an examination process that is secure, transparent, and accountable. On that, I cannot disagree with her. Children have an extraordinary ability to cut through ideology and ask the simplest, hardest questions: If the system failed them, shouldn’t we all care? Perhaps that is the conversation we should be having — not about who is protesting, but about why such protests become necessary in the first place. And when protest strikes, should we not be engaging in a dialogue?

I cannot be the parent who banished Nachiketa for asking ethical questions. The Kathopanishad reminds us that civilisations do not progress by silencing uncomfortable questions; they progress by engaging with them. Today, we remember and revere Nachiketa — not his father — because he chose truth over obedience and inquiry over fear. In times when disagreement is often mistaken for disloyalty, the ideal of Nachiketa remains one of our greatest civilisational safeguards. Dialogue, not suppression, is what ultimately preserves a society.

What has been our defining political instinct when we talk of Indic culture? India’s instinct has never been conquest; it has been conversation. At a time when democracies across the world are becoming increasingly polarised, India faces a quieter but perhaps more profound crisis — the gradual death of dialogue. The signs are visible everywhere. Protests are met less with engagement than with suspicion. Social media has become so politically consequential that governments contemplate restrictions while courts are repeatedly called upon to restore constitutional equilibrium. The judiciary increasingly performs the role that politics once did: Creating space for dialogue.

That should concern us all. This is not merely a constitutional question. It is a civilisational one. India’s political imagination has always been rooted in dialogue. Our foundational texts are conversations, not proclamations. The Bhagavad Gita unfolds as a dialogue in the midst of an impending war. It does not begin with commands but with Arjuna’s doubts. Krishna responds not by silencing questions but by expanding the horizon of inquiry. The Upanishads are conversations between teacher and seeker, Buddhist councils institutionalised debate. Jain philosophy celebrated Anekantvada — the acceptance that truth may possess multiple dimensions. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj, perhaps the most influential political text of modern India, is itself structured as a dialogue between the Editor and the Reader. Gandhi understood that persuasion produces more enduring political legitimacy than coercion ever can. Dialogue, therefore, is not a procedural democratic virtue borrowed from the West. It lies at the heart of the Indic intellectual tradition.

Yet contemporary politics appears increasingly uncomfortable with this inheritance.

Across the political spectrum, firmness is often projected as leadership, while dialogue is caricatured as indecision or weakness. Electoral politics rewards certainty more readily than reflection. In such an atmosphere, the hardening of the state’s position becomes a political performance in itself — a demonstration of authority designed for public consumption. The costs, however, are becoming visible. Consider the recurring crises surrounding public examinations. Every year, questions of paper leaks, procedural irregularities, delayed recruitment, or flawed evaluation systems generate widespread anxiety among students. One may disagree with particular protests or even with some of those leading them. But dismissing protesters cannot erase institutional failures. What is particularly striking is the technological paradox. India today speaks confidently about artificial intelligence, digital governance, automation, and becoming a global technology leader. Governments possess enormous technological capacity and access to some of the country’s finest scientific and technical minds. Yet examination systems affecting millions remain vulnerable to failures that students are often able to identify. If technology exists, expertise exists, and resources exist, where does the problem lie?

The answer may be less technological than political. Institutions improve only when they are willing to listen. A system that assumes criticism is hostility eventually stops learning from its own failures. Technology cannot compensate for administrative indifference. Algorithms cannot substitute for accountability. The larger danger lies in a political calculation that these failures carry only temporary electoral consequences. Public memory is believed to be short. News cycles move quickly. Outrage fades. If the issue is unlikely to influence the next election, sustained dialogue appears unnecessary.

History offers a different lesson. Societies rarely become unstable because people ask difficult questions. They become unstable when institutions cease responding to those questions. The distance between state and citizen widens not through disagreement but through the refusal to engage disagreement. No democracy can indefinitely govern through narrative management alone. Clever communication strategies may postpone political discomfort, but they cannot resolve structural problems. Governance is ultimately measured not by the ability to shape public perception but by the willingness to correct institutional shortcomings. India’s greatest political thinkers understood this well. Gandhi repeatedly insisted that disagreement was not an obstacle to nation-building but one of its essential conditions. Dialogue was not weakness; it was moral confidence. It reflected faith that truth could withstand scrutiny.

Perhaps that is the question confronting India today. Can a republic that proudly invokes Gandhi, celebrates the Bhagavad Gita, and speaks of its civilisational continuity afford to abandon the very principle that animates all three — the belief that conflict must culminate in conversation? The health of a democracy is measured not by the absence of dissent but by the quality of its dialogue with dissent. If dialogue dies, institutions may continue to function, elections may continue to be held, and governments may continue to command majorities. But something far more fundamental begins to erode — the republic’s confidence in its own civilisational wisdom. The tragedy is not that India faces disagreement. The tragedy would be if the world’s oldest continuing civilisation forgot that its greatest strength has always been its ability to turn disagreement into dialogue.

The writer teaches history at Delhi University