On the ground in Delhi under siege as ‘cockroach’ protests rattle Modi government

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The whistles drown out the slogans almost as soon as they start. “Inquilab Zindabad”, long live the revolution, and “Gyanesh Kumar! Resign!” ring out across central Delhi before security personnel charge, detaining some of the demonstrators.

Metal barricades cut off roads, police vehicles sweep through the streets, and loudspeakers repeatedly instruct people to “maintain peace”. Jantar Mantar, the Indian capital’s designated protest site, remains frustratingly out of reach.

For Ashwani Rajput, detained while holding a handwritten poster, the protests are intensely personal. “Member of my family is alive. Then why has their name been deleted from the voter list? Answer,” the sign reads. “I have the right to vote.”

The question on his poster is at the heart of the ongoing protests against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, who is accused of leading a controversial revision to voter rolls that opposition parties and activists say is designed to disenfranchise hundreds of millions in order to tilt the electoral field in favour of Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP party.

But here, in the heart of Delhi, on 10 October, the immediate fight is for something more basic: the right to assemble and demand accountability.

The journey to Jantar Mantar should take about 20 minutes. After more than an hour of diversions, The Independent is still nowhere near. Police keep directing us along alternative routes, only for the journey to lead repeatedly back to Safdar Hashmi Marg.

Some roads are completely blocked. Others are barricaded and roped off, with police and paramilitary personnel stationed at intervals. Public buses marked “not in service” are parked nearby to take away detained demonstrators.

Authorities restrict mobile internet within a 4km radius of the main protest site from 10pm on Friday until 10pm on Saturday. Internet Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group, says the underlying order for the suspension is not publicly available.

Metro access is restricted at numerous stations, railway services are affected and markets, including the central shopping district of Connaught Place, are shut.

Reports put the combined police and paramilitary deployment in the city at around 25,000 personnel.

An elderly woman trying to reach Jantar Mantar questions why authorities cannot devote comparable resources to tackling crime and substance abuse. “Does Jantar Mantar belong to their fathers that we are not allowed to protest?” she asks. “Is it the personal property of Modi or Amit Shah?”

“There’s so much substance abuse and crime. Why do they not try to get that under control? Why can they not have this much force deployment to get things under control then?”

“Amit Shah and his police have gone out of control,” she adds, referring to Modi’s chief lieutenant who heads the home ministry, which controls police in the capital city and most of the paramilitaries in the country.

Near Safdar Hashmi Marg, Jyoti Rawat, 31, a supporter of the local opposition party AAP, is speaking to reporters when a female police officer pushes her. “This is our human right, to be able to protest,” Rawat says. Moments later, she is detained.

“I just told them I want to go there to protest. And asked them to step aside. She falsely accused me of pushing her. I didn’t push her. I just want to protest peacefully. They don’t even want us to stand here,” she tells The Independent before being taken away.

For Rajput, detained while holding his poster, the issue is the absence of answers.

“I do not have any demands,” he says from inside a police bus. “I have just been deliberately detained. I have not done any violence. One member of my family’s name has been struck. They are pushing and shoving me around.”

Police whistles make him difficult to hear. “This government uses our tax money. They are accountable. And they will have to answer,” he says.

As the bus pulls away, another detainee shouts: “Vote thief, leave the throne!”

A woman forced to walk a long way from south Delhi is furious about the disruption to public transport and everyday life.

“He has put the entire city under siege,” she says of the home minister. “Cars are running. Metro, trains, buses are not. Only the middle and lower middle classes are suffering. My children had exams.”

The protests are animated by the demand to remove Kumar, India’s chief election commissioner since February 2025, over the controversial Special Intensive Revision, or SIR, which the commission claims is meant to clean up electoral rolls by striking off the names of voters who are dead or no longer live at their old addresses, while ensuring that eligible citizens remain registered.

According to the Indian Express, the exercise has already removed more than 130 million names. That figure is not a verified count of citizens permanently denied the right to vote however. The reasons for deletions vary and draft rolls can be challenged.

An investigation by the newspaper has raised questions about the whole exercise. It said Kumar’s two fellow election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, had raised formal objections 14 times over 10 months, including about changes to a form used for registration of new voters, handling of appeals against the removal of names, and centralisation of the software for updating the electoral rolls.

The paper also described a case in Goa state in which 97 voters were left off the final rolls because the centralised software would not let local election officials make changes despite having the authority to do so.

Although such incidents don’t establish nationwide electoral manipulation, they raise questions about safeguards against errors that may exclude eligible voters.

In response to the Express investigation, the commission argued that internal disagreements did not demonstrate wrongdoing. “Differing views and observations are a normal part of deliberation in any institution,” it said in a statement that was signed not by any of the commissioners but a mid-ranking official. It also claimed that “all these decisions are an outcome of the unanimous decisions of the full commission in the past one year”.

The BJP likewise rejected allegations of vote theft, describing the SIR as a legitimate exercise.

But a protester from Delhi’s Najafgarh fears the consequences if names are wrongly removed. “See, if I don’t like a leader in a democracy, I’ve only one powerful recourse, the right to vote. If that is also taken away, how will I get rid of a corrupt politician?”

His concern reflects the central argument of the protesters: a free and fair election is the most potent way of holding power to account and its credibility depends on every eligible citizen being able to cast their ballot.

Mehmoona, 72, puts the grievance in stark terms. “At least 130 million names have been dropped from the voter rolls. This is not a small thing. If you prevent voters from voting, then people will get angry and what you are seeing is exactly that. We want those 130 million voters back on the tolls. We want those who helped in their deletion held accountable.”

Anshu Singh Bisht, 18, a student at Amity University in the National Capital Region, says Kumar’s resignation alone won’t fix the problem.

“Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and other top officials should also resign,” he says. “It’s an undeclared dictatorship by Narendra Modi.”

Bisht is soon detained in Connaught Place.

Sachin, 20, a student at Sharda University, says young people need to raise their voices now more than ever. “If we don’t raise our voices, who will? If we don’t, then this corruption will only increase. We only want a government that treats its citizens like people with rights and not vermin.”

Standing near a barricade, a man who refuses to give his name and calls himself “Bharat Ma”, or Mother India, speaks approvingly of the security crackdown and issues a warning to the protesters.

“The armed forces are the property of the nation, the prime minister is the property of the country. You cannot hurl abuses at them,” he tells The Independent.

He claims to be one of a sizeable crowd of Hindu nationalists out to defend Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. “We were not active last time but we are active now,” he says. “We are holding all these people and giving them to the Delhi police.”

“What happened last time won’t happen again,” he says, referring to widespread protests in July that forced the resignation of education minister Dharmesh Pradhan following a series of botched exams.

“Any cockroach will think four times before entering Connaught Place and Jantar Mantar,” he threatens, meaning supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party, a youth-led movement that led the July protests and, along with the All India Students’ Association, called the demonstrations on Saturday. “Because we are standing 24 hours with the Delhi police.”

The rhetoric is revealing. It frames the protests not merely as a dispute over electoral procedures, but as a confrontation between self-described defenders of the nation and people that they portray as its enemies.

What about the allegations of irregularities in the SIR? “If it was real, then how did they win elections in other states,” he says, referring to opposition parties. “They are dying to come back to power, the opposition. And now they will not return to power in their life. Regardless of whether they bring cockroach or ant. They will not return to power. Jai Shri Ram.”

His final words are a popular religious slogan appropriated by the Hindu nationalist ecosystem which is now in power.

The man’s words offer a glimpse of the hostility facing the demonstrators.

The Independent witnesses a Hindu nationalist mob charging at a group of protesters as police stand idly by.

“He says he’ll drop a bomb on parliament!” one of the attackers alleges about a protester that the mob are presently beating within sight of police personnel. The mob shouts: “Jai Shri Ram”.

The Independent is unable to verify the identity of the protester, the allegation or whether police are pursuing any action against the attackers.

Journalists struggle to document what’s going on. Suhasini Haidar, diplomatic editor of The Hindu, is pushed by police personnel as she and her colleagues seek to report on the situation.

“There have to be rules of engagement,” she says. “Journalists should be allowed to do their jobs,” she says. “Everyone has got a duty in this country.”

By evening, the Indian Express reports, some 6,000 people are in detention, including politicians, students and activists. Detentions are also reported in other cities, including the financial capital Mumbai.

The Delhi police describe their actions as preventive, linked to their denial of permission for the proposed demonstrations.

Sakhi, 22, who became known during the July demonstrations for shouting slogans directed at Modi, sees the security lockdown as evidence that the protests are striking a nerve.

“The police response tells me the government is scared. And even two people saying ‘Inquilab Zindabad, long live revolution’ scares them,” she says.

She accuses the prime minister and home minister of protecting Kumar. Soon afterwards, Sakhi, along with a few other women, climbs over a barricade in an attempt to reach Jantar Mantar. She is detained just as she crosses.

As buses carry detainees away, scattered cries of “Inquilab Zindabad” rise from inside. People on the pavement clap as the vehicles pass them by.

Then three women begin singing, in English and Hindi, “We Shall Overcome”, the anthem associated with the American civil rights movement.

Police personnel stand on elevated ground behind them. The women, unbothered, continue with their song.

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