“Maaro Sir, Maaro”: Is the Modi Government’s Politics of Fear Beginning to Fail Against India’s Students?

A young protester stands almost motionless while police personnel strike him with lathis. He neither runs nor raises his hands to retaliate. Instead, he repeatedly says:

“Maaro sir, maaro.”
Hit me, sir. Hit me more.

This was not merely a dramatic social-media moment. It was a political message delivered through the human body.

The student appeared to be saying that the pain of a police baton was smaller than the pain that had already brought him onto the street: years spent preparing for examinations, repeated paper leaks, cancelled recruitment processes, unemployment, financial pressure on his family and the humiliation of watching institutions refuse to accept responsibility.

The important question, therefore, is not whether one student was unusually courageous. It is whether this scene represents a larger change:

Is the fear that has disciplined Indian society for years beginning to lose its hold over students?

The evidence suggests that the answer is yes—but this is the beginning of fearlessness, not yet the end of fear.

A Protester Who Refused to Perform Fear

The viral incident occurred during the youth-led protest near Parliament in New Delhi on July 20, 2026. News reports independently documented police using batons and tear gas against protesters attempting to continue their march. A video showing a protester standing firm and repeatedly saying “Maaro sir” attracted attention precisely because he refused to behave in the manner expected from a frightened citizen.

The expected response to a lathi charge is dispersal. The object is not merely to cause physical pain. It is to produce a visible demonstration of state power:

• the police advance;
• citizens retreat;
• resistance breaks;
• the street is cleared;
• those watching from home learn the cost of participation.

But this student reversed the message.

By refusing to run, he deprived the baton of its most important political function. The police could still hurt his body, but they could no longer convincingly display control over his mind.

That is why the video became powerful. The student was not asking for violence because he enjoyed suffering. He was demonstrating that the government’s capacity to frighten him had reached a limit.

His body was effectively saying:

“You can beat me, but you cannot make the injustice disappear. You can increase my pain, but you cannot make me more afraid than I already was.”

The Protest Was Not Simply About One Examination

The July 20 Parliament march was part of a rapidly expanding youth movement demanding accountability for examination leaks, recruitment failures and alleged corruption in the education system. Reuters and the Associated Press reported that thousands participated despite restrictions, barricades, police action and the risk of detention. The movement had already attracted millions of online followers and hundreds of thousands of petition signatures.

This matters because India’s competitive-examination system is not an ordinary administrative service. For millions of families, it is the principal route to economic security.

A government examination may represent:

• several years of preparation;
• money borrowed for coaching;
• parents’ savings;
• delayed marriage or employment;
• migration to Kota, Delhi, Prayagraj, Patna or another coaching centre;
• a family’s hope of entering the salaried middle class.

When an examination is leaked or cancelled, the candidate does not merely lose an afternoon. A year of life may be lost. Age limits continue to run. Rent and coaching fees remain unpaid. Younger siblings wait. Parents grow older.

This is why the emotional intensity of the protests cannot be explained by party politics alone.

Students are not protesting because they have suddenly become ideological revolutionaries. Many are protesting because the state has interfered with the most disciplined, law-abiding plan they had for improving their lives.

They studied because society told them to study.

They prepared because the government told them recruitment would be merit-based.

They waited because institutions told them the examination process was legitimate.

When those promises repeatedly fail, obedience itself begins to look irrational.

Fear Was Real—And It Was Never Limited to the Lathi

For many years, politically cautious Indian families have warned their children against attending protests. The warning is rarely about the immediate beating alone. It concerns what may happen afterwards:

“Your photograph will be taken.”

“Your name may appear in an FIR.”

“You will not get a government job.”

“Police verification will create problems.”

“You may be arrested whenever the authorities want.”

“Your family will be harassed.”

“Do not fight the government. We are ordinary people.”

Whether every feared consequence occurs in every case is beside the point. A system of deterrence does not need to punish everyone. It only needs enough examples to make millions imagine that they could be next.

Government recruitment forms commonly require candidates to disclose arrests, prosecutions, convictions and pending criminal cases. A mere protest does not automatically make a person permanently ineligible for government service, and arrest is not the same as conviction. But concealment of a criminal case, or the existence of a serious pending matter, can create employment complications.

That uncertainty itself is a tool of fear.

A student does not need to be legally disqualified. He only needs to believe that an FIR could destroy ten years of preparation.

This is why filing cases against protesters can be more politically useful than securing convictions. The process becomes punishment:

• repeated court appearances;
• legal fees;
• police verification;
• travel restrictions;
• uncertainty during recruitment;
• fear of further charges;
• pressure on parents.

The objective is often not simply to imprison every dissenter. It is to make participation appear personally unaffordable.

The Bulldozer Became a Political Symbol for a Reason

The fear described by families has also been reinforced by the public use of demolitions as a language of punishment.

Indian authorities have often maintained that demolitions target illegal construction rather than political opponents or accused persons. Yet the timing, publicity and selective character of several demolition drives created a widespread perception of “bulldozer justice”—punishment imposed before a court had established guilt.

In November 2024, the Supreme Court issued nationwide safeguards against arbitrary demolitions. It held that the executive cannot behave as judge and punish an accused person by demolishing property without due process. The Court required notice, an opportunity to challenge the action and documentation of demolition proceedings.

The significance of that judgment goes beyond property law.

It confirms that the fear of punitive demolition was serious enough to require intervention from the country’s highest court.

A house is not merely concrete. In India, it often represents the savings of several generations. The image of a bulldozer therefore communicates a particularly brutal message:

Opposition may not end with you. Your parents, children and family home may also bear the cost.

Even where such fears exceed what the law formally permits, they shape behaviour. Political fear works through possibility, uncertainty and spectacle.

Why Fear Is Beginning to Break

Fear survives when people believe that obedience offers safety.

It begins to collapse when obedience no longer protects them.

This is the central change visible among students.

For years, the implicit bargain was straightforward:

Do not protest.
Do not challenge authority.
Prepare quietly.
Follow the rules.
Your hard work will eventually be rewarded.

But what happens when a student follows every rule and still faces a leaked examination, an unexplained cancellation, delayed recruitment, arbitrary normalisation, technical failures or years without an appointment letter?

The student begins to ask:

What exactly am I protecting by remaining silent?

If silence does not produce a job, fairness or security, the threat of losing those things becomes weaker. A person cannot be indefinitely frightened with the loss of a future that already appears blocked.

That is the psychological turning point.

The “Maaro sir” protester may have reached the conclusion that the state’s promised reward for obedience had become less credible than the dignity offered by resistance.

Unemployment Changes the Mathematics of Repression

India’s official labour data present a complex national picture, but even official figures show substantially higher unemployment among educated people and the young than among the general population.

The government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey reported that unemployment among people educated to secondary level or above remained significantly higher than the overall rate. Reports based on 2026 labour data also pointed to a sharp rise in youth joblessness.

The political consequences are predictable.

A student who believes a secure government job is within reach is highly sensitive to threats against police verification or eligibility.

A student who has spent five years preparing, survived repeated cancellations and no longer trusts the recruitment system may think differently.

The fear mechanism depends upon a believable future reward:

“Remain obedient today, and tomorrow the system may accept you.”

When that belief weakens, the government loses leverage.

This does not mean unemployed youth automatically become anti-government. Many continue to support the BJP. Many blame state governments, examination agencies, courts, coaching centres or corruption rather than Narendra Modi personally.

But prolonged insecurity creates a population with less to lose and more time to organise. That combination has historically been dangerous for governments of every ideology.

Social Media Has Changed Who Controls the Meaning of a Lathi Charge

In an earlier period, the government and major television networks could largely determine how a protest was interpreted.

Protesters could be described as:

• violent;
• politically motivated;
• anti-national;
• irresponsible;
• infiltrated by outsiders;
• inconveniencing ordinary citizens.

Today, a 20-second video can bypass that narrative.

A student standing calmly while being beaten creates an immediate moral contrast:

One side is armed and protected by the state.
The other side is unarmed and refusing to retreat.

No panel discussion is required to explain the imbalance.

Social media allows protesters to turn repression into recruitment. Every lathi charge risks producing new images, symbols and slogans. Police violence may clear one road while mobilising thousands of viewers elsewhere.

Research on earlier Indian movements has found that social media can convert dispersed dissatisfaction into collective mobilisation and help protests cross geographical boundaries.

This does not mean every viral clip is authentic or complete. Videos may omit what happened before recording began. False captions circulate. Old footage is routinely presented as new.

But in the July 20 protest, the broader facts—large youth participation, police batons, tear gas, barricades and attempts to stop the march—were corroborated by several independent news organisations.

The viral video therefore did not manufacture the confrontation. It condensed it into a symbol.

The Government’s Decision to Talk Was Itself Evidence

The most revealing development was not the baton charge. Governments use police force during protests across India, including in states ruled by opposition parties.

The more important development was that the central government eventually opened communication with representatives of the movement.

After weeks in which protesters complained that their demands were being ignored, Union minister J.P. Nadda met representatives and assured them that their concerns would be discussed with the government leadership.

That meeting was not a surrender. No major concession had been secured. The education minister had not resigned, and the government did not accept the protesters’ entire account.

But governments do not hold such talks merely because protesters are suffering. They talk when suffering is becoming politically costly.

The sequence is significant:

1. Students mobilised online.
2. The movement gained enormous visibility.
3. Protesters occupied public space.
4. Authorities attempted to contain the mobilisation.
5. Police action produced further viral outrage.
6. The movement continued rather than dispersing.
7. The government agreed to engage.

This is how fear begins to shift direction.

Initially, citizens fear the cost of protesting.

Later, governments begin to fear the cost of refusing to listen.

Reclaiming Humiliation as Identity

The movement’s use of the name “Cockroach Janta Party” is another indication that conventional intimidation is becoming less effective.

The term “cockroach” was adopted after a controversial judicial remark concerning unemployed youth. Instead of retreating in shame, young activists turned the insult into a collective identity. Reports described the movement as having gained millions of followers and substantial petition support within a short period.

This is an old method of political resistance: take the word intended to degrade you and convert it into a badge.

Once humiliation is reclaimed, the authority that produced it loses part of its power.

“You call us cockroaches? Then the cockroaches will march.”

“You say we are irrelevant? Then we will show our numbers.”

“You threaten to beat us? Then we will stand and ask you to beat us in front of the country.”

The strategy does not deny vulnerability. It weaponises vulnerability.

Why the “Maaro Sir” Act Is So Politically Dangerous

A government can manage anger more easily than it can manage fearless suffering.

An angry protester can be portrayed as violent.

A protester throwing stones can be criminalised.

A protester damaging public property can be isolated from public sympathy.

But an unarmed student standing calmly under police blows creates a different problem.

He appears disciplined rather than chaotic.

He appears morally stronger than the men hitting him.

He forces viewers to ask why an armed state is frightened of an unarmed candidate demanding a fair examination.

Most importantly, he demonstrates a technique that others can copy.

The deepest threat to a politics of fear is not the arrival of a stronger weapon. It is the discovery that the existing weapon no longer produces obedience.

A lathi has physical power. But its political power exists only while people believe that being struck is worse than remaining silent.

The protester’s message was that silence had become more painful.

But Has the Modi Government Actually Lost Its Capacity to Create Fear?

No. That conclusion would be premature.

The Indian state retains enormous powers:

• preventive detention;
• criminal prosecution;
• internet shutdowns;
• restrictions on assemblies;
• surveillance;
• financial investigation;
• control over public employment procedures;
• the capacity to hold citizens in extended legal uncertainty.

Independent democracy-monitoring organisations have continued to express concern about declining civic freedoms, restrictions on expression and pressure on opposition and civil society in India. V-Dem’s recent reports place India within a broader pattern of democratic backsliding, although the Indian government and BJP supporters strongly reject such classifications as ideologically biased.

Students also remain divided by caste, class, region, language, religion, examination category and political affiliation. A viral movement can lose momentum. Leaders may be discredited, co-opted or prosecuted. Social-media followers do not automatically become voters or disciplined organisers.

Therefore, it would be inaccurate to announce that the Modi government has lost control of India’s youth.

What can be said with confidence is more specific:

The old assumption that fear alone will keep frustrated students away from the streets is becoming less reliable.

That is already a major political change.

This Is Not Only a Revolt Against Modi—It Is a Revolt Against Broken Institutional Promises

The anger should not be reduced to a simple BJP-versus-opposition story.

Police have lathi-charged examination aspirants in opposition-ruled and BJP-ruled states. Recruitment corruption, paper leaks and delayed appointments exist across jurisdictions. Bihar Public Service Commission aspirants, SSC candidates, railway applicants, teachers and medical entrance candidates have all protested different institutions at different times. Reports documented police action against BPSC aspirants in Patna in December 2024 and against SSC protesters in Delhi in 2025.

However, Narendra Modi has been prime minister since 2014 and has built a highly centralised political image around decisive leadership, administrative efficiency, examination transparency, youth aspiration and national transformation.

That concentration of credit produces a corresponding concentration of blame.

A government cannot repeatedly tell young people that the prime minister personally guarantees India’s future, but then argue that he bears no political responsibility when examination systems fail on a national scale.

The stronger the leader’s image, the harder it becomes to outsource failure to minor officials.

Students Are Not Becoming Fearless Because Repression Has Decreased

They are becoming fearless because distress has increased.

This distinction is essential.

The state may not have become softer. The police baton has not disappeared. FIRs have not disappeared. Career anxiety has not disappeared. The fear of embarrassing or financially burdening one’s family remains powerful.

What has changed is the comparison taking place inside the student’s mind.

Earlier:

The danger of protesting seemed greater than the pain of remaining silent.

Now, for a growing number:

The pain of remaining silent appears greater than the danger of protesting.

This is how fear collapses—not when the threat disappears, but when people decide that submission is no longer safer.

From Individual Courage to Collective Fearlessness

One brave student cannot defeat a system.

For fear to genuinely vanish, individual defiance must become collective protection.

A sustainable movement would need:

• legal assistance for detained students;
• accurate documentation of police action;
• verification before circulating videos;
• financial support for injured or prosecuted protesters;
• clear, achievable demands;
• leadership accountable to participants;
• strict nonviolence;
• support from parents, teachers, lawyers and working professionals;
• resistance to communal or party-political diversion.

The government’s greatest advantage is fragmentation. A medical aspirant may not support an SSC aspirant. A railway candidate may not support a university student. Urban middle-class parents may sympathise privately but forbid their children from participating. Protesters can be separated by state, examination, caste and party identity.

Fear will truly begin to fail when an injury to one category of students is recognised as an injury to every young person dependent upon public institutions.

The Parents’ Fear May Be the Final Wall

Students are not the only target of deterrence. Their parents often carry a deeper memory of state authority.

A student may be willing to risk arrest. His father may fear losing the family’s savings in legal proceedings. His mother may fear police arriving at the home. The family may have borrowed heavily for coaching. A younger sibling’s education may depend on the same household income.

This creates emotional control even without direct state intervention.

“Think about the family” becomes one of the most effective ways to neutralise protest.

That is why the “Maaro sir” image matters. When parents see a student endure violence without retaliating, they may no longer see only an irresponsible child risking his career. They may see their own child’s accumulated despair.

The decisive political moment will arrive not when students stop fearing the police, but when ordinary parents stop blaming their children for confronting injustice and begin blaming the system that forced them onto the street.

Final Opinion: The Lathi Still Hurts, but It No Longer Commands the Same Obedience

The Modi government has not suddenly become powerless. The police remain powerful. Criminal cases remain frightening. Public employment remains vulnerable to verification and administrative discretion. Families still fear retaliation, arrest, financial ruin and social stigma.

But something important is changing.

A student standing under a lathi and saying “Maaro sir” is demonstrating that bodily pain has lost its position as the ultimate threat.

He is saying that examination fraud hurts more.

Unemployment hurts more.

Years of wasted preparation hurt more.

Watching parents spend their savings hurts more.

Being treated as disposable hurts more.

Living silently without dignity hurts more.

That is the beginning of fearlessness.

Governments built around strong leadership depend not only upon popularity but upon the public belief that resistance is futile and personally dangerous. Once citizens begin to conclude that silence is equally futile and even more painful, the machinery of intimidation becomes less efficient.

The most important message from the student was therefore not addressed to the policeman striking him.

It was addressed to everyone watching:

“Look carefully. The lathi is painful, but it is survivable. The fear is painful, but it can be defeated.”

This does not yet prove that the Modi government’s hold over young India is collapsing. It proves something more immediate and perhaps more dangerous for any government:

A section of India’s youth has begun testing whether the state’s power is as absolute as they were taught to believe.

And when people collectively begin testing fear, fear has already started losing.