New Delhi Locked Down Ahead of Gen-Z Movement Protest

On Saturday morning, dense police barricades surrounded the Connaught Place area, the colonial-era square near Jantar Mantar, as authorities began arresting small groups of protesters arriving for the planned marches.

They came to support the influential Gen-Z movement and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which has called for the resignation of India's election commissioner amid a fierce dispute over voting rights in the world's most populous democracy.

Protesters are demanding sweeping reforms and the reversal of a controversial voter roll review that has removed 130 million voters from the lists.

So far, an eerie silence has settled over much of central New Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has turned the city into a fortress, deploying nearly 30,000 personnel onto the streets.

Police have also arrested CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke. Indian television channels reported early Saturday that police met Dipke at New Delhi airport after he arrived from Mumbai and asked him to cancel the protest because authorities had banned it.

CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka were also detained as soon as their flights landed, according to a statement from the movement.

On Friday, the government abruptly cancelled all trains into New Delhi, shut more than 50 metro stations, imposed an internet blackout and sent officials to meet thousands of students in local communities to warn them against joining the protest.

Many students travelling to New Delhi from various states were pulled off trains and buses and arrested by police. Many others were placed under house arrest in cities hundreds of kilometres from the capital.

The Cockroach movement said thousands of people have been detained across India as Modi's government escalates its crackdown. Yet unflinching protesters have vowed to return to the streets.

‘Making the emergency official’

The current restrictions in the Indian capital and the nationwide crackdown have revived memories of the 1975 Emergency, when then-prime minister Indira Gandhi suspended civil liberties, censored the press and jailed political opponents.

“Narendra Modi has just formalised the EMERGENCY,” Dipke, the Cockroach movement's founder, wrote on X. “This intimidation won't work, Modi. The youth of this country are no longer afraid of you.”

Neha Bora, the fiery leader of the Gen-Z protest and national president of the All India Students' Association (a left-wing student body), has likened Modi's government to the British colonial forces that failed to suppress India's independence movement. She has called on the masses to join the protests.

On Saturday morning, young people still tried to answer her call despite the police restrictions.

Santosh Kumar, 29, a street sweeper on the outer ring of Connaught Place, told Al Jazeera he felt outraged watching teenagers being arrested at police barricades.

“How can you stop these kids? They arrest 10; another 50 come. Modi, the era of the dictator is over: he won't even last until 2029 (the next election).”

“This is the time for us to turn Delhi into Nepal and Bangladesh – learn from them and take back the country,” he said, referring to youth-led movements in those countries.

Sameer Irshad, 28, an engineer from Gurugram, approached the barricades near Connaught Place while pushing the wheelchair of his 57-year-old mother, Sheeba Abdi.

Abdi told us: “This kind of repression, where we cannot express dissent peacefully, is unheard of in Delhi. Why has the government turned this place into a fortress? Why are they so afraid of citizens like me?”

Under house arrest

Last month, India was shaken by revelations of divisions within the supposedly autonomous body responsible for elections, centred on controversial policies that critics say have disenfranchised tens of millions of people.

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has been accused of dismissing concerns raised by two other election commissioners about the integrity of ongoing changes to the voter database, according to an investigation by The Indian Express.

India is one of the few countries that proactively reaches out to register every last voter. Critics say the voter roll review is reversing a foundational principle of Indian democracy: requiring citizens to prove their right to vote, while targeting the economically disadvantaged, minorities and other vulnerable groups in Indian society.

Arif, 24, a district coordinator for the Students' Federation of India, another left-wing student organisation that has joined the protest call, was confined to his home in Saharanpur, nearly 200km from New Delhi, on Thursday.

“Some police officers suddenly banged on my door late at night, asking my parents about my whereabouts,” Arif, who did not want to give his full name, told Al Jazeera from his home in Saharanpur, where he is now under round-the-clock police surveillance.

“They just want to stop me from going to Delhi to protest. They threatened to charge me with criminal offences and destroy my future,” he said, adding that this was the first time he had been detained in this way.

“I really want to be in Delhi, to fight and win back our democracy. Modi's time is up,” he said.

Modi ‘at his weakest’

This week, Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mark 25 years in power, beginning with his years as chief minister of western Gujarat – where he oversaw the 2002 massacre of Muslims – and then as India's prime minister since 2014.

But Modi has never appeared weaker in power than he does now, according to analysts and Indian political observers.

In July, protests led by the Cockroach movement paralysed major roads in New Delhi and forced Modi's education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, to resign.

This time, Modi has adopted more extreme measures to prevent protesters from gaining a foothold in central New Delhi, “because he wants to preserve the image of a leader who never yields to public pressure, an invincible man”, according to Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an author and biographer of Modi.

“Modi appears at his lowest point [in his political life] in public perception. This is extremely paradoxical because he is holding tight to some of the most important autonomous institutions, large parts of the bureaucracy and branches of the state, all acting at his will,” Mukhopadhyay told Al Jazeera.

Amid growing protests, Modi is “rapidly losing the public perception that he is the leader who lifts them out of livelihood hardship”, he said.

Prashant Bhushan, a senior Supreme Court lawyer and human rights activist who planned to join Saturday's protest, told Al Jazeera that “Modi's government seems quite afraid of the people”.

“The people of India are rising up and demanding answers. When governments are afraid, they resort to harsh measures to stay in power,” Bhushan said. “But repression will only make more people stand up.”