Zakharov Aleksei Igorevich – PhD in History, Research Fellow, International Laboratory on World Order Studies and the New Regionalism, Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”
Protests in India are a common phenomenon, arising both spontaneously and in response to a complex of political and socio-economic factors. A broad mobilization of the masses, as a rule, is provoked by a high-profile incident or a government’s landmark decision that arouses indignation among the population encouraging them to take active steps to draw attention to the problem. On the one hand, Indians have a keen sense of justice, and the tradition of struggle for rights and freedoms. The resistance and disobedience to oppression has historically been entrenched in socio-political practice. On the other hand, the caste system system inherent in Hinduism determines the hierarchy of the social structure and the obedience of the lower strata of the population, while the particular ethical, religious and philosophical attitudes explain the prevalence of peaceful forms of expression of discontent. The article explores the features of social protest in India in attempt to identify causes and factors influencing different social movements; peculiar methods of achieving demands and political consequences of protest activity. The author outlines India’s major socio-economic indicators and identifies several problems like poverty, inequality, infringements of individual and group rights. The author examines in detail two cases of large-scale social protests during the period of Narendra Modi’s government in power: the protests after the adoption of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and farmer protests in 2020–2021 and uses them to draw trends in the development of the socio-political situation in the country. The author comes to the conclusion that the protests in India caused by socio-economic reasons are prone to politization while the end of protest move-ment does not always lead to solving the original issue.
India, protests, social problems, Citizenship (Amendment) Act, farmer protests.
Download text