Anyone wanting to make sense of the senseless police brutality on the students protest march to parliament on Monday (July 20) will need to recall the chronology. It all begins a few days earlier, on July 17, 2026.Suddenly and inexplicably the Delhi Police Commissioner is unceremoniously replaced, that too just after 11 months in office. It was being suggested the change had become necessary because there was widespread corruption in Delhi Police. The evidence cited against him was the presumed involvement of one inspector in an extortion gang. Are you serious? By that standard, every single cabinet minister (including the much controversial education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan) as also every single chief minister ought to have been sacked many a time over. The real reason for change of guards in Delhi Police had to do with a fast in progress at Jantar Mantar. The decision to allow Sonam Wangchuk to pitch his tent could not – simply could not – be a decision taken by the Delhi police brass. Police commissioners are not allowed any initiative or imagination by the overlords in the Union home ministry. The decision to “let Sonam Wangchuk do his act” was a call made by the political boss. The political judgment, probably, was that the Ladakh activist will fold up his tent in a few days – or, ‘street power’ could be deployed to make him fold up. The home minister, for once, had made a bad political judgment. He under-estimated the sense of frustration and anger that propels the Jantar Mantar crowd, as he also overestimated the regime’s popularity and acceptability. Sheer bad judgment. The hunger strike did not fizzle out and the bad odour of bad press reached the emperor’s nostrils. The Shenshah was not amused.The home minister needed a scapegoat to deflect attention away from the political leadership. A new commissioner was hurried installed, who took up enthusiastically his brief; rough and unpleasant police methods were used to remove Sonam Wangchuk to the hospital. The regime was losing control over the narrative. Something had to be done to rescue the strong home minister’s reputation. The script of political brutality on Monday wrote itself.A security officer chases protesters to disperse a march going towards parliament on July 20. Photo: PTI/Atul Yadav.Why did the Union home minister end up botching the entire Wangchuk/Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) affair? A kind of confidence – or, rather the over-confidence – has become the signature-tune of the ruling regime. The principal functionaries of the regime have come to believe that they have the monopoly of “the street” – a monopoly that has been obtained by the simple mechanism of not allowing anyone else to come out on the street.Also read: Why Did This Dog Not Bark? No Modi Cabinet Reshuffle in SightPolitical ham-handedness, a menacing police force that is empowered by lower judiciary, and an ideological insistence on the sanctity of ‘law and order’ have been used to deny legitimacy to the very idea of dissent or opposition to the Modi regime. Those who organise protests are severely dealt with and an example is made of one or two ‘conspirators’ to strike fear in the heart of others. Ask a Umar Khalid. The regime’s rivals simply cannot be allowed to come out on the street because ‘the street’ carries with it the powerful potential of “street power” –a sense of empowerment from ‘defiance.’ The senior functionaries of the present regime remember well how an uncontrolled crowd could become a menacing mob. They all remember December 6, 1992.Police personnel detain protesters during a protest at Jantar Mantar on July 20, 2026. Photo: PTI.The ruling coterie has convinced itself that it has genuinely brought about an alchemy in body politic. There are no inner doubts about the genuineness of the adoration and affection among the masses for the prime minister and his political persona. Of course, the coterie is not the first in history to believe its own spiel. Therefore, the very idea that someone would oppose or demand answers or invoke the principle of accountability sounds blasphemous. This carefully painted image got shattered in hundreds of pieces at the hands of those marauding policemen on Monday. Perhaps nothing captures better the sense of defeat for the regime than the Dainik Bhaskar’s eight-column banner headline: “Sansad par 14 sal ka sabse bara pradarshan” (Largest demonstration of last 14 years at parliament). Also read: Seven Images that Capture an Extraordinary Protest in New DelhiAfter a long time the regime, so comfortable and sated in its arrogance, has been made to feel anxious. What must cause deep unease and even anxiety among the new rulers of Naya Bharat is the knowledge that those thousands of young men and women who travelled on their own from distant towns to Jantar Mantar were channeling their individual frustrations and helplessness into a collective expression of resentment and disenchantment with a callous regime. A Rubicon got crossed on July 20. A protester reacts amid security personnel during a march from Jantar Mantar towards Parliament on July 20, 2026. Photo: PTI/Karma Bhutia.It is quite possible that the July 20 carnival of defiance could set in motion, what the eminent social psychologist, Elias Canetti, describes, in his classic, Crowds and Power, the anxiety of command:“It is strongest in the mightiest. The concentration of anxiety is the greatest in one who is a source of commands, who creates orders and receives them from no-one above him. A ruler can keep it hidden, or under control for a long time, but, in the course of a life, it can increase until, as with certain of the Roman emperors, it suddenly manifests itself as a madness.”Union home minister Amit Shah during the monsoon session of parliament, in New Delhi on July 20, 2026. Photo: PTI/Shahbaz Khan.Outside observers cannot possibly judge our rulers’ inner state of mind but it is almost certain the Union home minister had botched up his chances of getting promoted as deputy prime minister. The July 20 bad odour will linger for quite some time. Prime Minister Modi and his “No. 2” will likely discover that many putative allies and collaborators in different political parties would be reluctant to be seen in their company. That will be a small but a crucial gain for the Republic.Harish Khare was editor-in-chief of The Tribune.