If the British were still ruling India, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and almost all stalwarts of the freedom movement would still be in jail on trumped up charges, with courts – then manned mostly by British judges – offering only adjournments or rejecting their bail pleas. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, but, pre-Independence, one of the foremost legal minds of India, may not have even been allowed to appear in court to defend Bal Gangadhar Tilak for sedition and Tilak’s Kesari newspaper would have been banned and shut down for being anti-national.A British judge who made the mistake of standing up when Gandhi was brought before him for his actions against the colonial masters would have been immediately shunted out to some far-off colony of the Empire. Thank God, the British are long gone. We now have free courts, one that always stand up for the rights of the citizens, including right to protest.So independent are our courts that judges, including those sitting in the Supreme Court routinely chide the government and its agencies for anti-people decisions. Judges of the constitutional courts don’t rush to sermonise citizens for taking to streets to protest against the government for its anti-people policies. Since the government can’t do anything wrong, what right do the youth of Bharat have to protest?How can farmers try and block a busy highway to make a point while the government has every right to keep a road closed for months to prevent protestors from taking to the streets? Democracy means that citizens have the right to protest – a right granted under the constitution. But, while, pre-2014, it was okay for Anna Hazare and his supporters to converge in central Delhi, a convergence that also caused everyday life to be affected badly, it is not so now. How can cockroaches be allowed to protest, demand the resignation of the education minister of this country for presiding over a leak-prone department, and hope the government won’t intervene to quell the dissent?The government deserves praise for forcibly lifting activist-educationalist Sonam Wangchuk to protect his life, never mind he himself didn’t want that in the first place.It was only to protect the youngsters who had entered Delhi by the thousands to participate in the protest that the Delhi Police and other forces lobbed teargas shells at them, and brutally beat them in lathicharge. We all must be grateful to the cops who did that. They were simply protecting democracy and saving our Parliament from being overrun by a mob.We have an editor of a pro-government news channel educating us that the students’ future would be affected if they are booked for protesting against the government. What future? Aren’t the students protesting for a better future, possibly through better governance that stops regular leakage of exam papers? But, now that the government and its agencies have done the job of protecting democracy and the future of the youth, the only thing left is for the Supreme Court or some other court to enter the picture and educate us why the protest was handled the way it was.Post-script: I know an uncle who I run into often. All his children are foreign nationals. Uncle and his respected wife also spend months travelling abroad to spend time with their children. Whenever I run into the uncle, he tells me how wonderfully well we are being ruled and why he thinks we have a bright future ahead. Three months ago, I, innocently and politely, asked the uncle why, if he is so upbeat about the India story, his children aren’t returning to be part of the India growth story. Uncle hasn’t spoken to me since.Maneesh Chhibber is a veteran journalist.