India and the US: Two democracies, two wars, two moments of acute national security pressure. The axiom that has emerged in the wake of the experiences of these two nations is this: “The true test of a democracy is not how it wages war, but how it treats those who question war.” What happened to those who questioned the war in each country tells us something important about the institutional architecture of democratic life.

Soon after Operation Sindoor, various sections of Indian society started to question the scope and feasibility of the strike as showcased by the government. The government retaliated swiftly. In Assam alone, 97 people were arrested for alleged anti-India social media posts. The MLA and AIDUF leader Aminul Islam was charged with sedition and, interestingly, upon securing bail, was rearrested under the National Security Act. Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an associate professor at Ashoka University, was detained for a social media post that, ironically, was supportive of the government. Sedition cases were registered against at least 12 columnists and editors of news website The Wire, and against a satirist for commenting on the post-Pahalgam situation. The government blocked over 8,000 accounts on X and restricted access to several independent news outlets.

It is completely justified and necessary for a democratic nation to aggressively pursue those who perpetrate acts of terrorism. But should citizens whose only “offence” is criticising government’s actions verbally and not through physical violence be booked under draconian laws like the NSA?

Most of the 14,975 free speech violations in 2025 recorded by the Free Speech Collective were sedition charges that the Supreme Court effectively suspended in the S.G. Vombatkere v. Union of India (2022) case as inconsistent with democratic values.

Now let us turn to the US scenario. On March 28, 2026, the US witnessed what organisers called the largest single-day protest in American history. The “No Kings” movement brought an estimated nine million people to the streets, across over 3,300 events, explicitly opposing the Iran war. What was distinct was how the state dealt with this widespread dissent. In New York City, where 3,50,000 people marched, the police reported zero protest-related arrests. Where arrests occurred, they were against incidents of criminal conduct and not against the content of anybody’s speech. No editor was charged with sedition for critical coverage of the war. No professor was arrested for questioning the rationale behind Operation Epic Fury.

What explains the difference? The answer lies in institutional design. From the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, to the NSA and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, India has a genealogy of colonial anti-dissent statutes which were designed to suppress the Independence movement. The Indian successors of the British Raj’s institutions that enabled brutal colonial crackdown inherited both their expansive language and their capacity to collapse the distinction between security threats and political dissent. The discursive structure of both cannot be ignored at all.

Judge after judge from the apex court expands at length about the need for bail before jail, about freedom of speech and expression, about the various Fundamental Rights. But the post-Pahalgam moment activated the familiar machinery of delegitimisation of all these rights. Labels such as “anti-national,” “pro-Pakistan”, and other pejoratives stripped dissenters of their civic standing long before any court could evaluate their speech.

In this context, a further question can be asked. Who is more patriotic? A dissenter who demands institutional strength from democracy or a willing flock participating in the chaos, the whims and fancies, and the reactionary expressions of those who currently enjoy the absolute benefits of power?

What past post-war deliberations tell us about democracy

After India’s defeat in the 1962 war against China, “Acharya” J.B. Kripalani in response to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s failed optimism with China moved a no-confidence motion against Nehru in Parliament, charging him with authoritarianism and strategic failure. As the diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi later wrote, Nehru sat through the excoriation “with a smile, not of condescension but of respect for the veteran and his veteran right”. The opposition attacked Nehru fiercely, demanded special parliamentary sessions, and questioned every aspect of his China policy. None of them were charged with sedition. None were labelled anti-national. The democratic process facilitated the sharp dissent with maturity.

A generation later, during the Kargil War of 1999, the Congress-led Opposition demanded a Special Session of the Rajya Sabha, accusing the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of incompetence and questioning whether it had prior knowledge of Pakistani infiltration. The criticism was sharp, delivered in the middle of an active war. Vajpayee, rather than silencing his critics, responded during parliamentary debates and, three days after the war ended, constituted the Kargil Review Committee, an independent body to examine the possible intelligence failures, and tabled its findings in Parliament. The war was won, the inquiry was conducted, and democratic architecture remained intact.

Philosopher and political theorist John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is a peculiar evil. If the opinion were to be right, society is deprived of truth, and if it is wrong, society loses the clearer perception that comes from a collision with error. In either case, suppression diminishes the quality of public reasoning. In an age where information flows like blood through the capillaries of society, where communication tools are omnipresent, a democracy that criminalises voices does not eliminate dissent; it merely drives them underground, where they fester beyond the reaches of reasoned debate.

We in India carry the unfortunate legacy of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, where this soil bore the cost of thousands of lives lost, when General Dyer sought to silence, with gunfire, peaceful voices gathered in protest. Although our rulers have changed since, the ghost of the past still haunts India’s policy makers. Eight million Americans marched against their government’s war and went home without terrorism charges; that is the sign of a democracy that believes in its own foundations. India used to be such a democracy before. And it can be so once again. What we direly need are dire reforms, not Dyer-like crackdowns.

Pankaj Fanase is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for International Politics, Organization, and Disarmament (CIPOD) at JNU, New Delhi.

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