The Politics of Protest in India in Present Era and the Role of Social Media

Abstract Social media has changed how Indian protests begin, spread, are framed and are policed. Over little more than a decade, platforms such as Facebook, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram have moved from the margins of political life to the centre of the repertoire of contention. This paper examines that shift. It argues that social media plays six roles in Indian protest politics: it lowers the cost of mobilisation, shapes the framing of grievances, supplies a witness and archive, builds solidarity across distance, gives marginalised voices a route around gatekeepers, and, equally, becomes a battlefield for disinformation, harassment and state control. Drawing on theories of connective action, hybrid media and platform power, and on six cases (the 2011 anti-corruption movement and 2012 Delhi protests, the 2017 Jallikattu agitation, #MeToo India, the anti-CAA protests and Shaheen Bagh, the farmers’ protest of 2020-21, and the 2024 RG Kar protests), it concludes that social media amplifies existing organisational and political strengths rather than replacing them. Digital reach without organisational depth produces visibility but seldom durable change, while the state’s expanding use of takedown orders, shutdowns and criminal law shows that the same platforms that empower protest also make it more traceable and more vulnerable.