“Write short note: Social movement as an expression of protest.” (2008)
Protest begins as dissent, a disagreement with prevailing arrangements. It becomes protest and agitation when dissent is declared openly and deprivation is shared. It becomes a social movement when protest is sustained, organised and guided by an ideology. A movement is therefore protest made durable. M. S. A. Rao saw movements as rooted in relative deprivation, and T. K. Oommen titled his study Protest and Change (1990).
Why movements express protest
- Against deprivation and injustice. Rao traces movements to relative deprivation, structural strain and the urge for revitalisation. People protest not simply because they are poor, but because they feel unjustly denied what others enjoy.
- Against the state. Ghanshyam Shah (Social Movements in India, 1990) notes that Indian movements usually make claims on the state: for land, dignity, reservations or rights.
- Theoretical readings.
- Functionalist: protest is a safety valve that flags strain in the system (Lewis A. Coser).
- Marxist: protest expresses class consciousness and contradiction (A. R. Desai on peasant struggles).
- New social movements: protest challenges cultural codes and identities (Alberto Melucci).
Indian movements as protest
| Movement | What it protested |
|---|---|
| Tebhaga (1946–47), Telangana (1946–51) | Landlord exploitation, share of the crop |
| Mahad Satyagraha (1927), Dalit Panthers (1972) | Untouchability and caste humiliation |
| Chipko (1973) | Commercial felling that destroyed subsistence |
| Anti-rape campaign after the Mathura case (1979–80) | Patriarchal bias in law; led to the 1983 criminal-law amendments |
| Samyukt Kisan Morcha (2020–21) | Farm laws passed without consultation; repealed in 2021 |
Forms of protest range from satyagraha, dharna, hartal, rasta roko and hunger strikes to hashtag campaigns and livestreams. Charles Tilly calls these the repertoire of contention, which changes over time.
Protest is necessary but not sufficient
- Not every protest is a movement. A crowd that attacks a bus after an accident is protest without continuity or organisation.
- Movements also construct alternatives. M. K. Gandhi’s constructive programme and the revitalisation movements Rao describes offered new institutions, not just opposition.
- Some movements defend the status quo. The Dharma Sabha opposed the abolition of sati (1829), and anti-reservation agitations are counter-movements.
- Alain Touraine gives movements three functions: mediation between individual and society, pressure on decision-makers, and clarification of collective consciousness. Protest is the first step, not the whole.
- Institutionalisation can blunt protest, as when anti-corruption agitation turned into a political party after 2012.
Conclusion
A social movement is best understood as organised, ideologically framed and sustained protest that aims to turn grievance into change. In a democracy, the space to protest is itself contested, as the Supreme Court’s rulings on protest at Jantar Mantar (2018) and Shaheen Bagh (2020) show. How freely people can protest remains a measure of how democratic a society is.