Delhi Police has de-notified Jantar Mantar Road as a designated protest venue. The move shifts organised dissent to three new sites and revives the debate over where citizens can protest.
Stock photo used for illustration
Newdelhi,Oct 12, 2026 16:32 IST
Jantar Mantar Road, one of the country’s best-known sites for protests in the national capital, has been de-notified as a designated venue for demonstrations under a standing order issued by Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar on October 11.
In its place, Ramlila Maidan in Central Delhi, Burari Ground in North Delhi and CBD Ground in East Delhi have been named as the new venues for protests. The change is the latest in Delhi’s long history of shifting spaces for public dissent.
For decades after Independence, the Boat Club lawns near India Gate and Vijay Chowk were among the main venues for large demonstrations in Delhi. Protesters also camped behind the Red Fort for days while pressing their demands before the government.
Historian Sohail Hashmi said the tradition of public protest in Delhi went back decades, with large gatherings once filling the stretch between the Boat Club and India Gate. In October 1988, farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait led a massive gathering of farmers at the Boat Club lawns. Thousands of farmers, along with their cattle, occupied the area for days and put pressure on the Rajiv Gandhi government to address their demands.
That agitation sharpened the debate over who could protest, and where. The scale of the gathering, its closeness to important government establishments and concerns over security and public order led authorities to rethink the use of the Boat Club as a protest venue. Restrictions followed, and by 1993, Jantar Mantar had emerged as an alternative site.
Jantar Mantar was close enough to the seat of power for protesters to attract the government’s attention, while being easier to manage than the Boat Club lawns. In its July 2018 judgment in Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan vs Union of India, the Supreme Court traced the shift in protest venues in Delhi from Ramlila Maidan to the Boat Club and later to Jantar Mantar. It noted that police had moved demonstrations from the Boat Club because they were obstructing traffic. Police then designated Jantar Mantar for gatherings of up to 5,000 people, while larger demonstrations were to be held at Ramlila Maidan.
Over the years, Jantar Mantar became a focal point for political parties, student groups, trade unions, farmers, activists and ordinary citizens. Protests there covered issues such as corruption, women’s safety, education, electoral reforms and farmers’ demands.
The site, however, has a much older history. Jantar Mantar was built in 1724 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II under Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah as an astronomical observatory. Its large masonry instruments, including the Samrat Yantra, Jai Prakash Yantra and Ram Yantra, were meant to measure the movement of celestial bodies and calculate astronomical positions. Centuries later, the road outside the observatory took on a very different role as a place where citizens gathered to question those in power.
As the number of demonstrations grew, residents complained about noise, garbage, temporary structures and protesters staying at the site for long periods. On October 5, 2017, the National Green Tribunal ordered a ban on protests at Jantar Mantar and directed authorities to shift demonstrators to Ramlila Maidan.
The matter then reached the Supreme Court, which set aside the blanket ban in July 2018. The court said a complete prohibition was not the answer and called for guidelines to regulate demonstrations while balancing citizens’ right to protest and residents’ right to live peacefully. It suggested steps such as restricting the number of participants, marking specific areas for protests, regulating loudspeakers and preventing prolonged encampments. After the judgment, Delhi Police allowed protests at Jantar Mantar with restrictions, including limits on participant numbers, while larger gatherings could be held at Ramlila Maidan.
The latest order de-notifying Jantar Mantar said a committee set up by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had examined alternative venues for citizens to organise protests and demonstrations in place of the existing designated site. Acting on the committee’s recommendations, the order removed Jantar Mantar from the list of designated protest venues and named Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground instead. With that, Delhi’s designated spaces for dissent have shifted once again, extending a long pattern in the capital’s public protest history.
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