Delhi Police has removed Jantar Mantar Road from the capital's list of designated protest sites. The order shifts major demonstrations to new grounds and extends Delhi's long reshaping of public dissent.
Newdelhi,Oct 12, 2026 18:22 IST
Delhi Police has de-notified Jantar Mantar Road as a designated site for protests, ending its long run as one of the capital's best-known venues for public demonstrations. Under a standing order issued on October 11 by Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar, large protests will now be held at Ramlila Maidan in central Delhi, Burari Ground in north Delhi and CBD Ground in east Delhi.
The move is the latest shift in Delhi's changing map of public dissent. Over the decades, protest venues have moved from the Boat Club lawns near India Gate and Vijay Chowk to Jantar Mantar, and now to other locations farther from the seat of power.
For years after Independence, the Boat Club lawns were among Delhi's main sites for large demonstrations. Protesters also camped behind the Red Fort for days as they pressed their demands. 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 then Rajiv Gandhi government to respond to their demands. The scale of the protest, its closeness to key government establishments and concerns over security and public order led the authorities to reconsider the use of the Boat Club as a protest venue. Restrictions followed and, by 1993, Jantar Mantar emerged as an alternative site.
Jantar Mantar was close enough to centres of power for protesters to draw the government's attention, while being easier to manage than the Boat Club lawns. Over the years, it became a focal point for political parties, student groups, trade unions, farmers, activists and ordinary citizens. Protests over corruption, women's safety, education, electoral reforms and farmers' demands made the stretch of road a familiar site of public mobilisation.
The Supreme Court, in its July 2018 judgment in Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan vs Union of India, traced this shift in protest venues from Ramlila Maidan to the Boat Club and later to Jantar Mantar. It noted that demonstrations were moved from the Boat Club because they obstructed traffic. Police then designated Jantar Mantar for gatherings of up to 5,000 people, while larger protests were to be held at Ramlila Maidan.
The site itself 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 masonry instruments, including the Samrat Yantra, Jai Prakash Yantra and Ram Yantra, were built to track the movement of celestial bodies and calculate astronomical positions. Much later, the road outside the observatory came to be known as a place where citizens gathered to question those in power.
As protests increased, residents raised complaints over noise, garbage, temporary structures and demonstrators staying at the site for long periods. On October 5, 2017, the National Green Tribunal banned protests at Jantar Mantar and asked the 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 that would balance citizens' right to protest with residents' right to live peacefully. It suggested steps such as capping participant numbers, marking specific areas for demonstrations, regulating loudspeakers and preventing prolonged encampments.
After that judgment, Delhi Police allowed protests at Jantar Mantar with restrictions, including limits on the number of participants, while larger gatherings could still be held at Ramlila Maidan. The latest order said the decision to de-notify Jantar Mantar followed the recommendations of a committee set up by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to examine alternative venues for protests and demonstrations. Based on those recommendations, Jantar Mantar was removed from the list of designated protest sites and Ramlila Maidan, Burari Ground and CBD Ground were named as the new venues.
With Jantar Mantar now removed from the official list, Delhi has once again changed the spaces where public dissent can be expressed. The shift continues the capital's long pattern of moving protest sites from one location to another.
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