‘The idea that Modi must be feared because he holds all levers of power has gone out of the window’

Home Asia / Pacific To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 12:10 Issued on: 14/10/2026 - 18:51 Is Narendra Modi losing his most powerful political asset: the perception of invincibility? As India's youth protest movement confronts an increasingly combative government, Dr. Subir Sinha, Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute and Reader in Development Studies, argues that the political significance of the demonstrations extends far beyond the arrests of opposition activists and the growing confrontation between protesters and state institutions. Dr. Sinha examines how the government's increasingly repressive response may be exposing the fragility of its authority and institutional legitimacy. Could India's emerging protest movement be dismantling the political mythology that has sustained Modi's hold on power? Keywords for this article