THE LABORATORY OF SUPPRESSION: HOW ISRAEL’S SECURITY MODEL SHAPES INDIA’S CRACKDOWN ON GEN Z PROTESTERS IN INDIA
Feroze Mithiborwala
On July 20, 2026, the historic protest site of Jantar Mantar in central Delhi turned into a battleground. Even as climate activist Sonam Wangchuk’s indefinite fast inspired millions across the nation, tens of thousands of Gen Z students and youth assembled under the banner of the “Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), led by Abhijit Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka and Left Students organisations, AISA, SFI, ably led by Neha, Manish & Amin, and called for “Sansad Chalo” (March to Parliament) movement to demand political accountability and the resignation of the Education Minister Dharmendra Prasad over the recurring NEET paper leaks (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test). These frequent criminal paper leaks have led to the tragic suicide deaths of tens of students causing anguish, pain and anger across India.
What began as a peaceful protest demanding political accountability quickly faced a sweeping brutal violent paramilitary response.
Security forces—comprising the Delhi Police, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and the specialized anti-riot Rapid Action Force (RAF)—deployed heavy baton charges (lathi charges), lathis with nails were also used, tear gas canisters, and non-lethal plastic pellets to disperse the crowd. Official entries at the Parliament Street police station revealed that RAF personnel fired dozens of tear smoke grenades, non-electrical shells, and plastic pellet rounds directly into dense clusters of young demonstrators. Dozens of students sustained severe injuries, including thoracic blunt trauma, lacerations, and deep contusions.
While domestic commentators, also referred pejoratively as the “Godi Media” or “Pro-Modi-regime Corporate Media” framed the incident as an isolated police excess, human rights observers point to a deeper structural transformation: the rapid assimilation of Israeli militarized policing philosophies and crowd-control doctrines into India’s domestic law enforcement apparatus.
Human Toll and Gendered Violence: Casualties at the Frontlines
The operational fury at Jantar Mantar resulted in heavy civilian casualties. Over 180 student protesters were treated for direct physical injuries, with at least 42 requiring prolonged hospitalization at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College for compound fractures, severe tear-gas asphyxiation, and pellet-induced lacerations. Crucially, women student activists faced severe gender-based assault and targeted sexual harassment by male security personnel during the violent targeted dispersal. Multiple female protesters reported being dragged by their hair, having their clothing torn, and being subjected to sexual molestation and grope-attacks while bundled into police vans without female officers present—a direct violation of statutory guidelines under the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The Delhi Crackdown: Anatomy of a Paramilitary Response
The tactics deployed on July 20 at Jantar Mantar reflected a shift from traditional crowd dispersal toward aggressive counter-insurgency management. Prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) were invoked across New Delhi. Simultaneous mobile internet shutdowns were instituted around the protest perimeter, impeding real-time visual dissemination and legal coordination.
Protesters reported that security personnel targeted individuals at close range rather than establishing standoff buffer zones. Hardik, a 20-year-old law student present at the march, displayed severe thoracic bruising from a directly fired tear gas canister: “The policemen could have fired it from a distance, but they chose to aim directly at us. They wanted to inflict maximum physical harm.”
The introduction of plastic pellets by the RAF at Jantar Mantar represents a critical escalation. Long used in Kashmir, pellet munitions have caused extensive injuries, including blindness, among civilian populations. Security officials defended the use of plastic pellets as “non-lethal” standard crowd control. However, civil liberties advocates argue that deploying projectile weaponry against unarmed youth marks an alarming departure from constitutional policing standards.
The Israeli Connection: Institutionalizing the Security State
The tactical doctrine displayed on Delhi’s streets is rooted in a decades-long bilateral security partnership between New Delhi and Tel Aviv. Following the establishment of full diplomatic ties in 1992, cooperation expanded beyond defence procurement into internal security and urban policing.
Key Institutional Pillars of Bilateral Police Training
1. The 2014 Homeland Security Agreement: In October 2014, after the Modi regime came to power, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Israel’s Ministry of National Security signed an official agreement on Cooperation on Homeland and Public Security. This framework established Joint Working Groups focused on counter-terrorism, police modernization, and specialized crowd management.
2. IPS Trainee Exposure Programs: Senior probationers from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVPNPA) routinely undergo specialized training modules hosted by the Israel Police and security ministries in Israel. Hundreds of officers have completed courses covering urban combat, intelligence gathering, and public order control.
3. Tactical Combat Integration: Specialized units, including the Delhi Police and RAF contingents, have integrated Krav Maga—the hand-to-hand combat system developed for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), (or rather the Israel Offence Forces, IOF)—into their core physical training curricula.
4. Joint Tactical Drills: The MHA and Delhi Police regularly execute joint security simulations with Israeli advisory teams in New Delhi, refining tactical coordination in dense urban environments.
This relationship mirrors the controversial “Deadly Exchange” programs between US law enforcement agencies (including ICE and domestic municipal police departments) and Israeli security forces. In both the American and Indian contexts, tactics originally engineered to control and subdue an occupied civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza are repurposed for domestic law enforcement against civilian demonstrators.
Transnational Patterns of Repression: Palestine, America, and India
The structural link between Israeli military tactics and global policing rests on the conceptualization of protesters not as citizens exercising rights, but as hostile adversaries.
In Occupied Palestine, the Israeli military employs a combination of kinetic force, spatial confinement, internet blackouts, and crowd-control munitions—such as rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas canisters fired horizontally, and physical aggression—to suppress Palestinian civil resistance. When Indian police officers train under Israeli security personnel, they absorb doctrines forged in an environment where constitutional guarantees do not apply to the local population.
Legal and Human Rights Analysis
Legal experts and human rights advocates emphasize that importing foreign counter-insurgency techniques undermines constitutional protections under the Indian Legal Framework.
Legal Perspectives
Ayesha Kidwai, Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and civil rights advocate, highlights the systemic state overreach:
“The government’s actions at Jantar Mantar reflect an attempt to use the brute force of the state to crush legitimate academic and political grievances. When public space is systematically militarized and internet access cut off, the police are no longer functioning as custodians of public order—they operate as an arm of state repression designed to silence the country’s youth.”
Colin Gonsalves, Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and Founder of the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), addresses the culture of impunity:
“The illegal use of extreme force and targeted violence against peaceful student assemblies violates core constitutional liberties. Unless individual police officers and prosecutors who carry out malicious, illegal, and brutal actions face real personal liability and punitive damages, this doctrine of lawless police power will continue unchecked.”
Eitay Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer who petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to halt the training of Indian police officers involved in human rights abuses, observes:
“Israel has turned its decades-long experience of controlling and repressing Palestinians into an export commodity. When foreign police forces, whether from the US or India, receive training from Israeli security bodies, they are learning how to suppress civilian populations through overwhelming force and surveillance rather than democratic policing.”
Conclusion: The Cost of an Imported Doctrine
The brutal suppression of Gen Z student activists at Jantar Mantar underscores a transformative shift in Indian law enforcement. By importing doctrines and tactical methods developed within the framework of military occupation, domestic police forces increasingly view public assembly through a counter-insurgency lens. As young citizens continue to mobilize for educational integrity, civil rights, and democratic accountability, the militarization of public policing remains one of the greatest challenges to constitutional freedom in India today.
Feroze Mithiborwala is an expert on West Asian & International Geostrategic issues and committed to the international struggle against Imperialism and Zionism. He is the Founder-Gen. Sec. of the India Palestine Solidarity Forum and the India Iran Friendship Forum. He was among the key organisers of the First Asian Convoy to Break the Siege of Gaza (2010) and the First Global March to Jerusalem (2012). He is also the Vice-President of Hum Bharat Ke Log, an organisation committed to Communal Harmony, National Unity and a Constitutional Democracy