When a high court looks a district magistrate in the eye, declares that her actions reek of despotism, warns that errant bureaucrats could turn an entire state into a dystopia, and orders those same officials to dig into their own salaries to compensate a young woman jailed for standing with protesting workers, it offers immense scope for cheer.

The Allahabad High Court’s verdict quashing the detention of 25-year-old Delhi University law student Akriti Chaudhary is not merely a legal correction. It is a sharp reminder that in a democracy the right to dissent and protest is not a privilege granted by the powerful – it is the oxygen that keeps the system alive. Without it, the air grows thin, surveillance thickens, and history begins to be rewritten daily to suit those in charge.

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The court described the state’s version as a “concocted story”, flagged serious discrepancies in the timing of her arrest and the notices issued under the BNSS, and found no credible material showing Chaudhary had instigated violence, arson or stone-pelting. She was a young woman student activist with no previous criminal record. The District Magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar, the judges held, had desired “to set an example” out of her in order to deter others from exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression in support of labourers. Her conduct was “worthy of derision” and she was “guilty of violating her oath of allegiance”. The Bench reminded the bureaucracy that their loyalty is to the Constitution, not the political executive, and that they are servants of the people who are the masters in a democracy. Continued “despotic” conduct, they warned, could reduce Uttar Pradesh to a dystopia. This is a rare and concrete accountability measure.

Yet the deeper story pertains to the heavy-handed state response that turned a legitimate struggle for subsistence into a theatre of fear, arbitrary arrests and preventive detention. In April 2026, thousands of contractual and factory workers across Noida’s industrial belts — many earning as little as Rs 10,000-13,000 a month — came onto the streets. Their demand was simple and urgent: A minimum wage of around Rs 18,000-20,000. For these workers, the strike was not about ideology. It was about subsistence — about being able to feed their families, pay rent, and live with basic dignity in the national capital region.

Instead of dialogue, the administration and police responded with overwhelming force. Roads were blocked, protests were met with batons and arrests, and hundreds were detained. Multiple FIRs were registered under serious charges. The National Security Act — a preventive detention law that allows incarceration without trial for up to a year — was invoked against activists and supporters. Chaudhary, a history graduate and first-year law student who had gone to stand in solidarity with the workers, was among those implicated.

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As a member of a delegation headed by CPM General Secretary MA Baby, along with my colleagues in Parliament, I witnessed firsthand the high-handed manner of the administration. To our utter shock, the everyday reality of this suppression was laid bare before us. Workers fighting for the most elementary right — to earn enough to survive — were met with shocking severity. Despite being Members of Parliament, our team faced bureaucratic stonewalling. The District Magistrate refused to meet us. Only after much effort was I able to speak to her over the phone. The workers who had come to meet us were detained by the police. We were forced to sit in a dharna at the DM office, simply to secure their release. In the heart of the National Capital Region, basic democratic rights were being trampled with impunity.

The High Court’s judgment is a necessary and welcome assertion of our constitutional rights. It affirms that the right to peaceful protest and the right to demand better wages cannot be criminalised through fabricated narratives or the arbitrary use of preventive detention. But lasting justice for the workers of Noida requires more than the quashing of one NSA order. It requires an end to the culture of treating labour protests as threats to public order rather than legitimate expressions of the right to a life of dignity.

The interim wage revision announced by the Uttar Pradesh government — raising minimum wages by about 20-21 per cent — was itself a reluctant response to the agitation, and workers and unions have maintained that it falls short of a living wage. Many of those arrested continue to face multiple cases. The struggle that began as a fight for subsistence exposed how easily the machinery of the state can be turned against working people.

The Division Bench has upheld the constitutional idea that democracy cannot be allowed to turn into “demon crazy”. Unfortunately, dystopia is formalised by those who harp on India as the “mother of democracy”. Our system is ushering in a world of constant surveillance of thought, where lies are made into truth and history is rewritten daily to serve the executive. A mere gesture of showing solidarity with workers demanding a living wage was treated as a threat to national security. Five years earlier, during the farmers’ protest, Bengaluru environmental activist Disha Ravi was arrested and charged with sedition after her social-media posts were linked to a “toolkit”. Now, after Ravi, comes Chaudhary.

The court’s strong words must now be matched by genuine accountability and a recognition that the right to survive is not a privilege — it is fundamental. And to protest is one’s right and to dissent is a duty in a democracy.

The writer is CPI(M) Rajya Sabha Member