After CJP Protests, Hong Kong's 'Be Water' Strategy Draws Attention In India

Bruce Lee could scarcely have imagined that one of his best-known philosophical ideas would one day become synonymous with one of the 21st century's most closely watched protest movements.

When the martial arts icon urged people to "be water" during a 1971 television interview, he was not speaking about politics or public demonstrations. He was explaining his approach to martial arts, drawing on Daoist ideas of adaptability, flexibility and responding to changing circumstances without becoming trapped by rigid forms.

The Bruce Lee Foundation continues to describe the philosophy as one of openness and authenticity, encouraging individuals to adapt while remaining true to themselves. However, over four decades later, those words took on an entirely different meaning.

During Hong Kong's 2019 anti-extradition protests, "Be Water" evolved into a widely recognised description of a decentralised protest movement that rejected traditional leadership structures in favour of flexibility and rapid adaptation. Today, following the recent CJP protests in India, the phrase has resurfaced on social media as commentators draw comparisons between the two movements.

Whether those comparisons are historically accurate remains contested. Yet understanding why the phrase continues to resonate requires tracing how a philosophy about personal resilience came to define one of the world's most influential protest movements.

A Law That Changed Hong Kong

The events that transformed Bruce Lee's words into political vocabulary began not with a slogan, but with legislation.

On 29 March 2019, the Hong Kong government introduced the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019. According to the government's Legislative Council brief, the proposal sought to close legal loopholes exposed by a murder case involving a Hong Kong resident accused of killing his girlfriend in Taiwan before returning to Hong Kong, where existing extradition arrangements prevented his transfer for trial.

The amendments would also establish case-by-case surrender arrangements with jurisdictions that did not have long-term extradition agreements with Hong Kong, including mainland China.

Officials argued that the legislation was necessary to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a refuge for fugitives accused of serious crimes such as murder, kidnapping, rape and drug trafficking. They maintained that extradition requests would remain subject to judicial scrutiny and apply only to specified serious offences.

Opponents, however, viewed the proposal very differently.

Lawyers, journalists, business groups and civil society organisations warned that permitting extraditions to mainland China could expose Hong Kong residents to a legal system widely seen as lacking the judicial independence guaranteed under the territory's "One Country, Two Systems" constitutional framework.

What began as opposition to a single bill quickly evolved into broader concerns over civil liberties, judicial autonomy and the future of Hong Kong's institutions.

The Demonstrations Grow

Public opposition escalated rapidly.

On 9 June 2019, hundreds of thousands of people marched through Hong Kong demanding the withdrawal of the bill. Organisers estimated that more than one million people participated, while police placed peak attendance at around 240,000. Although the procession began peacefully, clashes later broke out near the Legislative Council complex after some demonstrators confronted police.

Three days later, on 12 June, protesters gathered around the Legislative Council ahead of the bill's scheduled second reading. Police responded with tear gas and other less-lethal weapons after confrontations intensified, officially designating the incident a riot. The images quickly became symbolic of the growing confrontation between protesters and authorities.

Facing mounting pressure, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on 15 June that the government would suspend the legislation. On 4 September, the government formally withdrew the bill.

But by then, the movement had expanded far beyond its original demand.

As the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) later observed in its official thematic study, the demonstrations continued despite the suspension and eventual withdrawal of the legislation, evolving into wider protests concerning policing, governance and political reform.

When 'Be Water' Entered The Conversation

It was during this transformation that Bruce Lee's philosophy acquired an unexpected political afterlife.

Neither the Hong Kong government nor the original organisers formally adopted "Be Water" as an official slogan. Instead, the phrase gradually emerged through public discourse, media reporting and academic analysis as a way of describing the movement's increasingly decentralised character.

Unlike many previous protest movements built around identifiable leaders or permanent occupation sites, the 2019 demonstrations were widely characterised by their fluid organisation. The IPCC's thematic report describes the movement as largely leaderless, noting that digital platforms played a central role in communication and coordination among participants. Researchers similarly identified the protests' adaptability, decentralised decision-making and rapid shifts in location as some of their defining characteristics.

The slogan also reflected lessons drawn from Hong Kong's earlier 2014 Umbrella Movement, which had relied heavily on prolonged occupations of fixed public spaces. Many observers argued that the 2019 movement consciously departed from that model by emphasising flexibility over permanence. In that sense, "Be Water" became less a formal strategy than a metaphor for a movement seeking to remain responsive to rapidly changing political circumstances.

As the demonstrations intensified through the second half of 2019, they increasingly became associated with the phrase in international reporting and academic literature. Rather than referring to a single tactic, "Be Water" came to symbolise a broader style of mobilisation built around decentralised organisation, adaptability and the absence of traditional leadership.

That association would ultimately outlive the protests themselves.

How 'Be Water' Became A Global Protest Reference

As the months wore on, Hong Kong's protests became increasingly prolonged and confrontational. What had begun as opposition to an extradition bill evolved into a wider political movement, while the authorities increasingly framed the unrest as a threat to public order.

The Independent Police Complaints Council's (IPCC) official thematic report chronicles this shift. It records escalating clashes between protesters and police, widespread damage to public infrastructure, disruptions to transport services and thousands of arrests as demonstrations spread across Hong Kong during the second half of 2019. By early 2020, Hong Kong Police reported more than 7,600 protest-related arrests and hundreds of officers injured during months of unrest.

The legal response also intensified.

In October 2019, the Hong Kong government invoked the Emergency Regulations Ordinance (ERO)—a colonial-era law that grants emergency powers—to introduce the Prohibition on Face Covering Regulation (PFCR), commonly known as the anti-mask law. The move prompted a constitutional challenge that culminated in a landmark Court of Appeal judgment in April 2020.

The court upheld the constitutionality of the ERO insofar as it empowered the Chief Executive in Council to enact emergency regulations during occasions of public danger. At the same time, it ruled that some provisions of the anti-mask regulation went beyond what was constitutionally permissible, particularly those applying to lawful public meetings and processions, while upholding restrictions relating to unauthorised assemblies. The judgment became one of the defining legal decisions arising from the 2019 protests, illustrating the balance Hong Kong's courts sought to strike between public order and fundamental rights.

The official account, however, was not the only interpretation of events.

International human rights organisations assessed the protests through a different lens. Amnesty International repeatedly called for independent investigations into allegations of police misconduct and criticised the IPCC report, arguing that it lacked the powers necessary to establish accountability. Human Rights Watch similarly published reports raising concerns about restrictions on civil liberties, while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights urged all sides to exercise restraint and emphasised the importance of protecting the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.

Together, these contrasting assessments underscored how the 2019 protests became not only a domestic political crisis but also an international debate over policing, governance and civil liberties.

Why Is 'Be Water' Trending After The CJP Protests?

That appears to be the case following the recent CJP protests in India.

In the aftermath of the demonstrations, social media users began invoking "Be Water" while comparing the protests with Hong Kong's movement. The phrase has largely been used as shorthand for decentralised mobilisation rather than as evidence of any direct connection between the two events.

The comparison, however, should be approached with caution.

Hong Kong's protests unfolded within the unique constitutional framework of the "One Country, Two Systems" model and were triggered by a specific extradition proposal before expanding into broader political demands. The CJP protests emerged in an entirely different legal, political and institutional context. Their causes, participants and objectives differ substantially.

What links the two, at least in public discussion, is less the movements themselves than the language used to describe them.

For many commentators, "Be Water" has evolved beyond Bruce Lee's original philosophy or even Hong Kong's 2019 demonstrations. It has become a convenient expression for describing protest movements that appear decentralised, flexible and less dependent on traditional leadership structures. Whether that label accurately captures events in India is a question that scholars of social movements—not social media comparisons alone—will ultimately answer.

More Than A Protest Slogan

Bruce Lee's words were never intended as a blueprint for political mobilisation. They were a reflection on adaptability, resilience and responding to life's uncertainties without becoming constrained by rigid forms.

History, however, gave the phrase a different trajectory.

During Hong Kong's anti-extradition movement, "Be Water" became one of the defining metaphors through which the protests were understood around the world. Years later, it continues to resurface whenever demonstrations are perceived to be decentralised or highly adaptable, regardless of whether the comparison is historically precise.

Its reappearance after the CJP protests therefore says as much about the global circulation of political language as it does about the protests themselves. Ideas, once detached from their original context, often develop lives of their own. "Be Water" is no longer simply Bruce Lee's philosophy—or even Hong Kong's slogan. It has become part of the international vocabulary through which contemporary protest movements are interpreted and debated.