How An 18th-Century Monument Became India’s Protest Epicentre

On most mornings, Jantar Mantar wakes up quietly. The traffic hums along Parliament Street, tourists drift in with cameras, and the monumental stone instruments—designed to measure time, shadow, and celestial movement—stand unbothered by the present. Yet for over three decades, this sliver of road in Lutyens’ Delhi has carried a different weight. Not astronomical, but emotional. Political. Human. This is where hopes have been raised on handwritten placards, where grief has spilled into slogans, where dissent learned how to survive inside barricades.