Jantar Mantar walls cleared as NDMC erases traces of month-long student protest

Municipal workers repainted graffiti-covered walls and cleared waste around Jantar Mantar after the month-long student protest ended. The clean-up erased slogans, murals and messages left by demonstrators as civic authorities restored the area to normal

New Delhi: Municipal workers on Sunday painted over the graffiti-covered walls around Jantar Mantar, erasing the visual imprint of the student-led protest that forced the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Till Saturday evening, the white boundary wall of the Imperial Hotel lining Tolstoy Marg had ceased to be just another stretch of Lutyens’ Delhi.

It had become a canvas of anger. Walls in and around Jantar Mantar, gates and even tree trunks bore layer upon layer of graffiti, slogans, sketches and signatures, turning the street into a live exhibition of a generation’s rage against the perceived failures of the NDA government.

---

The graffiti reflected the vocabulary of a protest driven largely by young people — irreverent, sardonic, often profane and unconstrained by conventional political messaging. References to “godi media”, calls for “revolution”, invocations of B R Ambedkar and direct attacks on senior functionaries of the government sat alongside doodles and memes. Spray-painted in bright colours, the graffiti ranged from the political to the personal.

“Democracy is premium” and “R’evol’ution” appeared alongside the anti-fascist anthem “Bella Ciao”, Gen Z’s declaration that it “keeps grudges”, and the Gandhian invocation, “Hamla chahe jaisa bhi ho, haanth hamaara nahin uthega”. Many messages targeted the RSS, demanding that it be “banned”, while others thanked Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi for raising the voice of the student protesters.

While some slogans appeared carefully composed, most looked hurried, suggesting an almost cathartic outpouring of emotion. The walls also bore hundreds of handwritten notes, names and social media handles left behind by protesters eager to leave their mark on the movement.

By Sunday, however, most of it had disappeared as the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) carried out a clean-up operation in and around Jantar Mantar, deploying more than 100 sanitation workers, heavy vehicles and mechanised equipment to clear nearly 60 metric tonnes of waste left behind after the protest.

Officials said around 52 metric tonnes of waste had been removed by Sunday afternoon. “Roads were being washed with pressure-jetting machines, while walls bearing protest slogans were repainted and damaged footpaths and curbstones repaired to restore the area after protesters dispersed,” an NDMC official said.