Hardship and Protest in India

India has had two decades of mass protest culminating in the 2026 Delhi Jantar Mantar protests or "Cockroach Protests". My questions are  (1) how much of the protests are a result of material conditions (Hardship) and (2) What possible response might the government consider in the face of discontent?

My Hardship Index (HARD1) for India has been increasing since the 1960s (see the graphic above). The Business-as-Usual forecast (BAU) suggests that, even though the model is stable (see below), Hardship will increase linearly until well after 2100--not a desirable outcome.

Linking India Geopolitically with the United States would result in a Hardship peak around 2040 and decline after that. Future increases in Hardship before the decline might or might not be sustainable politically.

Linking India Geopolitically to the World System keeps Hardship steady until after 2040 when it starts decreasing. This would be the best outcome but the most difficult to achieve politically (I will explore the difficulty of linking to the World System more fully in future posts).

Of course, India can keep muddling through, randomly responding to Protests (a Random Walk, RW) and hope that  protesters will retreat from the streets, pushing problems off into the future at the current level of Hardship. 

For more of my posts on India see Blog Roll: India. The WL20 India Model in R-Code is available on my Google site. INL20 BAU is an example of a moving equilibrium model that can both easily be stabilized or destabilized. Also, see the About page and the Boiler Plate.

 Notes

• MSN Two Decades of Mass Protests in India
• MSN India's Cockroach Protests called off
• CNN Why Political Fury is Boiling Over on the Streets of India's Capital 
• Economy of India a developing mixed economy with a notable public sector in strategic sectors.
• History of India Anatomically modern humans are estimated to have first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago.
• Politics of India  India is a parliamentary secular democratic republic, described as a “sovereign, socialist, secular democratic republic” in its constitution.
• Geography of India  On the south, India projects into and is bounded by the Indian Ocean—in particular, by the Arabian Sea on the west, the Lakshadweep Sea to the southwest, the Bay of Bengal on the east, and the Indian Ocean proper to the south.
• 2026 Delhi Jantar Mantar protests also referred to as the Indian Gen Z protests and the Cockroach protests, were a series of demonstrations initiated on 6 June 2026 by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), an Indian youth-based satirical political movement, alongside student organizations including the All India Students Federation, All India Students Association, and Students Federation of India.
• AIC Statistics The Akaike information criterion (AIC) is an estimator of prediction error and thereby relative quality of statistical models for a given set of data.
• Shefner et. al.  (2015) Austerity and Anti-Systemic Protest: Bringing Hardships Back In JWSR
• Globalization in India The goods produced in India had long been exported to far off destinations across the world; the concept of globalization is hardly new to India.

INL20 Hardship Measurement Model

HARD1 =  (Growth - mortality and longterm unemployment ),  HARD2: Unemployment and poverty, HARD3 = Business cycle, Unemployment and reduction in CPI.  From the World Development Indicators.

INL20 HARD1 AIC STATISTICS

Best model is W-input.

INL20 HARD1 W-INPUT MODEL

The model is stable. Commodity Markets have the biggest negative impact on Hardship.

WL20 MEASUREMENT MODEL

W1 = (Growth-LP), W2 = (LP+P.Wheat-TEMP), W3 = (Commodity Markets).

World-System (1975-2150) Breaking Cycles of Austerity in France

 

The background graphic above was from a protest in Aug 2012 (you can see the small peak in AUST1--see the Operational Definitions in the Notes below--in the overlay time series plot). Emmanuel Macron took office in 2017, right after AUST1 hit bottom. His government has been riding the AUST1 Recovery wave since then. From my Business-As-Usual (BAU) model of French Austerity (here), AUST1 can be expected to peak in the next few years and decline after that. However, the decreasing Cycles of AUST1 will continue well past 2150. 

The BAU model, however, is not the best model for French Austerity. In the long-run, AUST is better seen as being driven by the EUL20 model (which is also steady state). In future posts, I will look at Austerity in the European Union (EU). In the short run, the best model is a Random Walk (RW)--validated by the Macron Administration's inability to form a government and retain a Prime Minister. The attractor path for the RW model is presented above (dashed red line). The RW attractor path suggests that AUST1 should be kept at a low level aside from random movements.

Austerity is a difficult component of Neoliberal Theory (see below). Especially, the dominant controller, AUST1, depends on external forces such as US Military support and the Russian-Ukrainian War which is forcing military expenditure up and creating the budgetary crisis with Health, Education and Welfare.

For an understanding of why Austerity has become such an issue in France, keep in mind that the Economy of France is becoming a Steady State Economy (see the FRL20 Model). One interesting hypothesis is that cyclical processes such as Austerity become more important as the system reaches a steady state and the dream of unending exponential growth (Techno-Optimism) is over. Promises can no longer be made that growth will solve Social Inequality problems. The New Axis of Evil can be used to motivate increased military expenditure but, to avoid reducing Social Expenditure, Debt will have to be used to drive the economy, creating another focus for Protest and wide-spread civil unrest.

You can experiment with the FR_AUST model here. For more information about how the models are constructed see the Boiler Plate.

Notes

More reading:

• Six Futures for France
• French Debt, Collapse of the Government, and COVID-19
• Shefner, 2015 here and here.
• Macron has No Good Options
• How Does the Economy of France Work?

Theoretical Considerations (it's bigger than just Austerity):

Austerity, as a theoretical concept, is part of Neoliberalism (see the graphic above and Shefner, 2015 here and here). I will explore the other aspects of French Neoliberalism in future posts.

The data for the AUST index is taken from the World Development Indicators (WDI). The indicators and definitions are listed in the table above. NOTE: AUST is entirely measured by budgetary categories as percentages; the cyclical nature of the index is a result of percentages hitting up against limits [0%,100%].

The AUST index contains three components that explain 94% of the variation in the indicators. 

AUST1 = (0.433 GED + 0.4571 MIL - 0.4477 G - 0.393 GE - 0.4701 GH)  

AUST2 = (0.822 GHE - 0.357 GED - 0.377 GE) 

AUST3 = (Overall Growth) 

AUST1 and AUST2 are historical feedback controllers for the budgetary categories defining Austerity. AUST1 focuses on controlling Education, Military expenditure, Overall Government Expenditure and Health Expenditure. AUST2 focuses on controlling Health and Education Expenditure.

In the Economy of France, Austerity, Debt and Globalization (KOF) are closely related. The relationship can be seen from the Measurement Matrix above when DEBT and WorldGlobal (KOF) are added to the model. In future posts, I will investigate all the indicators of Neoliberalism in France.

The state space of the French Economy is dominated by three components explaining 98% of the variation in the underlying indicators: 

FR1=(Overall Growth)

FR2= (CO2+EF-KOF)

FR3=(LU-L-N) 

FR2 and FR3 are Historical Feedback Controllers regulating Environmental Impacts of Globalization and Unemployment, respectively. EF is the Ecological Footprint and KOF is the Index of Globalization.

You can run the FRL20 Model with code available in Google Sites.