At Jantar Mantar, a protest erased under paint, yet its memories linger

4 min readNew DelhiJul 26, 2026 08:35 PM IST Deserted Jantar Mantar protest site after CJP called off protests a day before. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)The writing on the walls is the first to go. On Sunday afternoon, workers from the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) apply a coat of white paint over the red and blue police booths at Jantar Mantar. A spray-painted ‘Ye desh hamara hai’ vanishes. A cockroach holding a pen, sketched hastily on another booth, is painted over too.A little further down, along the red boundary wall leading towards Kerala House, messages left behind by supporters meet the same fate. One that reads ‘thanks for the protest thing, do it again’ is swallowed by uneven splotches of white. The clean-up has begun. Road dividers, damaged under the weight of thousand