ACLED data shows India recorded the world's largest share of demonstrations for five consecutive years

Key facts

• India accounted for the largest share of demonstrations worldwide for five consecutive years, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based nonprofit.
• India recorded 18,074 demonstrations in 2026 through September, accounting for 17.5 per cent of the global total.
• Demonstrations in India peaked at 22,130 in 2024, the year of the general election, before easing to 20,606 in 2025.
• India's share of global demonstrations rose from 10.6 per cent in 2020 to 16.4 per cent in 2024, while the US share fell from 16.2 per cent in 2020 to 7.8 per cent in 2024 before rising to 11.2 per cent in 2026.
• Pakistan ranked behind the US in the global comparison, after India.
• ACLED defines demonstrations as public gatherings to express views, grievances or demands, including protests, rallies and marches, even violent ones, but excluding mob violence.
• The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) recorded 115,837 agitations in 2016, the highest in its series dating back to at least 2004, but later stopped publishing the figures and removed the agitations chapter from its Data on Police Organisations reports.
• RTI responses showed BPR&D stated that no information is available on agitation data from 2017 onward or the reasons for discontinuing the series.
• Following the Gen Z protests in Nepal, Union Home Minister Amit Shah directed the BPR&D to study protests in India since Independence, with emphasis on movements after 1974, and draft a national standard operating procedure to manage mass agitations.