NEW DELHI (AP) — The Aug. 5 demonstrations by India’s main opposition Congress party against soaring food prices and unemployment began like any other recent protest — an electorally weak opposition taking to the New Delhi streets against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s massively popular government.

The protests, however, quickly took a turn when key Congress lawmakers led by Rahul Gandhi — Modi’s main opponent in the last two general elections — trooped to the Parliament, leading to fierce standoffs with police.

“Democracy is a memory (in India),” Gandhi later tweeted, describing the dramatic photographs that showed him and his party leaders being briefly detained by police.

Gandhi’s statement was largely seen as yet another frantic effort by a crisis-ridden opposition party to shore up its relevance and was dismissed by the government. But it resonated amid growing sentiment that India’s democracy — the world’s largest with nearly 1.4 billion people — is in retreat and its democratic foundations are flounderin