India, Feb. 16 -- By evening on Sunday, the stretch outside Congress Bhavan in Shivajinagar looked familiar again-police vans parked, party workers loitering, and broken glass marking the end of a protest that began as a show of strength and slid quickly into violence. It was loud, televised, and it will likely be forgotten by the next news cycle.

That defines the characteristics of protests these days in Pune and rest of Maharashtra. They are getting louder, but thinner.

Street protests in this city once carried a sense of civic urgency. They were about water cuts, power shortages, unaffordable education, land acquisition, or the state of public transport. People marched not because they were told to, but because something in their dai...