Tens of thousands of young Indians tried to march on parliament this week, only to be met with tear gas and baton charges. The protests, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), have erupted over repeated examination paper leaks that have shattered trust in the system millions rely on for social mobility.
The movement, which began with a familiar fear among students that their future-determining exams cannot be trusted, has quickly become India’s biggest student mobilisation in years. It is demanding education reforms and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“Thousands demand education reforms after exam paper leaks trigger India's biggest student protests in years.”
At its centre is activist Sonam Wangchuk, who lost 11kg (24lb) during a 26-day hunger strike in support of the movement. He ended his fast late on Thursday, but student leaders say the protests will continue until their demands are met.
What makes the CJP unusual, analysts say, is its breadth. “The exam and education system cuts across caste, class and gender to quite a large degree,” Yamini Aiyar, Senior Visiting Fellow at Brown University, told the BBC. “The core constituency coming to these protests doesn’t represent a singular interest group.”
Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think tank, said: “This movement centres on administrative failure. The state’s inability to conduct examinations fairly and prevent paper leaks makes it a very different kind of political challenge to the BJP.”
Unlike many previous protests against Narendra Modi’s government, this one is not fundamentally about ideology or a single community. Instead, it questions whether the state can guarantee fairness in the examination system.
“We have the resilience of cockroaches,” said K. Gopika Babu, Vice President of Jawaharlal Nehru University’s students’ union in New Delhi, in an interview with Channel 4 News. The protests, which are arguably the biggest challenge Modi has faced from young people in his 12 years of rule, show no sign of abating.