Tens of thousands of young Indians tried to march on parliament on Monday, only to be met with tear gas and baton charges from police. The protests, which have swelled in the days since, mark the biggest student mobilisation India has seen in years — and arguably the most serious challenge Narendra Modi has faced from young people in his 12 years of rule.
At the centre of the movement is the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led group born out of anger over repeated examination paper leaks. The CJP demanded education reforms and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Hours after Pradhan stepped down on Saturday, the CJP called off its agitation, saying the government had accepted its demands.
“India's CJP protests, sparked by exam paper leaks, see tens of thousands march on parliament; education minister resigns.”
Activist Sonam Wangchuk, who lost 11kg during a 26-day hunger strike in support of the movement, ended his fast on Thursday. “We have the resilience of cockroaches,” said K. Gopika Babu, vice president of Jawaharlal Nehru University’s students’ union in New Delhi.
Unlike previous protests against Modi’s government over citizenship laws or farm reforms, this movement is not ideological. “The exam and education system cuts across caste, class and gender to quite a large degree,” said Yamini Aiyar, senior visiting fellow at Brown University. “The core constituency coming to these protests doesn’t represent a singular interest group.”
Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, described the movement as being about “administrative failure”. That breadth makes it politically distinctive, but history offers reasons for caution. Student movements have periodically transformed Indian politics — the Nav Nirman agitation in Gujarat in the 1970s helped trigger a movement against former prime minister Indira Gandhi — before fading away. Whether the CJP will prove to be the beginning of something larger remains an open question.