India’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, resigned on Saturday after a week of mass demonstrations, handing a major victory to a new youth movement that has posed an unprecedented challenge to Narendra Modi’s government. In a social media post, Pradhan said he submitted his resignation letter to the prime minister “considering the situation that has arisen at Jantar Mantar and across the country, so that anti-national forces do not take advantage of this situation”. He added: “I deeply respect the aspirations, feelings, and legitimate expectations of the country’s youth.”
The protests were organised by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), a youth-led movement born out of anger over repeated examination paper leaks. The movement quickly became India’s biggest student mobilisation in years, demanding education reforms and Pradhan’s resignation. At its centre was activist Sonam Wangchuk, who lost 11kg (24lb) during a 26-day hunger strike in support of the movement, ending his fast late on Thursday. Student leaders said the protests would continue until their demands were met.
“India's education minister resigns after mass protests over exam paper leaks, handing victory to youth-led 'cockroach' movement.”
The CJP demonstrations escalated dramatically on Monday, when hundreds of thousands of young people took to the streets of Delhi. Police responded with tear gas and baton charges, leaving hundreds injured. That galvanised the protests, and thousands flocked to the CJP’s Delhi sit-in throughout the week.
Unlike many earlier protests against Modi’s government, this movement is not fundamentally about ideology. “This movement centres on administrative failure,” Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, told the BBC. “The state’s inability to conduct examinations fairly and prevent paper leaks makes it a very different kind of political challenge to the BJP.”
The exam leak scandal affected 2.3 million young people who took a key university entrance exam for medical students. Activists said at least 21 students died by suicide during the debacle. Protester Nitesh Aryan, 26, from Lucknow, said he was driven by the fact “that exam papers are repeatedly leaked. And when we demand our rights, the government responds by baton-charging the students, cracking our skulls, breaking legs and back.”
The movement drew support from all walks of life. Mohan Yadav, 43, a voter for Modi’s BJP and its ally Nitish Kumar, stood at Jantar Mantar, explaining why he joined: “I have a son and a daughter. And I can understand that pain of a parent. Because I know how much sacrifice it takes to raise a child and then to lose them like this.”
K. Gopika Babu, vice president of Jawaharlal Nehru University’s students’ union, captured the movement’s resilience: “We have the resilience of cockroaches.” With Pradhan gone, the question remains whether the CJP can sustain its momentum or whether, like previous student movements, it will fade away.