NEW DELHI — Tens of thousands of protesters have defied police orders and descended on Delhi to demand the resignation of India’s education minister in one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in years following a call by the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).The months-old movement and the protest are seen as the biggest public challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his third term, drawing millions of supporters on social media before broadening its appeal to opposition parties.The Cockroach Janta Party, whose name was inspired by remarks made by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant when he compared unemployed youth to “cockroaches”, began as satire by its founder Abhijeet Dipke in May, but it has swiftly mobilized into a serious political challenge to the Modi government.Its core demand has been the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, over exam chaos, after this year’s medical entrance exam – where more than 2 million students compete for just 130,000 places – was leaked to the highest bidder, forcing it to be scrapped and for students to face retaking the gruelling tests. The fiasco has been linked to more than 20 suicides.Wider frustrations over alleged failures in the education system and a lack of job opportunities for India’s youth have also mobilised support.A huge crowd, largely made up of students and gen Z-ers, filled the streets in the heart of India’s capital from early Monday morning shouting anti-government slogans. Hundreds had already camped out overnight.A police decision to forcibly move hunger-striking activist Sonam Wangchuk to hospital on Saturday has galvanized ​the protest.Wangchuk was taken to a government hospital where he claimed he was being “held hostage”. In a statement, his wife, Gitanjali Angmo, condemned the heavy police presence around Wangchuk in the hospital ward. “It is not medical care,” she said. “It is illegal detention.”In response, organizers of the CJP also began a hunger strike and called on supporters to join Monday’s march, which Wangchuk said would be “India’s second freedom movement”.Thousands of its young supporters gathered through the night at the protest ​site of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi for the march on the opening day of parliament's monsoon session."Quit, quit," the ⁠protesters chanted. "Dharmendra Pradhan quit", "Narendra Modi quit", they said in Hindi, referring to the education minister and the prime minister.Scores of police and paramilitary personnel turned out across ​the capital, stopping protesters as they chanted and waved the national flag.Health Minister J.P. Nadda has asked for time to discuss the CJP's demands within the government, Ashutosh ​Ranka, the movement's national spokesperson, said in a post on X on Monday.The demands include Wangchuk's release, Pradhan's resignation and compensation of 10 million rupees ($104,000) each for exam aspirants who died by suicide, a tally media have estimated at about a dozen.There was no immediate comment from Nadda or the government on the talks.The CJP also said its founder Dipke was not ​in detention or under arrest, clarifying an earlier statement that he had been picked up by police.Dipke and his supporters began a sit-in last month seeking Pradhan's resignation. Wangchuk joined them on June 28, launching an indefinite hunger strike.Delhi police, which are under the control of the central government, had denied permission for the march to take place. A ban was imposed on all public gatherings, roads across the city were barricaded and the internet was shut down in the center.Attempts by protesters to move toward the parliament building were met with police brutality including the use of batons and teargas.Television images showed police cane charges on some protesters in one area, although Delhi police denied use of force, adding the "protest is being handled professionally."Reuters journalists also said security officers fired rounds of tear gas near parliament to disperse the surging protesters, while elsewhere, some protesters hurled stones at police.However, this did little to prevent protesters turning out in their thousands, many of whom were vocal in their anger at Modi’s government and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing them of failing the country’s young people and clinging to power using anti-Muslim rhetoric.Rage was palpable on Delhi’s streets on Monday. Harion Sharma, 18, was among those forced to retake the medical exam last month after it was leaked, which he said had put “unbearable” pressure on him and his fellow students.“This is a government that does not care about education, it does not care about the pressures and pain of young people. Because of those leaks, students have died. So we are here to call for accountability and for the education minister to resign. We are young but we are powerful.”The use of police force against the protesters was met with condemnation by opposition politicians. Speaking outside parliament Priyanka Gandhi, a leader of the opposition Congress party, said: “There are massive issues … but you are firing teargas at children and beating them up? For what?”For weeks, the government had ignored the CJP supporters camped out less than a mile from parliament. Pradhan had sought to dismiss their calls for his resignation by calling them “terrorists”. However, after the huge turnout on Monday, the Modi government invited several CJP spokespeople for talks.While neighboring countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have had governments toppled by youth-led movements, such large-scale expressions of dissent have become unusual in India in recent years.The BJP, which has ruled for 12 years under Modi, has amassed unprecedented power at national and state level while also routinely jailing and persecuting its critics and opponents, leaving little room for dissent.BJP MP Kangana Ranaut was among the ruling government politicians to criticize the protest, telling reporters that “no-one can pressure the government into who to sack and who to retain”.On the morning of the protest, Wangchuk said he would end his hunger strike if the government agreed to accept accountability for “failures” in the education system, if it assured him the exam leaks would be addressed in parliament and if top political leaders visited him in hospital.As of Monday afternoon, no such promises had been agreed by the BJP government and Modi had left parliament for the day.