For more than a decade, India’s leader Narendra Modi has seemed politically unassailable, presiding over a government that has outmaneuvered opponents, dominated public discourse and squeezed the space for dissent in the world’s biggest democracy.
But last weekend, an online-fueled and youth-led protest movement just a few weeks old landed a blow none of the embattled mainstream political parties who oppose him have been able to: They forced his government to back down.
For days, tens of thousands of Gen Z protesters had flooded the streets of New Delhi, led by a satirical movement called the “Cockroach Janta Party”, to demand accountability for a university entrance exam leak they say robbed millions of students of a fair shot at their future. In their crosshairs was education minister and trusted Modi lieutenant Dharmendra Pradhan, on whose watch the leak had happened.
Pradhan’s resignation on Saturday was met with jubilation – and not a little surprise – at the Jantar Mandar, the eighteenth-century observatory in the capital that had become the colorful, buoyant base camp for the protest movement. Crowds took to the streets, dancing, singing and waving the national flag late into the night, celebrating what they saw as a victory for accountability and collective action.
