Gen Z Protests: 'Biggest Blow Has Been To The Prime Minister'

'After more than 12 years in power, he has been forced to retreat under public pressure. The education minister's resignation is the biggest political climbdown of his government so far.'

Professor Zoya Hasan discusses the unprecedented youth uprising that compelled the Modi government to accept a minister's resignation, marking a significant shift in Indian politics and challenging the regime's long-standing invincibility.

The cockroaches and students of India have done what many seasoned political actors could not.

They compelled the Modi government to listen to public demands and ultimately accept the resignation of one of its ministers.

For the first time in 12 years, the Modi government yielded to sustained popular pressure. Is this the beginning of a new phase in Indian politics?

"The carefully cultivated aura of invincibility surrounding the top leadership has been dented. That is the agitation's greatest achievement. It has punctured the myth of the regime's invincibility and opened the way for a broader political challenge," Professor Zoya Hasan tells Rediff's Shobha Warrier.

In the last 12 years, this government has dealt with many protests like the farmers' protest and the protest against the CAA by calling the protestors anti-national, foreign-funded, and refusing to have dialogue with them. But all those tactics did not work against the young.
How do you think this protest by the young people was different from the others?

The resignation of the education minister is a seminal moment in Indian politics because this is the first time the government has accepted the demand for a minister's resignation under sustained public pressure.

Over the last 12 years, we've seen many protests and movements: The farmers' movement, the anti-CAA protests, workers' protests in Noida and elsewhere.

Most of them were either crushed or dealt with very harshly by the government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is adept at dealing with protests and their leaders by dividing them and defaming them, but it miserably failed to anticipate this one because of its unconventional nature.

This student agitation was unique as it did not have an established structure, organisation or leadership.

The government allowed the protest to continue for 36 days, which is unusual.

It had its own political calculations in doing so, which explains its relatively soft approach until the police action after forcibly removing Sonam Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar, where he was on an indefinite fast alongside several students who were also fasting.

It calculated that it was better to allow the protest to continue expecting that it would fizzle out.

It wanted to use the agitation to weaken the Opposition's campaigns on these very issues. But that turned out to be a serious miscalculation.

The protest snowballed into a mass movement.

The students occupied Jantar Mantar for more than four weeks and refused to leave without the education minister's resignation.

It became the agitation's non-negotiable demand because it sought political, not merely bureaucratic, accountability for the exam fiasco.

Such failures have occurred with greater frequency under this regime than previous ones, to the point where they have come to resemble a structural feature of the political economy of India's exam and testing system.

Unaccustomed to confronting Gen Z anger on this scale, it failed to grasp the significance of the youth uprising. It delayed opening a dialogue until 20 July, the day of the march to Parliament and persisted with its insistence on Dharmendra Pradhan's continuation.

Its tactics failed because the student agitation had grown far beyond the influence of any single individual, leader, or the Cockroach Janta Party.

It had gained such momentum precisely because of its spontaneous character.

The march itself was peaceful, as were the protests across the country.

It was only after the police brutality on 20 July -- the pellet guns, the nailed lathis, the tear gas -- that the situation changed dramatically.

That crackdown generated widespread anger and a huge wave of support for the student protests. After that, it spread spontaneously to numerous cities across the country.

'The movement endured, outlasting the State's brutality'

You feel it was the police action that backfired badly.

Yes, it backfired badly. In fact, two things backfired.

The first was the forcible removal of Sonam Wangchuk from Jantar Mantar. Instead of weakening the protest, it triggered a huge wave of support across the country.

The second was the police brutality on 20 July.

The high-handedness of the Delhi police only swelled the ranks of the movement.

There was widespread public outrage over the treatment of students demanding educational reform.

They were asking for an end to the repeated paper leaks in NEET and other competitive examinations, and for reforms to the examination system. Such demands hardly warranted violent suppression.

Yet the movement endured, outlasting the State's brutality.

And for accountability...

Yes, accountability lay at the heart of this campaign.

The crowds at Jantar Mantar were certainly concerned about joblessness and paper leaks, but, more importantly, they were outraged by the complete absence of accountability.

Their grievance went far beyond examinations.

At its core, the student agitation was a demand for accountability across the system, a response to the ethical vacuum that has come to define the regime and to the growing sense that the system itself is breaking down as a consequence.

'That kind of resistance will inevitably have an impact on the image of an all-powerful leadership.'

Do you think Narendra Modi and the government had to bow down to the protestors because these youngsters came from English-speaking middle-class families, the BJP's vote bank?

No, I wouldn't put it that way. From what I saw at Jantar Mantar, the protesters were not all English-speaking, middle-class. Of course, there were students from that background, but they certainly weren't the majority.

In fact, the majority were non-elites.

What was striking, though, was that many of them were ruling party supporters, as reported in the media.

The fact that they were protesting against a government they voted for is a noteworthy political shift.

Whether that shift can be sustained remains to be seen.

But politically, it is a big setback for this government, which was riding on overwhelming youth support.

Will Narendra Modi emerge from this situation?

Well, the government will work overtime to recover lost ground.

Given the way the electoral system has been weaponised and manipulated, the splitting of political parties after the West Bengal election, and the large-scale defections of MPs to the NDA, the government will probably find a way to manage electorally.

However, the education minister's resignation is a sign of a much broader political change, and that's what we should pay attention to.

It's a hopeful sign for Indian democracy.

Until now, we've tended to think of democracy largely in electoral terms. What we've seen here is popular opposition at work, citizens coming together and forcing the government to respond. That kind of resistance will inevitably have an impact on the image of an all-powerful leadership.

'The usual anti-national narrative didn't work'

Like earlier, they used the usual narrative of 'anti-national', 'terrorists', 'urban naxal', 'foreign funded', etc. Why didn't the narrative work against young people this time?

That's a very important question. The massive support garnered by the youth protests, much of it organic, surprised everyone.

It likely took even the organisers by surprise.

The social composition of this protest was markedly different.

The protesters came from diverse classes, castes, and communities.

However, they were largely vernacular-speaking, middle-class students from social groups often regarded as part of the BJP's core constituency. This demographic profile shaped the movement's character, trajectory, and political impact.

Unlike the farmers' movement or the anti-CAA protests, they could not easily be demonised. It was much harder to portray them as anti-national or foreign-funded because they came from social groups that have traditionally supported the BJP.

So, the usual anti-national narrative didn't work.

There was another important reason why this protest succeeded.

It remained a non-party protest.

This government was never going to concede to demands made solely by Opposition parties. The Congress had been demanding Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over the NEET disaster, but the prime minister wasn't about to respond to Opposition party pressure.

Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, supported the students without taking over the protest or taking credit for it. The Congress' insistence that Parliament should not discuss the issue without the minister's resignation helped corner the government.

It was this combination of a non-party civil society protest and political pressure from the Opposition that ultimately forced the government's hand.

'Humour played a very important part in freeing many people from the atmosphere of fear'

Do you think Narendra Modi's invincible image got beaten? For the first time, he was teased, ridiculed and laughed at by these kids.

Yes, that's true. The humour, the memes and the jokes were mostly about the prime minister and were perhaps the most surprising aspect of this agitation.

It began as a satirical campaign, and it retained that tone throughout.

There was humour, mockery, and a complete lack of deference towards authority.

Nothing punctures the image of a powerful leader more effectively than public ridicule.

That degree of defiance from Gen Z signals a shift in the public mood.

Political humour played a very important part in freeing many people from the atmosphere of fear that had long gripped them.

Do you think the defining moment of this protest was fearlessness, fear against a dictatorial regime vanishing?

Indeed, what struck me most was the fearlessness of the young protesters.

Their readiness to confront the government, despite a decade of growing authoritarianism, communal polarisation, and institutional degradation characterised by impunity, was truly remarkable.

That suggests that the fear which has often inhibited public protest may be receding, at least among sections of India's youth, especially those who cannot be easily dismissed through communal or identity-based narratives.

Will they be able to sustain the momentum?

Once the veil of fear begins to lift, people may be more willing to return to the streets when new issues arise.

That is what gives this moment its significance and makes it a source of hope.

One can only hope that this new civic confidence will extend to institutions as well.

Equally important, the ruling party's long-standing dominance of social media narratives was disrupted by the students themselves.

The CJP outmanoeuvred the government on Instagram. That, too, is a significant political development.

Who do you think got the biggest blow after the protest? Is it Narendra Modi or the BJP?

The biggest blow has been ultimately to the prime minister himself.

After more than 12 years in power, he has been forced to retreat under public pressure. The education minister's resignation is the biggest political climbdown of his government so far.

The resignation in itself will bring no structural change. The NEP, the NTA, and the Higher Education Authority Bill all remain central to the government's higher education agenda. Meanwhile, the fast track courts and the high-powered task force on exam reforms announced by the government do little to address the structural issues at the heart of the crisis.

Still, none of this signifies any change in the system. In fact, the students themselves were not demanding systemic change, institutional reform, or changes in education policy.

But it has brought the crisis of Indian higher education onto the political agenda.

The carefully cultivated aura of invincibility surrounding the top leadership has been dented.

That, in my view, is the agitation's greatest achievement.

It has punctured the myth of the regime's invincibility and opened the way for a broader political challenge.

• COCKROACH JANTA PARTY PROTESTS, 2026

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff