There are moments in the life of political leaders when their unflappable self-beliefs are suddenly shaken. That’s assuming that they recognise such moments. As Parliament convened on July 20 hoping to pass certain contentious but significant bills, Delhi’s heart was overrun by young women and men who coalesced in ostensibly spontaneous protests against the ruling regime. The BJP-led government, flush with the euphoria of snagging West Bengal and hollowing out the Trinamool Congress, was certainly unprepared for the first big threat in 12 years that came from India’s youth—a carefully nurtured constituency that the BJP had taken for granted.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with his penchant for using alliteration and anaphora, might now rue the moment last month when he celebrated “yuva shakti” (youth power). At the 11th governing council meeting of the Niti Aayog, he described India’s 70 crore young people as an asset and urged states to transform the “demographic dividend into development dividend” through initiatives such as Startup India and Skill India.
Such highfalutin words might have made little sense to the youths choking central Delhi at present, for they not only include students preparing for professional courses but also those working in corporate firms after passing through IIMs, startups and the tertiary sector. India Inc is one of the ruling regime’s biggest backers; that its striplings could be part of a political movement targeting the regime would have come as a surprise to the honchos.
The movement indeed has curious origins quite unlike those seen since 2014. This made it easier for the establishment to first stigmatise them in offensive language and then try to crush them with oft-used toolkits. The first run of protests made it easier to contain turmoil by branding protesting farmers as “Khalistanis”, those demonstrating against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act as “anti-national”, and campus dissenters in Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia as “urban Naxals”. The use of these labels appealed to the BJP’s expanded following, which believed till recently that the government’s “good work” must not be disrupted.
The spark that ignited the ongoing protests was a social media response from a 30-year-old master’s student at Boston University to a contentious remark attributed to the Chief Justice of India, where he called unemployed youth “cockroaches” struggling to find their place under the sun. Amused by the comment, Abhijeet Dipke, who had volunteered for the Aam Aadmi Party’s social media team between 2020 and 2022, launched the Cockroach Janta Party, using the remark as a peg to carve out a self-deprecating identity for his target group—youngsters. But online expressions of what began as a joke outgrew their satirical provenance and evolved into a hard political reality.
The tipping point came in May, after the national entrance test for undergraduate medical and dental courses was cancelled. It followed investigations that revealed significant overlaps between a pre-circulated guess paper and the actual question paper, leading to the arrest of insiders from the National Testing Agency. Although the leak was spotted in Rajasthan, the offenders were spread over several states.
The incident—not the first of its kind—spurred protests from parents and students. At least 12 students took their lives. Parents wailed about having poured their life savings into preparing their children for the exam, while the students spoke tearfully of the mental toll the cancellation took. The whole episode reflected the rotten education system that needs a slew of reforms.
Dipke returned from the US and started a sit-in at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, which he probably couldn’t imagine would transform into the political highpoint of 2026. His main demand—vociferously supported by students and parents—was the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, Union education minister and son of a former BJP politician from Odisha.
The CJP was compared with AAP, which was rooted in a demand for strong anti-corruption measures during the UPA government. Ladakh-based education reformer Sonam Wangchuk was wheeled in as a mascot, invoking memories of the Anna Hazare-Arvind Kejriwal duo which was the face of the 2011 anti-corruption campaign. Dipke was equated with Kejriwal.
Comparisons are always odious, but this equivalence is objectionable particularly because while serial agitator Hazare was always open for quick negotiations with the government of the day, Wangchuk is standing his ground even now. As the CJP gathered momentum, Dipke’s demand for Pradhan’s resignation conflated into a massive stir against the Union government. Everything about the government was scrutinised and satirised by the huge online following Dipke had totted up. Slogans against Modi were chanted almost as frequently as those against Pradhan, but the government was mute.
The CJP also transcends religion, caste and class. Dipke is a Dalit from Maharashtra and Wangchuk an indigenous Ladakhi, but their origins do not figure in conversations. Muslims and Sikhs have joined the protests despite Muslims being warned not to. Unlike other groupings, the shadow of religious polarisation has not yet fallen on the CJP.
Wangchuk resorted to an age-old act that in India is imbued with as much symbolism as moral, religious and political substance—going on an indefinite fast. The first message the act beamed was reclaiming the moral compass that went missing in the months marked by authoritarianism, vanquishing the opposition and quelling dissent by using the instruments available to a State when it decides to become ruthless. Wangchuk’s presence at Jantar Mantar was an ethical counterbalance. He spoke little, but seemed to have had such an assuring impact that young people from outside Delhi caught trains and buses just to join the protests at their own expense.
The government was still unmoved, but it took the CJP by surprise one morning when cops dressed in plain clothes whisked away Wangchuk after camouflaging the stage on which he lay. Dipke was away briefly, and was left shocked on return.
However, the government committed the ultimate folly of underestimating the ripple effect that Wangchuk’s detention in a government hospital would have. By then, he was compared with Mahatma Gandhi, known for his historic fasts. The government was still deluded by a perception that Wangchuk’s absence would demoralise Dipke and wither away the protests.
The CJP’s resolve to march to Parliament on the opening day of the monsoon session was unshaken. The movement had transcended the leadership of Wangchuk and Dipke. People poured into the epicentre in thousands, virtually immobilising the capital’s traffic. The day before, the Delhi Police Commissioner was replaced and the incumbent ordered to crack down on the protestors on the day of the march.
Everything was par for the course for the cops. Lathis cracking bones, tear gas shells lobbed at the young protestors, and women roughed up by male cops. Batons that give off mild electric shocks were also reportedly deployed, as were pellet guns that have the potential to blind victims.
Nothing deterred the youths. On the contrary, the brute force emboldened them because the theme song seemed to have become, ‘We have lost what we could, we have borne the brunt of police brutality, and we have nothing more to lose.’
The collective dare eventually pushed a circumspect opposition into pushback mode. On July 21, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra sat outside the PM’s residence with their colleagues. They were forcibly removed by the cops, with Rahul sustaining an injury.
As an intelligence failure was revealed in the government’s inability to assess the mood on the streets and the Congress’s “shock” move, there was a climb-down of sorts. Union ministers J P Nadda and Jitendra Singh called on Wangchuk at the private hospital to which he was moved after a judicial intervention.
The protests show no sign of abating, leaving the Modi government in a fix after a 12-year dream run.
Radhika Ramaseshan | Columnist and political commentator
(Views are personal)