Tens of thousands of students marched toward India’s parliament this week in the country’s biggest youth-led protests in years, demanding education reforms after repeated examination paper leaks fueled concerns over fairness in a system that millions rely on for social mobility.
Police used tear gas and batons to disperse demonstrators on Monday, but protests have continued, with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a movement formed around alleged irregularities in major public examinations, calling for Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.
At the centre of the movement is activist Sonam Wangchuk, who ended a 26-day hunger strike on Thursday after losing 11 kg (24 lb), though student leaders say demonstrations will continue until their demands are met.
The protests have raised questions over whether the movement will follow previous student-led campaigns that reshaped Indian politics or fade after an initial burst of momentum.
Unlike earlier mass protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government over citizenship laws or farm reforms, analysts say the current movement is focused less on ideology than on governance and the state’s ability to administer examinations fairly.
“The exam and education system cuts across caste, class and gender to quite a large degree,” Yamini Aiyar, senior visiting fellow at Brown University, said. “The core constituency coming to these protests doesn’t represent a singular interest group.”
Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, said the movement represented a different political challenge because it questioned the government’s administrative competence.
“This movement centres on administrative failure,” he said. “The state’s inability to conduct examinations fairly and prevent paper leaks makes it a very different kind of political challenge to the BJP.”
Unlike previous protests rooted in ideology, the current movement challenges the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s record on governance, he said.
“They must recalibrate their strategy,” Verma said.
He added that many protesters were “aspirational young Indians and their parents who see these exams as a path to upward mobility”, making it harder for the BJP to mobilise supporters using familiar political narratives.
Monday’s demonstrations appeared to validate the movement’s growing influence beyond social media, where it first gained traction.
Joyojit Pal, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies technology and society, said social media had become “a tinderbox waiting to explode with the next thing”, with emotion accelerating the spread of public anger.
He said long-standing frustration over government accountability had created the conditions for the protests and that similar eruptions were likely in the future.
Verma said Monday’s turnout suggested the movement had reached a critical stage.
“I think Monday’s gathering indicates this movement may have crossed a tipping point,” he said, adding that its future would depend largely on the government’s response.
Aiyar said traditional student organisations and political groups participated in the demonstrations but were ultimately “outnumbered by an organic outpouring of students from all over the country.”
“That’s unique compared to any significant protest in India’s recent history,” she said.
She added that the movement had grown beyond both the CJP and Wangchuk’s hunger strike.
“The catalyst may have been the CJP,” she said, “but it became bigger than them.”
Students joined not only because of the government’s handling of the demonstrations but because they wanted “a space and a site to express the deep frustration” they had been carrying for some time.
“The memes, posters and slogans suggested grievances extending well beyond exam paper leaks,” she said.
After initially leaving the response to ministers and party spokespersons, senior BJP leaders intervened this week.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh accused the opposition of using students “as a political tool” while maintaining that the government remained committed to addressing concerns through parliament.
Modi addressed the protests publicly for the first time on Thursday.
“Nothing is more important than the welfare and future of our youth,” he wrote on X, announcing fast-track courts to ensure “swift and stringent punishment” for those involved in paper leaks. “Those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared.”
Whether those measures will calm the protests remains uncertain.
Aiyar said the movement reflected wider concerns about slowing economic growth, limited employment opportunities and declining optimism among young people.
“There is deep economic dissatisfaction and distress, which has translated into a lack of hope about the future,” she said. “This could reflect growing exhaustion with a government that has been in power for a long time. Its failure to deliver on the promises it built its reputation on may have reached a tipping point.”
She said the protests reflected broader demands for government accountability.
“The message from protesters is clear: we’re exhausted. We need a new kind of politics, a new political grammar – one rooted in ideas and focused on governance and delivery.”
Political scientist Suhas Palshikar cautioned against viewing the demonstrations as a lasting youth movement, saying they could simply become an outlet for public frustration before fading.
“Where will the Cockroach movement go? Perhaps nowhere – it will allow venting of frustration and taper off,” he wrote on X.
“It would be a mistake to imagine a youth movement or a Gen Z movement – these are only convenient myths for commentators.”
He said, however, that protesters had shown a willingness to confront the state.
“The young have shown their angst and their disgust. They have borne the brunt of the democratic government’s brutal police. They have also shown that only street action makes this regime… listen and talk.”
Economist Surajit Mazumdar of Jawaharlal Nehru University said the protests pointed to wider dissatisfaction among India’s youth.
“The current protest and the spontaneous response it has evoked is indicative of the widespread discontent of young people and students about the state of affairs in the country and in the education system which goes beyond the specific paper leak issue,” he said.
Compared with previous student mobilisations, the movement appeared “broader and larger in scale”, he said, adding that it demonstrated “the democratic spirit is still alive in Indian society.”
For Aiyar, the protests signal a shift in how Indians are demanding accountability.
“People are seeking accountability for governance in sites that are non-electoral,” she said. “The split between electoral legitimacy and democratic accountability outside electoral space is the new phenomenon of politics in India.”
By Mohd Hassan, edited by Faustine Ngila (Impact Newswire).
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Mohd Hassan has extensive experience in news gathering, editing, and writing for the newswire industry, Contact – Info@impactnews-wire.com
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