Twelve years into the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) authorities in New Delhi, and the unthinkable occurred.
A minister within the Union Cupboard, Schooling Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, was compelled to resign underneath large strain from scholar protesters demanding “accountability” for the leak of query papers for the Nationwide Eligibility cum Entrance Checks (NEET) on Might 3.
Pradhan’s resignation got here 36 days after the Cockroach Janata Celebration (CJP) launched its indefinite mass protests at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar calling for precisely that end result. It’s a main victory for the CJP, a web-based satirical marketing campaign began by Abhijeet Dipke in Might 2026, in response to a derisive remark by the chief justice of India equating unemployed youth to cockroaches. Dipke’s on-line marketing campaign went viral, garnering a web-based assist base of over 2 million.
However few would have anticipated then that the CJP, which morphed from a web-based protest right into a mass Gen Z protest on June 6, would drive the Modi authorities to bend.
Since 2014, when the Modi-led BJP got here to energy backed by an amazing majority, his authorities has dominated with an iron hand, crushing all types of dissent and ruthlessly concentrating on its opponents, be it opposition politicians or others. Three successive election victories had additional cemented the notion that the Modi authorities was invincible.
That aura of invincibility, fastidiously cultivated for over a decade, has now cracked, with Gen Z college students forcing Pradhan to step down.
The CJP’S first response on X (previously Twitter) to the minister’s resignation was clear: “Democracy Wins.”
“I’m a Cockroach,” a 20-year-old scholar protester in Kolkata informed The Diplomat,. “We college students had one major demand — accountability. And we now have achieved that,” she stated, elated over Pradhan’s resignation.
India’s Gen Z protest has succeeded in introducing the phrase “accountability” into the political discourse within the nation. Underneath Modi and his confidante House Minister Amit Shah, accountability had virtually disappeared.
In 2015, when the Congress Celebration known as for the resignation of then-International Minister Sushma Swaraj for facilitating fugitive Lalit Modi’s journey papers to Portugal, Protection Minister Rajnath Singh stated: “This isn’t the UPA authorities, that is the NDA authorities. Ministers don’t resign right here.” BJP leaders repeated this thereafter to fend off calls for for a minister’s resignation. Accepting ethical duty is perceived by the BJP as an indication of weak point.
This was not the case when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in energy (2009-2014) and the BJP, then in opposition, demanded and secured the resignation of a number of high Congress ministers. In contrast to the UPA, Modi and the BJP didn’t, at any price, need to set a precedent wherein cupboard ministers could be held chargeable for actions underneath their authorities’s watch.
Earlier than Pradhan, the one minister within the Modi authorities to have resigned was M. J. Akbar, the junior overseas minister in 2018, who was accused of sexual harassment throughout his time as an editor.
The Gen Z protesters had been undeterred by the BJP’s inflexible reluctance to take duty for scams and scandals. Fixing “accountability” was a buzzword in the course of the protests. The CJP needed authorities to be held accountable, particularly for the 21 college students who took their lives following the NEET paper leak.
Over the previous decade, the Modi-Shah duo had managed to quell agitations and topple governments in opposition-ruled states. It used central businesses to intimidate opposition politicians into becoming a member of the BJP. This template had succeeded in offering stability to the BJP-led Nationwide Democratic Alliance authorities, in workplace since 2014.
Many commentators have famous that Gen Z is fearless and irreverent as a technology. It doesn’t take care of nor worship these in authority. Unfettered by ideas like “respect for elders” that restricted millennials when coping with authority, Gen Z speaks with out worry.
In response to the paper leaks, Modi known as on his ministers to “get extra energetic on Instagram,” as if that was an answer to the issue. Dipke wrote on X, “This is the reason a PM needs to be educated,” a reference to Modi’s lack of training.
The largest casualty of the protests is Modi’s robust man picture. The Modi regime and Modi himself had gone to nice lengths to conjure a picture of him being virtually “non-biological,” with a manly “56-inch chest,” a heroic determine inside the nation and much-sought after chief overseas.
Gen Z lampooned this character cult by way of slogans, memes, and limericks, poking enjoyable on the “56-inch small monkey” and heckling him to flee.
Whereas the CJP’s acknowledged demand was for the training minister’s resignation, it was Modi who was the goal of songs, slogans, reels, posters, memes, and graffiti. Modi’s picture has taken a beating. This probably hastened the federal government’s resolution to concede the protesters’ demand.
This doesn’t bode effectively for the Modi–Shah regime.
Modi was among the many first Indian leaders to leverage social media, which performed an essential position in his coming to energy in 2014. He has usually gloated about his enormous following on social media. Gen Z have now used the identical social media house and primarily Instagram to demolish Modi’s robust man picture.
The opposite huge takeaway of the Gen Z victory has been the discrediting of the BJP’s media administration framework. The BJP’s management of the information media, particularly TV channels, which have a large viewers outreach, has performed an essential position in disseminating propaganda up to now. However this “lap canine media” was completely discredited by the protesters. The latter didn’t permit them to set the narrative, and regardless that information channels tried to defame the protesters as anti-nationals, funded by overseas businesses, peopled by vandals and thugs, the scholars fought again by posting reels and real-time movies, exhibiting the actual image on the bottom.
The stark distinction was evident, particularly when the federal government brutally cracked down on the protesters on July 20. Whereas pro-government channels portrayed it as violence by college students, impartial journalists laid naked the inhumane use of pellet weapons and batons on college students, leaving them with bloody accidents. In truth, this use of extreme drive boomeranged on the regime, drawing in sympathizers starting from cinema actors to opposition leaders.
The federal government’s media administration technique in response to the farmer protests of 2021, the anti-CAA protests of 2019-20, and different protests didn’t work this time round. Even the BJP’s “IT cell,” which relentlessly trolls opposition protests, proved no match for Gen Z creativity.
The Modi regime’s lack of ability to gauge or deal with Gen Z anger stands uncovered.
Youth account for 30 % of India’s voters. The Modi authorities can’t afford to disregard scholar frustration with the training system and unemployment — points that it has been diverting consideration from.
