The last 12 years have been a period of unremitting gloom. Our once chaotic, vibrant democracy has been reconfigured into a hell-hole where there is neither peace nor justice nor unity nor well-being for the common people. We still have the trappings of a democracy but that’s about it.Hindutva’s gospel of forced homogeneity and exclusion has settled in the innards of the nation. The bureaucracy, the law-enforcement agencies, the mainstream media and the judiciary have become choirboys of the saffron ensemble. The economy is in a tailspin and unemployment is at an all-time high!Most frightening of all, our educational institutions are being corroded by the Sangh parivar‘s meticulous “cultural” conditioning of minds in the shakhas, the network of RSS-run educational institutions, even by way of comic books and films in what Sumit Sarkar terms “a Gramscian process of building up hegemony through molecular permeation”.With the regime’s decision in 2024 to permit government employees to double up as RSS pracharaks, the Hindutva canon has received official imprimatur. There has been relentless infiltration of Sanghis into every institution of governance, including universities, selection boards, recruitment agencies, et al.It is not hard to see the visceral link between the all-pervasive control of institutions and the frequent paper leaks. There is valid speculation that under the present dispensation, an established system is in place for question papers to be divulged to favoured groups in advance. Only when there is a slip-up does the wider world get to know of a ‘paper leak’.Clearly, every aspect of the polity is corrupted and a mess, but the damage to education has had the most catastrophic long-term consequences.There was once the faint optimism that this horror show could be ended through the electoral process, but the recent Bengal assembly election has demonstrated beyond a doubt that we have regressed further from an “electoral autocracy” to a full-blown kleptocracy with openly rigged elections and unbridled corruption, even God’s house in Ayodhya being unsafe from the brigands.But just when we thought that there was no hope of escaping this seemingly endless darkness, from nowhere, the cockroaches have arrived as angels of deliverance from the oppression, corruption, bigotry, sexism and iniquity of the Modi regime!As an old dog who has watched with dismay the eclipse of the idea of India conceived by our founding fathers, my passionate prayer, like that of millions of others, is that these sterling young women and men will reclaim the soul of India.They have struck the first blow by prising out the criminally inept Dharmendra Pradhan, the first time that a minister in Modi’s cabinet has been forced to resign due to public pressure. Soon after the resignation, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)’s leaders called off the protests “in good faith”, adding that they would read the fine print of the agreement and decide on their future course of action.Their demands on compensation for the bereaved families, no retribution against protesters, and an apology from the Delhi police and Rapid Action Force (RAF) are still up in the air.My fervent hope is that the suspension of the protests is only a hiatus and not the end of the Gen Z uprising, for the simple reason that the protests have not come anywhere near achieving their end goal of a transformative change in the polity.Although not clearly spelt out, the millions of supporters of these intrepid cockroaches in shining armour would want nothing less than the clean-up of the system, which means the ouster of the conductor of the deadly orchestra. The chief of the CJP hinted as much when he is reported to have remarked after Pradhan’s resignation that ‘it was only the fall of the first wicket’.The terrible twins know it and will do all in their power to break the movement in any way they can. Their evil intent and willingness to stoop to any level to crush the protests was evident during the march to parliament on July 20, when vandals without uniforms sneaked into the crowd and attacked the marching students; internet services were suspended to suppress the flow of information; the RAF unprecedentedly fired pellet guns and security forces indiscriminately tear-gassed protesters with expired canisters; food and water services were blocked to the protesters; hundreds of FIRs were lodged against students that would jeopardise their future employment prospects; and nearby metro stations were closed.With the protests called off, hopefully only temporarily, the CJP will need to watch out for the landmines being laid in their way. The regime’s Goebbelsian propaganda machine is already operating at full throttle to paint the protests as a Pakistan-backed foreign conspiracy and the protesters as anti-national, anti-social andolanjeevis out to spread anarchy.More than 180 social media handles have been targeted by the Delhi police for allegedly spreading misinformation that, the police seem to suggest, could lead to law and order problems. The regime has artfully yoked law and order to national interest and security.Sadly, the middle class – smug, self-absorbed, deeply communal – and tutored by mendacious and malicious godi media hacks led by Arnab Goswami, are buying into the government lies demonising the students who are accused of hurting the national interest and jeopardising the security of the nation.A protester holds up a poster at the Jantar Mantar protest site on July 21, 2026, a day after security personnel lathi-charged and tear-gassed protesters marching to parliament in central Delhi. Photo: Nikhat Bhatty.The support for the government position and criticism of the protesters by the governing elite and their cohorts brings to mind an incident that took place at the height of the anti-Vietnam war social upheavals in the 1960s in America.Addressing a largely conservative audience of parents, faculty and colleagues, a Harvard Law School student spoke thus: ‘The streets of the country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country … the Republic is in danger from within and without. We need law and order! Without law and order, our nation cannot survive.’ His words were greeted with thunderous applause and when it died down, he unleashed his punch line: ‘These words were spoken in 1932 by Adolf Hitler.’Be warned, my beautiful young friends – if you abort and leave without completing the job of removing the root cause of all our ills, these guys will, sooner or later, hunt you down and destroy you! Look at what has happened to the JNU students who dared to confront this regime in, relatively, the most benign manner!There are other pitfalls in your way. Look out for the political parties, particularly the soiled idealists of the Aam Aadmi Party headed by the power-hungry, unscrupulous Arvind Kejriwal, who are desperately trying to cosy up to you even as they vilify Rahul Gandhi, lest the CJP leans toward the Congress. Expect no justice from the Supreme Court under the present infamous CJI who is clearly hand-in-glove with the political executive.Fortunately, you don’t need to bother about any threat posed by the godi media, as you have already done a splendid demolition job with your truth-telling via memes, videos, banners and billboards laced with biting humour and creativity that have punctured the carefully crafted image of the Vishwaguru and destroyed the godi media’s credibility. People now bank on social media for authentic news.The great Howard Zinn – historian, political thinker and social activist in the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in America – listed nine human qualities that have enabled protesters for a just cause to confront and defeat the most powerful and tyrannical regimes: moral fervour, determination, unity, organisation, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage and patience. In the last two months, you have displayed all these qualities in full measure. The country now waits in eager anticipation for you to fulfil the Mahatma’s sweeping prophecy:“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always!”The writer is a former civil servant. The views are personal.