Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation from his post as the Union education minister is not the culmination of a hard battle. It is the first chink in the seemingly impenetrable armour of a regime which has relentlessly assaulted and sought to reshape our way of life for 12 long years. It is hopefully the start of a substantive dialogue (and reckoning) with the deeply uncomfortable questions which we have all asked privately, but self-policed ourselves from articulating publicly.This generation-defining movement – by Gen-Z – characterised as one of the largest since 2014 (barring the Citizenship Amendment Act or CAA protests), has raised legitimate questions about why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government frames dissent as “anti-national” and suppresses efforts to forge a more just and equitable India (which is also an expression of patriotism). Similarly, the movement was confronted with questions about whether constitutional guarantees (protections that the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed) are truly inviolable, and whether public servants exist to uphold the rule of law, or merely as enforcers for the party in government. Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) supporters celebrate after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned. Photo: PTI/Atul YadavThe movement also brought into sharp relief the judiciary’s inexplicable recalcitrance to intervene even in the face of severe state oppression, and the sycophantic eagerness of sections in the media to stigmatise citizens to further the interests of those in power. Likewise, the movement also raised questions about why demands for a fair and equitable education system (a prerequisite for a meritocratic society and the gateway to a better life) were dismissed so vehemently by the BJP. And finally, the movement raised profound questions about democracy itself, given the government deployed the full coercive might of the State against India’s youth – the very constituency that Prime Minister Narendra Modi extols as India’s demographic dividend globally – and stymied the opposition from holding the government accountable in parliament, which our prime minister hails as the “temple of democracy”. Conscientious Indians have already been grappling with these questions for long, legitimately suspecting that democracy has been methodically reduced to form than substance. However, something has permanently shifted in these past few weeks. Confronted with visuals of unprecedented severity and maliciousness towards citizens across India, the blindfolds have finally fallen, forcing many to see what they consciously chose not to see since 2014. Fence-sitters and even the regime’s most steadfast supporters find themselves profoundly shaken and accosted with the same overwhelming questions that have weighed on progressives these past few years. To recover lost ground – and especially in light of the forthcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and possibly Manipur – the BJP government will inevitably unleash a deluge of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda to confuse the silent majority and obfuscate these structural questions in a saffron fog of distraction. To redress the polycrisis the nation is wrestling with, and restore institutional and civic equilibrium, it is critical for progressive forces to kickstart a nationwide dialogue on these issues. Only then can we reshape mass consciousness and reclaim the Republic. Firstly, as it has been argued, these youth protests are unique because they were not organised around redistributive claims or sectional interests. Instead, they were animated by concerns of constitutional morality, protection of citizens’ rights, freedoms and dignity, and above all, the demand for a just education system – which is the most enduring defence against a decade-long tsunami of propaganda. This is because, in a nation where class, caste, gender and religious inequalities have historically been entrenched, education has been the primary avenue for upward socio-economic mobility. This, in turn, powered India’s rise as a global economic power. Yet education has been methodically circumscribed since 2014, something that should worry every citizen invested in providing a better life for their children or grandchildren. On one hand, the share of the Union education ministry in the Union budget almost halved, from 4.6% in 2013-14 to 2.5% in 2025-26. On the other hand, because of slashes in budgetary support to the University Grants Commission (down from Rs 8,906 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 3,336 crore in 2025-26), grants to universities have drastically fallen, forcing universities to seek loans and raise student fees. Consequently, average annual private expenditure surged from Rs 13,478 (in 2014) to Rs 1.5 lakhs (in 2025). This has been exacerbated by the closure of nearly one lakh public schools (leading to 2.26 crore children dropping out of school), 152 paper leaks (impacting an estimated 7.5 crore students and a systematic state-sponsored crackdown on academia (whether in was at the Film and Television Institute of India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Milia Islamia, Ambedkar University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Jadavpur University and many others) in the same period. Making high-quality higher education increasingly inaccessible for India’s youth, student protests nearly doubled between 2014 and 2018, and 1,23,918 students took their own lives between 2014 and 2024. At the same time, jobs and wages have not kept pace with aspirations, creating a toxic whirlpool of anxiety and anger. People hold placards as they take part in a protest march as part of the CJP-led movement demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper leak issue, at Shivaji Park, in Mumbai, Friday, July 24. Photo: PTI/Kunal PatilAgainst this backdrop, those resorting to selective morality, and rationalising support for the BJP, justifying indifference or vilifying students are being blatantly insensitive. This whataboutism is especially tone-deaf given the BJP has relentlessly politicised every aspect of public life in the last 12 years in the pursuit of their politico-ideological goals – whether it is education, popular culture (films, literature, theatre, art, music etc.), the media (electronic, print and digital), foreign policy, religion and culture etc. Even more fundamentally, to suggest that citizens should not demand accountability from their elected governments (notably the exhortations to not politicise an issue) is undemocratic and unpatriotic. Secondly, our freedom struggle taught us that civil disobedience (which includes satyagraha and hunger strikes) is a moral duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt. It becomes a tactical necessity when parliament, the media and digital platforms are circumscribed. For the third time in 12 years (after the farmer’s protest and the CAA protests), civil disobedience has been able to exert pressure on, and force a course-correction from a regime that regards accountability and course-corrections as political weakness. This is a significant victory that every progressive Indian should be proud of. However, we should also recognise that the BJP has consistently conflated electoral mandates with accountability and sidestepped from its duties to the nation. In the last 12 years, we’ve witnessed countless idealistic demonstrations (2021 alone saw 14,600 demonstrations, making India the global epicentre for protests). Cathartic for progressive forces, they offer a sense of political agency, solidarity with a larger cause and the possibility of social transformation. Despite these, the BJP has consistently diluted numerous welfare schemes, civic rights and freedoms and constitutional proprieties. Whether it is because it is not moved by our peoples’ suffering and pain, or whether it is because of hubris stemming from stolen mandates (a result of the Special Intensive Revision, and engineered defections from opposition legislators) – the bottom line is that we progressives cannot afford to be complacent.As leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi said in his recent press conference, the government has psychologically collapsed and may prove more accommodative going forward (borne out by Prime Minister Modi’s panicked messaging, Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation and administrative reshuffles). On a separate note, it’s noteworthy how often Rahul Gandhi has proved to be prescient on political matters. But to come back to the point, history has taught us that cornered authoritarians tend to become even more vindictive and vicious. This is borne out by the BJP’s sophisticated propaganda campaign urging the protestors to end the movement (thereby shifting the burden of justification away from itself and onto the protesters) and hailing Dharmendra Pradhan’s excellent track record as education minister (and unsurprisingly amplified by actors, influencers and experts for hire). Does any of this reflect contrition or humility on BJP’s part? To careful observers, it is abundantly clear that the BJP has clearly changed tack and is recalibrating for a fresh attack on the constitutional idea of India. This will invariably begin by its tried and tested toolkit – of appropriating key stakeholders involved in the Gen-Z movement, vilifying and penalising “bad protestors”, propping up anyone blaming the opposition for politicising the issue (thereby delegitimising politics), cultivating apathy through propaganda and shifting the goalposts by creating a fresh spectacle to capture the public imagination. Given BJP’s relentless assault on India’s constitutional and institutional edifice, progressives must be as organised and relentless in its defence.Thirdly, these youth protests have disrupted the common-sense that the BJP had embedded in mass consciousness in the last decade, namely that the BJP is a party devoted to national development – exemplified by Acche Din, Amrit Kaal, Viksit Bharat etc.), that it works for all Indians, Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas – and the INDIA bloc parties profiteer from the nation’s resources, the mountain of malicious propaganda about Rahul Gandhi, that Hindus and Muslims have fundamentally different and antagonistic interests etc. In shattering these assumptions and borrowing from Antonio Gramsci (who argued that power survives not just through force, but by making ideas feel like common-sense), this youth movement has also broken BJP’s cultural hegemony through which it asserted and exercised power. Photo: By special arrangement.This rare opening to reshape the nation’s consciousness needs to be urgently capitalised on, for which we need to urgently take this torch to India’s 802 districts and 6.5 lakh villages (which the Congress Party’s Chhatron ki Goonj initiative proposes to do). It does not matter who gets the credit, who leads this viral Gen-Z movement or whether everyone in it is both congruent on each issue; what matters is that we unitedly exploit this chink to expose the BJP comprehensively. If we are to bend the arc of history towards lasting change, we need to remember, as Prof Erica Chenoweth posits, that every non-violent protest in the 20th century (whether it was India’s Civil Disobedience movement, Philippines’ People Power movement, or the Singing Revolution in Baltic nations) succeeded because it mobilised and sustained the participation of at least 3.5% of the nation’s population. This is therefore going to take our collective strength, effort and will. Fourthly, this perforce means leveraging the organisational reach and muscle of the INDIA parties (which the BJP government would struggle to suppress wholesale). The problem with this proposition is that protests/movements consciously strive to insulate themselves from parties. Most protests that substantially registered in peoples’ minds, whether it was the farmers’ protests, the wrestlers’ protests, the anti-CAA protests etc., happened outside organised political systems (the only exceptions were the first Bharat Jodo Yatra, and the Save Constitution movement where Rahul Gandhi introduced the iconic red Constitution). This could either be because civil society may fear that overt political association could undermine a movement’s legitimacy and invite partisan attacks. Or it may be driven by the belief that partisan participation may undermine the perceived autonomy, integrity and moral legitimacy of the cause in the eyes of the silent majority (even though it means leveraging accessible democratic levers to force systemic change).In the national interest, political parties must dispassionately examine why much of India’s normative and political dynamism exists outside formal political systems. Multiple thinkers and stakeholders assert that beyond the party leadership and select senior leaders, party organisation verticals are oriented towards securing transitory political capital or the cultivation of favour (either for gaining electoral nominations or organisational advancement). Consequently, these party verticals remain weakly embedded within the social constituencies they claim to represent. If parties are to regain the trust of the silent majority, these verticals must stop outsourcing the hard-work to their leadership, and comprehensively recalibrate their operational methodologies. Like past political giants (Jawaharlal Nehru, RM Lohia, K. Kamraj, Dakshayani Velayudhan, Sucheta Kriplani, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh etc.), younger politicos must display a comparable degree of political entrepreneurship. They must build institutions that outlast them; spearhead movements and events which shape nations; distinguish themselves through intellectual depth and political creativity; and, despite their differences, remain bound by coherence of purpose. The people’s trust will need to be earned through sincerity, ideological commitment and sustained political labour.Along with this, we (and especially Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance [INDIA] parties) need to programmatically experiment with disruptive tactics. The Gen-Z protestors have already astounded the nation with their disruptive creativity and spirit (despite facing brutal suppression from the Indian state that mirrors the British Raj). Refusing to accept imposed hierarchies, the status quo and the bare minimum from the government, they are successfully outmanoeuvring the BJP (ironically harnessing social media, the very tool the BJP deployed damagingly against its opponents, and by making politics fashionable again – by countering brutality with theatre, and threats with humour). They have successfully done so by showing up when it mattered, endearing themselves to the nation, and thereby broad-basing their support. It would therefore be expedient for them to press home the advantage and demand for structural reforms. To support this, the INDIA bloc must institutionalise a secretariat that functions as a praxis between political and non-political forces. This will go a long way in expanding our collective strength, and breathing life into our shared goals.Thomas Paine rightly said that “tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered”. This battle will undoubtedly exact much more from all of us. But after twelve difficult years of democratic authoritarianism, the tide is unmistakably turning, as multiple variables converge and millions of conscientious patriots rally in defence of India’s soul. We already know which way Gen-Z (which will account for 6-7% of the total electorate by the next general elections) is going to vote. But we still have 950 odd days left for 2029. It is therefore incumbent on progressives to seize this moment, and meaningfully channelise the unprecedented patriotic energies this moment has unleashed to effect lasting change.Pushparaj Deshpande is Samruddha Bharat Foundation’s Director and author of The Great Indian Manthan (Penguin India).