On 26th July, when Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced his resignation, the youth and the masses celebrated the victory across the country. The mass movement, which had become a national phenomenon from 18th July, had achieved its central demand within just eight days against one of the most adamant and vicious right-wing governments led by Modi. In those eight days, India witnessed massive rallies, demonstrations and extraordinary mobilizations on a scale rarely seen in recent years. “DEAR HISTORY, WE ARE HERE,” read one of the posters carried by a young protester. Nothing could have captured the mood that prevailed on the streets better.
Background
The movement began on 15 May, after Chief Justice Surya Kanta compared unemployed youth and activists to “cockroaches.” In response, political communication strategist Abhijit Dipke launched the satirical Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) on social media, which rapidly gained nearly 20 million followers. The campaign soon expanded to issues such as the NEET paper leak and other examination scandals, demanding the Education Minister’s resignation. (NEET is the name of the entrance exam for admission to medical colleges. It is one of the most rigorous entrance exams in India.)
After an initial protest on 6 June, CJP launched an indefinite sit-in at Jantar Mantar on 20 June. Educationalist Sonam Wangchuk joined the agitation with an indefinite hunger strike on 28 June, and CJP announced a March to Parliament for 20 July. Despite growing online support, the movement received limited mainstream media attention.
By mid-July, concerns over Wangchuk’s deteriorating health drew wider public attention, and on 18 July, Delhi Police forcibly removed him from the protest site, triggering widespread outrage. On 20 July, tens of thousands of students and young people assembled for the March to Parliament that was announced much earlier. Ahead of the march, CJP representatives invited for talks were detained, while police launched a coordinated crackdown on protesters. Security forces used repeated baton charges, mass detentions, and aggressive crowd-control tactics, with numerous videos circulating online showing protesters being beaten and chased through the streets. Incidentally even on-uniformed men, perhaps RSS goons, participated in assaults alongside the police.
Rather than crushing the agitation, the crackdown became its defining moment. Images of the police violence spread rapidly across social and mainstream media, causing mass outrage and turning it into a nationwide street movement that drew not only students and youth but also broad sections of the public. The movement rapidly expanded across cities, sustained mass participation, and ultimately culminated in the resignation of the Education Minister.
Character as a Mass Movement
The movement has captured the public imagination. Jantar Mantar has become its focal point, with people across the country expressing solidarity by ordering food and water for protesters. Since the crackdown, solidarity marches and demonstrations have spread rapidly across cities and towns, with multiple protests often taking place simultaneously in major urban centres.
Although it began as an issue-based movement against educational scams, it has acquired a distinctly political character. Protesters increasingly target Prime Minister Modi rather than merely demanding the resignation of the Education Minister. Reflecting this shift, on 24 July, Abhijit Dipke warned that if Pradhan was not removed, the movement would demand Modi’s resignation, as well. This marks a significant political escalation by a movement capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands onto the streets.
Most importantly, the movement was a classic case where the leadership was constantly pushed from below. During the police crackdown, CJP’s leadership was largely absent—its spokespersons had been detained and the organisation appeared uncertain about the next course of action. Yet protesters, particularly students and youth, refused to retreat. They regrouped at Jantar Mantar on their own initiative, ensuring that the agitation continued. In the absence of such pressure from below, the protest would in all probability have been withdrawn with a few sham promises from the government. Clearly, CJP had wavered by Monday morning, though it recovered the following day. In effect, the movement was sustained and pushed forward from below rather than directed from above. Dipke himself later apologized for being unable to protect protesters from the police assault.
As the movement spread nationwide, it was youths and masses that drove its expansion through sustained protests against police brutality. The CJP continued to serve as a rallying point, but it no longer exercised decisive control over the movement. Similarly, although Sonam Wangchuk’s hunger strike was crucial in initiating and sustaining the agitation, by the time he ended his fast on 24 July, the movement had developed an independent momentum and continued unabated.
In terms of its class character, the movement’s leadership exhibited a predominantly liberal outlook. Its central emphasis on holding the government accountable was understandable in the context of a regime that increasingly placed itself above democratic institutions. Yet treating accountability as an end in itself represents a liberal utopia. Throughout much of the agitation, CJP sought to confine the movement’s demands to the resignation of the Education Minister, thereby limiting a broader questioning of the root causes that had produced the crisis.
Only towards the closing stages of the movement did CJP advance a broader Five-Point Education Charter, calling for the replacement of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and a Students’ Charter of Rights that included the right to affordable education. To an extent, this reflected pressure from below, as the momentum of the movement compelled the leadership to move beyond purely symbolic demands. Even then, however, its programme remained far removed from addressing the structural roots of the crisis—particularly the twin processes of the saffronization of education through Hindutva ideology and its commercialization under neoliberal capitalism.
This was visible in the movement itself. While CJP initially sought to keep the agitation narrowly focused on the Education Minister’s resignation, the youth repeatedly pushed beyond these limits. Protesters openly ridiculed the government, challenged its authoritarian character, and increasingly directed their anger towards the Prime Minister himself. In a classic illustration of the dialectic between leadership and mass movements, the initiative increasingly passed to the youth, whose political confidence expanded through struggle more rapidly than the leadership had anticipated.
Conspiracy Theories
How did the CJP manage to mobilize such extensive support? How did young people suddenly appear at the center of the political stage?
A significant section of the liberal intelligentsia, including some on the Left, has turned to conspiracy theories in an attempt to make sense of this tumultuous period. According to this view, the BJP itself has propped up the CJP as a fictitious opposition force, designed to replace the existing opposition, primarily the Congress.
This reflects an acute failure to understand the social forces and processes that have been unfolding over the past several years. We have consistently argued that, notwithstanding the BJP’s political dominance, significant discontent has been building among the working masses. Following the 2024 election, in which the BJP lost 63 seats, we wrote an article and the very title of the article was “Beginning of an End.” In the article we had argued that the process of decline of this right-wing force had already begun. We drew attention to the contradiction between the underlying socio-economic realities where discontent was building and lack of its political representation pointing. The article anticipated that “sooner rather than later, these contradictions would assert themselves, causing political upheavals.”
For us, therefore, the objective conditions for such a mass movement already existed. The emergence of this movement has vindicated that assessment.
Social Roots of the Movement
When Modi came to power in 2014, it was based on a mass wave. He commanded significant mass appeal, which was routinely mobilized to build a larger-than-life image. This continued to be the case until 2020, but essentially not thereafter.
The onset of COVID was definitely a factor. However, just before the pandemic began, India witnessed a mass movement protesting the citizenship laws. Though these laws were intended to explicitly exclude Muslims from citizenship, a larger majority rightly realized that the ordeal of proving one’s citizenship would profoundly affect them as well, and opposed them.
The peasant movement that broke out in the same year opposed the three farm laws, which effectively sought to sell out agriculture to corporate capital. The mass agitation was sustained for more than a year and ultimately forced the Modi government to retreat.
COVID brought innumerable miseries upon the working class, especially millions of migrant laborers. The already slowing economy was further impacted by ruthless lockdowns imposed without any social safety measures. Though GDP figures recovered later and, in comparison with other countries, appeared to be growing faster, the economic distress experienced by the masses was far more concrete.
MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises), which constitute the bulk of employment and output, were already reeling under the economic burden caused by the government’s misadventures with demonetization and its chaotic handling of GST. They were further significantly impacted.
The Economic Survey 2024–25, an extensive report published annually by the Government of India, brought out the “disproportionate” surge in corporate profits even as wage growth for employees lagged. Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V. Anantha Nageswaran highlighted that while corporate profitability jumped to a 15-year high in FY24, employee wages failed to keep pace. When he further commented, “Increasing wages is not a moral task but in the self-interest of the private sector, as it has a direct impact on aggregate demand,” he was, in fact, pointing to the fundamental class contradiction of the capitalist system.
Youth unemployment has consistently remained high, with only episodic improvements in between, resulting in an extended period of joblessness. Of the 36 states and Union Territories (UTs), youth unemployment in 2025 was higher than 2022 in 13 of them. For young women, the situation has been difficult. Sixteen states and UTs saw unemployment rise from 2022 to 2025. Even the informal sector is now creating fewer jobs: 74.5 lakh in 2025, compared with 1.1 crore in the 12 months ending September 2024, according to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation’s (MoSPI) latest Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE). Wage growth declined to 3.9% from 13%. (Ref: “Deeper jobs problem: Stir a sign that India’s demographic dividend is at risk,” Indian Express, July 27, 2026.)
Despite this, the Modi government continued to live in denial, instead projecting the economy as a growth story. Meanwhile, working-class discontent was growing. An indication of this was Modi’s inability to conjure up any grand spectacle of mass mobilization of the kind that had characterized his rule during the pre-2020 period.
A major event—the grand opening and consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the construction of which the BJP had made a core part of its political agenda—was aimed at evoking religious chauvinism in early 2024, in prelude to the upcoming parliamentary election. However, it received limited response. In fact, in the parliamentary elections, the BJP lost the Ayodhya seat, where the temple stands, greatly undermining its attempt to build upon the religious sentiments surrounding the temple.
In another instance, while the terrorist attack at Pahalgam received widespread condemnation for its reckless and brutal nature, the Indian government’s military attack in Pakistan, in the form of surgical strikes, also failed to evoke the jingoistic support for the government that it had anticipated.
The period also saw multiple general strikes, especially protesting the new labour codes that seek to greatly undermine the workers’ right to collective bargaining. While the trade union leadership failed to carry the struggle to abolish these new codes, the government was forced to freeze their implementation for five years considering the push back from unions.
BJP’s Political Domination and the Widening Disjuncture –
Despite widespread discontent, the Modi government managed to not only retain its political dominiation but further expand it. This was done by abusing various state institutions and constitutional institutions such as the Election Commission and the judiciary. This was carried out with utmost impunity, rendering democratic processes a farce. With the centralization of the economy, the regional bourgeoisie was made to surrender.
India is a federation—or, more precisely, a quasi-federation—of multiple states, with each state representing a distinct socio-economic structure. The bourgeoisie at the regional level controls land and labour relations and plays an important role in political mobilization. When Modi came to power in 2014, the BJP controlled merely seven states, as against 13 controlled by the Congress. This implied that regional bourgeois structures were still largely outside the BJP’s reach.
Over the next 12 years—and most ruthlessly after 2020—the BJP moved aggressively and unabashedly to bring these structures under its control. Splitting opposition parties at the regional level and toppling opposition governments through the use of money and state power were carried out with utmost impunity, shocking the masses.
Thus, despite mass discontent, the government managed to completely subvert electoral processes, suppress the expression of this mandate, and claim victories. While manipulation resulted in political domination, the disjuncture between growing mass discontent and its political representation only became sharper.
As Lenin explained, bourgeois democracy is the best shell for capitalism because it provides a mechanism through which popular discontent can be absorbed and channelled within the system itself. This government, however, so grossly subverted that mechanism that mass discontent was left politically unrepresented and, consequently, continued to simmer beneath the surface.
The mobilization of discontent
On 12 May 2026, the National Testing Agency (NTA) cancelled the NEET-UG examination that had been held on 3 May and taken by 2.2 million medical aspirants, citing a systematic question paper leak. The decision caused mass outrage among the student community. NEET being one of the most rigorous competitive exams, involves years of preparation and often substantial expenditure by students and their families. An elaborate coaching industry has developed around such competitive examinations, further commercializing education. The cancellation of the exam by NTA implied that years of hard work had gone to waste, producing acute shock and despair among students. In the following weeks, many students committed suicide. Incidentally, the very next day, 13 May, another educational scandal broke out when the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system used for the CBSE examinations suffered widespread technical failures, mismatched answer sheets, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities, affecting over a million students. (CBSE exam here refers to class 12th board examination).
The acute despair and mass outrage generated by these educational scandals were still very much in the air when the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) emerged as an online satirical platform on 16 May. On 22 May, it floated an online petition demanding the sacking of the Education Minister, which gathered more than half a million signatures within a single day. Subsequently, on 6 June, CJP organized its first street demonstration on the issue, thereby channelizing online outrage into organized street protest. This was followed by an indefinite sit-in protest from June 20.
While the educational scandals acted as the immediate trigger, it was the accumulated discontent among the youth in particular, and the wider masses more generally, that the movement succeeded in mobilizing. The specific characteristics of social media, as a distinct subjective factor operating within these objective conditions, played a key role in transforming diffuse sentiments into a more organized and channelized movement. Social media as a communication technology could also amplify the message, make it a more evocative call. Youths preferring social media to express their anger reflected the deep mistrust of established political parties and capitalist institutions in general, a tendency that the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) has also pointed to in its material. Similar patterns have been witnessed across multiple countries, where social media expressions have escalated rapidly into mass political mobilization.
Incidentally, Abhijeet Dipke, who founded CJP, is a political communication strategist with a Master’s degree in Public Relations from Boston University. Earlier, he worked with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), one of India’s major middle-class-oriented political parties, where he handled social media strategy and election campaigns involving political messaging and volunteer mobilization. Sourav Das, the chief spokesperson of CJP, is an investigative journalist and transparency activist who has extensively used the Right to Information (RTI) Act to hold public institutions accountable. His investigative work, particularly his critique of the role of the Indian judiciary in the country’s authoritarian drift, is reportedly scheduled to be published in book form. The third key figure, Ashutosh Ranka, is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, with a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and was also previously associated with the AAP.
It was, therefore, the acute upsurge of mass outrage around educational issues, generated within a short span of time, that was successfully mobilized through a social media platform run by a small group of individuals possessing considerable expertise in political communication and digital media. The broader implications of such professional expertise playing an increasingly central role in contemporary political activism are questions that deserve closer attention.
Poetic Justice
It began as a students’ movement around the issues of education, but it soon evolved into a political movement, and much of the credit for that transformation belongs to the central government itself. On 20 July, as students marched peacefully towards Parliament, it was the state that cast aside its democratic mask and revealed itself in its crudest form: an institution claiming the monopoly over legitimate violence. Every baton raised against students who had travelled from across the country, every tear-gas shell fired into their ranks, struck not only their bodies but also the lingering illusion that the state stood above society as a neutral arbiter. In a matter of hours, the students received a political education that years of textbooks could scarcely have imparted, and they absorbed its lessons with remarkable speed.
From the very next day, the protests transformed into a nationwide mass movement. Different sections of society poured onto the streets in solidarity with the students. One of the most common slogans echoing across these demonstrations was, “Modi jab jab darta hai, police ko aage karata hai”—“Whenever Modi is afraid, he unleashes the police.” What stood out most conspicuously was the extent to which the youth directed their anger at Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. More than the Education Minister, it was Modi who became the principal target of public fury.
On the evening of 23 July, Modi released a video promising action against those responsible for the scandals. Significantly, however, he remained silent on the movement’s central demand for the resignation of the Education Minister. The message rang hollow. Rather than calming public anger, it triggered an unprecedented wave of online ridicule, with millions of comments mocking the Prime Minister. The protests had pierced the aura of political invincibility that Modi had carefully cultivated over the previous decade. Once such an aura is broken, its loss often outlives the immediate movement itself, becoming part of the political consciousness of an entire generation.
There was some poetic justice. It was Modi who, in 2014, had successfully cultivated the younger generation as his political constituency, making unprecedented use of social media to do so. “Brand Modi” was carefully crafted and aggressively marketed by sections of Indian capital and the political machinery that backed him. The strategy proved extremely successful. Riding on this carefully cultivated image, Modi came to dominate the political landscape, increasingly presenting himself as the embodiment of the nation and placing himself above democratic institutions, whether Parliament, the media, or other constitutional checks. His image as a selfless crusader committed to national renewal became the principal source of his political authority.
Over time, however, that carefully constructed image began to fray. As the contradictions of his government sharpened, the gap between image and reality became increasingly difficult to sustain. The crusader who had once inspired hope among large sections of the youth came to personify the very establishment against which they now rebelled. In the end, it was the same generation that Modi had drawn into politics a decade earlier that dealt one of the sharpest political blows to his government, a historical irony that could scarcely have been more complete.
Forces waiting in the wing
While the mass movement played the decisive role in sustaining the agitation and ultimately securing victory, it was not the only force weighing upon the government. Waiting on the sidelines were powerful agrarian organizations whose interests stood in sharp contradiction to those represented by the government and the big bourgeoisie it served.
Among them was Rakesh Tikait, representing one of the most influential farmers’ organizations in North India, drawing substantial support from the Jat peasantry bound together through strong kinship networks. Similar was the position of farmers’ organisations in Punjab. These organizations had already demonstrated their strength during the 2020–21 farmers’ movement, where they played a central role in forcing the government to repeal the three farm laws.
Both extended unequivocal support to the students’ movement and publicly threatened to join the agitation. Had tens of thousands of farmers entered the capital with their tractors, as they had done during the earlier farmers’ movement, the character and scale of the protests would have changed dramatically. The government was acutely aware of this possibility. Preventing such a convergence of the student and peasant movements became another compelling reason to retreat.
The future of the Modi regime
While the victory of the youth movement was spectacular, its limitations were equally apparent. Driven primarily through social media, the movement revolved around mobilization as a grand spectacle, with memes serving as its posters and symbols. Mobilization, in many ways, became a programme in itself. The agitation in Delhi functioned as the central rallying point, while nationwide calls to action were communicated online. Its participants, however, largely constituted a floating mass, brought together by a common cause rather than sustained organizational structures. As long as the rallying point remained, the mechanism proved remarkably effective. But once the immediate struggle subsides, what comes next? Many participants may well return to their private lives.
The BJP, on the other hand, represents a highly organized and deeply entrenched political force. It commands not only the machinery of the state but also enjoys the backing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing organization with fascistic tendencies. More fundamentally, it represents the interests of a broad network of capitalist forces extending from local economic elites to the country’s largest corporate groups. Over the past decade, it has entrenched itself across key institutions of the state. Such a force cannot be defeated by a loosely organized liberal opposition, however energetic its mobilizations may be.
Indeed, this movement is likely to mark not the culmination but the beginning of a sharper phase of political struggle. The state, having now confronted a digitally driven mass uprising of this scale, will almost certainly be better prepared to contain similar mobilizations in the future. At the same time, the BJP’s political dominance remains substantial. Its victories in the April 2026 round of state assembly elections, together with the splits it engineered within several regional parties, have significantly recovered the ground it lost in the 2024 general election. Should it eventually secure a two-thirds majority in Parliament, it would acquire the constitutional capacity to enact far-reaching institutional changes, including measures that could fundamentally reshape electoral constituencies and the conduct of future elections in its favour.
The movement demonstrated that social media can summon millions into the streets with astonishing speed. Yet mobilization by itself cannot defeat a state sustained by entrenched institutions and capital. Only an enduring political organization, rooted in the working class and equipped with a clear ideological alternative to the politics of the right, can confront such a force and transform spontaneous anger into a conscious struggle against the capitalist interests that underpin its power.
Left’s wavering
This is where the Left’s wavering becomes historically tragic – the opening created by the movement could have been seized, a moment when spontaneous anger could have been transformed into organized consciousness.
Alongside Wangchuk, students affiliated with left organizations participated in the indefinite hunger strike. It was these organizations that helped mobilize students at the protest site and provided continuity throughout the struggle. They remained steadfastly rooted among the protesters and contributed significantly to sustaining the movement.
And yet, when CJP began to waver, they failed to step forward and claim political leadership. New Socialist Alternative issued appeals to these organizations to form a joint coordination committee that would include the left student unions alongside CJP. Such a demand would have been both reasonable and democratic, given that these organizations had collectively led significant sections of the struggle. However, this opportunity was not taken.
Even more hesitant was the response of the parliamentary Left. Beyond symbolic expressions of support and occasional demonstrations, it failed to mobilize its broader social base. Most significantly, it did not bring trade unions into active participation. Such an intervention could have connected the students’ movement with the organized working class, strengthened solidarity across social groups, and sent a powerful political message to the government.
This hesitation reflects a deeper problem: the parliamentary Left’s continued reliance on a liberal understanding of fascism prevents it from recognizing that the struggle against the right cannot be reduced to defending existing democratic institutions. It must also involve identifying shifts in working-class consciousness, intervening in moments of mass awakening, and helping transform spontaneous resistance into organized political power.
New Socialist Alternative’s participation
Despite our political reservations regarding CJP, we intervened actively throughout the struggle. Our comrades were at the forefront of the movement. In one instance, the police forcibly detained a comrade in an attempt to suppress our participation. On other occasions, we had to directly confront the police authorities to assert our democratic right to protest.
Recognizing the need to broaden the movement beyond its immediate participants, we took the initiative to build wider solidarity by forming a city-based solidarity committee. Through this platform, we organized demonstrations in support of the students’ struggle. To challenge the repeated restrictions imposed by the state on the right to assembly, we initiated acts of civil disobedience, defying these barriers and organizing protests against police repression.
Our student organization directly participated in the demonstrations in Delhi, while our workers’ organization extended spontaneous support and organized solidarity actions among workers. We also appealed to other trade unions to join the struggle and help build a broader alliance between the student movement and the working class.
A section of youth and students has been politicized by direct experience. Those facing police repression have begun to understand the nature of the state and its role in defending the existing social order. It is essential that we reach out to these layers and engage with the consciousness emerging from their experiences.
Through our leaflets, we explained that democracy under capitalism will always remain limited by the interests of the capitalist class. The defense and expansion of democratic rights therefore cannot be separated from the struggle to transform the socio-economic structures that produce inequality and oppression.
We must continue reaching out to the youth who have drawn political lessons from this movement, while simultaneously strengthening our efforts to organize the working class for the struggles ahead.
Our Programme
- Free and Universal Public Education
Education cannot become a genuine right merely by constitutional declaration. It requires a fully funded, free, and universal public education system that guarantees equal access to every student, irrespective of social or economic background.
- Withdraw All Cases Against Protesters
Immediately withdraw all FIRs, criminal cases, and disciplinary actions against students and all those who participated in the movement.
- Resignation of the Home Minister
The Home Minister must resign, accepting political responsibility for the brutal police repression unleashed against peaceful student protesters.
- Reclaim Democracy
Democracy is not secured through periodic elections alone. It survives only through the active participation and the continuous struggle against attempts by the ruling classes to hollow out democratic institutions and rights.
- Down with the Right-Wing Regime
A regime that serves the interests of a narrow section of capital while relying on repression to preserve its rule cannot be transformed through piecemeal reforms. The struggle to reclaim democracy must therefore become a struggle to defeat the regime itself and the capitalist interests that sustain it.