From Roaches to Resignation: How India's Students Forced a Political Retreat

The cheers began before the official announcement had finished circulating.

At Delhi's Jantar Mantar, where students had spent 36 days sleeping under tarpaulins through punishing heat, monsoon rain and humidity, word spread rapidly that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had resigned.

Protesters hugged strangers. Someone handed out Melody chocolates. Parents lifted children onto their shoulders. Within minutes, hundreds of phones were in the air, recording a moment many had begun to wonder would never come.

The resignation ended one of the most remarkable youth-led protest movements India has witnessed in recent years. One that began with allegations of examination paper leaks and grew into a nationwide campaign that challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, dominated social media and ultimately forced one of his longest-serving ministers from office.

Pradhan stepped down on July 25 after 36 days of demonstrations at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and protests across several Indian cities over examination paper leaks, the handling of the NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) controversy and the use of force against demonstrators. Hours later, senior BJP leader Pralhad Joshi was given additional charge of the Ministry of Education alongside his existing Cabinet responsibilities.

Why the protests?

The protests were triggered by the leak of a national medical entrance examination that affected about two million candidates, but the anger went beyond one test. Students described an examination system in which years of preparation could be undone by organised leaks, administrative failures and the prospect of retests.

Every year, India's highly competitive entrance examinations determine the futures of millions of young people. Admission to medical colleges, engineering institutions and government jobs often depends on a single examination. When allegations emerged that the country's largest medical entrance examination had been compromised, confidence in a system that shapes millions of lives began to unravel.

The numbers alone illustrate the scale. More than 2.27 million students registered for NEET-UG 2026, while 2.2 million sat the original examination before a re-examination was ordered following allegations of a paper leak.

The movement was organised by the Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, founded by political communications strategist Abhijeet Dipke. It began as an online response to a remark comparing unemployed young people with cockroaches and quickly became a rallying point for students angry about paper leaks, unemployment and what they saw as a lack of accountability in public institutions.

CJP provided the mobilisation, the protest calls and the organisational centre. Gen Z gave the movement its tone.

Students used Instagram reels, memes, edited film clips, parody campaign posters and mock political advertisements to respond to developments almost as they happened. Government statements were turned into meme templates. Television debates were clipped and mocked. Images of cockroaches wearing graduation caps appeared alongside jokes about examinations being “leak-proof” only after they had already leaked.

The content was deliberately unserious in presentation but not in purpose. Humour allowed students to discuss corruption, unemployment and public accountability in a language familiar to millions of young people who might never attend a political rally. AP described the movement’s principal weapons as irreverent humour and memes, while Reuters reported that CJP amassed tens of millions of Instagram followers as the campaign grew.

Some posts mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly, an unusual feature in a political environment where criticism of the prime minister is often more restrained. Others targeted television channels viewed by protesters as sympathetic to the government. Police restrictions, political speeches and official assurances were all fed into the same online cycle of satire.

The result was a protest that could move between Jantar Mantar and Instagram without changing its language.

As the movement gathered momentum, parents began arriving with young children.

Toddlers sat on their fathers' shoulders waving flags. A three-year-old dressed as a doctor wandered through the crowd wearing a toy stethoscope. Another child came dressed as Mahatma Gandhi.

For many families, the protests had become about something larger than one examination.

"We are here because it is for the future of our children," Kanchan, who attended with her three-year-old son, told The Hindu. "If the truth wins, we can tell our children that the protesting students suffered lathi-charge for you guys."

The campaign soon moved beyond Delhi. Demonstrations and solidarity marches were reported in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Patna, Kolkata, Ranchi, Pune and Thiruvananthapuram, among other cities. Protesters also gathered in Kota, India’s best-known coaching centre, where the examination system shapes the lives of thousands of students each year.

By then, the story had attracted sustained international coverage. Reuters, the Associated Press, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and The Wall Street Journal reported on the protests, often focusing on their unusual combination of conventional street mobilisation and Gen Z internet culture. The movement was variously described as a major challenge to Modi’s authority, a generational political shift and a rare example of online satire producing an immediate political outcome.

Well before the largest police crackdown, the prot/ests gained a prominent supporter in education reformer and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk.

Wangchuk began an indefinite hunger strike on June 28 in solidarity with Dipke’s sit-in and the demand for Pradhan’s resignation. His participation brought the movement attention beyond its young social-media audience and drew support from educators, civil-society figures and older Indians familiar with his work.

As the fast continued, Wangchuk’s health deteriorated. The Delhi High Court later allowed him to be moved from Safdarjung Hospital to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram. By July 22, on the 25th day of his fast, he said he was prepared to end it if the government guaranteed that peaceful protesters would not face legal action.

He ended the hunger strike after 26 days following written assurances and talks involving senior government figures. Wangchuk said the possibility of further violence was also a factor in his decision. His fast ended two days before Pradhan resigned.

The government’s public response intensified as the protests grew.

Modi released a rare selfie-style video on Instagram addressing students and parents directly. He acknowledged the seriousness of the paper-leak crisis and spoke about measures to strengthen the examination system. He later posted another video thanking young people for their engagement and suggestions.

The outreach drew large audiences, but it did not end the agitation. Protesters welcomed the recognition of the problem while continuing to insist that administrative reform was not a substitute for political responsibility. Social-media users also responded with criticism, satire and demands that the education minister resign.

The protests reached their most confrontational point on July 20, when thousands of demonstrators attempted to march towards Parliament.

Police used barricades, tear gas and batons to stop the march. Reuters reported that the clashes injured scores of people and led to widespread detentions. Images of protesters being beaten or dragged away circulated rapidly online and added to criticism of the government’s response.

CJP representatives alleged that pellet guns had also been used. Delhi Police denied the allegation, calling it false and saying pellet guns were not part of its arsenal. In the absence of independently verified evidence, the claim remains disputed and cannot be stated as fact.

The political confrontation then moved closer to the centre of government.

On July 21, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other opposition figures staged a protest near the prime minister’s official residence under the slogan “Chalo PM House”. The leaders said the protest was in response to the Delhi police’s  brutality on students. Gandhi was forcibly removed and detained, with images showing him with a nosebleed. Opposition parties also disrupted Parliament and demanded Pradhan’s resignation, a debate on examination failures and action over the police response.

The pressure was compounded by another paper-leak case while the protests were still under way.

Veer Madho Singh Bhandari Uttarakhand Technical University cancelled two third-year BTech examinations after questions were allegedly circulated through a WhatsApp group before the tests. The paper setter, an assistant professor, was arrested. For protesters, the case strengthened their argument that leaks were not confined to NEET but reflected a wider failure in the administration of public examinations.

Pradhan initially resisted calls to resign and defended the government’s response. In his resignation letter, however, he said the issue concerned the future of the country’s youth and that he did not want the situation to cause further harm. His exit was widely seen as a rare concession by a government that has generally resisted demands for ministerial resignations under public pressure.

Joshi now takes charge of a ministry facing a crisis of confidence. The government has promised reforms to examination administration and tougher action against organised paper-leak networks, but the political damage will not be repaired by a change of minister alone.

The protests succeeded because they combined several different forms of pressure.

CJP organised the campaign. Wangchuk gave it moral authority. Opposition parties carried it into Parliament. Police action widened public anger. But it was Gen Z that gave the movement its distinctive public identity.

Its memes and reels were funny because they were meant to be shared. They were political because beneath the jokes was a serious demand: that an examination system capable of determining the future of millions of young Indians should also be capable of earning their trust.

 - Asia Media Centre