The pomp and celebration with which Dharmendra Pradhan was received by his colleagues in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Parliament as he walked in a day after his resignation as India's education minister surprised many.

Pradhan was no hero of the moment, no achiever of difficult assignments to receive the headgear and the stole that were bestowed upon him. The only distinction, a dubious one at that, he could boast of was that he was the first minister in any Cabinet since 2014 to have been forced to step down.

His hand was forced not by political circumstances or personal commitments but by the powerful uprising of lakhs of students and young Indians across the country, most prominently at........

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