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While I am writing this, the Gen Z(iddi) is celebrating fulfilment of its demand of resignation of Dharmender Pradhan as the education minister, whose long tenure in the education ministry was an abysmal failure. His reign over the ministry was replete with multiple leakages of important exam papers, closure of multiple government schools and overall deterioration in the standards of education in the country.

The leakage of recent NEET paper and resultant suicide by several students was the last straw that led to large scale protests to demand political accountability from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP-led) Union government via his resignation. 

Also read: Control Over Education Is Critical for the RSS. The Sacking of Pradhan Is a Major Setback for It

This is a historic moment for the youth of the country. This also is a first in the 12-year reign of the present BJP government, which steadfastly refuses to fix responsibility or political accountability for abject failures and corruption of its ministers.

The government tried the proverbial saam (persuation), daam (allurement through money), dand (punishment) and bhed (espionage) to break the will of youth involved in protests but to no avail. However, before we analyse how the government dealt with these protest, it is important to put the sequence of events leading to the protests in perspective. 

A security official fires tear gas shells to disperse the demonstrators during the protest at Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi on July 25, 2026. Photo: PTI/Karma Bhutia.

Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) which organised the protests – many suspect – was propped up by the BJP itself to diffuse the rising impatience of Gen Z over repeated paper leaks, a sentiment which was being echoed by Rahul Gandhi, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, through public rallies and also by raising it in parliament.

That the protests will gain such momentum as to galvanise people of all ages and strata all over the country to demand accountability for umpteen failures of policies and the hiatus between the promises and actual performance on ground was not anticipated by those who had been clandestinely promoting CJP. The Union government was thus caught off guard and........

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