How Pradhan’s resignation reshaped politics for Modi, Opposition and India’s youth

The past month, more particularly the week gone by, has restored in some measure the shine that India’s democracy had steadily lost in the last decade.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hubris and the cavalier apathy that characterised his government have been left chafed and chastened. The Opposition has been given a refresher course on how to tap into public anger. The citizens have been reminded of the immense power they wield when they unite for a cause that isn’t dictated to them by political parties but is their own.

Also read | The unmaking of Brand Modi: How ‘56-inch chested’ PM bowed to youth power

In the events of the past month, there are lessons for the Centre, the Opposition and the citizens. The test of whether this rediscovery of India’s democracy endures or quickly dissipates into an episodic memory has now begun.

Modi faces public backlash

The resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister, immediately preceded and succeeded by a slew of hastily rolled out measures to ostensibly stem the rot in the country’s education system, reaffirms that nothing brings Modi to heel like hostile public sentiment.

The anger and frustration on display at and around Jantar Mantar have exposed the hollowness of Modi’s claims about the country hurtling towards Viksit Bharat under his rule. More importantly, the protests have emboldened a demographic central to the BJP’s repeated electoral successes to garrulously, irreverently and even viciously call his bluff.

The Prime Minister can, of course, ignore these ominous signs of his dipping popularity. He can fall back on his typical bluster to ride the gathering storm. As already being witnessed in BJP-ruled Delhi, UP, Assam and Bihar, he can unleash the might of the state against the protesters to silence this current wave of dissent. Modi and his party should, however, know that doing so will only exacerbate the discontent simmering within the electorate.

Power of people’s protest

To be clear, neither Pradhan’s resignation nor the amendments that the Centre seeks to make in the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act and the newly set-up Nandan Nilekani-led high-powered committee may, by themselves, usher in the reforms that India’s education and examination system desperately require. Yet, that the Modi regime took these steps as protesters at Jantar Mantar steadily grew to overshadow self-anointed prophets of change like Sonam Wangchuk and even Cockroach Janata Party’s Abhijit Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka shows how unrelenting public pressure, amplified by a combative Opposition, can scorch electorally legitimised autocrats.

It is now for the Opposition, particularly the Congress party as the BJP’s national alternative and largest constituent of the INDIA bloc, to take the fight forward politically. This must start with honest introspection and not merely by passing off as their own the victory of the youth who braved police batons, pellet guns, tear gas shells and the still looming threat of state-sponsored retribution to demand accountability from the regime.

The Opposition may have had its reasons to be sceptical of readily backing Dipke’s CJP and Wangchuk when the protests first began. The reasons for that early cynicism may rightly stem from Dipke’s links with Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP, the CJP’s ideological ambiguity and the cosy rapport that Wangchuk and his wife, Gitanjali Jain Angmo, have shared with the BJP and the wider Sangh Parivar. Some of this scepticism may have even grown since the protest ended given various statements, past and current, by Angmo that are now viral on social media or because of Das and Ranka’s naiveté in taking the Centre’s assurance of not instituting cases against protestors at face value, especially since neither they nor Dipke actually led the July 20 ‘Chalo Sansad’ march when lathis, pellets and tear gas came down heavily on the agitating youth.

Also read | Despite Modi's damage-control measures, why Pradhan still remains accountable

Time will, no doubt, grant dispassionate perspective on whether the CJP’s role was indeed one to celebrate or lament and whether what Dipke started was a controlled protest that spiralled organically into a people’s uprising that began dictating the CJP’s trajectory. Opposition parties must wonder, though, how despite their combined organisational strength and political wisdom their actions in the past over 12 years repeatedly fell short in not only capturing the imagination of the country’s youth in such a short time as the CJP did but also in marshalling that imagination into a marvellous spectacle of resistance that shook Modi.

Opposition’s moment of reckoning

The Congress party, which has continued to keep its distance from the CJP, has rallied the INDIA bloc into stalling Parliament proceedings until Union Home Minister Amit Shah explains who authorised the lethal police and Rapid Action Force action on students and apologises for these excesses.

After missing in action for nearly three weeks when the CJP’s protest was gaining momentum, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi recaptured public imagination with his protest outside Modi’s official residence last week and, ever since, with his regular interactions with protesters and victims of police excesses. Congress insiders say the next phases of Gandhi’s ‘Chhatron ki Goonj’ campaign are also being worked out.

What remains to be seen is how long Rahul sustains this outreach and if he can communicate his vision in an idiom that resonates with Gen-Z and the youth. Rahul’s penchant for sports and technology, his warm and jovial attitude when among the people and his bluntness in critiquing the BJP-RSS combine can hold him in good stead when engaging with the youth. He would have seen this for himself had he visited Jantar Mantar this past week where countless youngsters spoke favourably of him. As the de facto fulcrum not just of the Congress but also increasingly of the INDIA bloc, Rahul needs to hone these qualities further, show a stomach for consistent engagement and speak without getting lost in convoluted philosophical rhetoric.

The euphoria over Pradhan’s resignation may well die down faster than expected considering Modi’s inability to stomach political setbacks. That within two days of resigning from the cabinet Pradhan was given a hero’s welcome by BJP leaders when he arrived at Parliament on Monday (July 27) while in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Bengal the police continued an aggressive crackdown against the July 20 protestors shows that Modi, for all his ‘friendly’ Instagram reels, is already scripting a pushback.

The road ahead

The Congress and its INDIA bloc partners are mounting a united broadside against the Modi regime in Parliament, with an entire week of the Monsoon Session already washed out and the disruptions expected to continue this week too. If the Opposition wants a fighting chance against the BJP juggernaut in 2029, or in the over a dozen Assembly polls that will precede the next Lok Sabha election, this united onslaught now has to spill over to the grassroots and assimilate the ‘cockroaches’ who humbled Modi.

The youth were the demographic dividend Modi reaped electorally since he assumed office in 2014. He fed them an unremitting drivel about the failure of every government that came before his and offered inflated promises of Vikas, Achche Din and Viksit Bharat.

Also read | ‘CJP protests may have ended, but youth movement is far from over’ | Interview

Many of those who joined the July 20 march and then camped at Jantar Mantar would have been in school when Modi became Prime Minister. It is possible that when a bulk of them came of voting age, they voted for the BJP believing ‘Modi hai toh mumkin hai’. Now they see those hopes and aspirations fritter away – the end of a dream crafted and destroyed by Modi. They are restless. They are angry. They want what was promised to them – a leak-proof exam system, opportunities, jobs and a future.

The BJP must beware. Raining lathis and pellets on them, branding them criminals and anti-nationals and foisting cases against them may just turn an entire demographic into a Leviathan that even Modi’s jingoistic and communal rhetoric may not be able to tame. If the Opposition fails to heed the voice of this mass, it too may forfeit the claim of being an alternative.