There are glorious moments when the youth of the nation demonstrate that they are indeed the genuine trustees of posterity, to borrow Benjamin Disraeli’s phrase. A generation that has been catastrophically failed by their elders, who bequeathed to them authoritarianism, communalism, a failing education system, an administrative state marked by impunity, and an atmosphere of suffocating fear, decided to take their future into their own hands. They made a regime and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, intoxicated with fantasies of total power, look out of touch, small and ridiculous. By itself, the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan will not bring change. But India’s young have shown that the regime is vulnerable. We can still pull back from the abyss.

The movement was the product of an unlikely conjuncture. Protests against exam leaks are quite frequent in India. But it is an adage of politics that we discover power only in the doing of deeds and after the fact. An ill-considered word, “cockroach”, used by a Chief Justice of India who has been emblematic of the singularly bad judgment and institutional degradation that marks Indian public life, gave the young an unlikely political identity. Sonam Wangchuk went on a hunger strike, bringing more attention to the movement, and precipitating what seemed like a crackdown. AISA students led by Neha Bora and others continued the fast. The government’s repression only fuelled the movement further.

The issue of fairness and quality in education cuts across party lines, and is a source of consternation even among BJP supporters. Opposition parties, from the SP to the Congress, for once did the right thing — played........

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