How India’s Young Faced Down Modi

The difference now was that these slogans came from a broader base of largely Hindu students, many of whom had until then been comfortable with the bargain Indians made with Modi. Against this, the government’s usual playbook failed.

In those heady moments, at the protest site, scrolling through social media, it felt as if India was breathing again, as if the fear had lifted and young India was ready to reclaim its constitutional promise. But the dark shadows never quite disappeared. The mood was spirited and free, yet anxious. Every few hours, the threat of more police action and greater repression surfaced. In the aftermath, despite promises to the contrary, a crackdown on protesters across the country has begun. It is these shadows that make any assessment of what comes next a grim exercise.

Still, some democratic space has opened. Never in these 13 years has Modi’s governance been so actively delegitimized. The young are searching for a new political grammar rooted in democracy and accountability. Education reform is the rallying cry. The failures of education are not entirely this government’s making, but it drove in the final nail by placing the education system in service of the Hindu nationalist project: rewriting school curricula, making political appointments, overcentralizing and defunding higher education.