CJP protest: The youth movement India's Modi didn't see coming

Image source, AFP via Getty Images Image caption, A Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) supporter wearing a cockroach mask at a protest over irregularities in major public examinations in Delhi By Soutik Biswas India correspondent Published 20 minutes ago It began with a fear familiar to millions of young Indians: if the examinations that determine their future cannot be trusted, what can? Weeks later, on Monday, tens of thousands of young men and women tried to march on India's parliament. Police responded with tear gas and baton charges. Thousands more have returned to the streets in the days since. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-led movement born out of anger over repeated examination paper leaks , has quickly become India's biggest student mobilisation in years. It is demanding education reforms and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. At its centre is activist Sonam Wangchuk, who says he lost 11kg (24lb) during a 26-day hunger strike in support of the movement. He ended his fast late on Thursday, but student leaders say the protests will continue until their demands are met. The obvious question is whether this is simply another student protest - or the beginning of something larger. History offers reasons for both caution and optimism. Student movements have periodically transformed Indian politics. The Nav Nirman agitation in Gujarat helped trigger veteran socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan's movement against former prime minister Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. Others have erupted dramatically before fading away. Image source, Reuters Image caption, A protester hurls a tear gas canister back at police during a CJP march in Delhi What makes the CJP unusual, however, is not simply its scale but the nature and breadth of its grievance. Unlike many of the biggest protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government over the past decade - whether over citizenship , farm laws or other contentious policies - this movement is not fundamentally about ideology. Nor is it rooted in the interests of a single community or social group. Instead, it questions whether the state can still guarantee fairness in the examination system that millions of young Indians see as their principal route to social mobility. "The exam and education system cuts across caste, class and gender to quite a large degree," Yamini Aiyar, Senior Visiting Fellow at Brown University, told the BBC. "The core constituency coming to these protests doesn't represent a singular interest group." That breadth is also what makes the movement politically distinctive. "This movement centres on administrative failure," Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think tank, told the BBC. "The state's inability to conduct examinations fairly and prevent paper leaks makes it a very different kind of political challenge to the BJP." Why are thousands protesting for education reform in India? The hunger-striking engineer demanding education