A weeks-old Gen-Z protest group managed to get India’s Modi to blink. What’s next?

For more than a decade, India’s leader Narendra Modi has seemed politically unassailable, presiding over a government that has outmaneuvered opponents, dominated public discourse and squeezed the space for dissent in the world’s biggest democracy.

But last weekend, an online-fueled and youth-led protest movement just a few weeks old landed a blow none of the embattled mainstream political parties who oppose him have been able to: They forced his government to back down.

For days, tens of thousands of Gen Z protesters had flooded the streets of New Delhi, led by a satirical movement called the “Cockroach Janta Party”, to demand accountability for a university entrance exam leak they say robbed millions of students of a fair shot at their future. In their crosshairs was education minister and trusted Modi lieutenant Dharmendra Pradhan, on whose watch the leak had happened.

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