Youth Protests Weaken Modi, Wangchuk Says

India’s youth protests have weakened Prime Minister Narendra Modi “terribly,” activist Sonam Wangchuk said after a hunger strike helped ignite one of the country’s largest displays of dissent in years. The engineer and education reform campaigner said the movement changed the national mood and gave young people new confidence to challenge authority.

Wangchuk told the BBC that students and other young people now believe they can force change if they act together, rather than accepting unfair treatment in silence. He said the protests pushed Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign on 25 July, and he argued that the delay before that exit damaged the government badly. The demonstrations began over anger at leaked exam papers and then grew into a broader anti-government movement.

The campaign became known as the “cockroach” movement after criticism erupted over remarks from India’s chief justice, who compared unemployed young people to cockroaches during a court hearing. Wangchuk’s own hunger strike became a focal point for the unrest. He fasted for 26 days in Delhi during June and July, taking only salt and water, before ending the protest. He said he lost 11 kilograms and has since regained six. He also said authorities took him to hospitals for the final six days of the fast, and he described those stays as more like prisons.

By the time Wangchuk stopped fasting, public anger had grown into one of the biggest anti-government protests India had seen in years. Afterward, Modi announced fast-track courts to try people accused in the exam paper leaks and selected a tech billionaire to help lead reforms of the examination system. The government also said it would compensate families of students who took their own lives after the leaks.