Rahul Bhatia at Equator:
It was Saturday 25 July, shortly after noon, and all along Sansad Marg, a wide thoroughfare in central New Delhi, protesters turned up the music and danced on the street beneath the trees as if they had found the answer to an impossible question. They were celebrating the resignation of India’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. It was on his watch that the central government’s entrance exam paper for medical colleges had been leaked. When the allegations emerged in the days after two million students sat the exam, all the results were cancelled.
The test is viewed as one of few certain paths to middle class security; millions take it each year. People reorganise their lives and sell their assets to invest time and money in preparing for it. More than 20 students killed themselves after the cancellation.
The protests had lasted over a month. Thousands turned up each day. As their numbers grew, they began to imagine removing more than just one minister. In the days before Pradhan’s resignation, it looked like a battle of wills between the protesting youth and Narendra Modi – the 75-year-old prime minister who permits no challenge to his authority.
More here.
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