For the first time in his long political career, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aura of political invincibility appears to have been punctured.
An upstart youth movement, founded only 37 days earlier, forced his government into a humiliating climbdown this weekend and prompted the resignation of the education minister.
Long accustomed to getting his own way, Modi had to swallow the spectacle of two of his ministers sitting stony-faced as envoys from the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which led the protests, announced to waiting media that the government had agreed to meet all their demands.
“Bro created a movement out of literally nothing,” the CJP crowed in an X post praising its founder Abhijeet Dipke after the government climbdown. “One social media page. One trend and one post changed everything. Govt down on the knees, first forced resignation in 12 years. Abhijeet Dipke, You are a leader.”
More worryingly for Modi, analysts said, the protesters’ anger appears to have spread beyond the original grievance of a leak of national exam results to encompass broader frustrations. These include rising joblessness among graduates and a lack of quality well-paid jobs for India’s 370mn youth population, the world’s largest.
“The target of the protests had become Modi,” said Sushant Singh, a lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University. “A lot of this crowd voted for Mr Modi and Mr Modi promised so much. I think they feel betrayed by him that he hasn’t delivered.”
India has delivered annual economic growth of more than 6 per cent in recent years, one of the world’s highest rates. But a steep rise in the number of young people entering the labour market and rising expectations — prompted in part by Modi’s pledge to make India a developed nation by 2047 — mean that growth needs to be faster still to satisfy voters.
Nearly 40 per cent of graduates between the ages of 15 and 25 are unemployed, according to a study of the youth labour market by Azim Premji University this year. Among those who do have jobs, only a small proportion are in salaried work and even fewer enjoy benefits such as social security.
“We have to grow by nothing short of 9 per cent for the next 10 years and on average for the next 20 years at 8 per cent per annum,” said Santosh Mehrotra, author of India Out of Work: Rethinking India’s Growth Story. “You have to pull workers away from agriculture. It cannot be by IT and services alone. And in an age of AI, yes, we have human capital but we are nowhere near being a deep-tech superpower.”
A senior government official noted the importance of education as a route out of poverty but blamed technology for the difficult graduate job market.
“Students from small-town India see education as an escape route from their dreary lives,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
“The problem is that the entire industry scenario has changed. There was a huge intake of young people in the IT industry. That has slowed down because of AI and machine learning tools. On top of it, people already in that industry are being given pink slips.”
Modi’s supporters said Saturday’s climbdown was a calculated move intended to appease the main student protesters and isolate those pushing a broad opposition agenda. Rahul Gandhi, leader of India’s main opposition Congress party, was detained for three hours by police on Tuesday evening after staging a sit-in outside Modi’s official residence.
“In hindsight, maybe it was not a bad thing to let the steam build up to this level on the issue of [education] and then defang that in one go,” said a senior official in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“The government’s approach of allowing enough leeway to genuine protesters while cracking down on those who were being violent or trying to disrupt government has succeeded in the sense that it is no longer a united movement.”
But memories of a harsh police crackdown on Monday’s protesters in Delhi, when students were repeatedly tear-gassed and beaten with wooden sticks outside parliament, may linger.
As in other countries around the world that have experienced Gen Z unrest in recent years, this could stir deeper resentment among a youth no longer frightened to raise its voice against a powerful government.
“These are all young people and I think the BJP just did not know how to deal with them,” said Sanjaya Baru, an Indian political commentator. “This generation holds the BJP in utter contempt. This is the first time I’ve seen such contempt in young people, 16-, 17-, 18-, 19-year-old kids, full of anger and abuse against the prime minister, senior ministers, government. I’ve never seen any Indian prime minister being abused in the way Modi has been abused.”
A popular slogan chanted by protesters at student rallies insulted the 75-year-old prime minister as a “pimp”. At the main protest site there was graffiti saying “Fuck Modi”.
Demonstrators also hurled abuse at the country’s mainly pro-government media, in some cases even attempting to attack well-known television anchors or reporters as “Godi media”, a play on the Hindi word for “lapdog” and Modi’s name. India’s mainstream media has increasingly been taken over by business tycoons friendly to the government over the past 15 years, something critics say has limited space for public criticism.
Anger boiled over after Monday’s Delhi protest, when big TV networks focused on reporting injuries sustained by police officers and alleged violence by demonstrators, not the beating of peaceful protesters.
Despite the seriousness of the youth challenge, few would write Modi off. The premier, who makes much of his modest upbringing and austere personal life, has proved a formidable political operator in his 12 years in office.
Only two months ago, the BJP trounced the opposition for the first time in West Bengal, India’s fourth most populous state. The next general election is not due until 2029, giving Modi plenty of time to accommodate youth anger before facing voters again.
What the protests have made clear is that Indians will hold Modi personally accountable for a failure to deliver the better future he has promised.
“There are questions about India’s economic model which need to be answered, particularly since Modi has been in power for so long,” said Yale’s Singh. “The high headline growth numbers have not really translated into the kind of job opportunities or social and economic advancement that India is looking for.”
Additional reporting by Jyotsna Singh
Source:
www.ft.com
