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…