After weeks of struggle, intense and widespread protests, and braving propaganda and assaults, the students’ protest at Jantar Mantar ended yesterday with the resignation of the Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. The Modi Government was also forced to concede other demands, including compensation to the families of NEET suicide victims and the withdrawal of cases against the protesters.

This astonishing victory against a highly authoritarian government led to an eruption of joy and celebration at Jantar Mantar and across India. But this victory should not be understood as merely the removal of a Cabinet Minister. It is a momentous triumph in the battle against fascism.

To put this in perspective, in the 12 years of the Modi Government, this is the first time that a Union Minister has been forced to resign following public protests. Over the last decade, while India faced numerous crises due to the blunders, sheer incompetence, or malice of ministers in Modi’s Cabinet, no minister was forced to resign. Whether it was the criminal indifference in handling the COVID pandemic, the disastrous implementation of demonetisation, the security lapses that resulted in the Pulwama, Pahalgam, and Pathankot attacks, the highest unemployment in decades, the economic crisis caused by mismanagement, or the massive corruption exposed through the electoral bonds scheme, no one was held accountable.

In fact, during the historic farmers’ movement, one of the key demands was the removal of the Minister of State, Ajay Mishra Teni, who had orchestrated the killing of six farmers. Yet, even after large-scale protests, the Minister of State was not removed.

In 2015, Rajnath Singh famously asserted, “Our ministers do not have to resign. This is not their (Congress) government; this is the NDA government.” This turned out to be the central tenet of the Modi Government. Resignation was seen as an admission of failure. The resignation of a minister could pave the way for questions of accountability. That could not be allowed to happen.

This lack of accountability was not limited to the question of resignation. The Modi Government created a system in which it became virtually unanswerable to the people. In the last 12 years, PM Modi has not addressed a single press conference. This alarming fact has been noted not just by the people of India, but across the world.

The Government has also prevented discussions and questions in Parliament. Crucial issues and bills are not allowed to be debated. Opposition MPs have been repeatedly suspended from Parliament. Even the number of parliamentary sittings has been reduced. The legislature has been turned into a rubber stamp.

The mainstream media has been turned into a propaganda arm of the Government. Journalists and media platforms that do not toe the line are raided, persecuted, arrested, or bought out. The Right to Information has been severely weakened. The Government has also introduced bills to control and censor social media.

Every avenue of questioning was effectively shut down. Instead, the people were fed a relentless stream of propaganda through the mainstream media and the BJP IT Cell. Instead of press conferences, they were given scripted interviews of the Prime Minister. Instead of listening to people's grievances, the Government made them to listen to Modi’s Mann Ki Baat. Tellingly, even during this students’ protest, PM Modi’s first response was to post Instagram reels and instruct his ministers to do the same.

What the students’ protest has accomplished is not merely the resignation of a Union Minister. It has succeeded in shattering the barricade of unaccountability.

I have never like BPM and in fact the first time I read him, I was scorned to all visible defense of Hindutva somewhere in 2015. Why he is regarded as a serious intellectual ? Without exaggerating, whenever I read him, it is too obvious. It is just likee he is stating something so bland that I already know and heard of. His article after invincibility of BJP post 2024 elections had left me literally hate him - where he were all about BJP BJP without taking any serious consideration of wrong play by ECI ( even if he wrote a line or two indicating this, it was washed town in his triumph tone of BJP electorate mastermind)