U
nion Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan, resigned the post to Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday (June 29), ending weeks of growing agitations over alleged NEET-UG paper leak and national entrance examination discrepancies. In his resignation letter he cited that he is stepping down so that anti-national forces will not exploit it, national unity does not suffer and no Indian student should be stuck in legal complexity about their future. Pradhan’s resignation was accepted by the Prime minister and immediately Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister for Railways, has been handed over the additional charge of Education Ministry.
The agitation, which is primarily organized by Cockroach Janta Party (a satirical youth outfit founded by Abhijeet Dipke), was first reported on the beginning of June with protests taking shape at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. What begins as a student’s niche movement has become an agitation at the national level with Pradhan's removal being a key and non-negotiable demand by the CJP. The group had also stated, further discussion with the Centre will be futile without the resignation of the Minister. It came a few hours prior to their third round of talk with the center.
Pradhan's removal has led to ecstatic scenes of celebration among students at Jantar Mantar, and reports have come in ofsimilar celebration in Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Patna too. CJP announced the dissolution of protest immediately after it, called of the agitation and sought supporters to be dispersed. A press conference was held by Union Health and Family welfare Minister J. P. Nadda with the Union Ministers Jitendra Singh and Pradhan too in attendance, officially bringing the two weeks-long protest in a halt.
Delhi Police lathis student protesters in a lathis charged riot On July 20, the entire protest took a dangerous turns as Police violently dispersed a bunch of protesters with lathis and allegedly pellet gun. It was around 45-degree Indian temperature, still people turned up for the protest and Police decided to “take care of things” and they did their job by lathis and allegedly pelleted people into submissions. Rahul Gandhi even put up a protest that “thousands of innocents are lathis-charged and this kid who protested with Indian flag got one eye pellets-injured”.
Though the government claims to not have pelleted people.
The entire episode took the protest far beyond any curriculum reform issue, and into a major showdown of state and political accountability. This led several other parties and leaders such as Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav to take notice, who would go on to be detained by the Delhi Police in a dharna led by Rahul Gandhi after Parliament declined to debate the matter. Rahul was released around 10 pm, but for most CJP students, the world would be anything but normal anymore.
Now Pradhan out of the picture, Rahul Gandhi’s Saturday press conference on the lawns outside 10 Janpath saw a shift in the opposition's target. While he saw Pradhan’s dismissal as student’s victory, he stressed that mere removal of a single minister could not “solve the crisis.” Instead, the central target of attacks by the Opposition is now directly Amit Shah, whom Gandhi said would be "personally held responsible" for the beating suffered by students on July 20.
More crucially, Gandhi stated that in recent decades the education sector has been systematically hollowed out by the RSS which had “captured” it, with Prime Minister Modi at the helm as the “operator”. He reiterated the charge that the sector has become increasingly privatised and weak, and Pradhan was just an “operation face of the system." Gandhi insisted that Modi should apologise to India’s students and portrayed the events of recent weeks as “a warning to the students and the opposition”, claiming that the government could not continue to run India in the current manner.
Asked what’s next for the opposition, Gandhi said that in the coming week, the "role played by Home Minister Amit Shah will be brought up in the Parliament" – the conflict is clearly now shifting from the streets to the House.
With CJP going off the field, that one element of instant street pressure the Opposition had mounted for the last one month seems to be withdrawn. But the political battle on its own has only shifted as Gandhi's demands have now grown beyond Pradhan alone. He now seeks punishment for those who ordered the July 20 lathi-charge, quashing of cases lodged against protesting students, and a debate in Parliament, all of which have formed his constant refrain since the sit-in demonstration started outside PM House.
Even though Pradhad Joshi has gained full charge of the HRD ministry and New Delhi does not want this resignation to open any flood gates but by targeting Amit Shah andrss the opposition has ensured that this chapter will not be closed and shut down when it opens up in Parliament. Whether the government agree for a debate and is ready to justify police lath charge will show in the coming week.
