India protest: How Modi’s refusal to sack education minister fits a pattern
Protesters want Dharmendra Pradhan to be sacked over serial exam leaks. But that’s not how Modi works. Thousands of supporters of India’s youth-led “cockroach” movement
Protesters want Dharmendra Pradhan to be sacked over serial exam leaks. But that’s not how Modi works. Thousands of supporters of India’s youth-led “cockroach” movement have been camping in the capital, New Delhi, for more than a month to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over a series of examination paper leaks. The Gen Z-led protests, during which more than 100 people were severely wounded in baton and tear gas attacks by police on Monday, represent the biggest public challenge to Hindu majoritarian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule so far in his third term. India’s main opposition parties have joined the daily street demonstrations and courted arrests, amplifying the protesters’ demand for Pradhan’s sacking. But at a time when unpopular governments and controversial ministers routinely resign or are sacked in other democracies — Britain’s Andy Burnham became his country’s seventh prime minister in 10 years — Pradhan has stayed in his office. And to followers of Indian politics, that’s no surprise. To the contrary, it fits a pattern seen in 12 years of Modi’s rule, in which he has repeatedly defied widespread calls for the resignation of multiple ministers, despite major controversies surrounding them. Mahesh Sharma A year after Modi came to power in the summer of 2014, a 50-year-old Muslim ironsmith was dragged from his home and lynched over suspicions that he had stolen a cow and stored its meat in his refrigerator.
Many Hindus consider the cow holy, and its slaughter is banned in most Indian states. Mohammad Akhlaq’s killing on the night of September 16, 2015, in Bishada, a village in the industrial district of Dadri in Uttar Pradesh state, was the first in a series of cow-related lynchings by Hindu mobs and had triggered nationwide protests. But the then-Minister of Culture and Tourism Mahesh Sharma, who represented the Gautam Budh Nagar constituency under which Dadri falls, called the killing “an accident”, forcing Muslim groups and opposition parties to call for his resignation. But he refused to step down, and stayed part of Modi’s council of ministers. A year later, Sharma even visited Bishada to meet the family of Ravi Sisodia, one of the 18 accused in the Akhlaq lynching case, who had died of renal and respiratory failure. In images that shocked the nation and renewed calls for his sacking, Sharma was seen bowing before Sisodia’s coffin draped in the national flag. Sharma, who owns a series of hospitals, was finally dropped as a minister only after Modi won a second term in 2019. He remains a BJP parliamentarian for a third term. Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya Months after Akhlaq’s lynching, a 26-year-old doctoral student, belonging to one of India’s most marginalised groups, was found dead inside a hostel room at the University of Hyderabad on January 17, 2016.
The BriefWire