Published Jul 22, 2026 | 11:44 AM ⚊ Updated Jul 22, 2026 | 11:46 AM
The BJP has been left gaping as the protesters have poured onto Jantar Mantar, standing unbowed.
Synopsis: By turning on the students—once one of the BJP and PM Modi’s biggest strengths—the government has scored an own goal. The images from the protest site will sting them for a long time to come…
By touching the raw nerve of an inflammable section—the students and youth—the Bharatiya Janata Party is confronted, for the first time in the 12 years since it has been in power, with a challenge that it is finding extremely difficult to deal with.
It is a defiance that cannot be brushed away and buried by branding the challengers as “anti-nationals.” Nor is it a political challenge that can be dealt with by unleashing the Enforcement Directorate. These are the only two counter-strategies that the saffron leaders have learnt, used and abused since 2014. No wonder they stand exposed.
While it is too early to assess the impact of the ongoing student/youth protests across the country on future electoral outcomes, what is certain is that this is the first time an agitation against the government is showing signs of long-term negative consequences.
The BJP has no one but itself to blame for allowing this agitation to remain a slow burner for over a month by staying silent (read arrogant) on the issues at stake. The result unfolded on the streets of Delhi, where thousands of mobile phones captured images that will haunt the ruling party for a long time to come.
For context, a techie, employed in a global financial major at Gurgaon, felt it compelling to be at Jantar Mantar, despite caution from parents. At a solidarity meet in Hyderabad’s Press Club, an employee at an IT major turned up similarly, along with many other peers. They are not the sufferers but are sharing the pain and agony their generation is going through because of a faulty education system that places enormous pressure on students.
At a pan shop in Hyderabad, a not-so-educated young man was looking at the viral videos of the young boys and girls being brutally beaten up by the police. “This has never happened before,” he was heard telling the cigarette seller. The issue is no longer confined to discussions among the liberals or anti-BJP camps. It has percolated deep down.
This, perhaps, is the biggest damage that the ruling party has suffered because of its hubris.
The No 1 takeaway from the current standoff is that the BJP finds itself in confrontation with its own “constituency”. A large part of the middle class, which includes the youth from this grouping, has been the vanguard of opinion-making in favour of the BJP from the time Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister. That is what makes it an uncomfortable clash.
What happened when farmers from Punjab and Haryana hit the streets and marched to Delhi some years ago was different. They were not strictly part of the BJP’s vote bank in those states, though the government yielded by putting the farm bills in limbo for fear of impact elsewhere.
Contrast this with the middle class and aspirational youth who are the BJP’s core. That core is now showing signs of cracking as the government remains unresponsive to what appears on the surface to be an “innocent and harmless demand.”
As mindless BJP trolls, now a liability rather than an asset, go about their task as usual, branding the student protestors as “Pakistani agents”, people are passively watching social media at home and getting triggered. With a police force not trained to deal with non-violent protests, parents reading about their children being branded as “Pakistanis” are also watching them being mercilessly beaten up.
So, what is the second takeaway? For the non-BJP Opposition, the biggest message from the present agitation is that a non-violent mobilisation against the current regime is very much possible. And that the BJP just does not know how to face such mobilisation on people’s issues.
If such protests are on contested issues such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the BJP has its weapon ready—brand it anti-national on Day One. But it cannot do this when students hit the streets or when the unemployed begin to march. It cannot brand farmers as anti-nationals.
Likewise, the BJP knows how to deal with errant politicians or businessmen who do not fall in line. It has the Enforcement Directorate. For students, youth or farmers, there is nothing to fear from the ED. They are only worried about their future and this government has no answers to that.
The legacy media, which continues with its now beaten approach of questioning the nature of protests rather than asking questions of the government, has driven another nail in the coffin. That the BJP leadership is so unimaginative as not to realise that a “suspect media” is of zero utility is rather surprising.
Around the same time that mainstream channels were putting out scrolls that Rahul Gandhi “hijacked” the movement and “provoked” the government, social media was flooded with images of the Leader of Opposition (LOP) being dragged into a police van bloody-nosed.
When was the last time anyone saw an LOP being treated in such a fashion? With cameras snapping every moment and the images circulated globally within no time, it made for terrible optics for Narendra Modi, who loves taking medals from every country that he visits.
The biggest outcome of this movement is the chance of it throwing up a new generation of leaders against the ruling dispensation. That will add a new dimension to Indian politics that we have not seen so far.
For a party that is now so used to its leaders rolling on the ground and only chanting “Modi is an incarnation with a divine purpose”, the unknowns are difficult to comprehend and deal with. As a friend put it, the next chapter in BJP’s book could well be: “Blind Spot: It’s difficult to see a problem when you are enjoying the view.”
Also Read | ‘We cannot let children lose their lives’: Support for students’ protest mount in Tamil Nadu
(Edited by R Rajesh Kumar.)
