It was not just a Delhi event. Similar protests occurred nationwide on the same day over the same issues and continued in the days that followed — still ongoing at the time of this write-up. But nowhere were the protests met with the violence seen in Delhi. Protesters were beaten and tear-gas shells fired, as seen in videos circulating on social media. Injuries were aplenty.

Videos circulating on social media showed protesters of both sexes and all ages being beaten with tear-gas shells fired into crowds, leaving many injured. Several media outlets documented the scale of the violence. Frontline published a photograph of a youth who had sustained pellet injuries and was reportedly likely to lose an eye. The Hindu reported that a video showing a woman stunned by a shock baton emerged on July 21 — reportedly the first documented use of shock batons by Delhi Police. Deutsche Welle posted a news video showing students with head and eye injuries, along with fractures.

Additional videos circulating on social media captured further instances of brutality:
One showed a woman dragged along the road, her back scraping against the asphalt; another shows a youth displaying stitches from a police-inflicted head wound; a third captures a man in his thirties bleeding from the head.

This is just a microcosm of the expanse of violence in Delhi on July 20, when numerous youth and others peacefully marched to Parliament demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over question paper leaks and the state of education in the country. Frontline reported that Delhi Police put the injury count at more than 118 personnel and 60 protesters, though other accounts suggest the toll among protesters was considerably higher.

Worse, despite the violence, the government failed to act against the erring minister under whose watch multiple question paper leaks have occurred. As reported by the media, the best it did was for Health Minister JP Nadda to, before the protests, have a brief meeting with some youth, accept their demands written on a piece of paper, dismiss them, and release photos of the meet for optics. The Times of India reports the youth have now said that the government would have to come to meet the students – not the other way round.

Likewise, just before midnight on July 23, 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a midnight video on his X account stating that a fast-track court had been established to try the culprits in the question paper leaks, failing to address the primary demand of the youth – accountability by sacking or resignation of the Education minister and appointing a better one.

And what was it all about? The NEET paper leak was just the tipping point in a string of failures by the regime in preserving the interests of a generation aspiring to build the nation's future. Education has largely been privatised and out of reach for most youth; over 80,000 schools have been closed, severing the flow of educated students into the nation's affairs.

Successful institutions have been handed to the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which birthed the ruling regime now responsible for youth's plight in education and employment. Universities have been packed with administrators pursuing ideological goals, turning campuses into battlegrounds instead of shrines of knowledge.

To top it all, the only route for vast numbers of youth aspiring to higher education and jobs — competitive exams — is compromised by what is commonly known as the 'Education Mafia,' allegedly connected to politicians, with question papers leaked at mind-boggling prices. Effort has been relegated to the background over money power. Students and youth aspiring for higher education suffer for it.

Yet, despite the government's self-praise and denial of failure, the youth have seen through it all. Their protest is not about political issues. The trauma and worry facing the students is best articulated by a teenage girl in a video that has gone viral: "Does the government want all of us to become Chaiwallas?" she asks.

One protester says, "Their children study abroad, what about us here?"

A UPSC aspirant says in another video, "I no longer have the desire to study for the exams when there is no justice in the system." The UPSC too has come under a cloud in recent years, just as premier institutions like the IIT have.

The protesting youth have a genuine grouse: What about our future? What about our education? What about equipping ourselves for jobs? What about accountability?

Nor was it just youth who participated in the protests; parents and film actor-activists joined them too. One elderly man is seen in a video telling the police, "You are attacking your own children's future." Similarly, a middle-aged woman is found questioning policewomen, "What is the need for you to get violent with the girls when all that they are doing is peacefully protest?" Yet another person is seen asking an IPS officer, "Do you have a conscience, assaulting peaceful youth?"

Importantly, while there was a clear concerted effort to stop protestors from reaching Parliament peacefully, it wasn't only protestors in the vicinity of Jantar Mantar who were impeded. According to Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose, the Parliament gate leading to the protest was locked, preventing MPs like her from joining the protestors. All the same, the Leader of Opposition made his way to Prime Minister Modi's residence to protest, only to be physically hauled away by the police.

Adding to the students' grievances, much of the legacy media did its best to paint them in a bad light — India Today's interview with actress-activist Shabana Azmi was a case in point, its anchor visibly pressing to pin blame on the protestors themselves. Azmi pushed back on air, insisting the protestors were marching peacefully towards Parliament when police responded with baton charges and tear gas. Yet the truth does not hide in an age when everything is captured and disseminated on camera, and when those who took part testify openly.

The police excesses had consequences of their own: some youths retaliated by hurling stones at the police. However, it remains unclear whether they were genuine protestors or infiltrators seeking to discredit the movement — a tactic alleged in past demonstrations too. Videos also show men in civilian clothes wielding police batons alongside policemen without identification badges, even as a Rapid Action Force (RAF) can be bought online by anyone for Rs 750.

Delhi Police, for their part, maintained that prohibitory orders were in force around Parliament and that no permission had been granted for the march, terming it unlawful. Protesters countered that in a democracy, no permission should be needed to conduct a peaceful demonstration.

Consequently, what was meant to be a march demanding ministerial accountability over repeated question-paper leaks and the state of government-run education became, from the outset, a confrontation over the right to protest itself.

It was all avoidable had the government addressed the grievances of the youth after the NEET question paper leak became an unprecedented national scandal, yet it refused to do so. All it required was for the Education Minister to be justifiably sacked, or for him to resign on moral grounds, as has earlier happened under similar circumstances of failure when other governments have been in power.

This raises a fundamental question: why is the regime failing to sack the minister? What drives it to stick by its own even when it entails battering protestors?

To begin with, India is no longer considered a fully functioning democracy. The V-Dem Institute's Liberal Democracy Index ranks India 105th out of 179 countries, classifying it as an "Electoral Autocracy"; the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index retains India's classification as a "Flawed Democracy"; the Democracy Matrix categorises it as a "Hybrid Regime"; and Freedom House rates India "Partly Free," with an aggregate score of 62 out of 100.

Political scientist Barbara Geddes, whose comparative work on authoritarian regimes remains foundational, offers a clue: personalist rulers — as in India's case — prefer loyalists over independent professionals, because competent ministers carry expertise, standing and ambitions of their own, while loyalists offer only one thing — dependence on the leader.

History bears this out. In Nazi Germany, officials famously worked, in historian Ian Kershaw's phrase, "towards the Führer," anticipating his wishes rather than offering independent counsel; cabinet deliberation withered because no minister dared contradict him. Under Mussolini, historian Emilio Gentile notes, politics became a "political religion" in which the leader embodied the nation itself, so dismissing a minister risked puncturing his image of infallibility.

Historian Robert Paxton similarly describes fascist systems as elevating "the supremacy of the leader's instinct over abstract and universal reason" — meaning failures get blamed on saboteurs and enemies rather than on the leader's own judgment.

The logic extends to ministerial resignations more broadly: sacking one minister invites uncomfortable questions about who appointed him in the first place, and can embolden further demands for accountability. It is politically safer to defend a minister than to admit a mistake.

The result is escalation. A peaceful protest becomes a law-and-order problem. Students become agitators. Critics become anti-national. Journalists become propagandists. Civil society becomes an enemy. Every concession is portrayed as weakness, while every act of repression is presented as necessary to preserve order.

Set against this backdrop, the question-paper leaks represent more than an educational scandal. They concern the aspirations of millions of students who invested years preparing for exams they believed would be fair — for many families, the principal avenue of social mobility.

In mature democracies, ministerial responsibility exists because governments must reassure the public that institutions matter more than individuals. A resignation doesn't necessarily imply personal guilt — it signifies accepting responsibility for failures under one's watch. When governments instead defend ministers at all costs, the controversy stops being about exam leaks and starts being about whether anyone in the executive can be held accountable.

As has happened in the present case, confrontation occurs where conciliation was possible. The images of students facing batons and tear gas should concern every democrat regardless of political preference. Governments may disagree with protesters, reject their demands, defend their policies vigorously — but democracies distinguish themselves from authoritarian systems by recognising that accountability is not surrender. Power reveals itself not in how governments treat supporters but in how they respond to criticism and failure.

The issue before the nation, therefore, extends far beyond one minister or one protest. It concerns the constitutional culture India wishes to preserve: will public office remain a position of responsibility, where ministers answer for institutional failures — or will political loyalty insulate individuals from consequences while citizens demanding accountability are met with force?

None of this exonerates the chain of command. Fixing blame is not difficult: the Education Minister answers to the Prime Minister, and the Delhi Police answer to the Union Home Minister — which is why the Leader of Opposition demanded both resign.

Notably, the images from July 20 carried an unsettling historical resonance, echoing the symbolism of Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989 — not in scale of violence, for there was no military deployment or massacre, but because students demanding accountability found themselves confronting the coercive power of the state.

In both cases, the grievance that brought young people onto the streets came to represent a deeper contest over whether public authority must answer for its failures. Democracies are expected to resolve such conflicts through accountability, not force. A government that meets students with batons and tear gas instead of answering their questions reveals the insecurity of those in power.

What happened on July 20 was essentially an assault on the future of India, represented by the youth who sought accountability to preserve the future of the nation. They are the aspiring future doctors, engineers, scientists, researchers, academics, bureaucrats, lawyers, judges and political and civil society leaders of the future. The violence against them and scant regard for the constitutional right to peacefully demonstrate must be condemned and contested by all citizens.