India’s education system, much like other things in India runs on scarcity and desperation. If you are stuck in an unstable lower-middle-class loop, competitive exams are sold to you as the only respectable way out. And the ugly part is that this is mostly true. I know because I have lived it. A thousand students competing for a single seat is not an anomaly but the system’s design: a lottery where the many absorb downside so the few can be declared “merit”, based on few MCQs that leak often. 

Photo from BBC News

Now we have the resignation of the education minister, that's cool, we see some forced accountability. But does this change anything at all? No. It may give the Cockroach Party some good PR (I really like the name btw!).

Before you judge me, let me set the context. I dislike the BJP. Trust me I do. I oppose its ideology, and I believe it threatens the idea of India. No ambiguity there. But I do disagree with this narrative that India is heading towards some form of dictatorial regime. That is BS - you cannot honestly call India a dictatorship simply because the same party has governed for twelve years. They won competitive elections. And they can still lose through the same mechanism. They still have genuine popular support. If you need a evidence to convince yourself, I encourage you to ask any random uncle in Northern India about politics and watch him turn into a BJP spokesperson before your chai arrives. 

Democracy does not promise that people will choose wisely. It only ensures that rulers must keep asking for permission.

However, one thing about this protest that genuinely satisfies me is simple. It worked. For once, our democracy’s almost dead feedback loop came alive. People pushed. The government blinked. Power was forced to listen. This is how a democratic system is supposed to function.

Look, elections are the big punishment button you press every few years. Between elections, you need institutions - courts willing to say no, legislatures willing to block bad decisions, journalists willing to expose bullshit, and ordinary people willing to make ignoring them expensive (I mean peaceful protests). Without these checks, you vote with half the information, from a menu arranged by the people already in power, and then wait five years for another chance to repeat this circus all over again. 

This is where the BJP worries me. I do not care that they keep winning. They should win, because majority of our people worship them. We are deeply religious country, bhakts and bhakti are deeply rooted in our culture. Winning elections is legitimate. Spending years weakening every institution meant to constrain the winner is not. You can still hold elections after capturing the referee. You can still count votes after silencing the people asking uncomfortable questions.

A lot of my friends see protests and think, “Oh great, more chaos, more trouble.” I hear them, and even agree. I have friends from Nepal , Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and they have seen that up close, I mean, overthrowing an elected government by introducing anarchy - all that shit. Pakistanis do it every 10 years on average.

That is exactly what strong institutions are supposed to prevent. When people have courts that listen, legislatures that push back, journalists who can expose abuse, and officials who actually pay a price for screwing up, anger has somewhere to go. You do not need to burn the system down because the system still responds. Crowds become mobs when every peaceful door has already been slammed shut. Stability does not come from silencing people. It comes from giving them a reason not to riot.

This is the part that genuinely gets me. For a brief moment, democracy’s feedback loop came back to life, and you could see the idea of India still breathing beneath all the noise, corruption, and political bullshit. Not the government, not the party, but he promise written into the Preamble, the one I have always believed in and the one I still owe my allegiance to. I am hopeful. We have an absurd amount of work left to leave behind an India that is richer, fairer, safer, and more prosperous for people you will never meet. Patriotism is not pride in what your country already is. It is loyalty to what it still owes its people.