Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as the education minister on Saturday afternoon. Soon, the organisers were asking everyone at Jantar Mantar to pack up and go home.

Vipin, a law graduate from Shegaon, Maharashtra, had a different word for what had just happened. A “ceasefire”. “This is only one chapter of a war that has been completed.”

The month-long sit-in over the NEET paper leaks had drawn students, lawyers, doctors, blue-collar workers and parents to the centre of Delhi. Along with Pradhan's resignation, the Cockroach Janta Party, which organised it, said the government had agreed to withdraw police cases against students and compensate the families of those who died by suicide.

Almost everyone at the site called that a win. But pressed on what came next, they had a longer list: an apology from the Delhi Police, accountability from the home minister for the July 20 crackdown, compensation and reform for all exam aspirants — and beyond that, jobs, free education, and a change in politics.

The first step, not the last

Pranita, 23, a journalism graduate now looking for a job, had come back to the ground despite having been tear-gassed on July 20. “It’s only the first step,” she said of the resignation. “Going forward, we shouldn’t treat this as just another incident that fades away.”

For her, the paper-leak scandal was inseparable from a larger crisis: graduates like her, degree in hand, still unable to find work that matched their qualifications. “It’s not just about education. It’s also about the job market.”

Sheetal Shukla, 23, a NIFT student from Rohini who had shown up almost every day since the sit-in began said “this is the first step of the stairs” and “we haven’t even scratched the surface”. But, “PM Modi was posting at 12 in the night to communicate with Gen Z. I think it’s huge that he even acknowledged,” she said, comparing the government’s response to the farmers’ protest.

Rudraksh, 32, a freelance filmmaker from Rajouri Garden who had been attending on and off since the protests began, said “there still need to be major reforms in the education sector”. “Ideally, we should demand the education minister”s resignation, the home minister’s resignation, and, of course, it would be great if the prime minister resigned too. But I know that’s an idealistic expectation. Realistically, this is not the end, it’s just a baby step.” 

‘They shouldn’t be suspended, but terminated’

The demand that united the crowd on Saturday was that nobody had yet answered for July 20, when police used tear gas and a lathi-charge to clear protesters.

Riya, 26, who is preparing for a government teaching job, was part of the march. “People in plain clothes were beating, and women were mistreated,” she said. “Why did all of that happen? The home minister should also be held accountable.” 

Vipin wanted more than an apology. Video of how police treated women protesters was “extremely disturbing,” he said, and officers who turned up without nameplates, in plain clothes, should not simply be suspended but terminated. “Only then will they stay within their limits.”

Mohd Junaid, 25, an advocate at the Delhi High Court who had spent three days shuttling between police stations helping people detained during the protests, said the police commissioner should apologise publicly and officers who mistreated women should face a departmental inquiry and appear in a court of law. He held the home minister to the same standard. “He is a commander. You cannot misbehave like this with the students.”

‘Leaders should be accountable’

For Junaid, the stakes were close to home. His cousin had been preparing for NEET for seven years and had been caught up in the leaks repeatedly. “I have seen his pain,” Junaid said. So the resignation mattered as a precedent. “For a democratic setup, accountability is very important,” he said. “One shouldn’t stay in a political position if you cannot take accountability.” He recalled hearing party members boast that the word “resignation” did not exist in their vocabulary. 

Ajay Kumar, 36, an advocate from East Delhi, said the original demand had been met but an apology was still owed. “In a democratic country, if leaders can be elected and become prime minister, they should also be accountable to the people,” he said. He wanted a structural fix too – anyone wanting to become a political leader should first have to sit an exam themselves. “Only then will they truly understand the pain and struggles of students.”

Fifteen-year-old Azka, attending for the first time with her father, treated the whole episode as a test of the system. “The government keeps asking for votes in the name of democracy,” she said, “but there are also allegations of vote theft. If this is a democracy, then democratic values should be upheld.” 

‘Compensation for lost time’

Underneath such demands sat a more personal wound – the leaks, and the years students had already spent preparing.

Dr Arshdeep Badhan, 23, had travelled from Amritsar with a volunteer medical team from the Five Rivers Heart Association, treating police and protesters alike, free of charge, since the day of the lathi-charge. Having sat NEET himself, he saw the issue as one of public safety. “We studied hard, took the exam honestly, and reached where we are today,” he said. “If future generations get into medical colleges by buying leaked papers or through unfair means, how will they treat patients? We are responsible for people’s lives.”

Rahul Pal, 23, counted the losses in rupees and years. “The government announces recruitment, students pay the application fee, travel to examination centres, and then the paper gets leaked and the examination is cancelled,” he said. “Their time is wasted, their money is wasted.” Against an unforgiving age limit for government recruitment, that time cannot be recovered. His demands were: free education for the coming year, reimbursement of fees, and compensation for lost time. If none of it came, he said “either the government should resign, or it should compensate students”.

For several protesters, the sit-in was a rehearsal for a different kind of politics.

Junaid argued that religious rhetoric had for years been used to keep people divided while those in power benefited. His hope was that education and health would replace religion as the country’s central political argument.

Shaheen Sheikh, 21, a journalism student from Kanpur affiliated with the student organisation AISF, had spent a month camped at the site. Coming from a background she described as not privileged, she said the protest’s deeper meaning was that a person’s background should never determine whether they deserve an education. “Education should be free in this country,” she said.

Amal Shaju, 27, back from work in Mizoram after a month, connected the protest to grievances far from Delhi, invoking Manipur and what he called a “rigged system”. Whatever had been won here, he insisted, was “just a spark” that should not be allowed to fade.

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