When Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as education minister, protesters at Jantar Mantar stayed on to celebrate. Newslaundry asked these youngsters a simple question: what did the protest and the resignation actually meant to them?

A man who had been coming for days said the movement had frightened the government and, more importantly, given courage to people who had been too afraid of being targeted to speak at all. A corporate worker who could only get away because it was a Saturday said the credit belonged to Gen Z, who took the lathis and did not lose heart, and that the real lesson was that the government is not above us. A man dressed as Yamraj came to collect a minister’s post. Another came as Amitabh Bachchan.

They spoke about their concerns: unemployment, fuel prices, teacher vacancies frozen for years in UP and Jharkhand, schools closing on children who have nowhere else to go, and an education minister who understands what a student carries. A 27-year-old data scientist from IIT Bombay, born into a lower-middle-class home, explained why the education fight reaches everybody.

By evening, there was gulal in the air, songs, dancing, and enough room on Sansad Marg for the first time in weeks. 

Watch.

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