India’s Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned following days of nationwide protests led by thousands of young people demanding major reforms to the country’s education system.
The demonstrations, organised under the banner of the social media-driven Cockroach Janta Party, CJP, drew large crowds to the streets of New Delhi and several other cities, with protesters also calling for Pradhan’s resignation.
Announcing his decision in a statement posted on social media platform X, Pradhan said he was deeply troubled by the developments of the past 10 days.
He stressed that the situation was not a matter of personal pride and confirmed that he had submitted his resignation letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In his resignation letter, written in Hindi, Pradhan formally informed the prime minister of his decision to step down.
Following the announcement, the CJP said the government had accepted all of its demands during a fresh round of negotiations, prompting the group to suspend the protests centred at the Jantar Mantar demonstration ground in central New Delhi.
Earlier in the week, police fired tear gas and used batons to disperse protesters attempting to march from the demonstration site to the Parliament complex.
The government had held two rounds of talks with CJP representatives on Monday and Friday, but the discussions initially failed to produce a breakthrough as the protesters insisted on the implementation of their demands.
Pradhan’s resignation came ahead of a planned third round of negotiations.
In his statement, the outgoing minister described India’s youth as the nation’s greatest strength and pledged continued support for policies that would protect young people from what he described as a cycle of uncertainty and confusion.