The modest crowd drawn by the Cockroach Janta Party at its maiden protest directed at the Union education minister for the repeated bloopers that have blighted education and national tests has apparently strengthened the Centre’s resolve to treat the protesters with indifference. The principal Opposition party, the Congress, has not shown much enthusiasm to join hands with the CJP — for now — arguing that it had taken the lead to launch protests on this issue. Indeed to conflate the CJP’s phenomenal online popularity with instances of massive public mobilisation led by the youth that transpired in regime change in neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal would be premature. For one, the CJP’s ambition, at the moment, is comparably moderate. Second, it is too early to speculate whether it has the wherewithal to transform the rising despair and the anger among the youth into potent political capital.

Yet, to measure the CJP’s success or failure with conventional yardsticks applicable to political processes and parties would be an error. What is important is to gauge the many institutional and political failures that have given rise to such a movement. India has one of the world’s largest youth populations: India has an estimated 371 million people aged between 15-29 years. This demographic dividend, however, is under the risk of turning into the proverbial Damocles’ sword. And the Indian political establishment is to blame for that. The Narendra Modi government has failed spectacularly in harnessing this constituency’s needs and potential. Education is in a shambles; joblessness among the youth is high; one out of three young Indians, data suggest, do not find themselves under the employment, education and training category. In a rapidly changing labour sector, besieged by changes in technology, a large number of young Indians, especially those from the margins, are found wanting when it comes to skills. Worse, it appears that neither government nor policy seems receptive to the fears and the anxieties confronting the young generation. Is it a coincidence that the data compiled by the National Crime Research Bureau found an alarming rise in suicide among the youth, a disquieting trend that the Supreme Court has described as an “epidemic”? Instead of scouting for hints of political opposition within the CJP, the powers that be will do well to lend a patient and empathetic ear to these aggrieved voices. The first act of reparation is often listening.