It was clear things were bad when Bollywood decided to wade in. In the last few days, several actors from India’s entertainment industry, hitherto known either for clamouring for a selfie with Prime Minister Narendra Modi or for obediently sharing cut-and-paste posts in support of the party and its leaders, began posting in a different tone. “Unfair”, they said, in response to the violent treatment meted out to unarmed protesting students; “time to engage with them”, they told the BJP-led government.
The impact is there to see. For the first time in the history of the Modi government, a Cabinet minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, has resigned on the back of intense, consistent, youth-led protests.
The question is: what comes next?
The ground has shifted under the ruling party’s feet. Pradhan’s resignation is a powerful moment for an organic collective that cut across class, caste, religion, and gender. It has also brought front and centre the ugly truth of India’s last decade, an education system that has been gutted, and a raging jobs crisis.
Even as Pradhan’s resignation marks a sharp shift in the country’s political mood, two pockets stand out for their obstinate silence in the face of this student and citizen outpouring, and for staying conspicuously absent from any public comment on the protests, or on the need for change.
The first is the BJP-led government’s coalition partners. The Telugu Desam Party’s N. Chandrababu Naidu and the Janata Dal (United)’s Nitish Kumar, two men who emerged as kingmakers in the 2024 general election and are best known for being turncoat BJP allies over the years, seemed to have gone underground for the moment.
Reports of a stormy Monsoon Session of the Bihar Legislative Assembly point to a fierce war of words between the State’s opposition and the Nitish Kumar government, but there is little so far to indicate the coalition partner is reading the mood of its State. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy estimates Bihar’s unemployment rate at roughly 11.4 per cent, and over 20 per cent for those aged 15 to 29. Young voters also make up more than 20 per cent of Bihar’s electorate. The last election may have gone Kumar’s way, but the anger of the past fortnight should be a warning of what is bubbling under the surface among Bihar’s youth.
The TDP, for its part, has opted for performative sympathy for the protesters while also voicing confidence in the BJP and Modi’s approach so far. It doesn’t appear any internal party discussions have been held yet and it would be deeply ironic that Naidu, a man who has attempted to build an image around being a reformer, now has worse employment numbers in his state than his predecessor. After the TDP coalition took power, the first annual Periodic Labour Force Survey report for 2025 showed unemployment in Andhra Pradesh rising marginally to 4.2 per cent, with youth unemployment at 16.2 per cent among those aged 15 to 29. How long will the party and its leader play the both-sidesism game, and how long before Andhra Pradesh’s electorate runs out of patience.
But politics is nothing if not opportunism. How these two coalition partners respond will depend not just on how much heat they face, but on the cost of jumping ship and withdrawing support. Above all, the BJP and its allies will have to reckon with the searing youth discontent that has built up around substandard educational opportunities and the collapse of jobs. Here’s looking at you, Minister Sitharaman.
Corporate India’s calculated silence
The second, more glaring pocket of silence is corporate India. This is not hugely surprising , business interests have always sided with who is in power, trumping social responsibility, moral integrity and public support. If many parts of mainstream media, especially TV news broadcasters, have been given a public lashing in the ongoing student protests, then almost about as much hate has come the way of India’s decade-long ruling duopoly, the Adani and Ambani groups.
In the last 12 years, if there is one pocket that has been consistent in kow-towing the line of the government, it is India’s corporates. Every Union Budget has scored a robust 11 out of 10, every new scheme has been hailed by corporate India as being “revolutionary”, “visionary”, and promising to change India’s fortunes.
Pradhan’s resignation has brought to the fore an education system in crisis and a raging jobs crisis. Here, students enter the examination hall to appear for the NEET 2026 exam at AU College of Engineering in Visakhapatnam on May 3, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
V. Raju
Anand Mahindra, an avid Twitter user with over 11 million followers, had plenty to say about sports, music and employee awards, but nothing to write about a student protest that has seen scores of young people in Mumbai and Pune being rounded up and lathi-charged. Tech Mahindra is headquartered in Pune.
A social media post in support of the protest by Ananya Birla, scion and sixth-generation member of the wealthy Birla family, did not see an echoing of sentiment by the chairman of the Aditya Birla group, Kumar Mangalam Birla. Birla, and his daughter, both attended the grand consecration ceremony of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir in 2024, expressing public support for the event.
Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha and podcaster at large, hasn’t so far found anything about young India’s protests worth a comment, less so a conversation. Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal, who has in the past made passionate social posts against the idea of over-regulating gig work (because when did collective bargaining power help anyone, right?), has had nothing to say about a protest that is demanding what all young and hungry entrepreneurs must surely recognise , the demand for transparency, accountability and a fair shot. Any expression of empathy and support came from individual food delivery workers who are getting food to young protesters at Jantar Mantar, at all hours and through all sorts of road closures.
The list is long: big guns like the Tata Group, the Adani conglomerate, the Ambani business empire and Reliance Industries on the one hand, and India’s unicorn brigade on the other. What binds them is their refusal to make a comment that may jeopardise any commercial interests for their businesses or cause any trouble with the ruling government. Because the last decade has been exactly how corporate India liked it: record profits, no investment, and if you don’t question the government, no problems either.
It is tricky to hold businesses accountable to the public. While they are keen to woo consumers and customers, business leaders don’t stand for elections where they must ask for votes. Neither do they need audiences like the news media do to stay relevant.
But there is a larger takeaway here. Thirty-five million people live in Delhi and the National Capital Region. Over 25 million live in Mumbai, and many millions across key metros like Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Chennai. These cities are the economic and cultural axes of the country, and the strongest centres of the student protests so far. Cities that draw a young workforce, a workforce that has been through a public education system and is expected to be skilled, globally competitive and contributors to the financial growth and success of these corporates.
If the protests, and Pradhan’s resignation, have revealed to the world that the emperor is naked, then so is corporate India. Naked in their self-interest, and naked in their fear of retaliation. The student protests have been a moment of reckoning for India. The reckoning may not be contingent on corporate India’s support, but it will certainly determine the future of India’s youth and its businesses.
Mitali Mukherjee is Director of the Journalist Programmes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
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