Shashi Tharoor Says India’s Democracy Bent but Did Not Break Amid Gen Z Protest

Speaking at an NDTV event, Tharoor praised the government’s decision to accept the students’ demands for a major resignation, saying the “system bent, but didn’t break”. He was referring to the recent student protests against the NEET-UG paper leak and the subsequent resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union education minister.

Tharoor examined how six countries in the region — Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and India — had witnessed students and other young people expressing their frustrations. He commended India’s democratic response following the recent protests in Delhi and other cities.

“The difference amongst them (protests in different countries) is a reflection of the political system in these countries and the attitude with which governments attempted to face or refuse these situations,” Tharoor said at the NDTV event.

He pointed to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where rulers were forced to relinquish power and leave. Nepal also witnessed a change in government, but unlike Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, “structures still remained intact” there, Tharoor said.

“In Pakistan, the military which had been playing behind the scenes came forward and established what is known as a puppet government. Similarly, the military took control in Myanmar,” Tharoor said.

Turning to India, Tharoor said the country’s mechanism was “self-correcting” and that its democratic system adapted itself to the new reality with “astonishing speed”.

“No one expected the BJP government, which has been impervious to public demands for resignations, to respond,” Tharoor said, recalling that the Opposition had raised demands for the resignation of senior officials many times without a response, but that the situation changed this time.

Without naming Dharmendra Pradhan, Tharoor said, “Somebody has resigned. The recognition that democracy needs to be nimble enough to turn around and recognise a public reality, that I think has been a tribute to the Indian system.”

He said India’s response to the student protest showed that the country’s system “bent, but didn’t break”.

“The Indian example gives me encouragement as an opposition leader that our democracy has flexibility and receptivity to respond to popular currents,” he said at the NDTV event.

Earlier this month, Tharoor had reflected on how the Gen Z protest, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), played out. He said similar issues had been raised by the Congress through its student outreach programme, ‘Chhatron ki Goonj’, but that the campaign had failed to resonate as much.

“Issues taken up by the CJP at Jantar Mantar had been taken up by us earlier. We had the ‘Chhatron ki Goonj’ thing where Rahul Gandhi was addressing students about the paper leaks,” Tharoor had said during his conversation at the 15th anniversary of India's International Movement to Unite Nations (IIMUN) in Mumbai.

“We need to ask ourselves what did we fail to do? Did we fail to listen? Was our finger missing from the pulse of the Gen Z?,” he had said.

Tharoor’s remarks highlighted the contrasting responses to youth-led protests across South Asia while placing India’s handling of the student agitation within the broader debate over the adaptability and responsiveness of democratic institutions.