Modi’s critics are inflating the ‘cockroach’ impact

Yes, Modi did retreat. That was apparently because of concerns that the agitation could intensify, especially after opposition parties began openly backing the students and extending support to them. For the opposition, it was a cathartic moment. What it had failed to achieve over the last 12 years, a disparate group of young people, without any clear ideology or purpose, managed to achieve. Yet that remains little more than a consolation. In a way, it was also the opposition’s loss, as it ceded political space to the CJP.