India, July 25 -- Five years after farmers camping on Delhi's borders forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the biggest policy retreat of his tenure, the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday marks only the second time sustained street pressure - this time by Gen-Z and others galvanised by the Cockroach Janta Party phenomenon - has made the Modi regime visibly reverse course. And it's the first time it has cost a minister his post.

The last such retreat came on November 19, 2021, when PM Modi announced the repeal of three contentious farm laws after farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, had camped at Delhi's border points for a year. The acts were off the books by early December, we...