India, Aug. 3 -- After a weeks-long standoff, Dharmendra Pradhan ultimately resigned. The Minister stated that he was resigning on moral grounds, taking responsibility for the repeated paper leaks, examination irregularities and flaws in the evaluation process, while keeping in mind the future of the students. If this indeed was the sole reason, one may reasonably ask why he did not resign when these incidents first occurred. Why not at the very outset of the protest or immediately after the examination controversies came to light?

The question therefore persists: Did the Minister resign because of the sustained protest by a significant section of the nation's youth? Did he resign on a political inevitability or constitutional stipulati...