Guwahati, Nov. 2 -- In July, Dharmendra Pradhan submitted his resignation as India's Education Minister - the first major concession the government made after five weeks of youth-led protest. "Considering the situation that has arisen at Jantar Mantar and across the country," he wrote to the Prime Minister, he did not want the country's students to remain "entangled in legal complexities" instead of building their futures.

It is proof of something generations before this one could not manage: that sustained, peaceful dissent still moves power in the world's largest democracy. This is the story of how a population dismissed as lazy, useless, and up to nothing organised, endured police violence, and won.

The peaceful protests across India...