Modi Forgives Protesting Students, Calls Them 'Misled Children'

New Delhi, India – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he forgives students who hurled expletives at him during protests last month, describing them as “misled children” who must be shown “the right path” rather than be prosecuted and punished.

The biggest political crisis of Modi’s third term was caused by growing support for the youth-led Cockroach protest movement, which emerged in May after a crucial exam was voided after the questions were leaked, forcing more than two million students to resit the exam the following month.

The Cockroach Janta Party – as the protesters called themselves after the chief justice of the Supreme Court described unemployed youths and activists as “cockroaches” – was initially a social media campaign calling for educational reform via viral memes. But it morphed into a mass movement mobilising tens of thousands of supporters in capital New Delhi and inspired similar protests in cities across India.

The protests eventually ended after the Modi government agreed to all the protesters’ demands, including the resignation of the education minister, and pledged not to pursue criminal cases against any demonstrators.

But despite Modi’s assurances, the authorities in states ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party filed cases against hundreds of protesters after some clashed with security forces and shouted abusive slogans about the prime minister.

Supporters of Modi’s far-right Hindu nationalist politics have doxed female protesters, including teenagers, on social media, hurling rape and death threats at them, and demanding the local authorities take criminal action against them.

“These are misled children. Showing them the right path is our duty. Punishing them, making them run around courts, or tormenting them in society will not change the situation,” Modi said in a video posted on social media late on Friday, adding that “disgusting expletives” were targeted at him and his late mother at the protest.

“It is a cultural shock to us that how can our daughters use this language,” he said, before adding: “I want to forgive them.”

Tensions erupted between protesters and government forces in several parts of the country during the demonstrations last month, including in New Delhi, where people attempting to march on parliament were met with tear gas, pellet shotguns and baton charges.

“Modi is mute on the brutality unleashed on students in the capital and comes on Instagram to victimise himself,” Radhika Kumar, a 21-year-old student at Delhi University, told Al Jazeera. “This government’s supporters have abused women online for all these years, intimidated them into silence. Now, our prime minister is moral policing us.”

The movement said on Monday that “hundreds” of students had been arrested in various states, in violation of the government’s commitment to dropping police cases filed against protesters.

The opposition has been pressing the government to sack Home Minister Amit Shah, Modi’s close confidante who controls law and order in Delhi, for the crackdown on students.

The protests also prompted the Modi government to introduce a bill in parliament to amend the legislation governing public examinations, proposing longer prison terms and higher fines for those involved in exam paper leaks.

In the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, police also registered a case against the head of Meta India, Arun Srinivas, over multiple videos posted on the company’s Facebook platform that depicted Modi in an “abusive manner,” a senior police officer said on Friday.

“We are in touch with the concerned agencies and are cooperating with them to resolve the matter,” a spokesperson for Meta said.

Since February, platforms must remove unlawful content flagged by courts or the government within three hours, down from 36.