The resignation of Indian Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, which took place on Saturday following sustained protests, is being hailed as a turning point for the country’s youth movement.

Sakhi, a 22-year-old student activist from Delhi, said it was the first time young people felt that real change could be achieved through protest. She said her generation had read about the importance of dissent in democracy in textbooks, but had not seen it in practice under Narendra Modi.

Immediately after the minister’s resignation, an old video of a high-ranking government official went viral on social media, in which he declared that “there are no resignations in our government.” For many, that video became a “symbol of the success” of the youth movement.

Sakhi had posted videos of police brutality and arrests of protesters on Instagram, as well as humorous videos, many of which had millions of views. He believes the authorities failed to properly assess the strength of the protest movement by focusing on traditional media, Facebook and WhatsApp, while ignoring Instagram, where the main public discourse among young people was taking shape.

The protests began in May after the cancellation of India’s largest medical college entrance exam. Nearly two million applicants were forced to retake the exam after the exam question paper was leaked. According to family reports, more than 20 students committed suicide in the wake of the scandal.

Public discontent was coordinated by a satirical online initiative called the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which was formed after the Chief Justice of India’s Supreme Court compared unemployed people with fake diplomas to cockroaches. The initiators of the movement organized a sit-in in Delhi, demanding the resignation of the education minister, reforms in the education system, and compensation for the families of the students who lost their lives.

Initially, the protests did not receive much response, but on July 18, when the Delhi Police forcibly removed the sit-in participants, the movement gained widespread popularity and quickly spread to different parts of the country.

Somaya Korde, 26, who was placed under house arrest for calling for a July 20 protest in Mumbai, has since taken part in a number of other protests. She said the minister’s resignation is not the end, but only the beginning.

“This is the first time in our generation that many of us have taken to the streets to protest. But there are much bigger issues that we need to talk about, and we will continue to do so,” he said.