GERMANY PERSPECTIVE

Berlin, July 23, 2026. Two days after the clashes in New Delhi, German media are torn between reporting the facts of the violence and analyzing the underlying crisis of trust that is shaking Indian youth. Tagesschau describes it as a "cockroach problem" for Narendra Modi, noting that images are looping on Indian television, where a presenter now refers to a "war of versions" between protesters and the government. The channel quotes Alexander Balakrishnan, a 26-year-old content creator on the scene: "The police were terrible. They attacked us with batons," he recounts, describing his escape over a fence to hide behind bushes. Deutsche Welle details the toll of the clashes around Jantar Mantar: 60 protesters and 118 police officers injured, according to the police, with mobile internet cut off in several neighborhoods, as tens of thousands of Cockroach Janta Party supporters marched towards Parliament to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The movement, which began in May as an online satirical campaign, has turned into a street revolt driven by a generation frustrated by unemployment and a failing education system; it gained intensity after activist Sonam Wangchuk was forcibly hospitalized, following a three-week hunger strike. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung broadens the scope by interviewing Anshul Yadav, 18, who came from Uttar Pradesh to take the army officer exam, where only 600 positions are available for 600,000 candidates. "The entire system has become corrupt," he summarizes, expressing fear that this exam may also be rigged, following scandals in the medical exam NEET, where over two million students had to retake the tests due to leaks, and IT glitches that distorted high school grades. According to Tagesschau, these repeated scandals have also been followed by a wave of suicides among candidates. The FAZ sees this as a doubt that strikes at the heart of the Indian economic narrative: in the country with the fastest growth in the world, it is the conviction that merit still pays off that is wavering.