What makes the CJP unusual, however, is not simply its scale but the nature and breadth of its grievance.

Unlike many of the biggest protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government over the past decade - whether over citizenship , farm laws or other contentious policies - this movement is not fundamentally about ideology. Nor is it rooted in the interests of a single community or social group.

Instead, it questions whether the state can still guarantee fairness in the examination system that millions of young Indians see as their principal route to social mobility.

"The exam and education system cuts across caste, class and gender to quite a large degree," Yamini Aiyar, Senior Visiting Fellow at Brown University, told the BBC. "The core constituency coming to these protests doesn't represent a singular interest group."

That breadth is also what makes the movement politically distinctive.

"This movement centres on administrative failure," Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, a Delhi-based think tank, told the BBC. "The state's inability to conduct examinations fairly and prevent paper leaks makes it a very different kind of political challenge to the BJP."

That difference, he argues, changes the politics. Unlike earlier protests rooted in ideology or policy, this one questions the BJP's ability to govern. "They must recalibrate their strategy," Verma says.

Many of those protesting, he adds, are not natural opponents of the BJP.

They are "aspirational young Indians and their parents who see these exams as a path to upward mobility". Because the grievance is about governance rather than ideology, he argues, the BJP cannot easily rally its supporters or deploy the political counter-narratives that helped it confront earlier protest movements.