Gen Z's Demand for Fairness: A New Political Vocabulary in India

Gen Z has compelled the country — from Generation X and others across generations — to sit up and listen. Those of us who have Gen Z children may claim we saw a glimpse of their potential before the rest of society did. Yet, if we are honest, we misunderstood them. They began with a demand that should never have required a national agitation in a mature democracy. Examinations must be conducted honestly, and public institutions must accept responsibility for their failures. The years that young people devote to preparing for their futures cannot be treated as expendable. Many of the youth who participated in these protests have spent years preparing for a single opportunity. Their families often supported them, even when they could scarcely afford to. Many have left villages and small towns, lived in cramped rooms, worked alongside their studies, or carried the expectations of an entire household. The loss incurred by these youngsters when an examination paper is leaked, when a result is arbitrarily delayed, or when a recruitment process is cancelled cannot be talked of only in administrative terms. Months and years of young lives are taken away. For some candidates, an age limit closes another door. For families already living with insecurity, another attempt means another financial sacrifice. Theirs is a generation that has been made to wait in examination halls, coaching centres and recruitment queues for precarious jobs. Their struggle has come to express something much larger. Nobody, let alone a young person, should have to demonstrate exceptional endurance merely to receive ordinary justice. Young people have been successful in forcing confrontation with a truth difficult to process for our generation: That hard work and perseverance cannot compensate for institutions that fail to act fairly. I dare say they have changed the political language of protest. What began as the reclamation of an insult has been transformed into an identity of survival, collective strength, and shared belonging. By converting a label meant to diminish them into a badge of resilience and solidarity, they have forged a new political vocabulary, one that connects individual experience with collective identity and turns humiliation into hope. This has been done earlier too, but they have used solidarity where isolated frustration was a norm, humour blunted widely pervasive fear, but more importantly, it enabled sharp critique when the powerful expected silence. When sections of the established media failed to show what was happening, the protesters represented themselves. Their phones became cameras, and they needed no newsrooms to broadcast. They were armed with counter-surveillance, and they expected accountability. Some people have dismissed Gen Z methods as non-serious and even obscene. They have misunderstood the political intelligence of humour. Satire can expose arrogance with an immediacy that formal speeches rarely achieve. It can bring together people who do not belong to the same organisation or speak the same ideological vocabulary. Their irreverent language asserted that it is not the duty of the citizens to assume the language and manners preferred by those in authority. What made me especially admire these young protesters is that they have normalised a fundamental democratic principle, which I and others have been repeating over and over again: An electoral mandate does not relieve a government of the duty to answer citizens between elections. Gen Z has shown other citizens that beyond Parliament and elections, democracy also lives in campuses, collectives, independent media, public meetings, and peaceful protests. When institutions fail to act fairly or become inaccessible, citizens have the right to approach the doors of power together and demand that they be opened. While the resignation of a minister and the other commitments they secured from BJP-led central and state governments are important achievements, the deeper significance of these protests lies in restoring the conviction that organised citizens can still make a powerful government answerable. That confidence belongs to everyone who participated, documented, volunteered, provided water and food, offered legal assistance, cared for the injured, or supported the movement from another town. It is now our obligation to remain present when protesters face intimidation, arrests, vilification and exhaustion; to carry their demands into legislatures; and to ensure that promises made during a crisis are honoured. This is also an opportunity for a conversation across generations. The young bring new forms of communication, new cultural languages and an impatience with hierarchies that have survived inside institutions as well as political parties. Older generations possess memories of earlier struggles against authoritarianism, caste oppression, communal violence, gender injustice, economic exploitation and the erosion of civil liberties. Democracy can be strengthened and made durable when historical memory meets a generation unwilling to accept inherited limits. Intergenerational solidarity does not require younger people to wait respectfully while their elders decide the direction of politics. It asks those of us who have occupied institutions longer to listen, share access and accept corrections. It also asks us to ensure that young protesters are not left alone to bear the costs of confronting the state. Then there is a question of what this movement must become. Some are asking if the Cockroach Janta Party will be a formal political party. Others will warn that engagement or aligning with political parties will compromise the “purity” of their demands for accountability. These decisions, of course, belong to individuals. But they also deserve patient, democratic discussion among the people who built the movement. There is no obligation to convert moral authority into electoral candidature, but there is no shame in people seeking institutional power if they eventually decide that their purposes require it. Whatever organisational course they choose, my most fervent wish is that they preserve the qualities that made this mobilisation powerful. Gen Z in India contains profound inequalities. Caste, gender, religion, disability, language, region and family income determine who receives opportunities, who can afford repeated attempts, who is heard and who encounters the harshest repression. A generational movement acquires lasting democratic force when those differences are represented within its concerns. The idea that young people are either a “demographic dividend” to be hawked, or an online “audience” to be managed, is thoroughly discredited. Gen Z has not only countered their stereotyping but has effectively changed the country’s political conversation. The youth have given us hope. It is now our turn to return the courtesy with respect for their worldview, solidarity for their spirit, and yes, also not let their hopes be dashed. As the students of Paris declared in May 1968, “Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible” — be realistic, demand the impossible. The writer is Member of Parliament ( Rajya Sabha ), Rashtriya Janata Dal