Why did the Narendra Modi government uncharacteristically back down during the Gen Z protest, and what does this signal for the BJP’s future electoral prospects?
There are several reasons the student protest against the NEET paper leak could not be easily repressed. As the Jantar Mantar sit-in continued, it began to resemble the 2011 Anna Hazare moevment, with middle-class families turning out in large numbers. I have friends who would never be seen dead at a political event turn up at Jantar Mantar with their kids, and then follow it up with a request for a reading list for their now politically awakened progeny. In cases where parents were reluctant, kids sneaked away, taking buses, trains and even flights to attend the march to Parliament on 20 July, so much so that the Delhi Police and CRPF, which had expected 5,000 marchers at most, had to contend with a deluge of 50,000 and more.
This was not the first time authorities have been caught unawares, nor will it be the last. Many people harbour some mix of dissatisfaction with the government and fear of paying a price for openly dissenting, given the Modi government’s vindictiveness.
But this fear decreases as more and more people join. Analysing the 1989 Leipzig Monday demonstrations in East Germany, which eventually led to the Communist regime’s demise, political scientist Susanne Lohmann argued that the cost of protesting decreased as the size of the protest increased, which made risk-averse people willing to participate.
Families that would have stayed away from the protest site in early June were flocking to Jantar Mantar in July, driven by social media legitimation and waning fear. When the time came to march to Parliament, tens of thousands of students had concluded that the potential benefit of participating – forcing then Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign – was greater than the prospective costs. And it turned out that their threshold for pain – being beaten, tear-gassed and shot with pellets – was higher than they had imagined.
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Why the protest worked
Three other factors worked for the young protesters: non-violence, involvement of women, and the participation of the religious majority.
Non-violent protest: Since the end of the Cold War, non-violent protests have become much more common than armed resistance. In the period 2010–2019, non-violent protests were four times as likely to succeed as violent or armed protests. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest was never likely to escalate into violence, but its Gandhian approach made a major difference.
Female participation: The protest saw widespread participation of women, from fasting activists to the most viral reels. The protest site was largely a safe space for women, and the tenor of the movement remained women-friendly. Non-violent movements with widespread female participation are more likely to achieve their objectives and generate dissension within the ruling government over whether to crack down harshly.
Majority community: There is of course a striking exception to this rule: the treatment of Muslim women protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at places like Shaheen Bagh. Despite the visible presence of women, the protests were confined to Muslims and their liberal allies. Then Union Minister of State Anurag Thakur demonised the peaceful protesters with the slogan “Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko”, while Arvind Kejriwal said he would have cleared Shaheen Bagh in two hours. Kapil Mishra, who threatened violence against the peaceful demonstrators hours before the 2020 Delhi riots, was appointed Delhi’s Law and Justice Minister in 2025.
Research shows that if you are an African-American in the US or an Arab citizen of Israel, your non-violent protest will be considered threatening by a significant section of the majority community. This played out in Shaheen Bagh, although even this seemingly failed movement delayed CAA implementation by several years.
Also read: How student protesters rewrote the language of political dissent—with humour
The final push
Events moved fast after the 20 July crackdown on the march to Parliament. The central government went from ignoring the protest to acknowledging it through Modi’s awkwardly filmed reels before offering weak concessions. It gradually ceded ground until it finally offered up Pradhan for sacrifice on the morning of 25 July.
One trigger was the direct entry of the Congress party and INDIA bloc into the student protests, starting with the 21 July dharna outside the Prime Minister’s house. The flip side of social media mobilisation is weak organisation, which leads many protest movements to disperse after the initial upsurge. The mobilisation of a formal political party led by a figure popular with Gen Z – Rahul Gandhi – changed the game. As did the spread of the protest to other cities. And as some Aaj Tak media persons pointed out in a podcast, Pradhan’s resignation came a few hours after the government learned that Gandhi might visit Jantar Mantar, presumably scaling up the protest again.
Another clear driver was the fear that the BJP’s core Hindu middle class vote bank was turning against it. Bypoll defeats in Bankipur (Bihar) and Datia (Madhya Pradesh) have since proved that the BJP can take its supporters for granted only up to a point. Once violence was used against the children of its core voting bloc, all bets were off. It cannot afford to lose an entire generation of voters. The intimidation, doxxing and slut-shaming by its ecosystem haven’t helped its case either.
Obviously, no generation is a single bloc; young people are divided by social location and partisan values. But memorable political events in a voter’s teenage and early adult years predictively shape their political preferences for decades. As global experience shows, young activists from one movement usually ignite the next one.
Amitabh Dubey is a Congress member. He tweets @dubeyamitabh. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)