The generation that betrayed Indian democracy: A retrospective
Sri city: In the aftermath of a 2 minute mourning for 20 students reported to have committed suicide due to the paper leak, and a recognition of other protests across the country especially with protests against Visakapatnam’s data centre within Andhra Pradesh, Leher spoke to the organisers of the 20th of July solidarity march for Sonam Wangchuk and the Jantar Mantar protests.
The Gilded Cage
When asked what made a large crowd participate, One organiser commented how protests for some freshers made Krea feel like an actual campus with a student spirit, and protests were driven by human empathy amongst the student body. The response would also come with a recognition of the diversity of the crowd, where despite the campus feeling like a gilded cage, across backgrounds, income brackets, and political affiliation, many students participated.
The organisers would specifically disagree with the narrative of Wangchuk or Jantar Mantar being a spark, and instead point to a feeling of powerlessness from an open display of a political culture that seemingly neglects student voices. Two volunteers speaking to us coming from diaspora backgrounds would support this statement. One third year speaking to Leher specifically mentioned how she felt more free in a sultanate compared to here in India even in a casual setting. Another third year would introduce an anecdote of his family’s experience in apartheid South Africa and their need to stand against oppression. From Kinship to family history, volunteers and organisers came to the conclusion that democracy wasn’t simply passive in written law, but an active responsibility amongst students where apathy needed to be broken.
Retrospective
The word apathy emerged to me while I interviewed students and faculty alike, and watched students and protestors from all walks of life participate in the protest. For many commentators on social media watching the protests, it seemed to mirror an image of a youth awakening to demand a progressive, inclusive, and presumably freer India. However, a quick retrospective over not just 4 months after Jantar Mantar’s July protest, but of Indian history would bring skepticism to this rose tinted image.
In the aftermath of the protests in Jantar Mantar, while former education minister Dharmedra Pradhan resigned on the 25th, the conspiracies and disinformation still continued with the lack of a transparent environment. As I wrote, there were calls from far right and pro government social media accounts for authorities to arrest students and volunteers who participated in the protests, misogynistic statements against women protestors with threats of sexual violence, and accusations of foreign funding despite claims being unverified. One egregious example was the doxxing of a 15 year old girl and her family from Noida simply for using swear words against the prime minister in an 11 second video. An apparent crime so negligent, it led to an entire political establishment clutching its pearls. An observer of these reactions has to wonder in the aftermath of Jantar mantar, what compels many people across this country to have a visceral hatred for protesting?
Bridges that connect, and walls that divide.
When I spoke to close family members, it seemed as if there was a generational divide between what was reported in mainstream media, where the realities of youth dissatisfaction and the subsequent protests inspired by Jantar mantar fell on deaf ears. Despite being from a relatively progressive part of the country, I have encountered close relatives who believed the protests to be a CIA, Chinese, or Pakistani conspiracy theory, and how the protests were unnecessary due to re-examinations. A seemingly petty method of compromise where a systemic issue is transformed into a palatable image of minor inconveniences and complaints seen only as an unpleasant ‘noise’ to the privileged. Ironically on the notion of Pakistani involvement, Jantar Mantar has inspired Pakistani students across the border to question their government’s neglect to public services, with many communities making parallels between Jantar Mantar’s protest and historical grief under the dictatorship of Zia al Haq during the 1980s. Despite brief moments of cross border understanding, I imagine my relatives are not the only ones who believe in such a conspiratorial narrative amidst many anecdotes and testimonies from individual social media users where their families prevented them from protesting. Restrictions that even extended to premier national institutions like JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and IIT Roorkee advising students not to protest or be political. A kafkaesque reaction one could argue, where a higher education institution believes that rather than engage in conversations of contemporary issues, actively attempts to disencourage students' choice to have a desire for inquiry.
In an interview by NDTV on the 22nd of July, journalist Shiv Aroor, would present successful candidates from the Re-NEET and their objection to protesting when they could simply ‘work hard’. This contributed to a narrative of protesting students being seen as failures on their own accord especially on social media platforms. However, this interview would be followed with not analysis, but videos of students crying after being shut away from examination centres re-surfaced, and NEET candidates including toppers coming out in support of protestors in refutation to the narrative. The justification of not just a fragmented examination system or even crumbling public systems, but larger narratives of students and protestors being ‘personal failures’ would manifest further with the prime minister’s independence day alarmism about ‘Dimagi Naxals’, and initial dismissive reactions from mainstream media towards a September 2026 Investigation by the Indian Express highlighted both disputes and lack of transparency within the Election commission of India with its controversial SIR policy which many reports comment has led to 130 million voters being deleted. A more recently disconcerting development is new open hostility towards protestors calling for the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, to resign since the 2nd of October due to allegations of vote purging as a product of a lack of transparency.
Cruel Ironies and Betrayed futures
From previous apologia of systemic failures to open hostility to questioning, the new spark of protests in Jantar Mantar this October finds itself representing not just a proclaimed ‘defense of democracy’, but a clash between generations. The cruelest irony in this context, is how older generations and contemporary political leaders lecturing about the need for civility, had their careers emerge from far more destructive protests in the 1960s to 1980s. Political leaders like the prime minister himself would credit the emergence of their political careers from protests like the Navnirman Andolan movement of the 1970s which led to Gujarat going into what accounts describe as a period of mass unrest . Even now ex education minister Dharmedra Pradhan was himself a student activist in the 1990s who was beaten up ironically for protesting paper leaks in Odisha. In a far more greater historical retrospective, the history of India has been a history of protests with a seeming philosophy to take hold of one’s destiny.
A common dismissal for youth protests especially for older generations supporting the ruling party has been the need for youth to focus on their education and careers rather than being ‘a noise’. It’s a bold suggestion in a time of persistent youth unemployment, rising cost of living, and where the biggest achievement in some circles of the country is to emigrate. Rather than outright dismissal, a more unorthodox question could be to ask ‘why study at all, for a future that many people believe is uncertain and eroding?’ but that would mean directly putting a spotlight on a can of worms associated with economic health and inequality in opportunities which runs contrary to rose tinted narratives associated with prosperity giving another degree of legitimacy to protest due to alienation. An alienated youth can be a bane on a country’s development and the personal dignity of many people, a recent report by NITI Ayog has revealed that nearly 90 million Indians are becoming NEETs (Not in employment, education, or training). While the report specifies on improving access to skill based courses, skill based courses increasingly seems to be a bandaid solution compared to larger systemic issues on social and economic mobility.
Bewilderingly though, despite similarities in feelings of alienation that contemporary youth feel which older generations especially in mainstream politics could have sympathised with, contemporary politics instead for many protestors old and young, has been observed to have militarised an entire city, and cement themselves as unwilling to listen to challenges or dissent. The enforcement of mass detentions, and social media blockings of independent journalists and cartoonists who comment on what’s happening in Jantar Mantar have galvanized many citizens from multiple walks of life. A seeming betrayal once can comment on the very foundations of Indian democracy not just in the ability to vote or the ability to protest, but the ability to even be your own person at all.
Imagining beyond a betrayal
In the future, whether it’s the campuses or even Jantar Mantar, today’s youth will face many ethical dilemmas when it comes to power inheritance and the responsibilities of maintaining democracy. When today’s youth will eventually become future leaders, journalists, academics, and creative professionals, will Millennials to Generation Alpha risk repeating the mistakes of previous generations to create an atmosphere of disdain for protests? Democracy increasingly mirrors a tree that is to be maintained over centuries, one must be expected to develop a sense of human understanding to the voices and curiosities of today to prevent apathy and visceral contempt for democracy itself. Afterall, was there ever a time no one had any complaints at all?
