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# India’s government fails to crush Gen Z protests
- URL: https://generation-transmission.abstract27.com/indias-government-fails-to-crush-gen-z-protests/
- Published: 2026-10-14T13:21:22.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-02T19:31:24.000Z
- Author: A Perche
- Tags: A la une, ENTREPRISES

## A LA UNE • The leader of the Cockroach party is detained and the internet shut down

MICROPHONES SHOVEDin their faces, the youngsters raced to utter their soundbites on democratic rights. Then the police van sped off with them still in mid-sentence. “That’s the only way to protest now—we just go get detained,” shrugged one. On October 10th in Delhi, drones filled the skies and tens of thousands of security men and women patrolled the strangely silent city below. India’s capital, in parts deserted, witnessed its most sweeping crackdown on peaceful protest for many years.

After 12 years in power, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, faces a challenge from GenZprotesters who are unfazed by his tactics. In July, the newly-formed [Cockroach Janta Party](https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/05/31/indias-republic-of-uncles?ref=generation-transmission.abstract27.com) (CJP), an upstart youth movement, [staged mass protests](https://www.economist.com/asia/2026/07/22/indias-gen-z-protesters-demand-a-proper-education?ref=generation-transmission.abstract27.com) against a corrupt exam system and poor job prospects, and eventually forced the education minister to resign. Mr Modi was publicly ridiculed, a new experience for him, courtesy of memes and placards from a generation largely too young to remember any other prime minister. This time, theCJP is riding a wave of public anger against the voting system, which they say is rigged. The authorities are also better prepared. As soon as theCJP’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, and his two lieutenants touched down at Delhi airport to lead the crowds at a planned rally, police arrived to snatch them away to undisclosed locations. While most of the roughly 5,000 protesters detained that day got out by nightfall, the cockroach trio was held for 24 hours.

Central Delhi felt like a city under siege: borders sealed, internet jammed, 45 metro stations locked and loudspeakers blasting out warnings. Police bruised opposition leaders and briefly nabbed journalists and lawyers. Scattered protests emerged like flashmobs, only for baton-wielding officers to disperse them. “They were chasing us like we were rats,” says Mohak, 22, who spent three hours in a police van while officers called him “anti-national” and threatened to ruin his future if he protests again.

Though the cockroaches were squashed over the weekend, India’s formal opposition alliance, led by the Congress Party’s Rahul Gandhi, gathered tens of thousands for a march on October 12th. More protests are planned. They, too, will demand that Gyanesh Kumar, the chief of India’s Election Commission, must resign; that the voter-verification drive he has managed must be scrapped; and that the law that in effect let Mr Modi handpick him should go. Over the past year, a “special intensive revision” of voter lists has deleted over 130m names; many rightly, since they were duplicates or the names of dead people: but very many wrongfully.

The government, like the commission, denies the allegations. Kiren Rijiju, aBJP minister, calls the protests—which were refused police permission—a gimmick by those who keep losing elections. Batting away comparisons to the Emergency of the 1970s, when Indira Gandhi suspended democracy, he says: *“*This is not an emergency, this is normal law and order.”

![Security personnel stand guard outside the headquarters of the Election Commission of India on the day of a CJP protest](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20261017_ASP502.jpg)

Photograph: Reuters

For India’s long moribund opposition, the rallies against “vote *chori* (theft)” are about saving democracy and the republic. Many protesters are angry about losing their votes—and the rest, brandishing copies of the constitution, are angry on their behalf. But the marches also express a more diffuse anger at years’ of perceived governmental missteps. Rally-goers raise shoddy schooling, jobless growth, women’s safety, minority rights and unease at India’s Hindu-nationalist turn.

This year’s protests have produced a new generation of citizens such as Mohak, who stumbled upon theCJP during a midnight Instagram doom-scroll. By the time he had gone to see its rallies in July and police had beaten him with a stick, the government had created a committed critic. “It enraged me,” he says. “I’m going to join some group now and start organising.”

The upstart cockroaches and India’s established opposition have both vowed to protest until the election chief resigns. But Mr Kumar is virtually unsackable, thanks to constitutional protections and a prime minister who stands by him, for now. To Mr Dipke, the original cockroach, the spectacle of the crackdown suggests the government has something to hide. “Narendra Modi and Amit Shah (the home minister) are waging a war on their countrymen just to save one Gyanesh Kumar,” says Mr Dipke.

The opposition’s bigger ambition concerns the national election of 2029\. “People finally understand how theBJP is stealing elections,” argues a close adviser to Rahul Gandhi. He says he feels upbeat about uniting the opposition and galvanising angry voters to unseat theBJP, more so than at any time since 2014\. And if the popular protests persist, his optimism will surely grow.■