‘Mitron’ to ‘Friends’: How Gen Z Protests Changed Modi’s Vocabulary of Power

For years, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Narendra Modi's leadership has been described by political commentators as an election machine: disciplined, well-funded, digitally savvy, and well-endorsed by the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)’s cadre. On 4 May, with the West Bengal election results, where the BJP won a comfortable majority of 207 out of 294 seats, the reputation proved unfailing once again. Yet, within months, the Modi government, for the first time, appeared defensive on the NEET paper leak issue and shifted from silence on non-accountability to public communication in response to the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led youth movement. Especially after the disturbing visuals of 20 July, when peaceful protesters were inhumanely beaten by the Delhi Police. PM Modi, on 23 July, first broke his silence on the NEET examination leak via X, and later, in a late-night Instagram video, acknowledged the pain of students while promising tougher legislation and a fast-track court.The video wasn’t an apology, but it indicated an unusual defensive shift in language from ‘mitron’ to ‘friends’ by the Prime Minister and his party, who have been accustomed to controlling the political narrative for the past 12 years.Rather than accountability, the late-night Instagram video uploaded by the Prime Minister seem a facile approach to understanding the Gen Z visual language of reels, with a front-facing selfie screen and an informal way of addressing the nation. However, by that time, the protestors had moved beyond mere abstract assurances.So, what materiality of language did Gen Z protestors use to challenge Modi’s BJP and its self-proclaimed nationalist cadres, a Herculean task that Opposition parties have repeatedly failed to accomplish? And how has the establishment succeeded in their response?Why So Many Different Indias Suddenly Found Each Other at Jantar MantarGen Z protests stemmed from a humiliating remark by India’s Chief Justice of India, who compared unemployed youth to cockroaches. Rather than rejecting this insensitive notion, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke essentialised it and tweeted on X, ‘What if all Cockroaches come together?’ Unsurprisingly, he cleverly linked the initials of the CJP with the BJP—and used humiliation as a language of satire to mobilise youth against institutional corruption in the education system. When Prime Minister Modi on X claimed that nothing mattered more to him than the fruture od India's youth, Dipke sarcastically replied with a meme of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introducing himself: ‘Hi, my name is nothing’.Mikhail Bakhtin, a prominent Russian philosopher and literary critic, described this form of sarcasm as laughter that challenges those in power. In his influential work, Carnivalesque Theory, Bakhtin argues that satire's language equalises kings and peasants, while dismantling the illusion of the ruling class as infallible. Gen Z Did What We Couldn’t: A Love Letter to a Fearless GenerationSuch language emancipates marginalised members and overturns the power structure (1984). For the BJP’s communication system, which constructs binaries through a communal, patriarchal, and casteist narrative, understanding society as equals is an alien phenomenon.Therefore, this government found it tough to recognise the self-deprecating language of satire expressed through memes, reels, and protest signs, as such language does not align with their stable communal-nationalist discourse.The Prime Minister’s two Instagram videos indicate that the BJP did try to adapt to the Gen Z world of reels and digital discourse. However, self-deprecating satire remains challenging within an ethno-nationalist ecosystem rooted in claims of moral and cultural superiority, because such humour requires the powerful to laugh at themselves and be on equal footing with those they marginalise.As a result, many counter-memes and reels created by the government’s supporters have continued to focus on religious prejudice, caste mockery, and attacks on protesters as foreign-funded, rather than matching the movement’s ability to turn humiliation into collective laughter. In his modernist novel Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka describes his protagonist’s transformation into a roach as a perceived act of uncleanliness. Even in our colloquial language, cockroaches are seen as filthy and impure insects. So, when the Indian youth were described as cockroaches, instead of getting offended, they accepted this grotesque terminology and turned it into a form of endurance.The BJP’s Hindutva ideology sustains power hegemony through moral binaries like purity and impurity. Subaltern groups, such as women, are usually placed on the latter side of these binaries.As a result, when young Gen Z girls, especially from majoritarian groups, participated in protests and used grotesque language as a way to assert their agency while demanding accountability from the government, they challenged the moral binaries of good Hindu daughters.Whether it’s the iconic images of Rhiya Ahir in front of a police van or girls holding placards like ‘You f***ed with the wrong generation,’ such grotesque language is seen as a personal attack on the nationalist ecosystem, which claims to be their saviours and protectors. The government and its allies find it difficult to counter this explicit language, which empowers Gen Z girls at protest sites.Resistance involves more than just agency; it is grounded in material solidarity. From the moment Sonam Wangchuk began his hunger strike to 20 July, when protesters faced baton charges, alleged pellet gunfire, and tear gas, support for the protesters extended beyond the protest space into the dominant discourse on digital platforms.People from across India and around the world began digitally associating with cockroaches on the streets. Moreover, through food delivery apps, individuals who couldn't participate in the protest began ordering food, water, and other essential supplies for the protesters at Jantar Mantar. The people on digital platforms might not belong to the same caste, gender, religion, or ethnic group, but they essentialise themselves as cockroaches. Postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak has referred to such essentialisation as strategic essentialism, which plays a significant role in building mass movements (1988).This strategic essentialisation led to a new language of resistance, embedded in digitally materialised solidarity, that challenges right-wing propaganda about external financing by breaking the stigmatised image of a single hidden financier through countless small transactions, for the essential needs of protestors and the movement's success.Sonam Wangchuk has ended his 26-day fast, Dharmendra Pradhan has resigned, and the CJP movement may take different forms. However, the Gen Z protesters have introduced a new language for political protest. Gandhi’s protest established a mass discourse, JP’s movement popularised student unions as a national symbol, and Anna made the common citizen the face of the anti-corruption movement. However, Gen Z has overcome the one fixed language for protest. Their protest body remains situational, where insult becomes identity, solidarity becomes dinner, and memes become agency. The Opposition should learn these languages. Gen Z has showed that Modi may have mastered the machinery of election, but is forced to change his vocabulary once the message is conveyed through a spectrum of languages.(Dr Satkirti Sinha recently completed his PhD from the Performing Arts Department at DMU University, Leicester. His areas of expertise are Folk Culture, Dalit Theology, Performance Politics, Feminist Theory, Post-Colonial Theory, and Sexual Politics.)

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‘Mitron’ to ‘Friends’: How Gen Z Protests Changed Modi’s Vocabulary of Power

The Instagram videos uploaded by the PM seem a facile approach to understanding the Gen Z visual language of reels.

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Topics: Narendra Modi CJP Protest