Gen Z rising? Why young Indians aren’t taking to the streets

India’s Gen Z is vast, restless and hyper-connected – more than 370 million people under 25, nearly a quarter of the country’s population.

Smartphones and social media keep them constantly informed about politics, corruption, and inequality. Yet taking to the streets feels risky and remote: fear of being branded “anti-national”, regional and caste divides, economic pressures, and a sense that their actions may have little impact all weigh heavily.

Elsewhere in Asia and Africa, the same cohort – Generation Z, those born roughly between 1997 and 2012 – has been anything but quiet recently.

In Nepal, young protesters brought down a government in just 48 hours last month; in Madagascar a youth-led movement toppled its leader; frustrated Indonesians, worried about jobs, forced concessions from the government after protests against rising living costs, corruption and inequality; and in Bangladesh, anger over job quotas and corruption brought regime change last year. Co-ordinated through encrypted apps and amplified by social media, these uprisings are fast-moving, decentralised and frustrated over political corruption and cronyism.

In India, there have been faint sparks of discontent. In September, the disputed Himalayan region of Ladakh saw violent clashes between police and protesters demanding statehood for the territory, prompting activist Sonam Wangchuk to describe the unrest as a sign of “Gen Z’s frenzy” and long-suppressed anger.

This mood found an echo in national politics. Main opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi’s remark on X that “Gen Z youth will prevent voter fraud and save the Constitution” came after he publicly alleged large-scale electoral irregularities in the state of Karnataka.

In response to regional unrest, particularly the Nepal uprising, Delhi’s police chief has reportedly instructed his force to draw up contingency plans for potential youth-led demonstrations in the capital.

Online, the debate is raging and deeply divided. Some users on Reddit and X have urged India’s youth to stage similar protests at home. Others, recalling the violence in Nepal’s upheaval, warn against romanticising leaderless revolts. Fact-checking outlet BoomLive describes an “online battle” within the generation itself: one side views the demonstrations as legitimate calls for justice; the other suspects foreign manipulation.

From the anti-Indira Gandhi protests of the mid seventies to recent campus movements, India’s student activism has captured attention. Yet experts remain sceptical that it could unseat the central government like in Nepal or Bangladesh.

One reason is that India’s Gen Z is fragmented. Like their regional peers, many are disillusioned by joblessness, corruption and inequality. Yet their anger flares around local issues, making a unified national movement unlikely.

“I don’t see a single force uniting us,” says 26-year-old Vipul Kumar, a journalist from Bihar.

“Power in India is much more decentralised than in Nepal, and so is the anger of its youth. While I want our federal government to be challenged, many young people just want more government jobs.”

This is one of the reasons why Sudhanshu Kaushik of the Centre for Youth Policy believes India will remain an “outlier” when it comes to a Gen Z revolution.

“Age is not the only differentiator. In India young people are also strongly aligned with regional, linguistic, and caste identities, which often put them at odds with one another.

“If a Gen Z uprising occurs in India, would it be of the Dalit Gen Z, urban or Tamil-speaking? The truth is that there are far too diverse Gen Z communities with different intersecting interests,” Mr Kaushik, a youth activist and author of a book on Indian youth, says.

In other words, this means that urban youth might rally around issues like job opportunities and city infrastructure; Dalit – once deemed untouchable by India’s hierarchical caste system – youth around caste discrimination and social justice; and Tamil-speaking youth around language, regional rights or local traditions.

Also, the triggers vary. In Gujarat and Haryana states, young upper-caste communities have protested for increased affirmative action, while in Tamil Nadu, young people have taken to the streets against a court ruling banning jallikattu, a traditional bull-taming sport.

Layered on top of these divisions is another barrier. The fear of being branded “anti-national,” deters even the most aware and connected young people from taking to the streets, says Dhairya Choudhary, a 23-year-old political science graduate. In India, that label is often deployed by some politicians and television anchors to discredit dissent.

It doesn’t help that some of the country’s top universities – once vibrant hubs of political debate – now restrict or ban protests. “These institutions, once centres of anti-government activism, have lost that spirit,” says 23-year-old researcher Hajara Najeeb.

Recognising that youth energy persists, the government claims to make India’s youth a policy priority, seeking to channel their energy through schemes and outreach. Yet economic pressures shape many of their life choices.

As Mr Kaushik notes: “India is generally doing a little better than the world when it comes to the economy. That being said, unemployment anxiety continues to grow… young people are taking things into their own hands, with migration abroad increasing year after year.”

India’s young are also not voting with much enthusiasm. Only 38% of the 18-year-olds registered themselves as voters for the 2024 elections. A new survey by a citizen media platform found trust in traditional politics waning: 29% of young Indians avoid it altogether.

Mr Kaushik notes that in recent decades, many young Indians have increasingly defined themselves through religious, cultural and linguistic identities.

Not surprisingly a post-election survey by CSDS-Lokniti found the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retaining strong youth backing, with 40% support in 2019 and only a marginal decline in 2024.

To be sure, the roots of India’s Gen Z’s political awareness run deeper, shaped by a decade of street movements they witnessed as teenagers.

The older among them watched, as teenagers, the massive street movements of the 2010s – from Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption protests to the mass demonstrations over the 2012 Delhi gang-rape.

Later, students led major campus and street protests in 2019, including against the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy, farm reform laws, and most notably, the controversial citizenship law. The protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), largely driven by the Gen Z, were among the most significant of them all – but not without costs

In 2019, student protests at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University led to violent clashes after police stormed the campuses. Student leader Umar Khalid was arrested and remains in jail five years later, accused – but denying – his role as a “key conspirator” in the 2019 Delhi riots.

“The government has demonised protest to such an extent… few people even think of protesting,” says Jatin Jha, a 26-year-old youth fellow with the State Bank of India. The government claims it was only protecting law and order while portraying the protests as influenced by outside forces or “anti-national” elements.

This muted engagement may also reflect a deeper generational trait: as sociologist Dipankar Gupta notes, youth energy is fleeting, and each generation tends to forge its own causes rather than inherit old ones. Recent history shows a pattern: youth can topple regimes, but lasting change or improved prospects for young people can often remain elusive, from the Arab Spring to Bangladesh, or perhaps Nepal.

For now, India’s Gen Z seem more watchful than rebellious – their dissent subdued, but their aspirations unmistakably clear.