Modi's predicament: Gen Z pours out on India's streets as dissent surges — SkimNews
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- ACLED said street protests in India this year are likely higher than at any time in the past decade, with youth scaling barricades in Delhi last week despite tens of thousands of security personnel deployed to stop them.
- Recent Delhi protests focused on demands that Election Commission chief Gyanesh Kumar resign over a voter roll revision that activists and opposition parties say favors the BJP and has helped it win recent state elections.
- Modi's government promised millions of jobs yearly when he took power in 2014, yet unemployment among India's 15-29 year olds stood at 9.9% in 2025, and graduate joblessness among those aged 15-25 reached nearly 40% per Azim Premji University's State of Working India 2026 report.
- The Cockroach Janta Party grew from a joke into the first nationally resonant youth-led movement of the Modi era after India's chief justice likened the unemployed to "cockroaches."
- Analysts described the unrest as the worst crisis for Modi since 2014, noting that people under 30 make up nearly one quarter of India's 1 billion voters, though the next general election is not due until 2029.
- The protests drew comparisons to Bangladesh and Nepal, where youth-led movements toppled governments in recent years, though analysts cautioned India's politics make such parallels imperfect.
- Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state, goes to the polls early next year, providing an early test of Modi's popularity, though analysts said it is too early to predict electoral consequences.
Why it matters: With graduate unemployment near 40% and a quarter of India's billion voters under 30, Modi's strongest political base is its most restless — and Uttar Pradesh's state election early next year becomes the first measurable referendum on whether the unrest is protest noise or an actual erosion of BJP dominance.
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