Dismissed as distracted and unserious, India’s youngest political generation turned memes, masks and short videos into a national movement powerful enough to force a rare cabinet exit.

Gen Z has heard all the accusations before: too distracted, too comfortable, too addicted to phones and too unserious to care about politics.

Then India’s young people locked in.

In July 2026, weeks of youth-led demonstrations over examination paper leaks, education reform and shrinking job prospects culminated in the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. What began online through satire and memes had grown into a nationwide movement that placed the Narendra Modi government under unusual public pressure.

The movement did not abandon seriousness; it repackaged it. Cockroach masks, superhero costumes, Instagram Reels and sarcastic placards captured public attention, while marches, a prolonged hunger strike and negotiations created political pressure.

The result challenged one of the most persistent stereotypes about Gen Z: that a generation fluent in memes cannot also be politically committed.

From an Online Joke to a National Movement

Gen Z is generally understood to include people born after 1996, although definitions vary. Only its older members can currently vote, but the generation’s political influence extends far beyond the ballot box. It can shape narratives, create pressure and move an issue from a social-media feed to the national agenda.

The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, demonstrated that power.

The satirical movement was founded by political communications strategist Abhijeet Dipke after controversial remarks comparing unemployed young people to “cockroaches” and “parasites” sparked widespread anger. Rather than reject the insult, supporters reclaimed the cockroach as a symbol of survival: difficult to silence, difficult to eliminate and impossible to ignore.

The humor attracted attention, but the grievances behind it were real. Students were angry about repeated examination irregularities, particularly the leak of a national medical entrance examination paper. The resulting retest affected approximately two million students. The protests also became an outlet for wider anxiety about unemployment, educational opportunities and government accountability.

Activist and education reformer Sonam Wangchuk emerged as one of the movement’s most visible supporters, completing a 26-day hunger strike. Protesters marched, faced police barricades, endured tear gas and demanded Pradhan’s resignation.

On July 25, Pradhan stepped down. The government also agreed to demands that included examination-system reforms, withdrawing police cases against protesters and compensating families of students who had died by suicide following the examination controversy.

Reuters described the confrontation as Modi’s biggest youth challenge since he became prime minister in 2014 and reported that Pradhan was only the second minister to resign following a scandal during Modi’s tenure.

That made the episode more than a viral moment. It became evidence that digital frustration, when connected to a concrete grievance and organized offline action, can produce a political result.

Gen Z Is Harder to Treat as a Permanent Vote Bank

Previous generations are often described as “legacy voters”—people whose political loyalties are strongly influenced by family, caste, community or regional identity and remain relatively stable over time.

Gen Z has not eliminated those influences, and no generation should be treated as politically uniform. However, younger voters appear increasingly willing to make their support conditional. A political party may win their approval on one issue and face their anger on the next.

Many young voters who have supported the BJP, for example, can still criticize the government over examination leaks, unemployment or policies affecting their everyday lives. Supporting a leader does not necessarily mean adopting that leader as a permanent personal identity.

This makes Gen Z difficult to manage through personality-driven politics alone. Young people can instantly retrieve old speeches, promises and interviews. A statement made years ago can return as a split-screen Reel within hours, placed beside a politician’s latest claim.

The internet has given ordinary voters a searchable political memory.

Gen Z does not merely listen to leaders. It fact-checks them, remixes them, parodies them and sometimes trolls them.

That does not automatically make every criticism informed or fair. But it does make political communication more exposed. A carefully manufactured image can now be challenged by thousands of creators working from their phones.

The Algorithm Is the New Political Editor

For Gen Z, political information does not wait to be searched for. It arrives.

It appears between a comedy Reel, a fashion video and a friend’s holiday pictures. A 90-minute political speech may receive limited attention, while one 30-second segment from that speech can reach millions of people before the day ends.

This does not mean framing has become less important. In fact, it has become more important. The person who selects the clip, adds the caption and chooses the music can influence how an entire speech is understood.

Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, memes and independent digital creators have therefore become central players in political communication. They influence which moments become visible, which contradictions become embarrassing and which grievances become shareable.

The Cockroach Janta Party understood this instinctively. It did not begin with a traditional party office, television campaign or established political machinery. It began with an absurd symbol and a message that fit naturally into internet culture.

The symbol brought people in; the seriousness of the issue kept them involved.

Political information found Gen Z through its feeds. Gen Z then carried that information into the streets.

From Rallies to Reels

Political leaders have recognized the shift.

Following the youth protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi increasingly appeared in selfie-style videos and informal, vertically filmed social-media content. His outreach included youth-oriented language, pop-culture references and encouragement for creators to use formats such as “Get Ready With Me,” commonly known as GRWM.

The broader BJP communication system also began experimenting with shorter, less polished videos designed for Instagram and other youth-focused platforms. According to Reuters, Modi urged ministers to become more active on platforms popular with young people and to make their videos appear less scripted.

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi adopted a more interactive approach, inviting students and Gen Z users to participate in an Instagram “Ask Me Anything” session. Serious questions about education and politics appeared alongside lighter exchanges designed to make the politician seem accessible and human.

These efforts reveal the new competition taking place in Indian politics. Politicians are no longer competing only for votes. They are competing for attention, authenticity and relatability.

But views, likes and playful comments do not automatically translate into trust. Gen Z is deeply familiar with influencer culture and can quickly recognize communication that feels overly manufactured. A leader may speak the language of the internet and still become the subject of the internet’s jokes.

The politicians have entered Gen Z’s digital territory. That does not mean Gen Z will accept them there.

Tackling Serious Issues With “Unserious” Humor

Traditional protests are associated with speeches, slogans, marches and hunger strikes. The CJP demonstrations included all of those—but added a distinctly Gen Z layer.

Some protesters appeared dressed as Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man and other pop-culture characters. Others wore cockroach masks, recorded GRWM-style videos before attending demonstrations or used trending sounds to document what was happening around them. Placards turned examination leaks, unemployment and political frustration into punchlines designed to travel online.

Even confrontations with police were narrated through irony and dark humor.

From the outside, this behavior can appear chaotic or even inappropriate. But humor was not evidence that protesters lacked seriousness. It was a communication strategy, a coping mechanism and a form of political resistance.

Memes lowered the barrier to participation. A young person who might never watch a television debate could understand a joke about a paper leak within seconds. A superhero costume could attract a camera, but the protester’s explanation could then carry the political message to millions.

Gen Z did not make protest less serious. It made seriousness shareable.

Behind the costumes was genuine anger. Behind the Reels were students worried about their futures. Behind the cockroach symbol were young people who believed institutions had stopped listening to them.

The Danger of Politics by Algorithm

The same tools that give young people political power can also create serious problems.

Short videos remove context. Algorithms reward outrage. False claims can spread faster than corrections, and a clever edit can make a misleading argument feel convincing. Online movements may also become trapped inside ideological bubbles in which popularity is mistaken for accuracy.

There is another challenge: sustaining attention. A movement can dominate social media for a week and disappear when the algorithm discovers a new controversy. Turning online enthusiasm into lasting reform requires organization, leadership, negotiations and measurable goals.

The CJP movement succeeded because it connected viral creativity with a specific demand and sustained offline pressure. Its longer-term test will be whether it can continue influencing public policy after the trending hashtags fade.

Why Indian Americans Should Pay Attention

This transformation matters beyond India.

For many young Indian Americans, Indian politics is experienced less through newspapers or evening television and more through Instagram, YouTube and videos forwarded by relatives on WhatsApp. A political moment in Delhi can enter a Dallas, New Jersey or Bay Area family conversation within minutes.

That creates a new kind of transnational political participation. Members of the diaspora may not vote in India, but they can amplify stories, influence family conversations, support causes and shape how events in India are understood abroad.

It also makes reliable reporting more important. When politics travels internationally through short clips, the distinction between verified information, satire and propaganda can quickly disappear.

Gen Z Has Locked In—But What Comes Next?

India’s Gen Z has not rejected politics. It has rejected the assumption that politics must always look and sound traditional.

This generation may organize through Instagram, speak through memes and arrive at a protest dressed as Spider-Man. None of that prevents it from understanding injustice, demanding accountability or sustaining a movement.

The Cockroach Janta Party protests showed that digital culture can become democratic power when humor is connected to a real grievance and online attention is converted into collective action.

Gen Z has not replaced rallies with Reels. It has made Reels the road to the rally.

And after a movement born from memes helped force a Union minister’s resignation, no political party can afford to dismiss the next viral joke as “just the internet.”

A Gen Z girl stands at her bathroom sink, splashing water on her face.

She looks up at the camera, mock horror in her eyes: “Oh my god. I just used water that was supposed to go to AI. Jeff Bezos is going to be so mad at me.”

The reel got millions of views. So did a hundred versions of it — people apologizing to their showers, their swimming pools, their water bottles.

Here’s the twist: the Bezos quote everyone was mocking — that water should be prioritized for AI over human needs — was never real. Fact-checkers traced it to a satire post after his appearance at VivaTech in Paris. He never said it.

But notice what happened. Millions of people saw a billionaire supposedly telling them to drink less water so machines could think more — and believed it instantly. No hesitation. No fact-check needed.

That instant believability is the real story.

Because while the quote was fake, the anxiety behind it is very real. AI data centers do drink billions of gallons of water. They do consume electricity on the scale of entire cities. And communities across America are genuinely asking whether their resources now come second to server farms.

So let’s talk about what’s actually happening — because the truth is stranger than the meme.

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“A facility that uses a city’s worth of electricity and millions of gallons of water might employ thirty to a hundred people. That’s it. No jobs boom. No middle-class revival. Just a handful of high-skill technicians and security guards.”

“Water and power constraints — not chip shortages — are now the primary bottlenecks for expansion.”

“Data centers are becoming an important issue in local, state, and potentially federal elections because it is an important subject for voters.”

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Have you ever imagined that every time you ask an AI chatbot a question, generate an image, or use a smart assistant, somewhere a building the size of several football fields springs into action?

Imagine a modern-day gold mine.

Except instead of miners digging for precious metal, thousands of processors are digging through data. Instead of pickaxes, there are GPUs. Instead of dynamite, there is electricity.

And instead of gold, the commodity is intelligence itself.

Hidden behind the excitement of artificial intelligence is a rapidly expanding network of AI data centers — vast industrial facilities quietly reshaping economies, politics, energy systems, and even local elections.

While AI is often discussed as software, its real foundation is brutally physical: land, power, water, and money.

And the scale is staggering. The International Energy Agency’s satellite tracking shows that “AI factories” — cutting-edge data centers built specifically for AI — have more than tripled in capacity in just 18 months. Electricity consumption by AI-focused data centers surged 50% in 2025 alone.

The question is no longer whether AI will transform society.

The question is: who will bear the cost of building the infrastructure that makes it possible?

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What Exactly Are AI Data Centers?

At their simplest, data centers are buildings filled with servers that store, process, and transmit information.

AI data centers are a different breed altogether.

Unlike traditional facilities that handle websites, emails, and cloud storage, AI data centers are designed to train and operate large artificial intelligence models. They contain thousands of specialized chips working simultaneously, processing oceans of information around the clock.

Here’s one number that captures the leap:

A conventional server rack consumes 5 to 15 kilowatts of electricity. A modern AI rack? 30 to over 100 kilowatts.

That’s not an upgrade. That’s a different species — up to twenty times hungrier, rack for rack.

The result is a new class of infrastructure that demands:

• Massive electricity supplies — often with dedicated substations
• Advanced cooling systems — increasingly liquid-cooled, chip by chip
• High-speed fiber networks
• Large land parcels — hundreds of acres at a time

These facilities have become the factories of the AI age.

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America’s New Gold Rush

If the nineteenth century was defined by railroads and the twentieth century by oil, the twenty-first may be defined by compute power.

Technology giants — Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta — have collectively committed hundreds of billions of dollars toward AI infrastructure, with combined annual capital spending now rivaling the GDP of mid-sized nations.

The United States government and many state governments see these projects as strategic assets.

Why?

Because AI leadership increasingly depends on compute capacity. The US already accounts for roughly 45% of global data center electricity consumption — the largest market on Earth. Countries that control advanced AI infrastructure gain advantages in:

• Economic competitiveness
• Military applications
• Scientific research
• Cybersecurity
• Technological innovation

To win these projects, states across America are rolling out the red carpet:

• Property tax exemptions
• Sales tax incentives
• Fast-track approvals
• Infrastructure support packages
• Favorable zoning policies

The result? What many analysts call a new real estate rush.

Large tracts of land with access to power and fiber are suddenly worth multiples of what they fetched a few years ago. Rural counties that once competed for factories now compete for AI campuses.

But beneath the promises of investment and innovation lies a more complicated story.

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What Lies Beneath the AI Boom?

Supporters portray data centers as engines of economic development.

Critics see something very different.

Across Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona and beyond, residents are increasingly organizing against proposed projects. And Virginia shows why the stakes feel so personal: data centers already consume an estimated 26% of the state’s electricity — more than one in every four kilowatt-hours.

The concerns are not ideological. They are practical:

• Rising electricity demand — and rising residential bills
• Pressure on local water supplies
• Industrial noise, humming 24/7
• Land consumption
• Limited long-term employment
• Increased strain on infrastructure

The community argument is simple: the benefits flow to large technology companies and investors. The costs stay local.

This is why data centers have begun appearing in election campaigns and local political debates — and why the coalitions opposing them look so unusual.

Environmental activists, farmers, suburban homeowners, and fiscal conservatives are finding themselves on the same side, for different reasons.

Some oppose the environmental footprint. Some oppose public subsidies. Some simply ask: does a facility employing a small workforce justify hundreds of millions in tax incentives?

For many Americans, AI is no longer an abstract technology debate.

It’s a line item on the utility bill. A water table. A changed skyline.

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The Hidden Costs of the AI Race

The AI revolution is often told as a story of algorithms.

Increasingly, it is a story of resources.

⚡ Electricity

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing AI expansion is power.

A single large AI campus can consume hundreds of megawatts — comparable to a small city.

Zoom out and the numbers get dizzying. The IEA projects global data center electricity consumption will roughly double from about 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh by 2030 — nearly 3% of all electricity on the planet. In the US, data centers consumed about 4.4% of national electricity in 2023; federal researchers project that share could hit as much as 12% by 2028.

One January 2026 industry forecast put it vividly: US data center demand is set to jump from 80 to 150 gigawatts between 2025 and 2028 — like adding an entire Spain to the grid in three years.

Utilities now face an impossible-sounding question: How do you power AI growth while pursuing clean energy goals?

The answer remains uncertain — and the scramble is real.

Some companies are betting on nuclear: hyperscalers locked up over 10 gigawatts of new or restarting nuclear capacity in just 18 months, and the pipeline of small modular reactor agreements nearly doubled to 45 GW by early 2026.

Others are building natural gas generation. Renewables continue to grow — but the sheer scale of demand has sparked concerns that fossil fuel dependence could persist far longer than climate plans assumed.

💧 Water

Cooling advanced AI systems requires serious resources.

In many regions, data centers depend on water-intensive cooling. US data centers drew an estimated 17 billion gallons of water directly in 2023 — with over 200 billion more consumed indirectly through the power plants feeding them.

In drought-prone areas like Arizona, that math has become a flashpoint between communities and developers. Newer liquid-cooling technology can cut direct water use dramatically — but it doesn’t touch the electricity, which remains the dominant cost.

🏗️ Land and Infrastructure

Data centers occupy enormous footprints.

Unlike manufacturing plants or corporate headquarters, they may generate relatively few permanent jobs after construction ends — often just that thirty-to-a-hundred headcount.

This raises hard questions about land-use priorities and what a community actually gets for what it gives up.

🔒 Privacy and Centralization

Beyond environmental concerns, some critics worry about concentration of power.

The same infrastructure that enables AI innovation can also support increasingly sophisticated data collection, analytics, and digital services.

Whether these developments ultimately enhance convenience, efficiency, and security — or create new concerns about surveillance and control — remains an ongoing public debate.

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Why Indian-Americans and Investors Are Paying Attention

The AI infrastructure boom is deeply connected to the Indian and Indian-American technology ecosystem.

Indian-origin executives lead major technology firms across cloud computing, semiconductors, and AI development. Indian-American engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs are designing the software and hardware these facilities run on.

At the same time, infrastructure funds, pension funds, and institutional investors increasingly view data centers as premium long-term assets.

Investors describe them as the “digital equivalent of toll roads” — critical infrastructure that businesses depend on regardless of economic cycles.

India itself is pursuing the same path.

The country’s AI ambitions, exploding digital economy, and expanding cloud market are driving heavy investment in domestic data center capacity.

Yet India faces the very questions confronting America:

• Can electricity generation keep pace?
• How will water resources be managed?
• Where should large facilities be located?
• Who benefits most from the economic gains?

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The Real Battle May Not Be AI — It May Be Energy

For years, the AI conversation was about software breakthroughs.

Today, a different reality is emerging.

The limiting factor may not be algorithms. It may be energy.

Industry analysts increasingly agree: the binding constraint on AI is no longer silicon. It’s sites, grid interconnections, power procurement, and politics.

The countries that can build reliable generation, modern transmission, and resilient infrastructure may hold the decisive advantage in the AI era.

In this sense, the race for artificial intelligence increasingly resembles earlier struggles over oil, railways, and industrial capacity.

Compute is becoming a strategic resource.

And every AI query ultimately traces back to a power plant somewhere.

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The Questions We Haven’t Answered Yet

A century ago, people looked at smokestacks and saw progress.

Only later did they begin asking what was entering the air.

Today, many look at artificial intelligence and see limitless possibility.

But behind every AI response stands a warehouse of servers, a flow of electricity, a source of water, and a chain of political and economic decisions.

Are AI data centers the power stations of a new digital civilization?

Or are they the first signs of a resource-intensive future whose costs are still hidden from view?

When the AI age is finally written into history books, will these facilities be remembered as the foundations of unprecedented innovation — or as monuments to a technological race that consumed more than it created?

The machines are learning.

The data centers are growing.

The power meters are spinning.

The rest of the story is still being written.

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Key figures sourced from the International Energy Agency, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and industry research published through mid-2026.

The New York Times article is under scrutiny for reducing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s legacy to contemporary politics.

If someone told an Indian that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is India’s “new hero,” the reaction would probably not begin with agreement — it would begin with confusion.

That is exactly why a recent New York Times article sparked such intense discussion online.

Titled around the idea that India’s right wing has embraced a 17th-century king as a modern symbol, the article explored how Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s public visibility has expanded in recent years and argued that his image is increasingly being linked with Hindu nationalism and contemporary politics.

But the controversy that followed was not simply about politics. It was about something deeper: who gets to define historical memory, and whether global media sometimes oversimplifies how India remembers its own icons.

What the New York Times article argues

The central argument of the New York Times article is not that Shivaji Maharaj suddenly became important. Rather, it suggests that in recent years his image has been elevated nationally and increasingly connected with modern political identity — especially under the current political environment.

The article points to visible examples:

– more public statues and memorials,

– stronger national references to Shivaji beyond Maharashtra,

– political speeches invoking his legacy,

– and the broader use of historical figures in shaping public identity.

The article appears to frame this growth as part of a larger political and cultural movement in India — particularly linked to Hindu nationalism and the rise of the BJP over the last decade.

The underlying implication is that historical figures are being reintroduced into national consciousness through contemporary politics.

That argument is not entirely unusual. Governments around the world often draw inspiration from historical personalities to create national narratives. But where the article became controversial was in how many readers interpreted its framing.

The political usage of Shivaji in contemporary India

There is little debate that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj occupies an increasingly visible place in national political language today.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly referenced Shivaji Maharaj in speeches and public events, often presenting him as a symbol of courage, governance, strategic thinking and civilizational confidence.

Large memorial projects and public commemorations have also gained visibility in recent years.

At the same time, Shivaji’s national reach today is wider than before. Historically associated most strongly with Maharashtra and Maratha identity, his symbolism now appears more prominently across different parts of India.

Supporters of this trend argue that this is not political manufacturing but broader recognition of a historical figure whose influence deserved greater national attention.

Many also point to the fact that Shivaji’s memory was never restricted only to one region.

His name has existed for decades in public life — across roads, institutions, airports, textbooks, public celebrations and popular culture.

Supporters of broader recognition also argue that institutions have drawn lessons from his military and administrative thinking.

For example, Shivaji’s emphasis on naval strength is often referenced in discussions around India’s maritime traditions, and his strategic use of terrain and fort systems is frequently discussed in military history and leadership contexts.

However, whether such references amount to historical appreciation or political symbolism depends largely on perspective.

The backlash: “Shivaji was never a new hero”

One of the strongest criticisms of the article came from social media users who argued that the headline itself created a misleading impression.

Among the widely circulated responses was a thread by commentator Indu Viswanathan.

Her central criticism was straightforward:

Shivaji Maharaj was never a forgotten figure waiting to be rediscovered.

She argued that presenting him as a “new hero” creates a false impression for international readers — as if modern politics created his relevance.

Her comparison was striking: describing Shivaji as a new hero, she argued, would be similar to calling George Washington a new hero for Americans.

She also criticized the article’s language choices.

One example she highlighted was describing Shivaji statues as “rising across India.”

Her argument was that such wording subtly changes perception.

Instead of describing public commemoration, she argued, language like “rise” can create associations of political movements, social threat, or ideological expansion.

Her larger point was not that political usage does not exist.

Her argument was that political usage and historical significance are not the same thing.

According to this view, political parties may amplify Shivaji’s visibility, but they did not create his importance.

My view: where the New York Times article feels incomplete

The strongest limitation of the article is not that it discusses politics.

Political usage of historical figures is a valid topic and governments across the world do it. But the article, in my view, underestimates how deeply embedded Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj already was in Indian public memory long before the current political environment.

Shivaji’s popularity is not recent.

His symbolic importance did not emerge in the last 10–12 years, nor can it be understood mainly through the rise of one political party.

For generations, Shivaji Maharaj has occupied a major place in Indian public consciousness through education, literature, public institutions, regional identity, cultural memory and political discourse.

His influence has also existed in Indian politics for decades across different periods and movements. References to Shivaji appeared during parts of the Independence movement as a symbol of resistance and self-rule, and later his legacy became strongly associated with regional political mobilisation in Maharashtra, including through parties such as Shiv Sena long before the current government came to power.

This is why reducing his present visibility mainly to recent political promotion feels incomplete.

The article appears to move too quickly from observing increased public celebration of Shivaji to suggesting that his prominence is primarily a result of BJP-era political messaging.

That connection, in my view, overlooks an important distinction:

Political amplification is not the same as political creation.

A government or political movement can elevate, nationalise, or emphasise a historical figure — but that does not necessarily mean it created that figure’s relevance.

This is where I think the article lacks deeper engagement with the historical and emotional impact Shivaji Maharaj has had on Indian society over centuries.

To many Indians, Shivaji is not viewed as a newly constructed political symbol but as a historical personality whose relevance already existed and continues to evolve.

Similarly, the article’s framing risks presenting Shivaji’s growing visibility mainly as evidence of Hindu nationalism or minority marginalisation.

That framing may resonate with a familiar international narrative, but it can also simplify a far more layered reality.

Understanding Shivaji primarily through the lens of contemporary political gain may miss why his image continues to resonate so strongly across generations and regions in the first place.

Conclusion

The New York Times article raises an important discussion about how historical figures continue to shape modern politics. But in doing so, it appears to miss a much deeper reality — Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is not a newly elevated political symbol, but a figure who has occupied a powerful place in India’s historical and political consciousness for generations.

His influence did not begin with the current government, nor can it be explained only through contemporary political narratives. While political parties may amplify his legacy, they did not create it.

The article’s framing may fit a narrative that is easier for Western audiences to understand — one centred on Hindu nationalism and political symbolism — but in doing so, it risks overlooking the historical depth, emotional connection, and long-standing public memory associated with Shivaji Maharaj in India.

Shivaji was never waiting to be rediscovered. And regardless of political cycles, his impact on Indian society and public imagination is likely to continue for generations to come.

Dismissed as distracted and unserious, India’s youngest political generation turned memes, masks and short videos into a national movement powerful enough to force a rare cabinet exit.

Dismissed as distracted and unserious, India’s youngest political generation turned memes, masks and short videos into a national movement powerful enough to force a rare cabinet exit.

Gen Z has heard all the accusations before: too distracted, too comfortable, too addicted to phones and too unserious to care about politics.

Then India’s young people locked in.

In July 2026, weeks of youth-led demonstrations over examination paper leaks, education reform and shrinking job prospects culminated in the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. What began online through satire and memes had grown into a nationwide movement that placed the Narendra Modi government under unusual public pressure.

The movement did not abandon seriousness; it repackaged it. Cockroach masks, superhero costumes, Instagram Reels and sarcastic placards captured public attention, while marches, a prolonged hunger strike and negotiations created political pressure.

The result challenged one of the most persistent stereotypes about Gen Z: that a generation fluent in memes cannot also be politically committed.

From an Online Joke to a National Movement

Gen Z is generally understood to include people born after 1996, although definitions vary. Only its older members can currently vote, but the generation’s political influence extends far beyond the ballot box. It can shape narratives, create pressure and move an issue from a social-media feed to the national agenda.

The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, demonstrated that power.

The satirical movement was founded by political communications strategist Abhijeet Dipke after controversial remarks comparing unemployed young people to “cockroaches” and “parasites” sparked widespread anger. Rather than reject the insult, supporters reclaimed the cockroach as a symbol of survival: difficult to silence, difficult to eliminate and impossible to ignore.

The humor attracted attention, but the grievances behind it were real. Students were angry about repeated examination irregularities, particularly the leak of a national medical entrance examination paper. The resulting retest affected approximately two million students. The protests also became an outlet for wider anxiety about unemployment, educational opportunities and government accountability.

Activist and education reformer Sonam Wangchuk emerged as one of the movement’s most visible supporters, completing a 26-day hunger strike. Protesters marched, faced police barricades, endured tear gas and demanded Pradhan’s resignation.

On July 25, Pradhan stepped down. The government also agreed to demands that included examination-system reforms, withdrawing police cases against protesters and compensating families of students who had died by suicide following the examination controversy.

Reuters described the confrontation as Modi’s biggest youth challenge since he became prime minister in 2014 and reported that Pradhan was only the second minister to resign following a scandal during Modi’s tenure.

That made the episode more than a viral moment. It became evidence that digital frustration, when connected to a concrete grievance and organized offline action, can produce a political result.

Gen Z Is Harder to Treat as a Permanent Vote Bank

Previous generations are often described as “legacy voters”—people whose political loyalties are strongly influenced by family, caste, community or regional identity and remain relatively stable over time.

Gen Z has not eliminated those influences, and no generation should be treated as politically uniform. However, younger voters appear increasingly willing to make their support conditional. A political party may win their approval on one issue and face their anger on the next.

Many young voters who have supported the BJP, for example, can still criticize the government over examination leaks, unemployment or policies affecting their everyday lives. Supporting a leader does not necessarily mean adopting that leader as a permanent personal identity.

This makes Gen Z difficult to manage through personality-driven politics alone. Young people can instantly retrieve old speeches, promises and interviews. A statement made years ago can return as a split-screen Reel within hours, placed beside a politician’s latest claim.

The internet has given ordinary voters a searchable political memory.

Gen Z does not merely listen to leaders. It fact-checks them, remixes them, parodies them and sometimes trolls them.

That does not automatically make every criticism informed or fair. But it does make political communication more exposed. A carefully manufactured image can now be challenged by thousands of creators working from their phones.

The Algorithm Is the New Political Editor

For Gen Z, political information does not wait to be searched for. It arrives.

It appears between a comedy Reel, a fashion video and a friend’s holiday pictures. A 90-minute political speech may receive limited attention, while one 30-second segment from that speech can reach millions of people before the day ends.

This does not mean framing has become less important. In fact, it has become more important. The person who selects the clip, adds the caption and chooses the music can influence how an entire speech is understood.

Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, memes and independent digital creators have therefore become central players in political communication. They influence which moments become visible, which contradictions become embarrassing and which grievances become shareable.

The Cockroach Janta Party understood this instinctively. It did not begin with a traditional party office, television campaign or established political machinery. It began with an absurd symbol and a message that fit naturally into internet culture.

The symbol brought people in; the seriousness of the issue kept them involved.

Political information found Gen Z through its feeds. Gen Z then carried that information into the streets.

From Rallies to Reels

Political leaders have recognized the shift.

Following the youth protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi increasingly appeared in selfie-style videos and informal, vertically filmed social-media content. His outreach included youth-oriented language, pop-culture references and encouragement for creators to use formats such as “Get Ready With Me,” commonly known as GRWM.

The broader BJP communication system also began experimenting with shorter, less polished videos designed for Instagram and other youth-focused platforms. According to Reuters, Modi urged ministers to become more active on platforms popular with young people and to make their videos appear less scripted.

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi adopted a more interactive approach, inviting students and Gen Z users to participate in an Instagram “Ask Me Anything” session. Serious questions about education and politics appeared alongside lighter exchanges designed to make the politician seem accessible and human.

These efforts reveal the new competition taking place in Indian politics. Politicians are no longer competing only for votes. They are competing for attention, authenticity and relatability.

But views, likes and playful comments do not automatically translate into trust. Gen Z is deeply familiar with influencer culture and can quickly recognize communication that feels overly manufactured. A leader may speak the language of the internet and still become the subject of the internet’s jokes.

The politicians have entered Gen Z’s digital territory. That does not mean Gen Z will accept them there.

Tackling Serious Issues With “Unserious” Humor

Traditional protests are associated with speeches, slogans, marches and hunger strikes. The CJP demonstrations included all of those—but added a distinctly Gen Z layer.

Some protesters appeared dressed as Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man and other pop-culture characters. Others wore cockroach masks, recorded GRWM-style videos before attending demonstrations or used trending sounds to document what was happening around them. Placards turned examination leaks, unemployment and political frustration into punchlines designed to travel online.

Even confrontations with police were narrated through irony and dark humor.

From the outside, this behavior can appear chaotic or even inappropriate. But humor was not evidence that protesters lacked seriousness. It was a communication strategy, a coping mechanism and a form of political resistance.

Memes lowered the barrier to participation. A young person who might never watch a television debate could understand a joke about a paper leak within seconds. A superhero costume could attract a camera, but the protester’s explanation could then carry the political message to millions.

Gen Z did not make protest less serious. It made seriousness shareable.

Behind the costumes was genuine anger. Behind the Reels were students worried about their futures. Behind the cockroach symbol were young people who believed institutions had stopped listening to them.

The Danger of Politics by Algorithm

The same tools that give young people political power can also create serious problems.

Short videos remove context. Algorithms reward outrage. False claims can spread faster than corrections, and a clever edit can make a misleading argument feel convincing. Online movements may also become trapped inside ideological bubbles in which popularity is mistaken for accuracy.

There is another challenge: sustaining attention. A movement can dominate social media for a week and disappear when the algorithm discovers a new controversy. Turning online enthusiasm into lasting reform requires organization, leadership, negotiations and measurable goals.

The CJP movement succeeded because it connected viral creativity with a specific demand and sustained offline pressure. Its longer-term test will be whether it can continue influencing public policy after the trending hashtags fade.

Why Indian Americans Should Pay Attention

This transformation matters beyond India.

For many young Indian Americans, Indian politics is experienced less through newspapers or evening television and more through Instagram, YouTube and videos forwarded by relatives on WhatsApp. A political moment in Delhi can enter a Dallas, New Jersey or Bay Area family conversation within minutes.

That creates a new kind of transnational political participation. Members of the diaspora may not vote in India, but they can amplify stories, influence family conversations, support causes and shape how events in India are understood abroad.

It also makes reliable reporting more important. When politics travels internationally through short clips, the distinction between verified information, satire and propaganda can quickly disappear.

Gen Z Has Locked In—But What Comes Next?

India’s Gen Z has not rejected politics. It has rejected the assumption that politics must always look and sound traditional.

This generation may organize through Instagram, speak through memes and arrive at a protest dressed as Spider-Man. None of that prevents it from understanding injustice, demanding accountability or sustaining a movement.

The Cockroach Janta Party protests showed that digital culture can become democratic power when humor is connected to a real grievance and online attention is converted into collective action.

Gen Z has not replaced rallies with Reels. It has made Reels the road to the rally.

And after a movement born from memes helped force a Union minister’s resignation, no political party can afford to dismiss the next viral joke as “just the internet.”

The New York Times article is under scrutiny for reducing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s legacy to contemporary politics.

If someone told an Indian that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is India’s “new hero,” the reaction would probably not begin with agreement — it would begin with confusion.

That is exactly why a recent New York Times article sparked such intense discussion online.

Titled around the idea that India’s right wing has embraced a 17th-century king as a modern symbol, the article explored how Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s public visibility has expanded in recent years and argued that his image is increasingly being linked with Hindu nationalism and contemporary politics.

But the controversy that followed was not simply about politics. It was about something deeper: who gets to define historical memory, and whether global media sometimes oversimplifies how India remembers its own icons.

What the New York Times article argues

The central argument of the New York Times article is not that Shivaji Maharaj suddenly became important. Rather, it suggests that in recent years his image has been elevated nationally and increasingly connected with modern political identity — especially under the current political environment.

The article points to visible examples:

– more public statues and memorials,

– stronger national references to Shivaji beyond Maharashtra,

– political speeches invoking his legacy,

– and the broader use of historical figures in shaping public identity.

The article appears to frame this growth as part of a larger political and cultural movement in India — particularly linked to Hindu nationalism and the rise of the BJP over the last decade.

The underlying implication is that historical figures are being reintroduced into national consciousness through contemporary politics.

That argument is not entirely unusual. Governments around the world often draw inspiration from historical personalities to create national narratives. But where the article became controversial was in how many readers interpreted its framing.

The political usage of Shivaji in contemporary India

There is little debate that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj occupies an increasingly visible place in national political language today.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly referenced Shivaji Maharaj in speeches and public events, often presenting him as a symbol of courage, governance, strategic thinking and civilizational confidence.

Large memorial projects and public commemorations have also gained visibility in recent years.

At the same time, Shivaji’s national reach today is wider than before. Historically associated most strongly with Maharashtra and Maratha identity, his symbolism now appears more prominently across different parts of India.

Supporters of this trend argue that this is not political manufacturing but broader recognition of a historical figure whose influence deserved greater national attention.

Many also point to the fact that Shivaji’s memory was never restricted only to one region.

His name has existed for decades in public life — across roads, institutions, airports, textbooks, public celebrations and popular culture.

Supporters of broader recognition also argue that institutions have drawn lessons from his military and administrative thinking.

For example, Shivaji’s emphasis on naval strength is often referenced in discussions around India’s maritime traditions, and his strategic use of terrain and fort systems is frequently discussed in military history and leadership contexts.

However, whether such references amount to historical appreciation or political symbolism depends largely on perspective.

The backlash: “Shivaji was never a new hero”

One of the strongest criticisms of the article came from social media users who argued that the headline itself created a misleading impression.

Among the widely circulated responses was a thread by commentator Indu Viswanathan.

Her central criticism was straightforward:

Shivaji Maharaj was never a forgotten figure waiting to be rediscovered.

She argued that presenting him as a “new hero” creates a false impression for international readers — as if modern politics created his relevance.

Her comparison was striking: describing Shivaji as a new hero, she argued, would be similar to calling George Washington a new hero for Americans.

She also criticized the article’s language choices.

One example she highlighted was describing Shivaji statues as “rising across India.”

Her argument was that such wording subtly changes perception.

Instead of describing public commemoration, she argued, language like “rise” can create associations of political movements, social threat, or ideological expansion.

Her larger point was not that political usage does not exist.

Her argument was that political usage and historical significance are not the same thing.

According to this view, political parties may amplify Shivaji’s visibility, but they did not create his importance.

My view: where the New York Times article feels incomplete

The strongest limitation of the article is not that it discusses politics.

Political usage of historical figures is a valid topic and governments across the world do it. But the article, in my view, underestimates how deeply embedded Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj already was in Indian public memory long before the current political environment.

Shivaji’s popularity is not recent.

His symbolic importance did not emerge in the last 10–12 years, nor can it be understood mainly through the rise of one political party.

For generations, Shivaji Maharaj has occupied a major place in Indian public consciousness through education, literature, public institutions, regional identity, cultural memory and political discourse.

His influence has also existed in Indian politics for decades across different periods and movements. References to Shivaji appeared during parts of the Independence movement as a symbol of resistance and self-rule, and later his legacy became strongly associated with regional political mobilisation in Maharashtra, including through parties such as Shiv Sena long before the current government came to power.

This is why reducing his present visibility mainly to recent political promotion feels incomplete.

The article appears to move too quickly from observing increased public celebration of Shivaji to suggesting that his prominence is primarily a result of BJP-era political messaging.

That connection, in my view, overlooks an important distinction:

Political amplification is not the same as political creation.

A government or political movement can elevate, nationalise, or emphasise a historical figure — but that does not necessarily mean it created that figure’s relevance.

This is where I think the article lacks deeper engagement with the historical and emotional impact Shivaji Maharaj has had on Indian society over centuries.

To many Indians, Shivaji is not viewed as a newly constructed political symbol but as a historical personality whose relevance already existed and continues to evolve.

Similarly, the article’s framing risks presenting Shivaji’s growing visibility mainly as evidence of Hindu nationalism or minority marginalisation.

That framing may resonate with a familiar international narrative, but it can also simplify a far more layered reality.

Understanding Shivaji primarily through the lens of contemporary political gain may miss why his image continues to resonate so strongly across generations and regions in the first place.

Conclusion

The New York Times article raises an important discussion about how historical figures continue to shape modern politics. But in doing so, it appears to miss a much deeper reality — Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is not a newly elevated political symbol, but a figure who has occupied a powerful place in India’s historical and political consciousness for generations.

His influence did not begin with the current government, nor can it be explained only through contemporary political narratives. While political parties may amplify his legacy, they did not create it.

The article’s framing may fit a narrative that is easier for Western audiences to understand — one centred on Hindu nationalism and political symbolism — but in doing so, it risks overlooking the historical depth, emotional connection, and long-standing public memory associated with Shivaji Maharaj in India.

Shivaji was never waiting to be rediscovered. And regardless of political cycles, his impact on Indian society and public imagination is likely to continue for generations to come.