By Nitya Chakraborty
Nearly a week has passed since the withdrawal of the historic students and youth protests at Jantar Mantar on July 25 following the resignation of the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the centre agreeing to the other demands of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Since then the issue centres on the release of the protesters by the police. The centre agreed to that after threats by the CJP leaders. The status is most of the detained protesters have been released, cases of some detained with earlier reports of activities, are being reviewed.
Overall, the CJP is still in a commanding position. Its impact on the Narendra Modi government is still being felt. During the current monsoon session of Parliament, the opposition parties, led by the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi have put the centre on the dock over the police brutalities on the Jantar Mantar protesters. Rahul Gandhi is even demanding the resignation of the Home Minister Amit Shah who avoided the discussions in both the houses.
Now the question is how the CJP leadership is looking at the future of their less than three month old party and the unprecedented protests at Jantar Mantar and the response through online from all parts of the country. How to retain this Gen Z enthusiasm for reforms of the examination system and then to take it forward to the change of the system as a whole.
In fact, the national conversation of the students was not limited to the NEET irregularities or the paper leak scam, it was broader focusing on the situation in the country under 12 years of Narendra Modi’s rule. So for the CJP leadership, it is the ripe time to consider whether the party of the students and youth will chart out its role in transforming the Indian society as a whole by first removing the ruling party in the coming elections.
On Wednesday, the founder of CJP Abhijeet Dipke said that the students could even change the government if it did not mend its ways. He was mentioning about the harassment of the students. If the CJP chief is speaking on behalf of the whole CJP, it is imperative that the CJP should focus on the resignation of the Home Minister Amit Shah as the Delhi police is under home ministry and Shah is in charge. So any major decision by the Delhi police to use pellet guns or other weapons could not be taken without clearance at the home ministry level. So Amit Shah can not evade responsibility just as education minister was made accountable for the NEET paper leak.
There is another aspect. Not just the Jantar Mantar students protests. Many more students and youth are in jail for a long period like Umar Khalid and they are not getting bail due to the opposition from the home ministry. These young people who are still in jail are the sharers of the core ideals of CJP. The CJP can think of a broader movement to protect freedom of expression as a part of the struggle to restore the principles of democracy under the Indian constitution.
Let me analyse why the youth power under the CJP can be channelized to the broader task of building a new India. In 2029 Lok Sabha polls, the share of 18 to 32 years youth is projected at 380 million which is 25.1 per cent of the voting strength in 2029 polls. This means one out of four voters will be from Gen Z. The Gen Millennials between 33 and 48 years are projected at the level of359 million or 23.6 per cent. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi appealed to the Gen Z as the most tech savvy political leader projecting the dream of a confident modern India. The Gen Z fell for him. This continued in 2019 Lok Sabha polls and got a little disrupted in 2024 Lok Sabha elections, but still, the majority of Gen Z was with the PM Narendra Modi.
Now two years after 2024 and less than three years before the 2029 elections, the advantage of PM as the Gen Z favourite has been shattered. The much labored brand building of Narendra Modi as a darling of tech generation has got a big jolt. All attempts by PM’s very capable PR advisers found themselves clueless as the teenage protesters shattered the image of the Prime Minister who was taken as invincible by even opposition parties.
This has been possible due to the radical change in the character of social media platforms in the last three years.BJP was the king of the social media platforms since the arrival of Narendra Modi in 2014 as the Prime Minister. PM set up his own team some of whom were US trained high tech persons. Every medium was used in a massive manner by the BJP- Facebook, then Twitter and then Instagram. Right now, Narendra Modi has 105 million followers in instagram, 107 million followers in X, the former Twitter and 48 million followers in Facebook. Nobody can compete with him at personal level.
But what happened in the last two months was a disaster for BJP. The CJP’s call for instagram followers got 2 million followers in the first two days, but now it has gone up to 22 million while the BJP’s instagram followers total 8.2 million. This figure of BJP has been built over the years. Now after the Jantar Mantar protests, PM has asked the BJP IT cell to take special drive to raise the membership of instagram which has emerged as the most effective means of immediate communication replacing Whatsapp and X.
This was evident during the protests movement as the BJP’s organized IT cell looked clueless as the Gen Z streamed endless memes and cartoon and graffitis lampooning PM and the BJP. The all powerful IT cell boss of BJP Amit Malviya virtually was invisible. He was a master in organizing fake whatsapps. His mechanism failed, He did not know how to meet the new challenge of the Instagramwallas of Gen Z. For the first time, in the last two years, it was a total defeat of the BJP IT cell to some unknown Gen Z faces most of whom hardly crossed twenty.
This new situation in digital media offers a big advantage to both the opposition and the CJP. For CJP, it is much more. The CJP can take full advantage of this shift and new mood in insta world in its favour to bring about change in policies and governance. . Its army of Gen Z have to continue its attacks against the pro-Modi TV channels whose viewership dropped to a new low during the final stage of the Jantar Mantra protests. The BJP has three perceived strength, financial muscle, organizational strength of RSS and media power, especially from the big corporates dominated TV channels.
But this also faced a big challenge by the Gen Z in the latest surge of independent media. A research study mentions that Dhruv Rathee’s programme in the last few days of the Jantar Mantar protests got 94 million views which were more than the combined viewership of the four premier pro-Modi TV channels. This process of attack has to continue so that the viewership of pro-Modi channels drops and the business revenues decline. Ambani and Adani care more for their businesses than favouring BJP. The consumers are the ultimate deciders which product they will be purchasing.
The CJP has two options. First, it will not join direct politics. It will act as a sort of ombudsman intervening in the interests of good governance when the situation demands. The second option is the CJP will join active politics to transform the governance. This means the CJP will take part in national elections. There are two examples in the neighbouring countries Bangladesh and Nepal. In Bangladesh, the protesting students formed their political party NCP, contested the Bangladesh national elections but failed. Second, in Nepal, the protesting Gen Z did not form any party, they supported an existing political party but allowed its leader to join and lead that party RSP in the March 5 elections. The RSP convincingly won and Balen Shah became the PM.
Time has come for the CJP leadership to carefully chalk out its next line of action. This can be a game changer if it draws it carefully. (IPA Service)
