Who needs slogans when you have memes?
India's newest student-led protests are challenging long-held assumptions about political dissent. From turning barricades into props to reclaiming insults through humour and memes, Gen Z is reshaping how resistance is performed and communicated. But can viral politics sustain democratic engagement, or does it risk reducing complex debates to fleeting moments of online attention?
For decades, the choreography of protest in India has been familiar. Protesters push against police barricades, the police respond with water cannons and lathis, and confrontation escalates in predictable ways. But the recent student-led demonstrations associated with the so-called Cockroach Janata Party revealed a striking departure from this script. Instead of smashing barricades, young protesters simply wheeled them away like toy carts. When water cannons were deployed, they broke into dance....
