Politics of Recognition and the Gen Z Protest in India

In the 80th Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the ‘Sapta Dhara’ (seven streams of strength) metaphor and announced a plethora of initiatives to harness the potential of Indian youth in nation building. The desire to connect with Gen Z also appeared in the speeches of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs in the monsoon session, who started using slangs like ‘FOMO’, ‘delulu’ and ‘clock it’. Modi’s selfie video started this cycle of the government taking every possible step to do ‘Mann Ki Baat’ with the Gen Z ‘Friends’. This sudden urge to connect with the youth grew after the Gen Z protest erupted in the national capital at Jantar Mantar, demanding accountability over the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) (NEET-UG) medical entrance examination paper leak. The protest snowballed into questioning the structural integrity of the Indian education system and led to the resignation of former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. So, what led the government to recognise this protest and actively engage with this generation among several protests happening simultaneously across the nation?

We will attempt to answer this question by understanding the Gen Z protest in the light of the changing nature of recognition in Indian society. We acknowledge that Gen Z is not a homogeneous category, and as sociologist Pierre Bourdieu explains, an individual’s social, cultural and symbolic economic capital determines the power one holds, the networks one has access to and where one sits on the hierarchical ladder in society. So, the reasons why the individuals participated in the protest and their experiences may be rooted in the students’ intersectional identities based on gender, caste and class they belonged to. We will focus specifically on the greater participation of the middle- and upper-class Gen Z, who are considered to have been relatively less active in grassroots organising and electoral politics in India. This shift in the trend during the recent protests warrants an answer.

Drawing on German philosopher Axel Honneth, we argue that, overall, Gen Z has shifted the meaning of justice in a social movement from the ‘elimination of inequality’ and ‘redistribution’ to demands for ‘dignity’, ‘respect’ and ‘recognition’. From this perspective, the growing emphasis on recognition reflects a shift in how Gen Z imagines justice. As Honneth argues, experiences of disrespect and social degradation can become politically significant when individuals and groups demand recognition of their dignity and social worth. We argue that Gen Z protested and practiced the politics of recognition for two reasons. First, the rising unemployment among the educated Gen Z. Second, the feeling of failure from not being able to maintain a dignified standard of living in the social media era, which constantly exposes individuals to the lifestyles and consumption patterns of others, heightening relative deprivation.

Educated Unemployed Gen Z

Education was once considered a major tool of socio-economic upward mobility. However, the recent report, State of Working India 2026 by Azim Premji University, highlights the unpromising state of unemployment among graduates: as many as two out of three young unemployed in India are graduates. Unemployment among youths with a graduate degree dates back to the 1980s. In 1983, 35 per cent of those with a graduation degree were unemployed, while at present, 39 per cent of such youth are unemployed. However, the pool of graduates has increased 13 times, the report said. After spending money and getting a decent education, they get trapped in the vicious cycle of unemployment, shattering their dreams of securing a better financial future.

In India, it is common for students to take financial support from their parents until they finish graduation, especially among middle- and upper-class families. This support often extends beyond graduation until they find a respectable job matching the family’s socio-economic position. Relying on parents’ incomes and savings while maintaining the same standard of living are becoming unsustainable as parents reach the retirement age. Normative expectations of adulthood entail financial self-sufficiency and failing to meet the social norm leads to frustration. To counter this, people look for alternative sources of material rewards. However, here, the source of failure itself stems from economic deprivation. To put it simply, ‘enough of Maa-Baap se rupiya lena’, Gen Z needs to shoulder their financial responsibilities.

Unemployed youth counter such situations by cutting their expenses as low as possible. Another effect of following the caste system and attaching notions of purity and pollution to the type of job one does is that some jobs are considered inherently polluted and not dignified enough for an upper or middle-class family’s status, despite being moderately remunerative. Moreover, spending a long time in higher education makes these jobs seem even more demeaning to young people. This experience disrupts the expected trajectory from educational attainment to socioeconomic mobility. And it feels better to stay in the vicious cycle of preparing for exams, earning more degrees and chasing the illusion of a high-profile job than to take a temporary, low-paid job that seems beneath their qualifications.

Low recognition results from living an abysmal economic life. And to gain recognition in society, some youth try to counter their poor economic situation by engaging in social or political work. For example, scholars like Thomas Blom Hansen observed that a significant section of male unemployed youth participates in communal events. Due to greater purchase of Hindutva, these unemployed youth seem to derive recognition by either officially joining the communal organisations or participating in their activities more often. Therefore, for the educated middle- and upper-class youth, unemployment becomes a failure to achieve both the social position and financial independence that education promised.

Emulating Lifestyle of Economic Elites

The unemployed state of educated youth is further worsened by the desire to emulate economic elites. During the early decades after Independence, Gandhian ethos dominated ‘the social’ to an extent, and therefore, the rich were averse to spending money lavishly. Or, to put it bluntly, there was a separation between their privileged private lifestyles and their public personas. They deliberately projected an image of simplicity to build relatability and solidarity with the masses. With the onset of liberalisation in the early 1990s, new jobs emerged in metropolitan cities, big malls were established, companies pursued aggressive sales strategies, cinema began glorifying luxurious lifestyles and people became familiar with elite lifestyles. Equal monthly instalments and credit cards surely made it easy to buy goods and services beyond one’s means. These factors shifted the Gandhian ethos toward a clearly visible hyper-consumerist culture.

Another rupture in economic taste came with the rise of social media. Instagram exposed Gen Z to the lavish lifestyles of Bollywood celebrities and influencers who travel the world and wear luxury brands daily. A serious gap exists between the aspirational saturation that dominates Gen Z’s Instagram feed and their purchasing power and access to services. Chasing this mirage of the Insta lifestyle becomes frustrating because they still depend on their parents for even small, routine expenses. Economic dependency and the accompanying feeling of being left out are bound to have serious repercussions.

Educated unemployment and a change in economic ethos have created a growing gap between what educated youth aspire to and what their economic circumstances allow them to achieve. The resulting sense of deprivation goes beyond material concerns and becomes a crisis of dignity, status and belonging. When education fails to deliver financial independence and social media continually displays lifestyles that remain out of reach, economic exclusion becomes experienced as a ‘failure of recognition’. Political participation thus becomes a way to make this frustration visible and demand acknowledgment of one’s social worth. Their educational and digital capital enabled middle- and upper-class Gen Z to turn the very tools and spaces that shaped their frustrations into instruments of political mobilisation, effectively beating the government at its own game. The Gen Z protest can therefore be understood both as a response to institutional failure and as an expression of a generation seeking recognition of its aspirations, dignity, rights and place in society.

This politics of recognition also helps explain why the government’s response to the protest went beyond addressing a specific policy grievance and increasingly sought direct dialogue with Gen Z, as they have decoded the power Gen Z holds, making the slogan ‘Jo GenZ ki Baat Karega Wahi Desh mein Raj Karega’ (whoever talks about Gen Z will rule the country) apt. The growing political significance of recognition thus lies in its ability to transform experiences of social and cultural disrespect into collective claims for dignity and inclusion.

(Shivani is with the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University, and Dharmanshu is with Department of Political Science, Jiwaji University, Gwalior)

(Views expressed are personal)