With RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat coming out strongly in support of Gen Z, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday slammed his remarks and said they don't need a certificate from him.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief on Thursday backed Gen Z, saying their grievances were genuine and he believed in their honesty, insisting protests by young people did not make them "anti-national".
He said protest was a legitimate form of dialogue in a democracy and should be aimed at building consensus rather than creating divisions, comments coming in the backdrop of a recent stir by a fledgling pressure group on exam paper leaks.
Asked about Bhagwat backing the students and Gen Z, Priyanka Gandhi told reporters in the Parliament House complex, "They don't need a certificate from Mohan Bhagwat ji." She also said it seems that Union Home Minister Amit Shah is "afraid" and that is why he is not coming to both Houses.
"He should come, give a statement, what is the issue with that. Something wrong happened, so take responsibility," she said, referring to the alleged police excesses against students protesting over the paper leak issue on July 20.
In his remarks in Mumbai on Thursday, Bhagwat said the concerns being raised over India's education system were genuine and batted for increasing spending on the key sector to 6 per cent of the GDP.
"Protest is also a way of dialogue. In a democracy, protest is a way of building consensus. Different views come together and a consensus evolves after discussion," he said, addressing a gathering of around 2,000 Gen Z and Gen Alpha members at India's International Movement to Unite Nations' (IIMUN) 15th anniversary event.
"If Gen Z members are agitating, they are not anti-national; they are our people. It is our next generation. You need a dialogue and rapport with them," the RSS leader emphasised.
If, for various reasons, concerns were not heard through dialogue, people might turn to agitation, but the purpose of all this was to build consensus, not to create divisions, he stated.
"The Gen Z grievances are genuine and I believe in their honesty," Bhagwat maintained.
Bhagwat's interaction is being seen as the RSS' most significant outreach to Gen Z (born roughly between 1997 and 2012) and Gen Alpha (2013-2025) since the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) protests over NEET paper leak culminated in Dharmendra Pradhan resigning as Union education minister.
The BJP government's handling of the protests, which turned violent during the July 20 march to Parliament in New Delhi called by the CJP, has drawn criticism from different quarters.
