Resist, Reboot, Reset, While You Still Can

This past month, Indians born in 1997 or later, the ones referred to as Gen Z or Jenzy, delivered a life-changing opportunity to all of us, and we must make what sense of it we can.

I must admit, apart from a few of my friends’ children, (bless their happy hearts!) I was a little removed and detached from the 1997 or thereafter born individuals described as Gen Z. This was of course, mostly because my own two millennial offspring kept me on my toes as they navigated their lives following my divorce from their father. So, through the search for an identity, marriage, motherhood, finding one’s vocation after some tricky career moves – I was involved in proving myself a good parent/friendly adult for my daughter and son.

But it wasn’t just my staying absorbed in my own family matters that kept me away from Gen Z. It was also how everything else around us was changing. Till 2019, when I was still active on recreational social media like Facebook, I would suddenly discover how someone who was a parent of a Gen Z child had acquired an aggressive DP and a tagline that read “Unapologetic Sanatani” and I would take this to mean I should block them and cease communicating. As the years rolled on, my personal encounters with Gen Z became less frequent because of the shrinking nature of my social circle, and my shielding myself from what was an ever-increasingly loud display of “culture”, religious identity, or nationalism following traumatic events like Pulwama and Pehelgam.

Always somebody who could strike up a conversation with anyone who found themselves sitting next to me, I found myself sitting silently, content with mere people-watching at airports and public transit spaces. I didn’t want to risk the smallest disagreement, or share any views about the great progress being made by our country in Amritkaal. While digital display boards and large TV screens all around us at airports showed the inauguration of some new train, the PM visiting some or the other country, and many written messages about the G 20 summit in 2023, I didn’t share thoughts on this with anyone at all in public spaces.

My silence was of course, not purely a personal grudge or dislike of PM Modi. It was because, alongside the endless airing of congratulatory messages on mainstream media, there were also reports of falling bridges, collapsed roads, train accidents, paper leaks, and farmer suicides. So, a studied silence was the best way to keep peace with strangers, 99% of whom were voting for the BJP, if I was to go by the election results in state after state, from 2019.

As I kept their families at bay, suspecting them of being in the 99%, I was only seeing young people at a distance. They were sweet and polite when we did get to talk, and I thought it was because they were deferring, in a kind way, to my white hair and senior status. But usually, talking moments were few even when we were in the same vicinity, because they were usually deep in their phones, and I had already been warned enough by my millennial children about not violating people’s personal space, or making unsolicited remarks or comments. After all, my children were the ones who drove me nuts every time we headed somewhere, when they would keep driving with only Google maps as guide, and refuse to even consider stopping at a tea shop or auto stand to ask for directions!

I didn’t want to appear even more of a boomer auntie than I undoubtedly was, by talking to strange young people and calling them “beta” out of sheer habit. “Baat cheet ka zamaana gaya,” (the days of talking are over) I told myself, reconciling to another loss that life wanted me to take in stride.

In October 2025 I went with some friends and my son to Azeem Banatwalla’s show Generational, which was very well put together, and vastly entertaining. His talking about the effects on him and his wife of having his Gen Z niece stay over at his home drew a lot of laughs, as some in the audience identified with it as parents or elder siblings of Gen Z types, and others because they were indeed, Gen Z. I warmed to the topic, of generational differences told with intelligence and wit, and felt affection for people younger than my own kids. But I still perceived them as an apolitical, phone-driven lot, who had all the information in the world, but lived in a milieu blinkered by relentless self-congratulation and propaganda.   

Meanwhile, the anger, frustration, and collective action of young people boiled over into the streets in our neighbouring countries to usher in change that seemed quite radical. Sri Lanka in 2022. Bangladesh in 2024. Nepal in 2025. People were rising in protest against corruption, misgovernance and authoritarianism, and rulers who seemed unshakeable were seeking refuge outside their countries. I used to wonder – did Indian people alone have the ability to absorb endless injustice? How had so much hate and division, prejudice and superstition become so normalized in our society? How did people stand as mere mute witnesses, even when, it became increasingly clear that even their vote had been stolen from them?

As someone who had not accepted the official narrative of the regime from 2014, most days I just hunkered down, mildly depressed. Before any talk began of the resignation of the Minister of Education, I had to contend with my own state of mind – resignation.

In the last few weeks, I have been rescued by the very Gen Z I had not taken the trouble to know any better. The students who arrived at Jantar Mantar from all over the country, who stood up to police beatings with lathis, firing with pellet guns, water cannons and tear gas shells, who danced, played kabaddi or Uno, made posters and memes, and stayed out in the open when they were being denied toilets and transport, showed me how I had been so deluded in my despair.

I needed to acknowledge, with an open heart and mind, that these kids in their teens and twenties, had overcome the conditioning of their social milieu, the hatemongering in the media, and the fear cultivated by the clampdown on all earlier forms of protest in the last 12 years, from the anti CAA-NRC protests at Shaheen Bagh in 2019-20, the farmers’ protests in 2020-21 and any questioning of the government’s handling of any crisis, whether it was deaths due to a shortage of oxygen during Covid, or the stampede deaths during the Mahakumbh.

They had seen through everything and turned the official narrative on its head. In two weeks’ time, crores of rupees worth of propaganda was made to look ridiculous through memes, slogans and posters. Each day, as I followed events unfolding, and listened to the voices of those present at the protests, I could feel my heart swelling with love and pride.

Why had I been so worried about a generation whose ear buds or Bluetooth had me shut out from saying anything to them? Why had I been unable to imagine the power of their dreams and passions, the solidarity they were able to express for each other, the sheer joy they conveyed with their art, their humour and their profanity? Had I become so old and ossified?

I don’t know what the future holds for dissent, for education, or for accountability in our democracy. I don’t know whether we will be able to address all forms of injustice that we accept far too casually in our midst. But one thing is abundantly clear – Gen Z has shown me that I need to give my head and heart a healthy reboot, and offer grim resistance to anti-people policies and development.

Thank you, Jenzy. Much love, and may you succeed in whatever you set your mind to do.