Modi faces worst crisis since 2014 as Gen Z youth protests surge across India

The buses came with police inside them, rolling through Delhi's streets to collect the young people who had scaled the barricades. One man, before officers pulled him aboard, shouted into the crowd: "Long live the revolution." It was the kind of moment that has become routine in Indian cities over the past months—thousands of youth in the streets, security forces deployed by the tens of thousands to stop them, and a generation that says it has shed its fear.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces the most serious political challenge of his twelve years in power, and it is coming from voters who were children when he first took office. The independent Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project estimates that street protests across India this year will reach levels unseen in a decade. People under thirty make up nearly a quarter of India's billion voters, and they are moving. Yogendra Yadav, an activist central to organizing the demonstrations, described it plainly: "The nation has suddenly found its voice." He stopped short of predicting Modi's fall, but called what is happening "the beginning of a downward spiral."

The immediate trigger was a demand that the Election Commission chief resign over changes to voter rolls that opposition parties and activists say have benefited Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in recent state elections. The government and the party deny this, attributing their victories instead to Modi's popularity and economic performance. But the protests have become something larger than a single grievance. They reflect a decade-long accumulation of broken promises, particularly around jobs. When Modi came to power in 2014, he pledged to create millions of jobs each year. India's economy has grown robustly since then, yet unemployment sits just above five percent nationally—a figure that masks far grimmer realities for young people. Among the 367 million Indians aged fifteen to twenty-nine, unemployment reached 9.9 percent in 2025. For graduates between fifteen and twenty-five, research from Azim Premji University found the rate near forty percent. One in five graduates aged twenty-five to twenty-nine remain jobless. These numbers have weight. They represent years of study, family investment, and deferred futures.

Other grievances have piled on. In May, the government invalidated medical college entrance exams after test papers leaked—a pathway to opportunity for poor and middle-class students suddenly erased. Rubby Singh, a thirty-year-old social activist in Delhi, said the repeated examination leaks had crystallized a feeling among young Indians that the system itself was rigged against them. "This generation has been facing the brunt of not having proper education, which leads to not being able to get good opportunities," she said. Beyond jobs and exams, protesters point to rising violence against women, the prominence of billionaire businessmen with alleged ties to Modi, and what they see as a government more focused on religious nationalism and divisive politics toward minorities than on delivering for ordinary young people.

The movement found its symbol in the Cockroach Janta Party, a youth-led campaign that began as online satire and exploded into a nationwide phenomenon after India's chief justice compared the unemployed to cockroaches. The mainstream media, largely pro-government, has covered the protests sparsely, but thousands of young people armed with phones and independent YouTube news channels have amplified the message. Leaders like Abhijeet Dipke, the CJP founder, and activist Neha Bora have become internet figures. Even opposition parties, long subdued under Modi's political dominance, have found new energy. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has appeared at demonstrations alongside tens of thousands of followers.

Ananya Raturi, a twenty-one-year-old Delhi University student, was among those detained during massive protests in the capital. She clung to the windscreen wipers of a police bus as officers tried to remove her. When asked about the risk, she said simply: "The fear in us is gone. We don't fear being detained or beaten up by the police. This generation enjoys it." Police have denied allegations of excessive force, saying protesters were handled according to procedure. The government and Modi's party have declined to comment on the unrest.

Gauri Seth, a thirty-year-old medical student in Kolkata, became a voter the same year Modi took power. She said the government promised much but delivered little. "Instead they focus on things like religious infrastructure," she said. "There are cases of violence against minorities. When anyone speaks against them, it is labelled as treason or sedition." These are the voices of people who grew up expecting opportunity and found instead a narrowing of possibility.

The next national election is not scheduled until 2029, giving Modi's government time to respond. But Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, holds elections early next year—a potential test of whether the street anger translates into electoral consequence. Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, offered a cautious assessment: the BJP may not be as strong as it was months ago, but whether that weakness will reshape electoral outcomes remains unclear. The crisis is real and immediate for the young people in the streets. Whether it becomes a crisis for Modi's hold on power is still being written.