Beyond Gen Z: Why pro-Modi elites are growing increasingly restless

In a meme-filled Jantar Mantar protest orchestrated by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), one slogan caught my eye: “So bad, even the privileged are here”.  This is the clue we have missed, by and large. The prime movers in the post-Neet protests were not always the underprivileged, but the relatively privileged. This does not mean the former were not supporting the protests, but the leadership is not substantially from that group. 

In all our rush to interpret the new political awakening among the so-called GenZ — a generalisation that ignores the huge diversity within this age cohort — we have credited the generation with too much power, while ignoring the disenchantment among the elites themselves. 

Throughout history, revolutions have mostly been led not by those who actually suffer, but by those who are merely seeking a rearrangement of power within the ruling elites. While disgruntled elites obviously use foot soldiers from the masses to articulate their interests, the driving force is their own grievance against being denied a share of power by those who wield it.  

We have seen this in all our recent agitations. The Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption movement was led by the elites, and the final political beneficiaries were the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party, both led by disempowered elites against a United Progressive Alliance (UPA) power structure that seemed anti-Hindu to many. The anti-farm reform protests were led not by poor farmers, but by powerful groups in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, who demanded the reform rollbacks in the name of poor farmers. The anti-Brahminism movement in Tamil Nadu was led by elites from the numerically powerful intermediate castes, who believed that state power was their birthright. The anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests were not led by Pasmanda Muslims, but largely the Ashraf elite. 

The rising power of GenZ is partly a myth, for GenZ is not one unified group. The Jantar Mantar protests, which were underpinned by a widespread sense of hopelessness about careers and jobs among youth, had many layers, including a sense that reservations are reducing opportunities even further for general category students. There are constricting opportunities even within National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Neet). Of the 2-2.2 million aspirants, roughly 5-6 per cent get seats, but only half this number can get into government-run institutions, which means the rest have to pay high fees to qualify for seats in privately-run medical establishments. 

This is not true only in India. In the United States, which has many Ivy League educational institutions, the number of people who get an entry ticket relative to the number of applicants ranges from 3 to 6 per cent, even though more than three-quarters of applicants do have the minimum academic qualifications in terms of GPA averages. The overwhelming number of failed applicants is not shown the door because they lack the basic abilities to enter an Ivy League college, but because of a shortage of seats. 

The obvious solution — expanding the total number of seats available so that the success ratios improve — also needs to be qualified. If, suddenly, the number of MBBS doctors available in India doubles or triples in five years, the income premium available to both existing doctors and those who spend huge amounts on education will be lower. A rising supply of qualified talent usually lowers the incomes available at the end of the educational ride. Add technology and automation (whether led by artificial intelligence or otherwise) to the mix, and talent values suddenly head south. Consider how relatively few recruitments the software services companies are now making from campuses as AI takes over most basic coding jobs. Further, starting salaries have stagnated at the ₹3,00,000 to ₹3,50,000 level annually for more than 15 years now, thanks to excess supplies of basic coding talent. 

India’s specific problem is that the constriction in higher educational options comes exactly at the moment when the working-age youth population is peaking. It is estimated — and we will know next year when the Census data is out  — that India’s youth population (those in the 15-29 age group) is over 360 million right now. It is not that job opportunities are not available, but the wage levels and quality of jobs offered are not quite acceptable. Jobs promising ₹10,000-15,000 per month are aplenty in the urban services sector, including platform work, but aspiration-wise, this is not the future the sons and daughters of the relatively privileged are looking for. 

But we cannot understand the angst against the Narendra Modi government without also understanding why even the elites aligned to his political programmes feel partially disempowered. Mr Modi has a centralising instinct, and this makes the number of top jobs inadequate even for his own supporters. Ideas from the wider Hindu elites seldom reach the top, and even the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which underpins this government’s support base with its own foot soldiers, does not feel fully heard in policymaking.  

There have been murmurs from Mohan Bhagwat, P Muralidhar Rao, Murli Manohar Joshi, and Ratan Sharda about how the government handled the GenZ protests. As for the wider middle classes that supported Mr Modi, this disempowerment seems even larger. If Mr Modi cares to examine the discontent, he will find that it is greatest not among those who traditionally vote for the Opposition, but among his core supporters.  

Many believe that the change of regime from the UPA to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has not resulted in a greater sense of inclusion among the Hindu power elite. 

To sum up, this is not just a GenZ awakening. It is a signal that even the pro-Modi elites are disenchanted with their role in the current power structure, and though they do not dissent vocally from the party line, they are not as willing to work as hard to support the party in power since there is nothing in it for them. 

There is a broader groundswell not just among the Opposition elites, but the elites who were in favour of the Modi government itself.  

The only real solution is to widen the base of inclusions, and this also means more decentralisation of power to states and local bodies, as many people — including this writer — have been urging for a long time. The biggest reality the CJP movement throws up is this: If a leader or government sees himself or itself as the solution for every problem, it will be blamed for anything that goes wrong too. Both economically and politically, the case for decentralisation has never been stronger.  

The longevity of the Modi government depends on it internalising this fact and taking meaningful steps to devolve power and widen the opportunities for the elites who are favourable to it. 

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The writer is a senior journalist