Modi’s Sudden Gen Z Outreach and the Smokescreen of Indian Democracy

Modi’s Sudden Gen Z Outreach and the Smokescreen of Indian Democracy

If Gen Z is successfully neutralized—either through co-option or apathy—there will be no remaining social force capable of challenging the Modi-BJP apparatus.

By Rakesh Raman
New Delhi | December 27, 2025

On December 26, 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that “Gen Z will lead India to the goal of Viksit Bharat (developed India).” The statement marked a conspicuous shift in Modi’s political messaging, as he suddenly began courting India’s Gen Z population—citizens born roughly between the late 1990s and early 2010s.

This newfound affection for Gen Z does not emerge in a vacuum. It follows repeated appeals by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi—himself widely regarded as politically weak and ineffective—to India’s youth to rise against what he calls election theft, institutional capture, and large-scale manipulation of electronic voting machines (EVMs) by the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

While Gandhi’s rhetoric has largely remained confined to speeches, social media posts, and symbolic rallies, Modi’s reaction reveals something deeper: anxiety.

Why Gen Z Disturbs the Modi Regime

Historically, India’s Gen Z has remained largely docile and politically disengaged, despite facing record unemployment, declining educational quality, inflation, shrinking freedoms, and aggressive majoritarian politics. However, recent developments in neighboring countries appear to have unsettled the Modi regime.

In Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, Gen Z–led movements have played decisive roles in dislodging entrenched and corrupt political establishments. These uprisings were not driven by traditional opposition parties, but by youth mobilization cutting across ideological lines.

For a regime that has neutralized India’s formal opposition and hollowed out democratic institutions, Gen Z represents the only remaining unpredictable variable.

Institutional Capture Is Complete—Except the Streets

Over the past decade, the Modi government has consolidated control over virtually every institutional pillar of Indian democracy:

• The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been structurally reshaped, with the executive gaining decisive influence over the appointment of Election Commissioners and granting them legal immunity.

• The judiciary, including the Supreme Court, has repeatedly refused transparent scrutiny of EVMs, voter list anomalies, and election procedures.

• Parliament has been reduced to a stage-managed spectacle, where dissent is curtailed and critical legislation is passed without meaningful debate.

• Mainstream media functions largely as a propaganda arm, sustained through government advertising and regulatory pressure.

With opposition parties either compromised, intimidated, or entangled in corruption cases, electoral resistance has been reduced to performative politics—tweets, speeches, and symbolic marches that pose no real threat to power.

EVMs Remain the Untouched Core of Election Theft

Despite widespread circumstantial evidence—statistical anomalies, refusal to share CCTV footage, blocking of mock ballot elections, impromptu voter roll revisions, and expert warnings—EVMs remain untouchable.

Selective manipulation of EVMs, rather than crude tactics like voter bribery or welfare announcements, is what enables the BJP to:

• Win decisive Lok Sabha elections,

• Capture key state assemblies,

• And allow controlled losses in politically inconsequential states to maintain the illusion of democratic competition.

As long as elections are conducted on opaque electronic systems under a compromised Election Commission, outcomes remain pre-determined where they matter most.

Modi’s Gen Z Pitch: Empowerment or Pre-Emption?

Modi’s sudden praise of Gen Z as nation-builders must be read not as empowerment, but as pre-emption.

By flattering Gen Z and incorporating them into the rhetoric of “Viksit Bharat,” the regime seeks to:

• Diffuse latent anger over unemployment and inequality,

• Channel dissent into regime-approved narratives,

• And prevent youth-led movements from spilling onto the streets.

If Gen Z is successfully neutralized—either through co-option or apathy—there will be no remaining social force capable of challenging the Modi-BJP apparatus.

A Parliamentary Dictatorship With Electoral Rituals

India is fast approaching a political model where:

• Elections continue regularly,

• Campaigns remain noisy and polarized,

• But outcomes are managed through institutional control and technological opacity.

This is not democracy—it is a parliamentary dictatorship, where elections serve as rituals to legitimize power already secured elsewhere.

Unless India’s Gen Z moves beyond slogans, speeches, and online outrage—and unless elections return to transparent, verifiable systems such as ballot papers—the cycle will persist.

Modi and the BJP will continue to win where they choose to win.
The smokescreen will remain intact.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.