In the recent elections in northern and western India, women have indisputably evolved into an electoral constituency unto themselves, smashing the bounds of patriarchal diktat. The seemingly impossible development was achieved by an amalgam of schemes with nifty titles and handing financial doles in tranches under the rubric of ‘gender empowerment’. It was an incremental step dictated by electoral considerations to create an independent vote bank.
Tamil Nadu pioneered gender outreach long before states north of the Vindhyas thought of the concept. M G Ramachandran promoted female entrepreneurship and introduced social security and women’s pensions, while J Jayalalithaa followed up on her mentor’s initiatives by enhancing disbursement to women’s self-help groups, sanctioning nine months’ maternity leave and legislating 50 percent representation to women in civic bodies.
Similarly, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar released a ₹10,000 grant to women via direct benefit transfer so that the money would not be pocketed by male relatives, subsidised bicycles and school uniforms for girls, and set aside 35 percent of government jobs for women. The cherry on top was a total ban on liquor sale to contain domestic violence and straighten household spending, though the policy is not a sure-fire success.
In Maharashtra, the National Democratic Alliance’s pledge of the Majhi Ladki Bahin scheme swung women votes almost en bloc from the opposition. In Uttar Pradesh, which votes in early 2027, CM Yogi Adityanath has promised to hand over ₹50,000 to women in three instalments.
Women—once regarded as appendages to their fathers, husbands, brothers and even sons—are now etched as an autonomous category on the electoral map for time to come, overriding their castes.
This year also marks another pivotal shift in electoral landscaping caused by the emergence of a new vote bloc: Gen Z, or those born between 1997 and 2012. It originated serendipitously in a courtroom and on an X post before getting a life of its own in the shape of the Cockroach Janta Party, which is still non-committal about its political plans.
The discovery of Gen Z’s potential to reshape politics had nothing to do with the prosaic calculations of parties who mapped their projections on old metrics. The CJP’s humongous protests at Jantar Mantar torpedoed the forecasts made by political parties for future elections. The BJP—which consistently gained a bulk of the young votes (Millennials plus Gen Z) since 2014—took their allegiance to Narendra Modi for granted.
While the demand for former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation was the ostensible trigger for the protests, spearheaded and sustained by the youths primarily from the North and West, the lineup of targets expanded to include the government’s top guns who were lampooned in memes, videos, poetry and songs. Indeed, having tasted blood, the CJP did not relent even after the Jantar Mantar demonstration ended.
The agenda segued into a crusade, undergirded on the demand for accountability and punishment for offenders from the government. The CJP narrowed its focus on public education, which aligned with its original raison d’être: the distress suffered by students following paper leakages in competitive national exams managed by the Union government.
The BJP, which rules in 21 states and Union territories as well as the Centre, was the hardest hit. So far, it had comfortably cruised on an admixture of Hindutva, caste equations, smart alliances and Modi’s charisma. It was thrown into a tizzy, realising that its winning quartet of attributes no longer guaranteed victory. It would have to think beyond caste and religion. Generally nimble-footed, unlike the lumbering Congress, the BJP recast the blueprint, pivoting to Gen Z.
However, unlike its well-thought-out strategies of the past, the party seemed confused by the new challenge from a demography that is thinking distinctly and articulating concerns in barely-understood morphology.
The BJP started by addressing superficialities. Modi used hip-hop lingo in place of the BJP’s Sanskritised discourse and sprinkled his addresses with Gen Z colloquialisms such as “OG” and “flex”, mixing in a Bollywoodish punchline—“Dhurandhar na ho lekin dhoom machaye hai” (They may not be stalwarts but they have caused a splash)—at a recent event at Delhi’s Shri Ram College of Commerce. His attempt didn’t hit the spot. The contrast with his appearance at the same college in 2013, shortly after he had been declared his party’s PM candidate, was striking to those who covered both the events.
Thirteen years ago, Modi was an attractive novelty in the national capital. The students then—now corporate workers and independent professionals—were beneficiaries of Manmohan Singh’s economic reforms. Yet they were apparently sold on Modi, then the Gujarat Chief Minister, and his governance model, and perceived him as the best thing that could happen to the economy. He struck a chord with his college-canteen one-liners, management evangelism gleaned from self-help books, national pride and a blackout of unpleasant home truths. It looked like Modi was a synonym for unbridled optimism.
Last week, as Modi walked a ramp at Vadodara’s M S University Pavilion Grounds for a Gen Z engagement, CJP founders led by Abhijeet Dipke amplified a campaign they had launched on Independence Day—a School Thik Karo (Set Schools Right) initiative to expose the terrible conditions at government schools across the country and pressure local authorities to act. This week on the PM’s birthday, it extended the campaign in Rajasthan on to Adivasi School Thik Karo.
Amid accusations that Dipke and his CJP colleagues Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das only scrutinised schools in BJP-ruled states, the BJP retaliated in various ways. In West Bengal, a CJP volunteer’s school inspection claimed the life of his father, who died after a deadly assault on the family. In Rajasthan, CJP workers were intimidated during an inspection, and the government eventually issued a circular restricting “outsiders” from entering schools and documenting what they found. In Maharashtra, Dipke was booked after inspecting a school in Latur.
Although the CJP has not yet struck back collectively, in the prescient words of academic and human rights activist Anand Teltumbde, “History offers a recurring warning: when governments respond coercively to grievances that initially appear narrow or mundane, they can transform an accountability campaign into a much larger political confrontation.”
At the heart of the issue lies the BJP’s failure to understand that the cockroach protests were not about camaraderie cemented over punchlines and sass, but expressions of angst over uncertain futures starting with an education system characterised by dysfunctional classrooms, absentee teachers, nepotism in admission, arbitrary markings, paper leaks even as parents spend a bomb preparing their children, and worst, no guarantee of employment even for someone armed with degrees.
The question is can the Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party, which had pulled out Delhi government schools from their pathetic state during its tenure, address the issues in earnest and partially fill the vacuum?
Radhika Ramaseshan | Columnist and political commentator
(Views are personal)
