Gen Z Student Protests Intensify in India Over Unemployment and Exam Leaks

Thousands of Gen Z student protestors, led by the Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, a pseudo-political outfit, continued to gather in New Delhi on Wednesday even as authorities have cracked down on the movement.

India has one of the world's largest youth populations, and the protests are the result of Gen Z anger stemming from youth unemployment and lack of economic mobility, experts said.

"The ongoing demonstrations could represent the most significant public challenge to the government since the farmers' mobilization in 2020-2021," Atman Trivedi, partner at Washington-based DGA Albright Stonebridge Group, told CNBC.

The CJP started as an "online political satire" but has now turned into a "serious, real-world protest movement," Trivedi added.

The student protest started on June 6, demanding the resignation of India's Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, blaming him for the exam paper leaks that happened in May. It elicited support from Sonam Wangchuk, an activist and educator, who has been on a hunger strike for 25 days and is receiving medical care.

Demonstrations intensified this week after students on Monday breached security barricades surrounding the protest site as they marched toward the parliament and were tear-gassed and beaten up by Delhi Police. The police have said that more than 100 personnel were injured in "violent protests."

It seemed that police used violent means to "cause maximum damage possible" rather than to disperse the crowd, Lavanya Singh, who was present at the protests on July 20, told CNBC. The 26-year-old returned to the protest on Wednesday and plans to attend it "every day."

"The [exam paper] leak, is an example of how this govt has repeatedly failed us," Singh said, adding that a mixture of "feeling betrayed, anger, and helplessness" is driving the protestors. The CJP is not "perfect" but is trying to deliver justice and is listening to the youth of our nation, Singh said.

The Indian home ministry did not respond to CNBC's request for comment.

Mounting pressure

The CJP was launched on May 16 by political communications strategist and Boston University student Abhijeet Dipke, after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant referred to people attacking institutions as "parasites" and likened some unemployed youngsters and activists to "cockroaches" during a courtroom hearing. The CJI later said his oral observations were "misquoted."

The CJP has since gone viral on social media and amassed more than 22 million followers, but the account was taken down on Wednesday, with Dipke blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a post on X.

Modi's political rivals are also mounting pressure on the government to respond to the demands of the students and are seeking action against those who assaulted the protestors.

Rahul Gandhi, India's leader of opposition, who was briefly detained on Tuesday for holding a protest in front of the prime minister's residence in solidarity with the students, claimed that roughly 152 exam paper leaks have occurred over the last 10 years, affecting more than 75 million students.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has said the government will investigate Gandhi's claims, who said that "The Indian education system has been rigged" in a press conference on Wednesday.

In May, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, a crucial exam for admission to medical colleges, was cancelled due to allegations of a paper leak, affecting millions of students. A retest was conducted in June.

The country's education minister, in a post on X on Wednesday, said the "government remains 100% committed to discussing" the exam paper leak matter and "addressing every genuine concern of our youth on the floor of the House."

The students of India deserve far better than "being treated as props in a political campaign," and they "deserve certainty over chaos, solutions over slogans and responsibility over disruption."

Spreading unrest?

The CJP has said the protests are spreading across multiple cities in India, saying that the "nation has awakened."

Angad Chabra, a 17-year-old student protesting in India's tech hub of Bengaluru, who is set to start his engineering degree, said frustration among students was "too high to stay silent any longer" and that CJP had provided a platform for youths to rally together.

India ranks as the "highest-risk country" in the Verisk Maplecroft's Civil Unrest Index, a global risk analysis firm. Grievances are increasing in size, and average protest participation has more than doubled over the past year, while unrest is now geographically dispersed across India, Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, said in a note on Wednesday.

"After a decade in office, weak employment outcomes are becoming harder to attribute solely to legacy factors, feeding the strongest anti-incumbency narrative seen in his 12 years in power, ahead of the 2029 election," she added.

The CJP protest has also galvanized support from various regional political parties and even from farmers' groups. Prominent farmers' union leader Rakesh Tikait pledged his support for the students' protest.

The CJP is serving as a lightning rod for almost anyone with a grievance against the government, Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, South Asia practice head at Eurasia Group, told CNBC, but warned that this was also making the movement "increasingly chaotic."