How is Gen Z rewriting the language of protest?
A movement that began with and was fueled by satire. It all began when the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, called the unemployed youth “ cockroaches “. In response, Abhijeet Dipke, a student living in Boston, invited these cockroaches to join hands, creating Cockroach Janta Party. Over the next few weeks, the internet was flooded with memes, pop culture references and satirical posts targeting the government and demanding the resignation of the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
As the protest moved to Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, the young Gen Z population began using pop culture as a language of dissent.
Sketched on a sheet of paper or made using AI, from Janpath Road to Sansad Marg, Gen Z were holding cheeky placards with meme references featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Dharmendra Pradhan. “Melody khao desh nahi”, one banner read. One poster showed Pradhan’s caricature with the line, “Beta, tumse na ho payega”, a famous phrase from the cult film Hera Pheri. Referencing another popular movie, a placard read “Jaldi resignation de, kal Panvel nikalna hai.”
Interestingly, over time the satire was not just limited to Pradhan but the Modi government itself. Targeting BJP’s signature slogan of “achhe din,”a poster read , “Modi ji hume hamare bure din hi wapas kar do.”
While Gen Z’s use of memes might seem relatively new, India has had a rich legacy of creative dissent. Satire and humour have always been an inseparable part of resistance.
In post-Independence India, political cartoonist such as RK Lakshman, Abu Abraham, Sudhir Dar and Unny made their war critiquing those in power. In the 1970s when India was under the shadow of emergency, Abu Abraham’s “President in the Bathtub” cartoon was published in The Indian Express, critiquing the Indira Gandhi government’s use of ordinances to bypass the legislature. “If there are any more ordinances, just ask them to wait,” the cartoon read, along with a caricature of then-President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signing one in a bathtub.
The crowd at Jantar Mantar holding banners and sheets sketched with humour was only half the crowd; the other youth was on the internet, flooding social media with memes, parody videos, and digital art.
Recreating and remaking
Participation on the internet was through remaking and recreating the existing images of protest. Repurposing POV videos, reaction memes and cinematic edits using dramatic transitions was also a form of political participation.
There were ‘Get ready with me’ videos, ‘Who said I love you first’ recreations with police and ‘Subway surfer’ references. Young faces posted “get ready with me” videos before marches and “fit check” posts featuring helmets, goggles and other protest gear.
To those watching online, the humour was starkly different from the violence and brutality that followed in the videos. Even as the CJP’s ‘Sansad Chalo’ march to parliament was met with a police lathi charge, Many reels abruptly cut from outfit reveal to protesters fleeing the tear gas. The dark reality was evidently tucked in with the humorous punchline.
What were inarguably moments of fear were turned into an “IRL” (in real life) recreation of the game Subway Surfers in which the player flees an inspector. Words like ‘having a spine’ and ‘aura’ were used to depict strength in the face of brute force. Protesters posting the content described the tongue-in-cheek reels as an inseparable form of protest itself, going beyond likes and algorithms. For many, it was a way to express dissent. The absurdity of the jokes existed with stark realities of on-the-ground police brutality and violence.
Meanwhile, the experts called it a reflection of a generation raised online. Joyojeet Pal, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies technology and society, told BBC News that while the older generation separates political life from personal life, “younger generations grow up with politics alongside their memes, their family pictures and their daily commutes.”
“We are a summary generation who find speeches boring. Since we have a habit of consuming bite-sized information, we are using the same way to put our message across,” a 23-year-old student protestor told The Washington Post.
Costumes, characters and performance
As the protest went on, people found more creative ways to engage with it. Soon youngsters started showing up in costumes featuring Batman, Spider-Man and even Mahatma Gandhi.
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Reels and photos went viral on Instagram showing a person dressed as Mahatma Gandhi with the caption: ‘Mahol aisa ban gaya ki season 1 ke player ko bulana pada,’ (situation got so serious that we had to call back the season 1 player), a reference to Gandhi’s introduction of non-violent agitation against the British. These characters that predate the current protest were used for symbolism, satire and performativity.
Along with the performative side, many protesters also shared that the costumes sometimes helped evade strict surveillance imposed by Delhi police.
Studies have demonstrated that the use of memes improves political engagement of the digital natives; due to their nature, they are easy to create, consume and spread, while also highlighting some concerning implications like polarisation and creating echo chambers.
Why satire is hard to supress
But if memes and satire during protest are shared so widely, why does it not come under fire from authorities? For the Modi government, which built its presence using social media humour presented an unusual challenge. Unlike confrontation, satire positions itself as serious and seemingly harmless, which allows it to bypass legal constraints.
A study by Sangeet Kumar on memes and parody as a form of dissent, he argues that satire is harder to repress as it does not attack the power directly. It uses repetition with difference; by taking the existing forms of content and slightly altering it, into a new grammar of critique.
He argues that memes spread rapidly not only because people find them funny but also because it has simplicity, emotional arousal and relevance to them.
Memes and satire have the potential to condense a complex political fact into a powerful and effective way that engages a large audience. Scott McCloud refers to this idea as ‘amplification by simplification ’, a process through which ideas are made accessible to a wider audience by “focusing on specific details.”
Humour helps create solidarity, ease tensions and help people endure moments of fear. The jokes have never been about ignoring the reality or trivialising the issue; rather, it has become a way to not let fear dictate the struggle.
For authorities working to shut down protests through lathi charge, shutting the internet, blocking roads and arresting protestors, satire is harder to tackle.
That is not to say there has not been any suppression. Creators reportedly accused Meta of removing or restricting their content. The internet was suspended around Jantar Mantar, creating an issue in posting reels and memes immediately. Internet Freedom Foundation, a non- profit digital rights organisation, raised concerns that content related to students’ protests was being marked as ‘sensitive ‘ and asked Meta to issue a clarification.
Limits of meme politics
Undeniably, memes have played a significant role in furthering the protest and making it more democratic. However, alongside the hard-hitting humour were memes that relied on sexist tropes, depicting Modi or Pradhan in feminised ways, mocking their incompetence. There wereAI-generatedd or photoshopped images of Modi or Pradhan with painted nails or often with bangles and makeup.
Songs of resistance
Whether on stage, in a post, or on reels, songs played a crucial role in expressing emotions and dissent in the protest. Surprisingly, newer patriotic songs were largely absent both offline and online. Most of the songs used were reletively old, including Hum Dekhenge, Vande Mataram, Jai Ho, Khoon Chala, and Sadda Haq.
One of the most-played songs was “Hum Dekhenge,” which Faiz Ahmad Faiz wrote in 1979 as a direct answer to General Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law in Pakistan. The history of the song began long before the protest.
While much of the youth taking part in the protest have witnessed newer songs, including from movies like Uri, Article 370 or Dhurandhar. These songs were glaringly invisible from the movement. Many of the songs played do not talk about just one kind of resistance. Instead, they can be interpreted as speaking to anyone fighting any battle against the state, terrorism, or the system itself. They invite participation without relying on depictions of violence.
Similarly, the famous track from ‘Gully Boy’ in 2019 called Azadi was built around a hook: “Hum leke rahenge Azadi”, which was invented earlier than the film and outlived the rising anger of Murad against his socio-economic conditions.
Years later, these songs left their character and context and were used for different kinds of resistance. These songs don’t belong to big accomplishments like a successful secret mission, but rather they talk about small everyday struggles.
