Published : Jul 27, 2026 21:00 IST – 8 MINS READ
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Environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk speaks to the media on the 2nd day of his hunger strike during a protest by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP). CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke and others were also present at Jantar Mantar on June 29. | Photo Credit: Naveen Sharma/ANI
Over the past few weeks, a shift took place at Jantar Mantar. Armed with little more than unobtrusive microphones, a group of young men and women stepped into the space that legacy media abandoned as it steadily regressed to the Doordarshan template. Some had already been chipping away at the margins, but these protests have brought them to the centre. Working alone or in small teams across digital platforms, these new-age reporters did not shy away from putting the authorities and the police in the dock.
This was the coming-of-age moment for independent journalism in India. So far, YouTubers have resisted pressure and persisted in telling the other side of the story. Their tribe has grown after the protests. At long last, we are witnessing reporting as it is taught in journalism schools. The kind that speaks to its audience instead of speaking at it.
I counted only three senior television journalists who reported from Jantar Mantar. They did so because they have remained objective despite the overwhelming tide. Almost every other prime-time anchor stayed away. Had they come to the ground, they would have had to acknowledge the sheer scale of the organic turnout. They would have had to report that protesters marched in an orderly manner and that strangers fanned one another in the heat. They would have seen students cleaning the protest site and picking up litter. Their algorithm is wired for propaganda, not positivity.
For 12 years, much of the media distorted the country’s identity through finely chiselled hate and a generous disregard for facts. Every evening, almost to the minute, they beamed it into living rooms across India. From Rhea Chakraborty and Aryan Khan to Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and countless anonymous Muslims accused on television without evidence, innocents were publicly character-assassinated on the strength of WhatsApp forwards and ideological loyalty. Asked to crawl, barring a handful of notable exceptions, they prostrated. During these protests, they also hid behind field reporters, sending them to absorb Gen Z’s anger. That is the classic definition of a bully.
As students flooded social media with speeches by Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leaders, videos of Sonam Wangchuk’s fast, footage of police lathi charges, and the image of a young woman in Mumbai defiantly standing in front of a police bus, they sent a clear message. Traditional media, at least in its current avatar, is no longer the flag bearer of information.
There are debates around the protesters’ boycott of most news channels. While I understand the financial compulsions of journalists, a price has to be paid for the idea of India that was torn into fragments. So while I openly oppose any physical heckling, the outpouring of anger directed at these channels is, in my opinion, more than justified.
Much of the blame lies with editors, including those at a news agency that once allowed fake Islamophobic tweets to circulate for 24 hours before quietly deleting them. It is almost laughable that, after demolishing the ethics and foundations of journalism, after refusing to look out of the window when it rained, after enabling and amplifying hate, they suddenly remembered journalism. It is akin to Anupam Kher calling for civility in dissent after years of promoting hate.
The media would do well to remember V.S. Naipaul’s words in India: A Million Mutinies Now: “People everywhere have ideas now of who they are and what they owe themselves.” Even if it sometimes takes them longer to recognise it.
Samdish Bhatia, an independent content creator, in conversation with Abhijeet Dipke, the leader of the Cockroach Janta Party, at Jantar Mantar on June 27. | Photo Credit: Instagram/@unfiltered_bysamdish
A generation, however, has recognised how a section of the pliant media chooses silence on both governance and its own peers. They do not speak up for journalists who are raided or targeted by the government. Nor for colleagues who are publicly trolled. Truth be told, an insurmountable divide runs down the middle, between the compromised and those who have not lost their voice. It is also hard to believe that reporters who have become collateral damage are unaware of the consequences of their association.
Posters at Jantar Mantar labelled these journalists “India’s worst enemies” and “more dangerous than terrorists and anti-nationalists”. The familiar faces of the usual suspects hung in these hallowed spaces. Their damage to India’s story has been immense. Perhaps Gen Z’s biggest flex is that it broke their hold.
In the early days of the protests, these media houses blanked out the movement. Over the past decade, this tried-and-tested formula has often succeeded in convincing the country that all was well. This time, it became a spectacular “own goal”. Reading the public mood is elementary. Selective listening creates echo chambers, not journalism.
By the time the government understood the scale of the protests, it was already too late. Reels, videos and interviews had captured an audience even across the border, in Pakistan. Soon, young people on both sides were writing letters to one another. Aman Ki Asha, the Gen Z edition, is still streaming.
These protests were televised, but in the Gen Z way. In keeping with the times, the medium has changed, and their indifference to power is a lesson for those who wield it. The ease with which they demand answers on serious issues has also thrown a lifeline to those weighed down by years of manufactured noise. Standing amid the crowds at Jantar Mantar, I have rarely felt safer. Those who truly endangered the country’s well-being were hiding in their studios.
The Prime Minister perhaps sensed the changing tide before his loyal media rabble-rousers did. He posted two Instagram reels on two consecutive nights. Gen Z was unimpressed and advised Modi to fix his framing and move his face away from the camera. For every television monologue delivered by a hysterical anchor, Gen Z has a meme. If one is blocked, another appears. They are to the digital age what WhatsApp forwards are to the middle class.
For more than a decade, truth was whatever the so-called “Godi” media chose to depict; everything else was dismissed as a conspiracy. Power is an aphrodisiac that comes with proximity to the powerful. Even during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, editors stood more upright.
It is heartening to see a generation rise not only for its own rights but also for the marginalised. It has spoken for the 21 students who died by suicide after the NEET leak, for Muslims who are ghettoised every day in modern India, and even for jaded journalists who were losing their spark. With no obvious ideological leanings, they have done it with remarkable simplicity. Perhaps those yelling in television studios need to step outside and rediscover humour. Or they could simply tell the truth.
From Bhagat Singh’s Inquilab Zindabad, branded “anti-national” by a television reporter, to Vande Mataram, songs of dissent from India’s freedom struggle echoed through the protests. Despite what we think, Gen Z is not easy to read, nor is it willing to be boxed in. From forcing a minister’s resignation to singing Faiz and discussing Andrew Tate, its repertoire is vast. Attempts to pit Hindus against Muslims often have the opposite effect, bringing them together. Religion outside the home matters little to many of them. They are also more likely to vote for jobs and reforms, which should worry the government.
Despite Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, evening television news still has a loyal audience within the boomer generation. Many young people at the protests came without informing their parents, and most certainly without telling their grandparents. That offers a glimpse of how the BJP’s core support comes from an age group for whom education and employment are long-settled questions.
India, however, remains one of the youngest countries in the world. Around 40 per cent of its population is under 25, and the children have grown up. It is no longer enough for a news editor to boast about knowing “what an elephant drinks” while students die by suicide. Gen Z has exposed them. They are unforgiving and their humour is steeped in satire, the bedrock of democratic criticism.
Cynics will watch closely to see where the CJP goes from here. Even if students eventually retreat to their bedrooms and close the door, no one can begrudge them that. It would simply remind us that we have elected leaders whose job is to find solutions.
Has the media learned its lesson? Veterans and editors would do well to step out of their glass houses. These protests have shown that neither they nor the government are invincible.
Lal Bahadur Shastri once said, “There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the crossroads of history and must choose which way to go.” One such moment came when much of India’s television media abandoned its watchdog role in favour of proximity to power. We are at another crossroads now. Will it find the road home and help reclaim the India it helped diminish? Gen Z has cleared the path. The question is whether we are willing to see it. In the words of Bob Dylan: “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.”
Jyotsna Mohan is a senior journalist and the author of Stoned, Shamed, Depressed and co-author of Pratap: A Defiant Newspaper.
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