"Get ready to watch the government collapse with me."
That was said in a video parodying the popular Instagram content "Get Ready With Me," which shows a young woman in India getting ready to go out.
Analysts say student protests that recently erupted in India spread quickly among young people by putting memes and Instagram's short videos, "reels," ahead of heavy slogans.
On the 31st (local time), Bloomberg said the student protests in India that began last month to protest a leaked medical school entrance exam spread on Instagram, leaving the Narendra Modi administration struggling to respond. The protests intensified on the 20th after a police crackdown and, in the end, concluded within weeks after the Minister of the Ministry of Education said the minister would resign.
Protesters called themselves the "Cockroach Janta Party." The name carries the meaning that, like cockroaches that do not disappear even when stepped on, they will not back down despite government control.
They shared protest locations and rights they could exercise if detained by police via Instagram. Posts asking people to film and report police misconduct also spread quickly.
At protest sites, Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2011) showcased their distinctive humor. Participants danced holding signs that used catchphrases and pop culture. Videos also spread of protesters mocking police by saying, "It's hot, so please fire the water cannon." Scenes of police forcibly dispersing or detaining protesters instead increased interest in and sympathy for the protests.
As the protests grew, the Modi government blocked CJP's X (formerly Twitter) account and restricted internet access at rally sites. People around Prime Minister Modi also claimed that foreign forces were behind the protests. But because protesters organized mainly on Instagram, the government's response had little effect.
Prime Minister Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have long been strong in online opinion battles. The BJP distributed prewritten messages in WhatsApp group chats and had supporters use the same hashtags at the same time. This kind of digital organization played an important role in Modi's three general election victories.
The problem was that the BJP's online organization focused on WhatsApp and X. A BJP official acknowledged, "We did not anticipate Gen Z's protests would explode on Instagram," admitting the party fell behind in communicating with young people.
The BJP belatedly moved to target Instagram. Modi posted a selfie-style video calling the exam leak "extremely painful." The BJP's official account even produced a video using the theme song from the U.S. sitcom "Friends." In parliamentary debate, Gen Z buzzwords such as "delulu," meaning "lost in delusion," and "FOMO," meaning "fear of missing out," also appeared.
But young protesters reacted coolly. Filmmaker Satvik Soni said, "Many ordinary people emerged as leaders during the protests," and added, "Joy itself can be a form of resistance."
Chetna Kumar of Bloomberg Economics said, "The BJP is essentially the WhatsApp generation," and analyzed, "They missed these protests because they did not look at the spaces where young people talk to each other."