Meet the protester at Jantar Mantar — young, angry, and very Gen Z

Some of the protesters come with posters, acerbic or witty, while others carry the flag

Cautioning against reading the protest simply as middle-class mobilisation, he says what stands out to him is the visible participation of Dalit and Ambedkarite organisations — “not merely as representatives of Scheduled Castes or reservation politics, but as people claiming the right to shape the country’s larger conversation on education and the future”.

‘Feels like the doors are closing’

Twenty-year-old Ayush, who recently graduated with a Bachelors in Engineering from a private university in Kanpur, starts his first job in Gurgaon in a week. But far from being excited, he says, he is gripped by a sense of anxiety.

“About 30 seniors from my college were let go within a year of being hired. The average salary has stayed around Rs 30,000 for years, with more roles turning out to be internships. AI is automating entry-level jobs, government exams are either leaked or delayed for years. It feels like all doors are closed to us,” says Ayush.

So on May 16, when he saw CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke’s first tweet — “What if all cockroaches come together?” —  Ayush immediately followed him on social media and has, since then, been watching his every reel.

“Coincidentally, the time in June when I came to Gurgaon from Kanpur for a job interview was when CJP was also organising their first protest at Jantar Mantar. That was the first time I was attending a protest, because our college doesn’t allow protests,” he says.

Since then, Ayush has kept coming back: he has visited the protest site around four times so far.

Anil Raj is not a NEET aspirant, he clarifies. Yet, for five days now, he has been coming to Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to protest against the “country’s education system”. At 30, the graduate from Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, senses a ticking clock — he is still without a job.

“I wanted to be in the police. I worked hard for the UP Police recruitment exam and appeared for the exam in 2024, but the paper was leaked. Then, I appeared for the Home Guard exam in Agra in 2025, but then we heard that too was compromised, ” says Raj, who is now studying B.Pharm “as a backup”.

The protesters are driven by a range of anxieties, from unemployment to a shrinking space for dissent in educational institutions

On July 19, he took a train to Delhi to join the protests at Jantar Mantar. “I have rented a room for Rs 7,000 a month in Gurgaon and have been staying here for the past five days. I will stay here until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns,” he says. “My parents gave up their dreams to give me an education. I can’t let that go to waste by not speaking up,” he says, wiping his face with a sweat-soaked gamcha.

The frustrations voiced by Shivam, Ayush and Anil are reflected in India’s labour market. According to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the share of working-age Indians (15 years and above) with a job has fallen from 42.7% in 2016-17 to 38.7% by March 2026.

While the number of people employed increased from 406 million to 438 million over the period, the additional employment has failed to keep pace with a much faster growth in the country’s working-age population.

‘This isn’t just about exams now’

Even for Delhi, a city that has witnessed some of the most defining political protests, including the more recent India Against Corruption agitation in 2011 and the 2020-21 farmer protests, the current one brought out a new side of the city and its people.

In the days since July 18, protesters have been pouring into the road adjacent to the 18th century observatory to express their solidarity. Many of the youngsters, even among those from Delhi, were there for the first time. They came armed with posters — some acerbic in the way youngsters can be, others peppered with witty one-liners — and, of course, their precious phones on which they shot selfies and recorded their friends, the slogans, the speeches. Once the protests wound down, they would sit hunched over their phones to create memes, that baffling combination of video, irony and word play that has become the movement’s unofficial language.

There were also those who came in solidarity.

For some of the youth, this is the first time attending a protest

For over a week, Nundrisha Wakhloo, a 34-year-old documentary filmmaker, has been visiting the protest site, mostly during the nights with her friends. “Here, I feel safer than ever, even at night. It is beautiful to see so many people come together,” she says. “This is not just about exams anymore. It’s about not being heard for so many years. Young people are beginning to vote, beginning to ask questions. If this generation feels unheard, what have we really got?”

Listing the slow buildup of anxieties among youngsters, from unemployment to a shrinking space for dissent in educational institutions, she says, “Education is the first place where narratives are shaped. When you change education, when truth itself begins to feel negotiable, this protest becomes about much more than one incident. I don’t think most people at the protest site have anything to do with the NEET exam. People have been coming to stand with the students because they recognised something of themselves in what was happening.”

The daughter of architect parents, who graduated from Delhi University’s Gargi College, identifies herself as “somewhat privileged” in many ways.

“But my privilege gives me the ability to show up. It would be easier to sit at home and say this isn’t my fight. All that people endured… it is reduced to nothing if we don’t come back,” she says.

Sanjay Srivastava, anthropologist and sociologist and Distinguished Research Professor at SOAS University of London, says the current protest changes how Delhi’s spaces are experienced. “Delhi is historically a very exclusionary city. It was designed by the British to be deeply segregated. An ironic consequence of the traditionally political gathering is that it reinforces the segregated nature of the city, one that mimics Indian society itself: Dalit causes are mainly championed by Dalits, Sikh ones by Sikhs and religious ones by followers of those religions. In the current protests, what makes people show up is the fact that each can invent their own reasons for being there as, beyond the idea of an economic future, there are no other defining ideologies.”

This time, unlike in past protests, there is a different kind of solidarity. Many of the youngsters come with their parents

‘I am not scared anymore’

This time, unlike in past protests, there is a different kind of solidarity. Many of the youngsters came with their parents — a mother from Ballabgarh in Haryana who had accompanied her daughter and friends who were volunteering at the site, a young father who stood with his son perched on his shoulders, a single parent with her 22-year-old daughter.

But Samreen, 24, from a Northeast Delhi neighbourhood, had to be at Jantar Mantar on her own. Her parents wouldn’t have approved, so she told them that she was going to the library and headed to the protest site instead. The second of five siblings, Samreen graduated from Jamia Millia Islamia with a Master’s degree in History six months ago. It’s a milestone that has come after several arguments over marriage with her parents — her father is an electrician and mother, a homemaker. “I have held off for so long. I keep telling my parents, let me first secure a future, then I’ll think of marriage,” she says.

But it’s getting difficult to hold on to that position, says Samreen. She took the UGC-NET examination for the second time this year. Like her first attempt, this one too was marred by allegations of paper leaks. “Even with a degree from a good university, I’m still struggling to achieve my dreams,” she says.

Protesters clash with police in Delhi at Jantar Mantar on July 20

Like Samreen, many of the women who had turned up for the protest carried with them a natural resilience, honed by their daily struggles.

Pratiksha Sawant, 40, from Thane, Maharashtra, is in Delhi on work — “at least that’s what my family thinks,” she laughs. Her medicine supply business often brings her to Delhi, but this time, she has spent more time at the protest. “I have been here for 22 days,” she says outside Kutty’s, the popular dosa joint near Jantar Mantar, during a break from the protest. Her husband and two children, one in Class 10, the other in Class 8, are back in Thane.

“My parents allowed me to study, but once marriage and kids happened, I had to give up a lot. But hopefully, my sacrifices will amount to something,” she says.

Pointing to the many women at the protest site, she says, “How times have changed. Look at all these girls. After all these years, I am not scared anymore. As a mother, I am here to protect my children’s future, what they grow up to be is in my hands.”

‘Never attended a protest before’

On July 20, hours after protesters clashed with police in Delhi, at Jantar Mantar, 16-year-old Raj Kumar, from Saidabad in Prayagraj, stood on a ledge holding a placard. It’s a wobbly platform, so Sajid, 34, stands at the other end to balance it.

Raj says he “ran away from home” to participate in the protest and informed his parents only after he arrived at Jantar Mantar. The call was made from Sajid’s phone. Since then, Sajid has taken the teenager under his wings, looking out for him in the crowd, ensuring he has eaten and has a space to sleep at night. “He is like my child. I have two boys back home in Ajmer (Rajasthan) — a four-year-old and a 15-month-old. I miss my children, but Raj inspires me to keep going,” says Sajid, stopping to ask a woman not to lean on the ledge, worried Raj might fall.

The Cockroach Janata Party seeks the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the recent NEET paper leak

On the pavement to the right of the stage, Harsh Swamy, 26, and Ujjwal Yadav, 20, huddle under the tarpaulin to shelter their backpacks from the rain. “Neither of us had attended a protest before, and I was just telling bhai what an experience it has been,” says Ujjwal.

Harsh had arrived from Jaipur the previous night and Ujjwal that morning from Etah in UP. “We started talking because both of us are UPSC aspirants, and we soon connected over how distressing this NEET paper leak has been. What if it happens with UPSC as well?,” says Harsh.

Elsewhere at the protest site, Pushpa Kumari, a former corporate employee, sits with Anjali Saini, a homemaker, and Neetu Singh, who sells hair accessories and everyday essentials for a living. They met each other on the mat below the stage, where they now rest and sleep, at different points during the course of the past 20 days.

Neetu was the first to arrive with her 14-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son Vaibhav from Agra. Then, came Anjali, who has been at the site for nearly a week, from Darjeeling; Pushpa joined four days ago. Nearly 96 hours and a lathi charge later, the three women now finish each other’s sentences. “It is because of her that my son didn’t get hurt,” says Neetu, pointing towards Pushpa. “The police were charging at him with a lathi and she pulled him back,” says Anjali.