Phones in Hand, India’s Young Protesters Blast Through Modi’s Media Control
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tightly constructed image is being punctured as a Gen Z-led protest movement uses videos and memes to seize the digital narrative.
Mujib Mashal, who covered the student protests in New Delhi this week, has reported for years on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s control of the information space.
In an Instagram revolt of the young, India’s “WhatsApp Uncles” are at a loss.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who for more than a decade has used social media to project an image of nearly divine infallibility, is facing perhaps his most formidable challenge in years in the form of a Gen Z-driven protest that has seized the digital narrative with videos, memes and authentic outrage.
As the demonstrators vent their anger at India’s economic failings and a lack of accountability, the signs and slogans in New Delhi at the main site of the protests — which spread this week to several other Indian cities — are aiming directly at Mr. Modi. Usually criticized only in whispers, the strongman leader has suddenly found himself the subject of jokes and taunts, with protesters defacing him on billboards and mocking him in verse, sharing the images online to an audience of millions.
One widely viewed video shows a group chanting about the prime minister as a “56-inch monkey,” a reference to his boasting of a 56-inch chest. Others are pointedly more profane.
