Mainstream WeeklyThe recent protests in Jantar Mantar and across the country, spearheaded by students, put the spotlight on Gen Z and their distinctive style of activism. The protest has changed the public’s perception of youth from passive digital natives to active participants in democracy. Although critics raise concerns about ad hoc activism, emotional rhetoric, and the protesters’ viral symbolism, a widespread narrative holds that Gen Z is fundamentally different from earlier generations, and the protest has largely been described as an example of generational exceptionalism.
Beyond Generational Labels
While it’s easy to paint generational differences in broad strokes, we often overlook the significant factors, such as a society’s structural, systemic, and historical conditions, when we overemphasise the perceived traits of a specific age group. After all, a generation’s anxieties about education, employment, and lack of trust in government institutions can stem from inherited social conditions laid out by the generations before them, and thus, the latter are equally responsible for the troubles of the present.
Bobby Duffy, in his book titled “The Generation Myth”, argues that simplistic generation labels like baby boomers, millennials, and Gen Z often manufacture divisions and conflicts between age groups and divert the public attention from deeper social, economic and political issues. In a highly stratified and diverse society like India, reducing political mobilisation to generational identities risks deepening social divisions, when democratic movements require precisely the opposite: intergenerational solidarity.
Yet, recognising the limitations of generational labels should not lead us to dismiss the role of generations altogether. Each generation contributes its own experiences, political imagination and modes of participation. However, democratic movements rarely succeed because of a single generation. Their strength lies in the ability to build alliances across generations, in which institutional memory, innovation, and collective action complement rather than compete with one another. The recent protests demonstrate precisely this need for intergenerational solidarity rather than generational exceptionalism.
A Movement Beyond Gen Z
Although students occupied the front lines, the protests drew participation from Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, and Generation Alpha. Parents marched alongside their children, teachers stood with students, retired citizens lent moral authority, lawyers defended protesters, journalists documented events, and civil society organisations provided organisational support. What emerged was not a movement owned by a single generation but a democratic coalition sustained through intergenerational solidarity.
Every generation brings distinct strengths to collective action. Younger generations often contribute energy, digital literacy, creativity and the ability to mobilise rapidly. Older generations can contribute historical memory, organisational experience, institutional knowledge and long-term political perspectives. Democratic movements become resilient not when one generation replaces another but when these different capacities reinforce one another. Intergenerational solidarity ensures that fresh ideas are guided by experience, allowing movements to gain momentum without losing direction.
History of Collective Action
History repeatedly demonstrates that enduring political transformations have depended on broad solidarities rather than generational exceptionalism. The French Revolution brought together intellectuals, artisans, workers, sections of the bourgeoisie and ordinary citizens against the ancient regime. Likewise, the Russian Revolution drew together workers, peasants, soldiers and political organisers across age groups in opposition to Czarist rule. India’s freedom struggle, too, was sustained by the participants across generations. These movements succeeded not because one generation proved exceptional but because diverse sections of society forged collective action against entrenched systems of power, domination and exploitation.
This understanding is reflected in CJP founder and president, Abhijit Dipke’s recent observation: "If we had formed a political party, our movement would not have succeeded. Our movement succeeded because people of diverse ideologies and different political parties came together to oppose the forces weakening democracy." His remarks underline an important democratic principle: successful movements derive their legitimacy not from ideological uniformity but from their ability to unite diverse constituencies around shared democratic values. Just as ideological diversity strengthened the movement, generational diversity expanded its social legitimacy and democratic reach. Intergenerational solidarity transformed a student-led protest into a broader public movement.
Generations United for Democracy
To celebrate the political awakening of young people is both necessary and overdue; reducing the protests to a "Gen Z movement" risks diminishing their democratic significance. It shifts attention from collective action to generational identity and unintentionally fragments what was, in essence, a broad-based public mobilisation. Democratic movements are strongest when they transcend generational boundaries rather than reinforce them.
The need of the hour is therefore not generational exceptionalism but intergenerational solidarity, where experience and innovation, memory and imagination, elders and youth together defend democratic values. Hegemonic power is rarely challenged by isolated social groups. It is challenged when diverse sections of society build a historic bloc around shared democratic aspirations. If the recent protests have taught us anything, it is that democracy is renewed not by one generation replacing another, but by generations standing together in defence of constitutional values.
(Authors: Rasni Bai is a Research scholar, and L T Om Prakash is an Associate Professor of Sociology at CHRIST University, Bangalore)