The Memes Have Taken Over: How India’s Gen Z Protest Shifts Power Online

The quiet streets of New Delhi belie a more intense battle unfolding on social media. As protests at Jantar Mantar have disbanded, the real fight has begun over legacy, narrative, and institutional power.

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a 36-day campaign that started as a satirical protest against exam leaks, grew into a wider movement demanding jobs, education reform, and government accountability. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation on July 25 fulfilled one of the CJP’s key demands after weeks of protests withstood tear gas and baton charges.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) views this as a victory of government accountability, while the CJP sees it as a concession won through sustained public pressure. The BJP has launched an online campaign aimed at reframing the movement but is being met with a fierce counterattack from the CJP.

The party’s leaders and supporters share videos of protesters allegedly abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his late mother, but these attempts to change the narrative are being mocked by the CJP through memes, parody reels, and remix videos. The BJP’s efforts have been hindered by their inability to keep pace with the CJP’s creative online strategy.

A New Era in Political Communication

Apar Gupta, founding director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, believes that the Cockroach movement has exposed a generational shift in political communication. The BJP’s digital strategy was designed for WhatsApp, where official narratives could easily dominate. However, Instagram is a different ecosystem, rewarding authenticity, personal storytelling, and virality – allowing Gen Z creators to set the terms of debate before official narratives can catch up.

The CJP has adapted quickly to this new landscape, using humor and satire to keep the movement alive online long after the tents were dismantled. The battle is no longer just over public opinion; it’s about how the protests will be remembered. As Gupta puts it, “Gen Z may have won the cultural conversation through reels, memes, and satire, but the state still retains institutional power.”

A Familiar Script

For Neha Bora, president of the All-India Students’ Association (AISA), the government’s response follows a familiar script. “This is nothing new,” she says. “They are attempting to shrink what was a broad-based student movement into a communal story because that serves their political agenda.” The CJP has managed to keep the focus on education reform and accountability, but the BJP is trying to shift attention away from these core issues.

Instagram Changes the Rules

For years, the BJP set the pace of India’s online political conversation. Modi’s 2014 campaign transformed social media into a powerful electoral tool. However, the Cockroach movement suggests that this model may no longer be sufficient. Questions about digital power extended beyond political parties when Meta temporarily removed one of Modi’s videos during the protests before restoring it and apologizing.

Beyond the Hashtags

Media commentator Pamela Philipose believes that attention will eventually move beyond the demonstrations themselves. However, she argues that would represent a failure if the underlying questions disappear with the hashtags. “The real issue is whether India can build an education system that offers fairness, credibility, and opportunity to millions of young people,” Philipose says.

A Fundamental Shift

Apar Gupta believes that regardless of who wins today’s narrative battle, something more fundamental has changed. “A generation that treats the internet as its civic square, and defends it with wit, is India’s constitutional guarantee of free speech working as intended.” The Cockroach movement has shown us that this shift in power dynamics is not just about the outcome of the protests but about the way young people engage with politics – and the institutions they’re fighting against.

The battle for legacy, narrative, and institutional power will continue to rage on social media. Will the BJP succeed in reclaiming the narrative, or will the CJP keep the focus on education reform? What is already clear is that India’s first digital-native protest has not ended when the tents came down at Jantar Mantar – it has simply moved online, where reels and memes have become the new battleground for democracy.