NEET protests: 'Gen Z far more disruptive, creative than any generation before'

Author and policy expert Pushparaj Deshpande said the student-led agitation against exam paper leaks and the National Education Policy (NEP) has "transcended partisan lines" and can no longer be described as a fight involving any single party.

"It is no longer about the CJP, it is no longer about an individual, it is no longer about a political party, whether it is Congress, AAP, or any other," he said, describing the movement as one now centred on "civic rights and freedoms" and "constitutional morality" rather than narrow political or sectional demands.

Heavy-handed policing backfires

Pushparaj argued that heavy-handed policing had backfired, saying the demonstrations "came back with renewed hope" despite what he called police brutality and state suppression.

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He credited the current generation of students with reshaping his own view of "Gen Z," calling them "far more disruptive and creative than any generation before," and warned that any crackdown at Delhi's Jantar Mantar protest site would be "the biggest strategic mistake" the government could make, predicting it could "ignite" wider unrest.

The remarks came during the Capital Beat show, with the discussion ranging across the paper-leak controversy, clashes outside party offices, and the standoff between the government and protest leaders over talks.

‘Modi tweeting 10 years late’

Pushparaj launched a sharp attack on the Modi government's handling of the ongoing student protests, saying the Prime Minister's response to the crisis had come far too late. "Prime Minister Modi is not tweeting two months late. He's tweeting 10 years late," he said, referring to what he described as a decade of unaddressed grievances.

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Citing figures on the paper-leak controversy, Pushparaj said there had been 152 paper leaks over the last decade under the government's watch, affecting an estimated 7.5 crore students whose lives, he said, had been disrupted as a result. He dismissed the government's newly announced fast-track courts as ineffective, calling them "glacial courts" that amounted to "too little, too late." He argued that the government had acted only after public pressure had "reached a crescendo" and become unmanageable.

Pushparaj also criticised the government for not holding Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan accountable, saying the minister should have taken "moral responsibility" and resigned. Instead, he alleged, the response had been directed at students: "The Rapid Action Force has tear-gassed them, the CRPF has lathi-charged them with nails in the sticks. They have been water-cannoned, they have been dislodged, they have been vilified," he said, adding that similar tactics had been used against opposition parties.

Protests spread to several Indian cities

Broadcasting from outside what he identified as the Congress party office in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, Pushparaj said the BJP was targeting Congress headquarters across the country, blaming Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for stoking unrest. "The Congress party, civil society has joined in here because the BJP offices are outside. They are barricaded outside the DCC offices, there is heavy police bandobast outside," he said.

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He questioned whether the government's actions signalled any willingness to engage constructively. "Does this in any sense seem conciliatory? Does this government seem accountable to you, or me, or to the students?" he asked, before rejecting the framing of the unrest as a Congress-versus-BJP conflict. "It is not a street battle between the Congress and the BJP. It is a street battle between the people of India and the BJP. Let us be very clear," he said.

Pushparaj said the protests had spread well beyond Delhi, with what he described as lakhs of students demonstrating in cities including Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and across Odisha and Karnataka — 28 cities in total, by his count.