Context

• The participation of Gen Z in electoral politics has emerged as an important democratic question in India.
• Their apparent political disengagement is often interpreted as evidence of apathy or anti-political attitudes.
• However, the deeper issue is whether young people have been systematically deprived of the institutional spaces through which political consciousness develops.
• The argument centres on the need to restore campus democracy, particularly elected students’ councils and student unions, as an important foundation for democratic citizenship.

Is Gen Z Really Apolitical?

• Gen Z is frequently portrayed as being preoccupied with the present, less interested in traditional political institutions and more influenced by social media and immediate issues.
• Yet being apolitical is not necessarily political neutrality. Withdrawal from organised politics can itself strengthen existing political structures because it leaves important decisions to others.
• The central argument, therefore, is not to blame young people for their apparent disengagement. Rather, it is to recognise that political participation requires institutional opportunities.
• Young citizens need spaces where they can debate, organise, negotiate differences and collectively articulate demands.

Gradual Depoliticisation

• The process of depoliticisation has intensified since the 1990s, alongside the expansion of neoliberal economic thinking.
• In this framework, the citizen increasingly becomes a consumer, while social problems are converted into individual responsibilities.
• Unemployment, inadequate housing and economic insecurity may consequently be understood as personal failures rather than structural problems requiring collective political solutions.
• This weakens solidarity and makes collective mobilisation more difficult.
• Another important feature is the shrinking of the temporal horizon.
• The culture of rapid consumption, instant gratification and social-media-driven attention encourages what can be described as nano impulsiveness, a tendency to respond immediately to events rather than develop sustained political programmes.
• This environment can make young citizens particularly vulnerable to personality-driven politics, manufactured consent and emotionally charged nationalism.

The Institutional Vacuum

• Universities are not merely places where academic qualifications are acquired; they can also function as training grounds for democratic citizenship.
• Student elections teach young people how to campaign, debate, negotiate, organise, represent constituencies and accept electoral outcomes.
• They also provide an environment in which issues such as education, employment and social justice can be discussed collectively.
• The suppression of campus politics in several States has therefore removed an important channel through which political consciousness historically developed.
• The contrast with Keralam, where student-union elections remain a regular feature, illustrates how institutional participation can sustain political engagement.

A Revival: The Summer of 2026

• The Jantar Mantar protests over irregularities in NEET-UG provide an important counterpoint to the assumption that Gen Z is inherently apolitical.
• Thousands of young people mobilised around an issue directly affecting their educational and professional futures.
• Their mobilisation demonstrated several distinctive features of contemporary youth politics. Protesters used peer-to-peer Bluetooth mesh networks to communicate despite Internet restrictions, established a mobile library and attracted participation from millennials.
• Technology was therefore not merely a source of distraction; it became an instrument of political organisation.
• The protests suggest that Gen Z does possess political consciousness but may require issues that directly connect with its lived experiences and institutional mechanisms through which that consciousness can be sustained.

Why Student Politics Matters?

• Student politics can transform individual grievances into collective democratic demands.
• A student concerned about examination irregularities may initially act out of personal interest, but collective organisation can broaden the issue into questions of transparency, accountability, educational justice and governance.
• Campus democracy can also weaken identities based exclusively on caste, religion or ethnicity by creating alternative forms of political solidarity around shared concerns such as education and employment.
• Critics argue that student politics causes disruption and interferes with education.
• Yet eliminating political activity altogether can produce a different danger: campuses may create technically skilled individuals without cultivating independent, questioning and democratically engaged citizens. 

From Political Apathy to Democratic Agency

• The crucial lesson is that political disengagement should not automatically be interpreted as political indifference.
• Young people may reject established political institutions while remaining deeply concerned about issues affecting their lives.
• The challenge is therefore to convert spontaneous mobilisation into sustained democratic participation.
• Student councils, campus debates, unions and other representative institutions can provide this bridge. 

Conclusion

• The apparent political apathy of Gen Z should be understood within the broader context of institutional depoliticisation, neoliberal individualism and the decline of collective spaces.
• The Jantar Mantar mobilisation demonstrates that young Indians can rapidly organise when an issue resonates with their aspirations and grievances.
• India therefore needs to move beyond lamenting youth apathy and instead restore the institutional conditions that nurture political consciousness.
• Elected student councils and democratic campus institutions can help transform young people from passive consumers of political narratives into active democratic citizens.