The Briefing Room: Are Gen Z movements reshaping politics?
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The Documentary, home of the best documentaries from the BBC World Service. This is The Documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm David Aronovich and you're listening to The Briefing Room. In May, the Chief Justice of India unwittingly gave a name to a generational protest. He called unemployed young people cockroaches, and the mass youth movement that had begun in the wake of the sudden cancellation of a national examination took on the title, the Cockroach Janter Party. But India hasn't been the only country that has seen Gen Z, people aged between 14 and 29, engaging in mass protests this year. It's been happening all over the place, from Serbia to Kenya. Different grievances, different circumstances, but the same generation.
So what are the youth revolting about and are they winning? Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out. First, I want to find out a bit more about the cockroach protest in India. Joining me to discuss that is Dr Nayana Prakash, research affiliate at the Minduru Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Nayana, tell us how this cockroach protest all began.
The cockroach protests, as we now know them, ran from between the beginning of June and the end of July 2026 in various states across India. And the term cockroach has kind of been adopted as a badge of honour by protesters. The reason why these young people were protesting is specifically about a broken education and examination system in India. It's quite difficult for us to perhaps relate to in the UK, but the Indian examination system is one of the most challenging in the entire world. And the NEET exams, as they're referred to, which is the National Medical Examinations, is one of the most difficult exams in India. Every year, around 2 million students take these exams.
2
million? So as you can imagine, demand is very, very high, supply is very low. And of course, if you fail the exam one year, you're put in the next batch. You're joining an ever increasing group of people. Now, this year, the government voided that national medical exam, the NEETs, because it emerged that some of the questions had leaked in advance. This isn't the first time it's happened. It's actually the second time it's happened in three years. And what that means is for students who've been trying out for these exams and working incredibly hard for years and years, they have to wait potentially another year to join this huge batch of people for what was already a really, really difficult shot at becoming a doctor.
And the sense of pressure... on Indian students is absolutely massive and unemployment rates are really high. So around 40% of India's graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed, which is a staggering sum. And what it means is that young people took to protesting the idea that that there aren't opportunities for them. What do they do? I mean, being a doctor is a way to secure a job, not just for the next few years, but for the rest of your life. And if you haven't got a shot at that, what are young people to do?
So this exam was cancelled and a lot of people felt, what, desperation? I mean, what happened as a consequence?
And many young people committed suicide as a result of not being able to sit these exams.
Seriously?
Yep. The study environment is intense. And, you know, just to give an idea of what it means, it's not just for students themselves, but for an entire family. A student, for example, from a sort of small town, their entire family might try and move to a city to have better access to school education.
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