How Defiant Youth Are Testing India's Idea of Democracy

Four takeaways from India's protest movement, at a moment when democracies around the world are under pressure.

India's democracy is facing its biggest test in a half-decade. Its signals are worth watching at a time of democratic backsliding in so many corners of the world.

A defiant generation of young Indians has poured into the streets on and off for the past four months -- first over education, then over voting rights. They did so at a time when dissent was all but crushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's near-total hold on power, confronting the government over some of the most fundamental principles of democracy: the right to vote, the right to ask questions of those in power and the right to protest. They were irreverent and funny, and they appealed to India's prized tradition of democracy -- some waving the national flag as they were hauled away by police.

For now, at least, their street revolt has ebbed, thanks in part to an extraordinary show of force by state security organs. Still, after more than a decade of democratic backsliding in India, their defiance has broken the dam, unleashing the hopes and fury of a generation in the world's largest democracy.

"The fear needs to go," Gul Kumaria, 26, told me at a recent rally called by the Cockroach Janta Party, the Gen Z movement that catalyzed this year's youth rebellion. It was a sentiment I heard repeatedly from young Indians on the streets.

India's youth-led protests are driven by many of the same grievances fueling protests in Europe: poor schools, a paucity of jobs, a lack of government accountability, and a loss of faith in traditional institutions. But they have differed in one crucial way. They have been largely nonviolent.

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