Editorial: Don’t sing lullabies to Gen Z

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s video purporting to ‘forgive’ the young protesters who are mocking his rule was fated to fail because it pressed the very buttons counsellors advise parents to avoid while addressing teenagers and young adults. Wearing a guise of avuncularity, it pulled rank, tried to infantilise, was emotionally manipulative, and sounded like a mailed fist.

A more sincere approach would have been to come good on the concrete promises made to them, that is, order the police to unconditionally withdraw all — without exception all — cases filed against youngsters who took part in protests nationwide last week. The PM would have carried even more conviction had he cracked the whip on the backs of pro-government goons and social media trolls who are out there doxxing, harassing and threatening young women who are playing a prominent role in the meme backlash against him.

Instead, the PM’s Instagram-inspired video, his fourth in the series, was informed by an ‘old people sensibility’ that this generation is wired to spot from a mile away. Addressing them as ‘children’, he tried to steal the moral high ground from young protesters who just the week earlier had been at the receiving end of the pellet guns, shock batons and groping hands of the police. While not acknowledging any of that gratuitous barbarity, the PM cited slurs slung at himself and pretended to brush them off with a faux nonchalance that barely concealed the injured pride within.

His singling out of ‘our daughters’ for delivering a ‘culture shock’ by speaking ‘such language’ is particularly noteworthy. The reference falls along a misogynous continuum in which women have been told they must not speak in ‘such language’ lest they become ‘unworthy of marriage’, or worse, ‘rape-loving libertines’ (to use only derogations thrown up during this protest season). It’s significant that ‘our daughters’ have come in for special attention by the police, the troll armies backing the government and its spokesmen and anchors in adopted media. The strong presence of young women in this movement has lent it an especial authenticity and irresistible energy. It is to defuse this momentum that the backlash against women protesters has been so vicious.

In one case, a 15-year-old girl who used strong epithets during the protest has been doxxed and harassed online, with pro-government Twitter handles posting her photo online and encouraging trolls to find her and report her to the police. Despite the government’s assurances that no cases would be filed against Jantar Mantar protesters, the Noida police have slapped charges under three sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against the teenager even though she is a minor. Her piteous apology video has done nothing to stem the tide of hate against her.

To quibble with the language of protesters, or even to profess to forgive it, is pointless. The current tussle, between an old-people government and a generation that is being handed down a broken country, is fraught because one side is hard of hearing and the other angry and scornful. When old people hold forth to the young about order, politeness, good manners and demure speech while lustfully cradling a shock baton, it conveys menace despite the best bedside manner. This is not a generation that wants to be cuddled. So don’t sing a lullaby to it