South Asia’s Gen Z protests offer one lesson in common

Last month, as thousands of young Indians led by a group calling itself the Cockroach Janta Party, marched towards Parliament in New Delhi, they were met with tear gas and struck with batons by the police. It appeared that India’s moment in South Asia’s Gen Z revolution had finally arrived.As one journalist observed, for the first time since 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office, fear had “switched sides”. The protests began over paper leaks that resulted in the cancellation of the national examination for admission to medical schools. A few months ago, protests of this magnitude – with Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in Parliament, demanding that Modi resign – were unthinkable.From Sri Lanka to Nepal, Bangladesh to India, South Asia has seen variants of youth protest movements, each producing its own unique results. The common theme for these protests is that they were essentially leaderless or horizontal movements and had no single political party behind them.