India's Gen Z Protesters Seize Digital Narrative, Mocking Modi's 56-Inch Image
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 24
India's Gen Z Protesters Seize Digital Narrative, Mocking Modi's 56-Inch Image
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 24
Summary
Young protesters in New Delhi and several other Indian cities have turned videos, memes and street slogans into a direct challenge to Narendra Modi, openly mocking a leader usually criticized only in whispers.
A widely shared chant branding Modi a “56-inch monkey” — twisting his long-used “56-inch chest” boast — shows how social media is puncturing the image control he built over more than a decade.
The protests are fueled by anger over India’s economic failings and by pent-up frustration after what critics say were years of shrinking democratic space and suppressed dissent.
Authors and analysts say the size of the crowds has broken a climate of fear, giving millions of young Indians both cover and an audience to voice opposition the state has struggled to contain.