Gen Z protests spur government change, but structural reforms still needed, says Sripad Bhat

Gen Z protests spur administration change, but structural reforms still needed, states Sripad Bhat Published – August 20, 2026 07: 30 pm IST – Shivamogga.

Key points

• Delivering a lecture on the recent students' protest against the NEET-UG paper leak, at a programme organised by Namma Balaga in Shivamogga on Wednesday, Mr.
• Sripad Bhat delivering a talk on students protest in Shivamogga on Wednesday.
• Bhat remarked civil society must guide the Gen Z protesters by lending them a political vocabulary and a wider social meaning.
• Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, had cautioned that bhakti, or hero-worship, in politics would lead to dictatorship and the erosion of institutions.
• Bhat remarked India has mainly seen two kinds of movements: social movements, and those led by the middle class.

Writer and activist B. Sripad Bhat delivering a talk on students protest in Shivamogga on Wednesday. Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

While civil society has the responsibility to draw on the spirit of the youth movement and work out strategies to bring concerning change at the structural and policy level, noted B, the Gen Z protesters succeeded in forcing the Modi administration to act at the operational level. Sripad Bhat, a writer and activist.

Delivering a lecture on the recent students' protest against the NEET-UG paper leak, at a programme organised by Namma Balaga in Shivamogga on Wednesday, Mr. Bhat remarked forcing the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. This person was replaced by Pralhad Joshi, amounted to a change at the operational level.

"What the students achieved was not a small thing. In the process, the youth effectively delegitimised the leadership and system that their parents' generation had voted into power. Nevertheless, neither the National Testing Agency nor NEET has been scrapped. It would constitute a structural reform, " he stated.

Mr. Bhat remarked civil society must guide the Gen Z protesters by lending them a political vocabulary and a wider social meaning. "The students' protest was not an ideological movement. It was a response of Gen Z to what was happening in the education sector, " he remarked.

Mr. Bhat recalled that Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, had cautioned that bhakti, or hero-worship, in politics would lead to dictatorship and the erosion of institutions. Dr. While even a flawed Constitution could work well if those implementing it were sound, ambedkar had additionally cautioned that a good Constitution, poorly implemented, ruins administration. Mr. Bhat remarked elders and civil society must pass on these lessons to the youth now leading the protests and assist them understand Ambedkar's warnings. This, he remarked, would assist turn a generational outburst into lasting political and structural change.

Placing the events in historical perspective, Mr. Bhat remarked India has mainly seen two kinds of movements: social movements, and those led by the middle class. The middle-class-driven agitations of the 1970s against Indira Gandhi. It culminated in the Emergency, the anti-Mandal protests of the 1980s, and the India Against Corruption movement of the last decade, he remarked, each ultimately strengthened forces that afterwards gained power and worked to weaken democratic institutions.

Mr. Bhat pressed introspection on why substantial sections of society still backing such a regime, recalling that even during the Emergency, numerous had justified it on grounds of punctuality and order. Fascism, he remarked, is not only a State attitude; it finds fertile ground in society itself. When professors and teachers often led street struggles, with the present silence of the intellectual class, even on what he called hurried attempts to impose the National Education Policy, he contrasted earlier eras.

In short, gen Z protests spur government change, but structural reforms still needed, says is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.