Gen Z: Anti-BJP in Delhi, ‘nationalist’ in Chandigarh?

London: Gen Z challenged the BJP establishment at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar this summer, turning a youth protest over examination paper leaks and education into a remarkable national movement. Weeks later, at the Panjab University in Chandigarh, the same generation handed the BJP-linked ABVP its second consecutive presidential victory. So what exactly are we supposed to make of Gen Z? Secular in Delhi and sectarian in Chandigarh? Opposing the BJP in one place and voting for its student affiliate in another? Perhaps the problem is not Gen Z. Perhaps it is our insistence on fitting a generation into political categories designed for generations before it. The Jantar Mantar movement was unmistakably a challenge to the BJP government. Young protesters mobilised around examination irregularities and accountability, using social media, memes and direct action to organise beyond traditional political structures. The movement grew into a significant political embarrassment for the central government. Then came the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council election. Around 16,500 students were registered to vote. Of the four candidates contesting the presidential post, The ABVP’s Ankit Bidhan defeated AAP-backed ASAP candidate Aadil Brar by 512 votes, polling 3,149 votes against Brar’s 2,637. The Congress-affiliated NSUI finished third with 2,263, while SATH’s Darshpreet Singh was fourth with 1,387. A total of 9,610 votes were polled. The victory made the ABVP the first organisation to retain the PUCSC presidency for two consecutive years, after ending a 48-year wait for the post in 2025. The result becomes even more intriguing because the Students’ Organisation of India (SOI), the student wing of the Shiromani Akali Dal, backed the ABVP after its own presidential candidate’s nomination was rejected. The move also revived speculation about a possible BJP-SAD rapprochement ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly election. The ABVP, meanwhile, campaigned as a united organisation with an emphasis on student and institutional concerns, including campus facilities and welfare issues. Bidhan subsequently called the result a “Gen Z” victory and credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ABVP for it. That makes the result considerably more interesting than a simple Hindu-versus-Sikh binary. There is another reason to be cautious about reading the Panjab University result through that lens. Chandigarh is not rural Punjab. The Panjab University campus draws students from a much wider region and beyond. The university itself describes its character as national and says it attracts students from across India and different parts of the world. Its institutional history also records its links with the reorganised states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. But that wider catchment makes one aspect of the result more, not less, interesting. The result makes it difficult to assume that young Sikh voters uniformly voted against the ABVP. There is, of course, no religious breakdown of the vote, so it would be reckless to assign a number to that support. But a university drawing heavily from Punjab, with Sikh candidates and Sikh student organisations contesting the election, cannot simply be analysed on the assumption that every Sikh voter voted against the ABVP. The SOI endorsement makes the crossover explicit at the organisational level. The result, therefore, cannot simply be read as Hindu voters choosing the ABVP while Sikh voters chose SATH. The electoral behaviour is clearly more complicated. And perhaps that is the more important story. The very name “Panjab University” should not invite a sectarian reading either. The Panjab University is not a Sikh university. It is not run by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. The word “Panjab or Punjab” in the name of an institution does not confer a religious identity upon it, any more than Punjab appearing in the name of a bank or other institution makes that institution Sikh. Even Punjab itself, the cradle of the Sikh faith, remained diverse before and after the 1947 partition. It is a region shaped by Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and other traditions, with a long history of syncretism. Punjabiyat, at its broadest, has always been capable of transcending religious boundaries. That matters because the PU election is not a referendum on whether young Sikhs are becoming less Sikh. It may be telling us something more subtle. Young Sikhs may be becoming less willing to allow Sikh identity, by itself, to determine their politics. That distinction is crucial. SATH’s defeat does not prove that Punjab’s young Sikhs have rejected Sikh identity. Nor does the ABVP’s victory prove that they have embraced Hindutva. What it does suggest is that religious identity alone may be an increasingly unreliable political proposition among young voters. Punjab has spent more than half a century repeatedly confusing Sikh consciousness with political mobilisation in the name of Sikh consciousness. Sikh spirituality has been mined for political metaphors. Historical memory has been converted into contemporary political currency. Religious sentiment has been summoned whenever ordinary political arguments have proved insufficient. Eventually, that vocabulary risks becoming exhausted. This is where SATH’s fourth-place finish should concern the emerging Panthak political formations, including Amritpal Singh’s Waris Punjab De, which is attempting to establish itself as a new ideological pole, even as the traditional Shiromani Akali Dal under Sukhbir Singh Badal faces erosion of its historic dominance in the Panthak sphere. The PU result suggests that the electoral limits of Panthak politics deserve much closer examination. In mainland Punjab, particularly beyond the charged religious and diasporic symbolism, the challenge is straightforward. Can Panthak politics move beyond symbolic mobilisation and offer a credible programme for the issues that actually shape young people’s lives — the economy, education, jobs, governance and social development? Because ideology and governing relevance are very different things. That should also give the Badals something to think about. The Shiromani Akali Dal cannot rebuild itself merely by competing with the newest and loudest voices in Panthak domain. Nor should it try to out-Panth those who now occupy that space. A more promising route may lie in reclaiming the politics of development, governance, Punjab’s economic interests, institutional competence and the future of its young people. Leave matters of religious doctrine primarily to the SGPC. That could allow the SAD to reclaim political space without having to compete indefinitely over who can sound more Panthak. The PU election offers no crystal ball for Punjab’s 2027 assembly election. It was a campus contest, and the ABVP’s margin was only 512 votes. The three other major council posts also went to candidates backed by rival groups, underlining that this was hardly an ABVP sweep. But it offers a useful glimpse into a generation that is far less predictable than the political generations before it. Gen Z can challenge the BJP at Jantar Mantar and vote for the ABVP in Chandigarh. It can support one political proposition in one context and reject it in another. It can be assertive about identity without making identity the sole determinant of its politics. And perhaps that is the uncomfortable message for Gen X, Gen Y and the Baby Boomers. [The writer is a career journalist currently serving as Communications and Advocacy Director at UNITED SIKHS in the UK, a charity registered in England and Wales.] [Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author's own and do not represent NewsDrum.in, which bears no responsibility for the content.]