We built a nation that betrayed its youngest; and they are done pretending.
The children who had to grow up in the shadow of a single towering leader, the demagogue who who consumed every corner of their digital universe, due to our (the previous generations) shortcomings. The children who never had the chance to see plurality, dissent, or democracy in its truest, breathing form, are done asking questions.
We failed to protect their minds through the loneliness of lockdowns, the psychological wreckage of a pandemic, and the relentless noise of an always-on world. We dismissed their anxiety as distraction, their rage as arrogance, their apathy as privilege. But what we mistook for apathy was exhaustion: the exhaustion of growing up in chaos, with no one to steady the ground beneath their feet.
This is a generation that has never known silence. Their attention spans are fragmented, their feeds overflowing, their every opinion tracked, judged, and sold. Yet beneath that chaos lies a pulse – a sharp, restless yearning for truth.
They were born into a nation that calls itself modern yet still carries the weight of its ancient bigotries; now louder, prouder, and less ashamed. The India that once cloaked its prejudice in polite hypocrisy has stripped off its mask. The closeted casteist, sexist, communal uncles who once waited for alcohol to loosen their tongues: now speak freely, soberly & shamelessly.
And this generation refuses to care for their approval. Because this generation has anger.
Anger at seventy-five years of promises that dissolved into bureaucracy and corruption.
Anger for their mothers; women silenced, beaten, denied the right to work, then celebrated on Women’s Day with hollow slogans.
Anger at leaders who seek votes, not justice.
Anger at the generation that watched, complacent, as the murderers of 2002 walked free and called the next decade “good governance.” That high moral ground of failure to bring the killers to justice birthed the monster they now live under: leaders who have dragged our futures a hundred years back in time.
They are tired of lies. Tired of sugar-coated news, manufactured nationalism, and airbrushed realities. They want the raw, unfiltered truth of their country: the poverty, the pollution, the corruption, not the propaganda posters of progress.
What they seek is not perfection. It is honesty.
They long for a leader who listens more than she/he/they speaks. Someone who might not have all the answers but has the empathy to offer a shoulder when the nation cries.
This generation deserves a new idea.
And if we don’t give it to them, they will take what’s rightfully theirs.
They have watched their counterparts in other nations rise, protest, and rebuild. They, too, are ready to shake the system — not to destroy democracy, but to revive it. They are done with performances of nationalism. They want action. They are done with slogans; they demand substance.
They will name every oppressor and stand beside every oppressed. They will call out every harasser, every hypocrite, every “respected” billionaire who used power as a shield. They will not forgive easily. They will not forget quietly.
They dream of clean air, green streets, public systems that work, leaders that listen, and workplaces that don’t drain their souls. They are done with idiot bosses, corrupt officers, and executives who compromise integrity for comfort; done with developers, builders, gatekeepers, celebrities, and engineers who sell greed as growth, build abysmal infrastructure, and bury accountability under cement and glamour. They are ready to build a new world; or burn the old one down if it refuses to change.
This generation is not waiting for permission anymore. It has picked up the reins.
And this time, it won’t hand them back.
Himanshu Chakravarty Sharma / मंच 