How RSS ticked all the boxes that BJP crossed on Gen Z outreach

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the ideological fount of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). And when the RSS Sarsanghchalak (chief) speaks, the message inevitably travels into the political establishment of the BJP. Sometimes the messages are seen as an endorsement of the BJP's policies, while at times, they are perceived to be hinting at a course correction. So, when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat interacted with Gen Z and Gen Alpha in Mumbai on Thursday (August 6), the messages between the lines couldn't be missed.Coming weeks after the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests at Jantar Mantar, the timing of the interaction itself was a big signal. So were Bhagwat's responses, choice of language and body language. The reading is that the RSS has clocked it even as the BJP has failed, and is now trying to woo Gen Z.Bhagwat's outreach event comes after weeks of student protests that exposed a widening disconnect between the BJP-led Central government and a generation increasingly willing to question authority, demand answers and take its grievances to the streets.At a gathering of around 2,000 Gen Z and Gen Alpha participants in Mumbai's Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Bhagwat did something that the BJP's political leadership had struggled to do during the protests, which was that, the RSS chief listened without first questioning the patriotism of the protesters. He rarely speaks in English, but on Thursday he did. He also did some Gen Z gestures. He acknowledged their grievances. He defended their right to protest. He rejected the idea that protesting youths should automatically be branded "anti-national". He spoke about unemployment, education, reservation and the dignity of labour. Most importantly, he recognised something fundamental about the new generation: "It asks questions and expects logical answers".That is precisely where the RSS, which is the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, appears to be ticking the boxes that the saffron party crossed out during the agitation led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which culminated with the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as the Union Education Minister on July 25. THE FIRST BOX: THE DISMISSAL OF GEN Z PROTESTERSThe 75-year-old's most politically significant intervention was his refusal to equate dissent with disloyalty."If Gen Z is protesting, it is not anti-national. They are our people, our next generation,” he said, adding that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are more honest than the present generation and respond to appeals based on patriotism and service.The contrast with the language used by several BJP leaders during the CJP-led student agitation could hardly be sharper.The protesters were variously described as disruptive, anarchic, politically motivated, influenced by outsiders or part of an "anti-India" ecosystem.Then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan described the CJP as a "B-team" of disruptive elements like the "dehshatgardon", while BJP National President Nitin Nabin attacked the protesters using the very imagery associated with the movement's name during Bihar's Bankipur bypoll, the seat which the BJP lost after 30 years.BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj accused protesters of displaying "anarchy", while party leader Jaiveer Shergill alleged that the NEET agitation had been hijacked by an "Anti-India Anarchist" gang.Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju also questioned the movement's intentions and its alleged links with "anti-India forces".Political parties routinely attack movements that challenge them. But the problem for the BJP was not merely that some of its leaders criticised the protests. It was that the criticism often appeared to begin with an assumption about the protesters rather than an attempt to understand the grievance that brought them onto the streets.Bhagwat, in contrast, began from the opposite premise. THE SECOND BOX: RIGHT OF PROTESTING AND LESSON OF DEMOCRACYRSS Chief Bhagwat did not say that Gen Z should stop protesting. In fact, he made a point of saying that protest itself can be a form of democratic dialogue."Protest is also the way of dialogue," he said, arguing that when dialogue does not happen, protest becomes a way of forcing issues back into discussion.That distinction made by the Sarasanghchalak matters.Bhagwat was not endorsing every method used by protesters. He specifically invoked BR Ambedkar, saying that there are ways agitation should be conducted. But even that qualification came after acknowledging that young people were protesting because they faced real problems."The agitation should be looked at from this perspective and resolved," he said.This is a politically useful distinction for the Sangh. It separates the legitimacy of a grievance from the legitimacy of every action taken during a protest.The BJP's response during the CJP agitation often blurred this very distinction. The result was that a protest that began over examination irregularities and NEET-UG paper leaks increasingly became a broader argument about whether young Indians had the right to question the system at all.By the time the Central government moved towards dialogue and accepted a key political demand for Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation, the protest had already acquired a significance beyond its original trigger. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat interacts with students during an IIMUN event in Mumbai. (PTI photo) THE THIRD BOX: HOW GEN Z IS DIFFERENT, AND BHAGWAT CLOCKED ITBhagwat's observation that today's young people "ask questions" is arguably the most important line from his interaction on Thursday in Mumbai."When we hear leadership, a picture comes to mind — someone standing up front, giving speeches, winning elections, preaching to people. It doesn't work that way," the RSS chief said. Real leaders, he argued, work from within and lead by example.That is almost an instruction manual for communicating with a generation that has grown up in an environment where political speeches are immediately fact-checked, clipped, trolled and challenged online.Gen Z is not necessarily anti-government. It is increasingly anti-paternalism, and Bhagwat's address also highlighted this point.This generation does not automatically accept the argument that authority deserves obedience simply because it is authority. It asks why. It wants evidence. It wants accountability. And when it believes that institutional mechanisms are not producing answers, it is more comfortable taking the argument into the public sphere.Bhagwat appeared to understand the grammar of Gen Z, Alpha. The BJP, at least during the initial phase of the protests, appeared to speak a different language from that of today's youth. RSS HAS PLAYED THIS ROLE EARLIER TOO FOR THE BJPBhagwat's intervention also fits into a pattern in the RSS-BJP relationship. The Sangh has periodically used its own public vocabulary to signal discomfort when it believes the BJP might have wavered, miscalculated or lost sight of the larger social constituency.The most obvious recent example came after the 2024 Lok Sabha election.Before the election, then BJP president JP Nadda had said that the party had grown from the time when it needed the RSS and was now capable of running its own affairs. "Aaj hum badh gaye hain, saksham hai toh BJP apne aap ko chalati hai," Nadda had said.The RSS did not publicly turn the disagreement into an open confrontation. Its response was instead characteristically restrained. RSS Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh Sunil Ambekar called it a "family matter", saying such matters were dealt with like family matters and not discussed on public platforms.But Bhagwat's own post-election remarks in June 2024 offered a more pointed reminder of Sangh's expectations. He spoke about the absence of humility and decorum during the election campaign and stressed that the Opposition should not simply be treated as an enemy.The message was subtle but unmistakable. It was a clear direction that electoral power does not eliminate the need for restraint, humility and social engagement.The RSS took a hands-off approach and didn't help the BJP wholeheartedly in the general election. The result, in which the BJP lost its standalone majority in the Lok Sabha, only amplified the debate about the relationship between the political arm and the ideological organisation.Bhagwat's remarks in Mumbai about Gen Z and Gen Alpha carry a similar undertone.He does not have to name the BJP. He does not have to say that the government's response was wrong. He does not even have to endorse the entire protest movement.By saying that Gen Z is not anti-national, that its grievances are genuine, that protest is part of democratic dialogue, and that young people need affection as well as answers, he is laying out a template for what engagement with this generation should look like. RSS HAS SEEMINGLY LEARNT ABOUT GEN Z BEFORE THE BJPBhagwat's Mumbai interaction shouldn't be seen as just another interaction. It was an outreach, but it also offered the language of course correction.The RSS chief did not tell Gen Z to stop questioning. He told them that questioning is part of their generation's character. He did not tell them that protest makes them anti-national. He told them that protesters are part of the nation. He did not begin by defending the government. He began by acknowledging the grievance.That is precisely why the address resonated beyond the room in Mumbai.The BJP could eventually adopt the same language. Indeed, the political establishment has already begun trying to recalibrate its approach to young voters. But the larger challenge is not changing the vocabulary of social-media posts. It is changing the instinct that precedes the vocabulary.- EndsPublished By: Avinash KateelPublished On: Aug 7, 2026 15:30 IST