The Gen Z Protests that Shook India's Fascist Government

Summary

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It Could Happen Here – “The Gen Z Protests that Shook India's Fascist Government” (August 10, 2026)

Hosts: Mia Long and Robert Evans
Podcast: It Could Happen Here by Cool Zone Media / iHeartPodcasts
Theme: A deep dive into the unprecedented student and youth-led protest movement that forced the resignation of a Modi government minister—marking a historic crack in the regime’s armor. The episode investigates the roots, nature, and consequences of these mass protests, situating them in the broader context of Indian politics and global youth activism.

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the recent Gen Z protests that erupted in India, culminating in the first forced cabinet resignation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s twelve-year tenure. Driven by massive corruption scandals in the standardized education system, these meme-driven, social-media-powered protests have fractured the longstanding invincible image of India’s ruling BJP government. The hosts explore how this movement compares to past protest waves globally, why it succeeded, and the deeper struggles it represents, from caste to class to media control.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Understanding the Modi Regime and the BJP

• India’s “Democracy” Under Modi ([02:47-03:53])

  • Both the US and India are described as “asterisk democracies.”
  • The BJP (“the world's largest fascist party”—Mia Long) has 140 million members and is rooted not as a political movement with a paramilitary wing, but as a political wing born from the Hindu nationalist paramilitary RSS.

    “It’s not like it’s a political party that developed a paramilitary. The BJP was developed as the political wing of a very far right, anti-Muslim, Hindu nationalist paramilitary group.” – Mia Long (05:07)

• Twelve Years of Hegemony ([04:52-05:17])

  • The BJP faced protest before (notably the 2020 and 2024 farmers’ protests), but always managed to suppress dissent and never lost a minister until now.

The Immediate Trigger: Education and the NEET Scandal

• The NEET Exam ([07:54-09:01])

  • NEET is the medical entrance exam; 2.3 million take it for only 130,000 spots.

  • Answers were leaked and sold to wealthy families.

  • The retesting ordeal led to at least 11 student suicides.

    “The government forces the students to take the test again. And this is a complete disaster. 11 students die by suicide as a result of it.” – Mia Long (09:00)

  • Socioeconomic imbalance: Rich can bypass; for working-class kids, NEET is make-or-break for upward mobility.

• Wider Economic Straits for Youth ([10:46-11:35])

  • Youth unemployment for graduates under 25 at 40%.

    “That’s end of civilization kind of shit. Like any sane government would be worried about a revolution in these conditions.” – Robert Evans (11:27)

  • Compared to Arab Spring conditions, fueled by despair and social media.

Formation & Evolution of the Protest Movement

• Birth of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP): Irony as Resistance ([06:23-07:01]; [19:00-20:56])

  • The movement brands itself after a Supreme Court justice called youth “parasites and cockroaches.”
  • Protests embrace the insult, turning it into a badge of identity (echoing “deplorables” in the U.S.).

    “It’s a little bit of a reversal of like the Hillary Clinton ‘deplorables’ comment.” – Robert Evans (06:43)

• Escalation & State Backfire ([13:35-13:48])

  • Initial protests were small; after a heavy-handed police crackdown during a July 20th march on Parliament, protests explode in size, fueled by viral imagery of police violence against students.

• Unprecedented Success ([13:47-14:13])

  • Result: The Education Minister resigns, government promises reforms, and (falsely) claims no protesters will face arrest—a sign of regime nervousness.

    “A thing that is never true… But it is also the thing that a government does when it is scared.” – Mia Long (13:43)

Social Media and the Crumbling Narrative Monopoly

• Online-Driven Movement ([18:36-21:09])

  • Protests coordinated and amplified via Instagram, meme pages, fit-checks at protests, etc.
  • BJP’s traditional dominance over media narrative falters as memes and livestreams eclipse traditional news coverage.

• Losing “Lap Dog Media” ([23:03-24:37])

  • New slang: Mainstream press dubbed “godi media” (“lap dog media”).
  • BJP’s control erodes as the gap between propaganda and lived reality grows ever larger.

    “You can't eat national pride… If the entire media is telling you Modi is great, but you can’t feed your family, that’s an actual problem.” – Mia Long (24:14)

Intersectionality: Caste, Class, and Wider Solidarity

• The Anti-Caste Connection: Ambedkar’s Relevance ([25:42-27:30]; [32:34-34:24])

  • The CJP’s founder cites as inspiration Gandhi, Nehru—and, crucially, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, architect of the anti-caste movement.

    “He’s the guy around which the anti-caste movement rallies… He sees [the caste system] as an incredibly powerful force of oppression in Indian society.” – Mia Long (27:11)

  • Ignored by most media, the anti-caste struggle is crucial for understanding intersectional aspects of Indian youth resistance.

• A Broad Coalition (and Tensions Within) ([34:24-36:16])

  • The movement includes secular, leftist students as well as disaffected young BJP voters and increasingly workers facing their own economic woes.
  • Class composition mirrors historic protest waves (Tiananmen, May ‘68, etc.): Students start, workers join as police repression mounts.

Global Parallels & The Spark of Revolt

• The Patterns of Protest ([36:16-41:02])

  • The combination of police violence and worsening economic hope is a time-tested recipe for mass uprisings.
  • The hosts compare the Indian movement to global protest cycles (Arab Spring, French Revolution, Occupy, etc.).

    “It’s a very old kind of alliance, and it’s a kind of alliance that can always materialize because students and poor workers are some of the first people to feel when the economic ties are shifting.” – Mia Long (37:23)

• Technocratic Growth vs Lived Reality ([39:12-40:29])

  • Official economic data looks good, but real youth experience is bleak—a familiar “late empire” pattern.
  • These protests may signal a coming global escalation.

• What Comes Next? ([40:45-42:31])

  • The government will try to suppress or co-opt the movement, but the protestors “have tasted blood,” success raises expectations.
  • Ongoing economic and climate crises (e.g. fallout from the Strait of Hormuz blockade, heatwaves) will generate more “sparks.”

    “A single spark can start a prairie fire… Indian economy is throwing sparks everywhere.” – Mia Long (41:10)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On State Response and Fragility:

  “That’s a sign that they know they can’t start talking about cracking heads from the jump.” – Robert Evans on the government's pledges of no arrests ([13:52])

• On Broad-based Disaffection:

  “You have that group of center-left and leftist students… But also there's BJP kids… because they're like, yeah, we all got fucked on our tests.” – Mia Long ([34:24])

• On China’s Example:

  “A lot of the politics of modern China are about specifically making sure that this exact coalition doesn’t form again.” – Mia Long ([36:56])

• On the Enduring Power of Youth Movements:

  “Once a movement wins, it’s really hard for it to not keep trying to win.” – Robert Evans ([40:52])

• On Hegemonic Media Losing Touch:

  “You can't eat national pride.” – Mia Long ([24:14])

• On Why These Movements Matter:

  “A single spark can start a prairie fire…as you continue to get more and more sparks, the odds that you see another one of these revolts increases.” – Mia Long ([41:10])

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Key Timestamps

• [02:33] – Show intro & framing India as “the world’s largest democracy”
• [03:20] – The unprecedented ministerial resignation
• [05:07] – BJP’s origins and ruling style
• [07:54] – The NEET scandal and suicides
• [11:11] – Sky-high youth unemployment
• [13:35] – Protest escalation, police violence, and movement tipping point
• [18:36] – Social media’s role and the “fit check” protest culture
• [23:03] – Right-wing counterattacks and “godi media”
• [25:42] – CJP founder’s politics and the Ambedkar link
• [34:24] – Coalition: secular students, disillusioned BJP youth, and workers
• [36:16] – Historic protest precedents (Tiananmen, May ‘68, etc.)
• [39:12] – Economic “disconnect” and coming protest cycles
• [41:10] – “A single spark can start a prairie fire”
• [42:31] – Closing thoughts: The fire next time

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Takeaways

• Significance: This is the first real electoral or street victory over Modi’s regime, breaking a 12-year record of protest suppression.
• Breadth: The movement’s broad coalition suggests deeper fractures in India’s political landscape.
• Social Media: A meme-driven, decentralized identity helped evade censorship and fuel mass mobilization.
• Warning Signs: India’s youth unemployment, corruption, and digital authoritarianism have bred a volatile tinderbox.
• Global Echoes: These protests are symptomatic of and connected to worldwide generational despair—and may foreshadow broader revolt.

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Final Message
The hosts close with hope and admiration for India’s youth, recognizing their struggle as both a harbinger and an inspiration in the fight against authoritarian, neoliberal collapse.

“This is actually really nice to see… Fucking rocks. Give them hell. Proud of you.”
– Robert Evans & Mia Long ([42:52])

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Transcript

[Mia Long]

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[Mia Long]

Welcome to a could happen here, a podcast where sometimes the here is the world's largest democracy. And that I think, I'm actually not sure how many Americans are aware of it. This is, in fact, India. A very basic fact about democracies around the world.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, if you're calling either the US or India the world's largest democracy, you got to put an asterisk. I got both of them in there. Either way, we'll get to that in a second. So, land of asterisks, Age of asterisks.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. With me to talk about the age of asterisks and maybe how to get out of it is Robert Evans.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Asterisk on that too. Why not?

[Mia Long]

Oh, boy. And I'm Mia Long. I guess. Asterisk there too.

[Robert Evans]

Sure.

[Mia Long]

I don't know. I got nothing. I got nothing.

[Robert Evans]

Well, what are we talking about today, Mia?

[Mia Long]

We are talking about the fact that a couple of weeks ago in India, protesters managed to accomplish something that is unprecedented in the 12 year reign of Indian Prime Minister and enemy of the show, the Butcher of Gujarat himself, one Prime Minister Modi, Narendra Modi.

[Robert Evans]

Thank you very much.

[Nick Turturro]

Yep.

[Mia Long]

Hate him. Jesus Christ.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mia Long]

The entire time he has been in power, no one has successfully been able to manage to force him to make a cabinet member resign.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Mia Long]

And protesters just did this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. This is the first set. The first, because there was the most recent set of elections didn't go great for him. But this is like the biggest break in his armor we've seen since the Modi regime kind of clanked into place.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And to understand sort of what that means, we need to talk a bit about why Robert was like, yeah, asterisks. That's a democracy on both this and the us.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

Which is that. So Modi's ruling party is the bjp. And I would classify the BJP as the world's largest fascist party. It has a horrifying 140 million members.

[Robert Evans]

Jesus H. Christ.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. Not good. Very bad.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Long]

And it's also like not the only ultra right wing Hindu nationalist party in India. There are also others. So, yeah, great, great things happening here.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. This is why you've had ethnic cleansings against Muslims and other non Hindu groups and chunks of India over the Modi years.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. So they've been in power, like effectively uncontested. I mean, they didn't do great in last elections, but they held onto power and they've been in power for 12 years now, during which they have both transformed Indian politics and also just continue to get more and more right wing.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Mia Long]

There's something I think is worth mentioning with the bjp, which is that it's not like most political parties, even fascist ones, in that it's not like it's a political party that like developed a paramilitary. Right. The BJP was developed as the political wing of, you know, a very, very far right, anti Muslim, like Hindu nationalist paramilitary group called the rss, which was responsible for a whole bunch of absolutely hideous crimes even before the BJP took power or even existed. So again, like this is a ruling party that is like the political wing of a paramilitary, not the other way around. And it's been running India for 12 years. And as Robert sort of mentioned before, the BJP has faced some challenges to their power. They've also faced large scale protest movements before, most notably sort of the farmers protests in 2020 and then 2024, which were about attempts to implement right wing market reforms to India's like agricultural markets. But they've successfully been able to maintain this policy of just refusing to dismiss government ministers in the face of protests until now. So what has actually been happening? Yeah, so these protests have been rallying under the banner of, I guess, kind of a meme organization or.

[Nancy Glass]

Meme.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it started as a, as a joke, right?

[Mia Long]

Yeah, yeah. It's called the Cockroach Jaunta Party, which is named after these comments. They were made by India's Chief justice of like the Indian Supreme Court.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

Calling young unemployed people, quote, parasites and cockroaches.

[Robert Evans]

It's a little bit of a reversal of like the Hillary Clinton deplorables comment where this person in politics uses a derogatory nickname to refer to a group of people he's opposed to and they kind of take it on as a badge of honor.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And because it's fascist. Right, right.

[Robert Evans]

It's also, yeah. Fascist.

[Mia Long]

The Chief justice of Supreme Court is calling them cockroaches.

[Juliana]

Jesus Christ.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, this party is like obviously a joke. It's like cjp, like cockroach instead of bjp. Etc. Etc. The main focus of these protests are a series of scandals in India's education system. And it feels kind of redundant to say, like, oh yeah, like what kind of education do you get? Has a huge amount of, you know, sort of determinants in like what your life turns out to be and what your economic conditions turns out to be in a sort of more intense version of like the way that American standardized testing works. But there are a bunch of these standardized tests that you Take that can determine a whole bunch about what your future is going to be. And I think most famously, there have been a couple of big scandals recently, but the most famous one is called the NEAT scandal. Neat and ET is basically, it's India's, like, pre med exam, basically.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's this huge exam that everyone who wants to go into pre med has to take and get a certain grade on, as I understand it. Basically.

[Mia Long]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So it's one of these, especially for kids who, like, aren't rich. It's like a massive barrier that you have to get past if you want to, like, have a better life, basically.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And these tests in specifically the NEET in particular, I mean, this is just the one if you want to become a doctor. But, like, you know, there's a huge number of people taking these tests. I'm going to quote from Al Jazeera, nearly 2.3 million test takers across India and at examination centers in Doha, Dubai, Singapore and Kathmandu appeared for the NEET this year on May 3, battling out for less than 130,000 spots in medical colleges. So a very small percentage of these 2.3 million people who are taking this test can even possibly get a score good enough to get them into a very small number of spots in these medical colleges. And then it turns out for this year's test that the answers to the test had been leaked ahead of time and were being, like, sold on telegram channels.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah.

[Mia Long]

And this turns into a massive scandal and the government forces the students to take the test again. And this is a complete disaster. 11 students die by suicide as a result of it.

[Robert Evans]

Good God.

[Mia Long]

It's really bad.

[Robert Evans]

Cause it's like a mix of everything you've heard about, particularly in Southeast Asia. You've got a lot of pressure as a kid to do well in exams like this because there's not both for cultural reasons and because there's not other ways legally to get those jobs if your family's not rich. And also the people whose families are rich, like, often can pay to get the answers ahead of time, which is what the leak of this shows. Right. Like, the fact that it leaks out is because people's rich kids are getting these.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, well, and also, like, if you're rich enough, you can send your kid to, like, a private college. Right, Right. Yes, that too, you know, but if. If you're. If you're a working class kid, it's. You cannot afford one of these. One of these private universities.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And so your only way in is through these tests.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[Mia Long]

And these tests are also, you know, they're like, they're like a huge sort of extraction engine inside of the Indian economy where like, you know, one of the things that Al Jazeera talks about is the story of this 21 year old kid who is one of the people who died by suicide, who, in order to get through these tests, you have to go through these like massive, extremely expensive coaching centers effectively in order to study enough for it. And these things are, these things are really expensive to the point where this kid's family like sold their ancestral lands in order to be able to pay for test coaching so this kid could become a doctor. And she had passed the test after like not getting high enough scores like the previous two times. And then he had to take it again. There's stories like this all over India and it's just a nightmare.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So much of this too shouldn't be separated from the broader issues Gen Z and Jinz Alpha are having all over the world. Right?

[Mia Long]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Like this is part of that. Like this is we are fucked. We have no way of making it in the economy you've left us. And one of the tiny slim slippers of a way to get ahead and is just a scam too. Yeah, I get it. They should be pissed.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And like it's, it's particularly intense in India because there was a story recently that CNN was talking about where there's a study that showed that there's a 40% unemployment rate for graduates under the age of 25.

[Robert Evans]

Good God.

[Mia Long]

That is nightmarish.

[Robert Evans]

That's end of civilization kind of shit. Like any sane government would be worried about a revolution in these conditions.

[Mia Long]

Those are the kind of unemployment levels that got you the Arab Spring, right? Like. Yep, that's, that's how this stuff happens.

[Robert Evans]

That and Facebook.

[Hayes Davenport]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And Twitter, I guess.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, well, yeah, Facebook playing both sides on that one.

[Robert Evans]

Russia, Iran. Yeah. A variety of foreign intelligence agencies from all over the world. A lot of things, like. Yeah, a lot of things.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And speaking of things that have a lot of problems, the education system as well. Like there's other issues with it. Right. The BJP again, they've been in power for 12 years, so they've installed a bunch of RSS guys like in the Department of Education. And so you get this curriculum that in something that I think is very familiar to Americans where you're just getting all of this right wing nationalist bullshit just like attempting to be pumped into the education system. They're doing that too.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And conditions over this are bad enough that. Yeah. People take to the streets.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. As they should and did. Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Long]

It's. I don't know, like a lot of the stuff reading this, it was like, oh, I've like, I've like been in this protest. Like so. So originally these, originally the protests are not that large in scale, but there's a, there's a big March on like July 20th that's, you know, like a march at the parliament and there's a giant police attack on it that's an attempt to crush the movement entirely. And it doesn't work. It does exactly the opposite. It has, you know, a very, very familiar pattern of a bunch of people watch like a bunch of like actual literal children who are protesting, like the answers to the test got sold to a bunch of rich kids. Then they get the shit beaten out of. And this suddenly like accelerates the protest massively and massively increases the number of people who are in the streets. And you know, this eventually does the unthinkable, which is force the government to make the minister of education resign. And they're also able to get some reforms. The Modi government in theory says it's going to address like some of the kind of like bureaucratic things around why it's so easy to get these questions. They also promise not to arrest any of the protesters. A thing that is never true. They. They are. Every single time you are promised this, they are always lying.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mia Long]

But is also the thing that a government does when it is scared.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's a sign that they know they can't start talking about cracking heads from the jump.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, yeah. And I think we're going to get a bit into more of the reason why the government was so alarmed about this later. But one of the things where I think this probably unfortunately was good strategic timing by the government is that these protests were sort of like crystallizing into these more general, like anti modi protests. And by sort of heading it off at the past year over an issue where like in theory, the BJP also wants the tests to work normally. Although obviously this does beg the question, like, okay, so if it's government officials who are selling the answers to the tests, like who is running the government.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

Which is, you know, another part of this. And another thing that is a part of this is these products and services. Robert.

[Robert Evans]

Oh God, I love a good product and a good service.

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We're back. We're filled with the bounty of products and services and we're ready to hear more about the cockroach Janta.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, so again, kind of very familiar to a lot of protests that we have seen over our lives. These are very, very social media driven protests in a way that's also similar to a lot of the protests that have been happening in actually, I mean, particularly in neighboring regions. Protests in like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, if you watch any of like the Instagram reels or whatever from these, God, I don't know, it's, it's so just depressingly familiar in a lot of ways where it's very funny reading people talking about this because they're like, ah, it's these like irony meme driven, you know, like kids making these like irony meme driven things about like getting the shit beaten out of them by riot police. And like, you know, it's like people doing fit checks and then like getting like beaten with batons. And it's like, oh, yeah, okay, we've all been there. Yeah, I've been having a very like, I'm feeling old moment. Listen, watching these because it's like, oh, God, I remember these from like 2013 when we were doing the same shit.

[Robert Evans]

And well, that's one of the tough things too, as you get older is both, you know, and this is less the case when we're talking about a foreign movement, because I don't think I have any ability to influence that. But when you're talking to, like, younger activists, it's a mix of wanting to, like, let them know about the pitfalls and problems that previous generations have encountered when you see them, you know, kind of heading in that same direction, and also not wanting to be like, well, just because I'm burnt out doesn't mean you should be. Doesn't mean I should. Yeah. Like, you shouldn't be excited about this thing. Just because I can't get excited anymore.

[Cool Zone Media Announcer]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And it's like, you know, and that's always the thing with these kind of protests. It's like, sometimes you win.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And sometimes you win.

[Mia Long]

And there's. There's never. Oh, God. David Graeber had this quote. I. I forget who it was.

[Robert Evans]

I know the one you're talking about where he's. He's talking about, like, the dealing with, like, the surprise of victory.

[Mia Long]

Oh, I was. I was actually gonna do a different one.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, okay.

[Mia Long]

That one's also good. But she had this quote with a revolutionary in Egypt, like, from. From the 2011, like, uprising there. And, you know, she had this quote where it was like, you do these protests all the time, and sometimes 30 people show up and you're depressed, and sometimes 100 people show up, and. And, you know, you're really happy. And then one day, 800,000 people show up, and you kind of forgot that could happen.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And that's kind of what this is, right? Where it's like.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that's exactly how it goes. Right. It starts as, like, a bit from a dude who's not even in India at the time. Right. He's at a school in the US and he. But. And so he just makes this kind of meme page, and it takes off.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And then suddenly, you know, you actually have. And part of this is also, like, weird stuff about how algorithms work. But, like, part of what's been happening here, too, is that there's been a huge shift in the regime in India's ability to control social media, which is something they've been very, very good at up until this point. They've been really good at controlling both sort of online discourse and also have taken almost complete control over just the regular mainstream media and these protests. And, like, the way that people are just sort of casually being like, hey, fit check. Going out to a protest and, like, the way that the stuff spread algorithmically and the way know you have people going out for protest Stuff. But that also mixes with just, you know, people who are going out just to film it for like their Instagram reels and it. But all of them, all of them end up like in the streets. And you get the situation where like the mainstream media is just like absolutely refuses to talk about the protest whatsoever. But then, you know, if you're like on Instagram, you're on any social media site, you. It's the only thing you're seeing. And this kind of weakens the control that the BJP has been able to maintain over all of these spaces. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that like they've you know, lost control completely. You know, the BJP is like kind of in their counterattack phase right now. And you get a really bleak look at how like right wing governments with long standing sort of right wing online bases and media bases work where. Yeah, they do these like harassment campaigns against women who went out protesting.

[Robert Evans]

They sure do.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. It's like, it's all the stuff that you're familiar with. Right. Like they'll show clips of people like on news channels and then people will like dox them and like start stalking them and they get threats and.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I've heard people had to like hide and stuff.

[Mia Long]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Especially like female activists while they were during the protests.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, yeah. And it's also, you know, it's like, it's like large scale threats of sexual violence are.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Mia Long]

A very common part of this and that's.

[Love Trapped Speaker]

God.

[Mia Long]

Yes. You know, that's like how these people are able to maintain power. But even as this sort of digital counter attack is happening and it's extremely brutal and it's really a mess, the control of the mainstream media is also slipping. One of the things I learned like reading about this is there's a term that I guess generally kind of like opposition people are using or the protesters also use where they call, they call the like the mainstream press like goatee media, which is like, it's like lap in Hindi. So it's basically like calling them like lap dog media instead of being watchdogs, which I love. I don't know. I liked it a lot.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I do too. That's great.

[Mia Long]

It's like, it's good. I don't know. I don't know exactly how to steal that for us, but I love it. It's great.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we should be thinking about that.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. But part of the problem with having this kind of incredible degree of media centralization that the regime has been able to pull together is that, you know, after being in Power for so long, having their narrative be, like, completely hegemonic for so long, they're running into, like, the cracks, you know, these sort of cracks forming in their nationalist messaging because, like, they're running into the fundamental problem that you can't eat national pride. And so if. If literally the entire media all the time is trying to ignore that these protests are happening, and then also was telling you that your country is great and, like, Modi is great and you're such a world, great world leader, but then, you know, you can't feed your family. That's an actual problem.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Nora Jones]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And like, normally the way that nationalists would sort of deal with this is to be like, yeah, you don't have jobs and your economy sucks because of, like, some either immigrant group or in this case, it would sort of like the bishop. You'd probably be doing this with Muslims, but they've been in power for so long that it's, like, kind of hard to do that because it's like, this is your country now, right. Like, you have taken control of it. And yet.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And this kind of feeds into this, you know, question at a broader level about what these protests are actually about, because on a very basic level, they're about education reform and they're about these tests and they're about the education system as a whole. But on a broader level, it's more complicated because these protests, as, you know, protests often do function as a sort of aggregator of different kinds of struggle with, you know, different beliefs and motivations, and you get a whole bunch of different kinds of people in the street. I want to read this quote from an interview Frontline India did with the guy who was the founder of the cjp, which is to say, just like the guy who made the meme that went viral.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. That is how he got the job, so to speak. And he's. He's done a really good job, by the way. Like, I think he's been really responsible. Yeah. He could not have anticipated this happening, but he's. He seems to be really dedicated to the cause. Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And I want to quote him here, talking about what the ideology of this party, if it existed, would be the ideology of the cjp. And many of our young people are also very progressive, liberal, secular, will be secular, democratic and socialist, and we strive for social justice. And he also mentions three people that he's, you know, he's. He's inspired by. And two of them, I think, are kind of not particularly surprising given this kind of like, this is Kind of what like secular progressive democratic politics look like, which is he mentions Gandhi and Nehru. But what's interesting and what I haven't seen literally at all in any other coverage of this protest is that the third person that he mentions is Ambedkar, which. Yeah, I assume you having been there and spent a decent amount of time in India, I assume you know who Ambedkar is.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no, I don't.

[Good Mom's Bad Choices Host]

No.

[Mia Long]

You don't.

[Robert Evans]

Really?

[Mia Long]

That's interesting. Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Not in a meaningful way. No.

[Mia Long]

This is actually kind of a good proxy. I assume people listening to the show know who Gandhi is. You've probably at least heard of Nehru, who was the first prime minister of India. Yeah, Ambedkar is a lot less well known. He's another one of the very important sort of independence era figures in India. But he is the guy around which like the anti caste movement rallies.

[Robert Evans]

Was he in the 50s or 60s?

[Mia Long]

No, he first starts this in the 20s and 30s and then he's alive through independence.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, okay. Really? That era? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mia Long]

He's around like in the era of revolutionary struggle against the British.

[Robert Evans]

Pre independence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mia Long]

And then he, you know, he like survives through independence and gets to see some of that.

[Robert Evans]

The partition of India and all that good stuff. Yeah, all the fun things happen.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And this is a period, you know, if you look at like the 1910s, 20s, 30s, this is a period both about the anti colonial struggle and then also like what the struggle is going to be. Right. Like who's whose vision of India is going to come out of a post independence world, if there is one. And Ambit Car's thing here is, yes, like we want, like we want independence and we want socialism because you know, a lot of the people like Nehru is like a kind of socialist. Right. Like a lot of, a lot of the independence activists are. But he's also in a position of we need to get rid of the caste system because he sees it as like, correctly as like an incredibly powerful sort of force of oppression in Indian society. And he thinks that that's not something that they should like wait until independence to deal with. And so he's a very, very important like leader in the anti caste movement. He's probably, I think he's probably just like their best known intellectual. I would really recommend reading his book the Annihilation of Ca. Well, I say book, it's like not that, it's not that long. Yeah, like it's probably like my favorite thing I've read from the writers of that era. It's an address that he's making basically to both, I guess you'd call it, like more conservative pro independence activists, and then also to the socialists to be like, hey, you should also talk about caste at the same time you're talking about British oppression and also class.

[Good Mom's Bad Choices Host]

Well, it's that time again. Backpacks, first day of school outfits, and the low key anxiety of am I even doing this right? Good Mom's Bad Choices is diving into the back to school season the way only we know how. Unfiltered, funny, and full of the moments other shows won't touch. From surviving morning drop offs to the guilt of missing the first bake sale.

[Mom Speaker]

Iri told me that she next season she wants to join a club team that's by your house. So I was like, so you want me to pick you up from school?

[Good Mom's Bad Choices Host]

I'll take her by my house.

[Mom Speaker]

But then I have to take her there and then I have to drive back. And then some days I'm here and I have to go pick you up at school and then bring you the. I was just like, hell no.

[Good Mom's Bad Choices Host]

This is a space where moms trade their highlight reel for the real real. Whether you're a new mom, a veteran mom, or just trying to make it to pick up on time, this season of Good Mom's Bad Choices is for you. Listen to Good Mom's Bad Choices from the Black Effect podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Bill]

Bill, why is my eye twitching? Does this mean I'm in perimenopause? Maybe I have adult adhd. I need to look this up. Where's my phone?

[Juliana]

Juliana, your phone is hot to the touch. I think it's asking you for a break.

[Bill]

You know what? Maybe I should just ask ChatGPT.

[Juliana]

Or maybe we can ask an actual human.

[Bill]

Yes, like a couple sex therapist.

[Juliana]

Whoa, that escalated quickly.

[Bill]

But okay, because I have questions.

[Juliana]

We have questions.

[Bill]

And I bet everyone has questions like, is it normal to sleep in separate bedrooms? We do that.

[Juliana]

How about this one? Is bribing your kids bad parenting or just negotiating?

[Bill]

Oh, and I still do need to know, why was my poop green that one time.

[Juliana]

Hypothetically, Right? Okay, well, instead of letting the Internet guess, we've got actual people answering these

[Bill]

exact questions and laughing with us has got to be better than spending three hours down a rabbit hole online.

[Juliana]

Listen to Bill and Juliana, the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[Nora Jones]

Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing along is Back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy. Really too many to name. And this season I've sat down with Joshua Homme, Sarah McLachlan, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Finneas.

[Robert Evans]

So I went home and I asked Billy if she wanted to sing it.

[Sean Clements]

She immediately made it her own thing.

[Nora Jones]

So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Stephanie Young]

I'm Stephanie Young. The hit podcast Love Trapped is back with new updates. In the case of Laura owens.

[Hayes Davenport]

This is CR2025's date versus Laura Owens.

[Love Trapped Speaker]

I think she really believes that she still has an out.

[Juliana]

I'm quite confident that they're up to something.

[Stephanie Young]

We're following the case live as the criminal charges finally come to a conclusion.

[Love Trapped Speaker]

Trust us when we tell you as the victims of Laura Owens, she will not stop.

[Stephanie Young]

Listen to Love trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mia Long]

The CJP founder, like, mentions this because he's from a low caste background and he goes like, yeah, like, no, like I wouldn't have been able to go to school in the United States and like, have the successes that I've had in my life without Ambicar. I thought this was really interesting because it's not mentioned in any other reporting, even though it's, it's like in an interview he's said, and also I think this is a dynamic here that is like not well understood in most places that, like, this is a still operative system of oppression that people are still fighting against and that is, you know, relevant enough to be like one of the things that gets mentioned by the guy who starts his movements and that's not to say the rest of the movement, like, necessarily is exactly this focused on it. Which is one of the parts of this movement that's both why it succeeded and also one of the kind of messy parts of it, right. Is that on the one hand, this has become a really powerful vehicle for these sort of like, broadly secular, like pro democracy, like anti modi, anti dictatorship students. And there's always been like a fairly large, like Cohort of, you know, sort of like young left leaning or leftist students. I mean, there was a whole, I don't know what you'd call it, like social panic, government purge against this idea of like, quote unquote, urban naxals, which was supposed to be like, oh, there's these urban versions of the next communist guerrillas that are in the universities, which is in a lot of ways very similar to, but a significantly more advanced and repressive version of the stuff that you see the Trump administration doing in the US Education system and the sort of witch hunts over Palestine and stuff like that. So you have that group of center left and leftist students who were a lot of the people who started the protest movement. But also there's also just like BJP kids.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

Who are in the streets because they're like, yeah, like we all got fucked on our tests.

[Robert Evans]

Because it's bullshit. Yeah, yeah, it's the same reason. Now you've got a decent chunk, at least like a third of the 20 or something percent of the people who voted for Trump in 2024 are more people who'd voted for Biden or for Hillary a few years earlier. Right. They're people who, maybe they went for this guy, but as soon as it stops working for them, as soon as, like the fascism isn't delivering what it promises, they'll get pissed. They'll get wide up in the streets. Yeah, you don't have to like them to recognize that as a phenomenon.

[Sean Clements]

Yep.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, there, there's a kind of like third phenomenon too, which is as these protests go on, you get more and more of different kinds of like both rural and urban workers, more urban workers and rural workers. But this, but this is, you know, the thing about education protests at their core is that this is something that cuts across like rural urban divides to an extent in the sense that like both poor rural kids and poor urban kids are still getting by this, you know, by, by the exam system. But then, you know, you get workers starting to join it who also have these. I, I think, I don't know. The, the way that commentators talk about it is that they're unconnected. I think they're a lot more connected than that. But, you know, you get, you get, you, you get these workers with these like, cost of living crisis concerns who, who are also joining this protest. And I guess part of this is a girl who spent a lot of time studying and writing about Tiananmen, but this is kind of the exact class composition of Tiananmen and how those protests unfolded. Where you have Its origins in like this, in the specific student movement thing that has kind of specific student movement grievances that then, you know, goes into the streets around their specific demands, and then everyone watches them get the shit beaten out of them.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

And that brings more and more people into the streets who have their own kind of specific demands around, like, the economic conditions they're in. And this is a very common, like, composition for, for revolts. I mean, it's, it's the basis of everything from like, I mean, God, like, it's, it's part of the basis of the French Revolution. You can look at like May 68.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

Like, you know, some of the revolts against Pinochet. Like, I mean, Occupy is like a lot to a large extent, like this class base. Right. If you have a bunch of students who are very concerned about debt, and then that brings in a bunch more working class people who are like, not students anymore. But that's also what makes it dangerous. It's a very old kind of alliance, and it's a kind of alliance that can always materialize because students and poor workers are some of the first people to feel when the economic ties are shifting. And that constantly creates these kind of uprisings. Right. And they're dangerous enough that if you look at the last 30 years of Chinese politics, a whole bunch of the politics of modern China are about specifically making sure that this exact coalition doesn't form again. So when the old working class is sort of crushed with the remains of the welfare state in the 90s, like, there's a very deliberate attempt to buy off the students at the same time to make sure they never make common cause. And like, any time you've seen sort of student worker actions since then, there's this massive crackdown on it because the Chinese government understands that this is a very, very dangerous political coalition. And it's a political coalition that has outlasted, I mean, literally, like a lot of the, like, working classes that were originally in these uprisings, like the French Revolutionary, like Aryans and classic. That doesn't exist anymore. Right. Like the industrial working class in like France or like Italy in the 60s, like, that also doesn't exist anymore. But you still see this specific configuration of classes doing, doing these protest movements.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Long]

There's obviously always a lot of different motivations. And conflict against the state tends to be the thing that can like, solidify a kind of identity that allows you to do any kind of mass movement. Right. Like this is one of the few things that can. Fighting the police and having the State repress you, and then having the state as a force you can fight against, concretely, that just appears when you oppose it is one of the things that makes these kind of protest movements work. And then also underneath that, the economy is broken in a lot of the ways you saw in 2018 and 2019, which is, I think, the last big cycle of these mass protests where you have this economic instability. And what I think is particularly similar between now and, like, 2018 was that, technically speaking, if you look at the economy in India right now, as long as you ignore the youth unemployment rate, it looks like the economy is growing, things are good.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Long]

It's like the same thing as the US where it's like, well, I mean, the economic indicators have been getting worse, but, like, you know, technically speaking, it looks like the US Economy is growing, but if you're living under it, it's like, no, it's not. And there's all of these sort of cracks and ripples in the global economy. And 2018 was like this where, like, the American economy was, like, doing fine, and a lot of, like, the major economies were, in theory, doing fine, but then, you know, there was a series of currency, like, crises and, like, there were, like, these economic collapses. Yeah. There's like this hyperinflation in Turkey. You get these things in, like, Chile, and then, you know, you start seeing these protests. You get, like, Haiti, you get the yellow vest. You see, like, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iraq. God, like Iran for the first time of this giant cycle of protests in Iran, Myanmar, even Russia briefly goes up. And I'm bringing this up to say that one of the things about a protest like this, and there's been several other ones, there were very big protests in Indonesia over the last couple of months. These protests often A, recur and B, are in some ways an early warning signal before, like, there's going to be another giant round of these kind of protests.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean, hopefully.

[Fred Armisen]

Right?

[Mia Long]

Yeah. I mean, I think there's a decent chance of it because, like, you know, the economy still hasn't, like, hit rock bottom yet.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Mia Long]

And in the way that, like, you know, you saw that in 2020 where, like, yeah, the bottom finally fell out of the economy with COVID Furthermore, maybe

[Robert Evans]

this is putting it a little bit too. The people who do not like the regime, particularly the activists, have, like, tasted a little blood now.

[Mia Long]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Like, it's really hard once people win, once a movement wins, for it to not try to keep winning. Right. That's kind of the natural instinct.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. And the BJP is, you know, obviously doing its best to suppress this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, to suppress or co opt. Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Long]

But the problem that they're facing is, is the fundamental problem of all of the regimes everywhere, which is that, like, it's a lot harder to maintain one of these kinds of regimes when you have been in power for a long time and suddenly the economy implodes. And that's coming for India the same way that's coming for the rest of the world. And also in very specific ways of like, you know, we've talked about. I've talked about on this show elsewhere, the effects of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has been devastating in India in a way that it hasn't been in the U.S. yep. And, you know, you also have like, heat waves that are also, you know, both economically and just like, living. Devastating. There was an expression in the Hong Kong protests that they were drawing from a Mao quote, but also it's way older than Mao as, like Mao says in the thing where he says it. But the Hong Kongers had this line that, like, a single spark can start a prairie fire. And the thing about the Indian economy is that it is throwing sparks off everywhere. And that doesn't mean that every individual spark is going to be the one that starts the fire, but it means that as. As you continue to get more and more sparks, the odds that you see another one of these revolts increases. And hopefully the odds that one of these protests in one of these movements can finally knock off the fascists and, yeah, fundamentally transform Indian society rises.

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Or at least get Modi out.

[Mia Long]

Yeah. Just at a bare minimum.

[Robert Evans]

You know, I'll take the minimum if that's what it is. Oh, God. Okay. Well, thank you, Mia. And thank you, the cockroach Janta over in India. Good work.

[Mia Long]

Hell yeah, y'.

[Robert Evans]

All. This is actually really nice to see.

[Mia Long]

Fucking rocks. Give them hell.

[Robert Evans]

Proud of you.

[Cool Zone Media Announcer]

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more popular podcast from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

[Nancy Glass]

I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt season three podcast. This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families. It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want.

[Cindy]

Cindy said I had to choose between the truth and my family and I had to choose the truth.

[Nancy Glass]

Listen to season three, a burden of guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Carrie Brownstein]

Hey, Portlandia fans, Kerry Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

[Fred Armisen]

The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form.

[Carrie Brownstein]

We're launching Podlandia AO Rewatch our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.

[Fred Armisen]

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life, guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Krisel, the mayor himself, Kyle MacLachlan, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

[Carrie Brownstein]

Kyle is going for it. Here you fully improvised, not just words, but a song.

[Robert Evans]

Well, I thought you were all going

[Hayes Davenport]

to write a song.

[Carrie Brownstein]

I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mia Long]

Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements.

[Sean Clements]

We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook every episode. We're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

[Hayes Davenport]

The show's famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

[Sean Clements]

We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenburgen.

[Hayes Davenport]

Listen to Hollywood handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Nick Turturro]

I'm Nick Turturro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the Longest Yard, or Spike Lee's blackkklansman. And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins.

[Hayes Davenport]

What are you doing?

[Sean Clements]

My belt.

[Nick Turturro]

To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Turturro. It's called Happiness, Delivering Happiness and many, many more. Open your free iHeartradio app search delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro and listen now.

[Good Mom's Bad Choices Host]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Mia Long]

Guaranteed Human.