Gen Z - Art of Roaching

 

I attended an Anime event held at New Delhi’s Yashobhoomi on Saturday the 6^th June, 2026 where at a kiosk, a GenZ kid made out a sketch that made me look 40 years younger! After the girl had finished sketching (it had taken her nearly 15 minutes for a sketch that perhaps could have been finished in under 5 minutes).  However, finding the sketch off the mark, I asked her jokingly, ‘Is this my sketch’? She smiled and retorted ‘Yes, that’s how I find you, isnt’ it perfect?’!  The confidence, and the child-like innocence of the kid amazed me!  She was 100% sure she had done a great job!  This left me puzzled and made me wonder, what a generation! 

On the same day at Jantar Mantar the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a purportedly GenZ political enterprise staged a dharna drawing attention to the education sector reforms, unemployment and other matters that concerned the youth of the country.  While politics and dharnas have not been an area of interest for me but in the wake of the a large GenZ base support for CJP, I am inclined to scribble a take on the life and times we live in today.

With a population of about 1.45 billion, India now has world’s largest Generation Z population (a generation born between 1997 and 2012) that makes this country possess one of the youngest work forces in comparison to other countries of the world. A quick comparison indicates that today India possesses an employable work force out of which 43 to 55% are graduates and 1/3^rd of the entire population is below 25 years of age!

However, the overall employment scenario for youth seems dismal as we lack strong apprenticeship systems, close industry academia collabs and a general lack of focus on strong soft skills and practical training that makes youth available but unemployable.  A general sense of helplessness and depression seems to be spreading over young minds that is leading to exhibition of unrest and dis-trust towards the system.

Since gaining Independence, India has more or less continued with the British set school system that could only roll out manpower that focused on white collar jobs.  Lack of focus on skill development and a trust on government jobs further led to eroding of confidence for entrepreneurship or self-employment for youth passing out from schools and universities.

Gen Z has emerged as a generation where parents are more empowered in comparison to the earlier generations but helpless when it came to taking clear decisions in respect of education, discipline and employment for their wards. They perhaps wish to grant their children a sense of freedom that they themselves missed while growing up. Easy handy money, freedom for entertainment and a hollow sense of joy out of materialism, a leaf out from the West! Thus, GenZ stands as a section of population that wishes to see results quickly and with less efforts. Reel life has overtaken young minds and quick success with lesser responsibility seems to be their line of thought.  Attention deficit and lack of awareness for details seems to be way of things for this generation.  Global down turn in growth and employment has further stressed up matters and has become a major source of discontent to the Gen-Z in our country.

However, the silver lining is that we need not be hopeless.  The CJP rally showed that Gen Z may be wayward in their mannerism but they cannot be fooled. They reflected a sense of purpose and confidence.  They wanted to air their views and had concern for environment, cleanliness, social trust and development, Instead of scoring political points, Gen Z should be made as focal point for communication that should transform India. They should be made the sails by ruling dispensation as well as opposition to steer the ship of India towards success.

The huge bank of manpower should be made use of for monitoring social programs of government. Let them record, monitor deviations and be made part of the machinery to ensure success of reforms, policies and action.  They perhaps should be allotted spaces in Assemblies and Parliament (even as visitors in visitor galleries) to listen to leaders interact with their branches and downlines.  Let them be part of a machinery that spreads positive messages providing a  forward looking commentary on our life and times.

It is time to harness the Youth energy and make them pillars of change for making India a great country.  Gen Z requires guidance and mentoring.  Let their leaders not assume that they can hijack the minds of Gen Z in any direction they wish to but on the other hand India needs Gen Z to pick youth leaders who actually be ready to join government machinery  to bring in revolutionary changes in ways that can lead to higher skill development, employability and grown of our great nation.