The BBC’s familiar colonial echo
The BBC never stops. It has spoken again, in the familiar colonial tone, dripping with condescension, moral superiority, and a disguised wish for India to descend into chaos. In the name of “analysis,” titled “Gen Z Rising? Why young Indians aren’t taking to the streets,” BBC laments that India’s youth are not protesting, not rioting, and not toppling the government. Does the BBC not realize that India is not like Nepal or Bangladesh? The subtext is clear: “Why aren’t you burning your country yet?”
Let’s be honest with the BBC. This is not journalism. This is provocation, plain and simple, and the BBC has no business meddling in India’s affairs.
The piece by Soutik Biswas and Antriksha Pathania tries to suggest that India’s Gen Z is restless but “afraid”, held back by the “fear of being branded anti-national” and by “caste and regional divides”[1]. The narrative then contrasts this supposed timidity with “heroic” uprisings in neighboring countries where youth mobs brought governments down in 48 hours.
This framing is not accidental. It’s a carefully crafted attempt to sow doubt in India’s stability and subtly nudge its youth toward unrest. Shame on the BBC!
What the BBC fails to grasp, or deliberately ignores, is that India’s Gen Z doesn’t need to revolt because they are not oppressed; they are empowered. They are not victims of a collapsing economy; they are participants in a transforming one.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s youth are at the center of every policy priority: Startup India, Digital India, Skill India, Make in India, and now the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047. India’s young innovators are building unicorns, writing code, and launching satellites. They have no time for barricading streets. They are shaping a future of confidence and competence, not chaos and complaint.
But that’s a story the BBC cannot digest. For decades, the Western media’s comfort zone has been a poor, divided, and unstable India, a country of their colonial nostalgia. Today’s transformed, self-assured, globally respected, economically dynamic India doesn’t fit their preferred narrative. Too bad for the BBC! So it does what it does best: weaponize selective observation.
It cherry-picks protests in Ladakh or local unrest in Assam and then contrasts them with regime-toppling revolutions abroad. It imagines as if India were somehow missing out on its “rightful” dose of anarchy. It even quotes Delhi Police’s “contingency plans” as though hinting, “Don’t worry, maybe your time to burn is coming.”
How very British, to fan the flames while pretending to analyze the smoke.
The timing is also too convenient to ignore. As the British Prime Minister arrives in India with the largest-ever delegation seeking trade, technology, and defense partnerships, the BBC releases a story that questions India’s democratic vibrancy. The intent is unmistakable and deliberate- BBC wants to muddy the atmosphere just as the world acknowledges India’s rise.
Let’s not forget this is the same BBC that produced the infamous 2023 “documentary” attacking Modi during India’s global ascent. It is now widely discredited for bias, distortions, and selective sourcing. The same BBC whose India offices faced scrutiny for tax irregularities. The same BBC that still cannot reconcile with the fact that the “colonized” are now doing better than the colonizers.
What the BBC calls “muted activism,” India calls maturity. The youth understand that democracy isn’t validated by chaos; it’s strengthened by contribution. They debate, vote, and innovate, not because the government silences them, but because they have better things to do than act as pawns in foreign-funded revolutions.
Make no mistake: India’s Gen Z is capable of seeing through the BBC’s game. They’ve grown up in the digital age, where narratives are instantly dissected, and bias is easily exposed. They know the same playbook was used in the Arab Spring, in Hong Kong, and recently in Bangladesh; the glorification of chaos as “democracy in action.”
But India is not Bangladesh. India is not Nepal. And India’s youth are not street mobs waiting for a Western cue.
They know that the BBC is not their ally. It is an institution that still treats India as a laboratory for its moral experiments. It cannot handle that the world’s largest democracy no longer seeks Western approval.
So, to the BBC and its echo chambers: India’s Gen Z is not going to give you your spectacle. They won’t burn buses or storm parliaments just to make your documentaries look more exciting. They have jobs to do, startups to run, degrees to earn, and a nation to build.
India’s youth has moved on- from colonial tutelage, from ideological dependency, and from the Western savior complex that still imagines it owns the moral copyright on “democracy.”
Yes, India’s youth are concerned about issues such as unemployment, education, climate change, and social fairness. But they address them through dialogue, not destruction. Through democracy, not disorder. Through Modi’s developmental vision, not the BBC’s editorial fantasies.
The real question, then, is not “Why aren’t India’s youth protesting?”
The real question is “Why does the BBC so desperately want them to?”
Perhaps because a stable, self-confident, and successful India exposes the emptiness of the Western narrative, which suggests that only chaos is proof of freedom and that only criticism is proof of democracy.
But that worldview is collapsing. India is the proof.
So, dear BBC, here’s your answer:
India’s Gen Z isn’t burning the country because they’re too busy building it.
And they’ll do it without your approval and despite your provocations.
BBC: Stay puzzled and disappointed that India’s youth is ready to drive the country toward 2047 with confidence and creativity. It is time for you, Britain’s favorite broadcaster, to stop treating Indian democracy like a colonial experiment.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
Reference:
[1] Gen Z rising? Why young Indians aren’t taking to the streets – Oct 23, 2025, BBC
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Formerly, a researcher in Italy, Japan, and France, he has widely travelled and came to the US in 1978. He was a faculty and academic administrator in several different universities in PA, TX, NJ, MN, WI, and NY, and an Executive Fellow in the White House S&T Policy during the Clinton administration.
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