As an educator who has taught high school students for the past three decades, I often say that teachers observe shifts in societal morality more closely than most. Young people, after all, are often the ‘canary in the coal mine’ of society, and usually the first to reflect the deeper changes taking place around them.
I caught a disturbing glimpse of one such shift three years ago, when I showed an auditorium full of Class IX students Richard Attenborough’s 1980 film, Gandhi. The movie begins with Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, and as Godse pumps three bullets into the frail old man, the students in the darkened hall begin clapping, cheering, and whistling, leaving me stunned.
That evening, I sent a mail to all the students asking them why they thought it was okay to applaud a murder. A great number of them wrote back and apologised, saying they were ashamed at what had happened and had just gotten caught up in the moment. A few, however, proudly admitted to leading the cheering and said, “Gandhi was a bad man and deserved to be shot.” It comforted me, though, that they were in the minority.
The principal of the school, upset as she was about the behaviour of the students, insisted I show the film to Class VIII as well. Once again, a few students hooted and clapped at the assassination scene. I paused the movie and asked how they would feel if something similar happened to an elderly person they loved.
The proverbial ‘pin-drop silence’ followed. They got the point.
After the movie ended, I asked them if it is still possible to launch and win a Gandhian revolution in this day and age. The students weren’t sure, and so I showed them video footage I had taken of the year-long farmers’ peaceful and courageous protest at the border of Delhi in 2020-2021, which resulted in the Modi government repealing the three contentious, pro-corporate farm laws it had unilaterally passed.
I had interviewed many of the farmers, including one who said on camera, “They can beat us, maim us or shoot us. We will take the blows but not fight back. We will sit here till these laws are repealed.”
At this point, a student jumped up and excitedly shouted, “Gandhi zinda hai!” (Gandhi is alive).
Echoes of another era
Those of us who felt that we would never again see a Gandhian movement like the farmers’ protest, at least in our lifetime, were joyfully surprised when Gen Z dug in at Jantar Mantar a few months ago and refused to budge till Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.
Abhijeet Dipke and the Cockroach Janta Party he founded emphasised again and again that their resistance would be non-violent, no matter what the other side did. And even when the state unleashed brutal and horrific violence on the protesters on July 20, Gen Z came back to the protest site the very same evening in greater numbers and remained there till Pradhan resigned.
Gen Z’s refusal to back down reminded me of the Dandi march scene in Gandhi, where row after row of satyagrahis marched forward, braving police blows as they sought to enter the salt pans in defiance of the British. In the movie, an American reporter, played by Martin Sheen, begins his dispatch with: “They walked, both Hindu and Muslim alike, with heads held high, without any hope…” and ends with “…Whatever moral ascendancy the West held was lost here today.”
Whatever last vestiges of morality the Modi government still laid claim to, were similarly lost on July 20.
Gandhi’s credo was satyagraha — truth and non-violence. So is Gen Z’s, as they have amply demonstrated, with the addition of some colourful language to communicate their satya more effectively.
Gen Z, at least in India, could be called Gen G (G for Gandhi).
The writer is an educator, author, and journalist.
Published – October 01, 2026 03:08 pm IST
