Dear Gen Z,
I am sorry.
I am sorry to have had an opinion about your generation — one that you smashed to pieces on the grounds of Jantar Mantar.
I am sorry to have thought your attitude was blasé, indifferent, unbothered by the things that mattered. Turns out, you knew exactly when to stay silent and exactly when to hit back — and when you did, the whole country felt it.
I am sorry to have believed your generation was only good at making reels. It is that very skill — dismissed by people like me as trivial — that has now awakened millions across this country. What we called a distraction, you turned into a weapon of awareness.
And so, alongside the apology, there is gratitude.
Thank you for showing the real side of the protest — the one that mainstream media so conveniently tried to camouflage. While primetime debates argued past each other, your phones captured what was actually happening on the ground, unfiltered and unedited.
Thank you for refusing to fall into the divisive narrative that so many before you were baited into. You looked through it, past it, and fought instead for the thing that mattered — your rights.
Thank God you do not carry the baggage of past governments, the grudges and grievances that make my generation so easy to trap in whatabout-ery. You do not ask “but what about them” — you ask “what about us, what about now.” That clarity is rare, and it is powerful.
Thank you for the meme-worthy reels that stirred a nation into paying attention and in doing so, you have made politics — real, consequential politics — accessible to people.
Each generation fought with different tools — public meetings, letters, the spoken word carried village to village. Yours fights with a phone screen and an internet connection. The tools have changed. The courage has not.
So today, I withdraw my judgment, and I offer instead my respect. You are not the generation we feared would inherit nothing and build nothing. You are the generation that is already building — loudly, visibly, and on your own terms.
Keep going. The country is watching, and for once, it is watching through your lens.
Deepak Sukhadia