Can RSS address Gen Z’s concerns? Indore meet will try to answer | Political Pulse News

The RSS’s announcement for the meeting says “extensive discussions” are expected on contemporary issues including “content on new media platforms”, drug abuse, “external interference in Bharat’s internal affairs”, and the global situation. The meeting will also review the Sangh’s centenary programmes and follow-up action on issues raised by Bhagwat in his Vijayadashami address.

‘Listen, communicate, remain engaged’

The Sangh plans to respond to anxiety and anger among young people through engagement.

“History is witness that such youth unrest takes place in all countries from time to time. What we can do best is to listen to them, communicate our views and remain engaged with them. There is no point trying to convince them of something. The good thing is RSS has always remained engaged with the youth. Our shakhas have historically had greater participation of the youth. Even today, 60% of the attendees in our over 88,000 shakhas are young. The work is already happening,” said the senior functionary.

The RSS’s Akhil Bharatiya Samanvay Baithak in August had also discussed concerns among the youth, including problems in the examination system. Responding to questions on issues such as the NEET exam paper, the Sangh had acknowledged shortcomings in the system and stressed that engagement with the younger generation should not merely be “didactic” but involve understanding their concerns and dialogue.

Youth outreach has also been a major component of the Sangh’s centenary programmes. In his Vijayadashami address earlier this month, Bhagwat said 39.25 lakh young people had participated in Yuva Sammelans organised in the centenary year.

Bhagwat’s intervention during CJP stir

The Sangh’s approach to the current youth ferment was particularly visible during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led agitation over examination irregularities earlier this year.

On August 6, Bhagwat interacted with nearly 2,000 Gen Z and Gen Alpha students in Mumbai. Referring to the agitation, he told them the grievances raised by Gen Z were “genuine” and described protest as a legitimate form of democratic dialogue. “Protest is also a way of dialogue. In a democracy, protest is a way of building consensus,” he said. He also said young people participating in agitations should not automatically be branded “anti-national”.

In his Vijayadashami address, however, Bhagwat drew a distinction between genuine grievances and attempts to exploit them. He said problems and shortcomings in the system could “naturally” lead to agitations, but warned that such movements could be exploited by forces seeking to create instability in India. Without naming the SIR agitation, he spoke of “external forces” deepening differences, fostering a sense of victimhood, weakening faith in institutions, and creating “discord, intense discontent, separatism, disorder, and chaos”.

Asked about the allegation of a foreign role, the RSS functionary said, “Whenever a country goes through any public unrest, there are foreign powers who try to take advantage of it. In the ongoing agitations, it has already been proved. Meta has already apologised.”

There is, however, no publicly established Meta admission proving foreign involvement in the SIR agitation. Meta had apologised to the Union government in August after a post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was temporarily restricted on Facebook, attributing it to an “operational error”.

More recently, the government has raised concerns with Meta over the manner in which Facebook and Instagram recommend content. In an October 10 advisory, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asked Meta to ensure its recommendation systems did not expose users disproportionately to a “single or limited set of narratives” and sought greater checks on misleading or out-of-context material.

The social-media challenge

The proposed discussion on “content on new media platforms” is significant also because the youth protests have exposed a new communication challenge for the Sangh Parivar.

The BJP, which built a formidable political communication machine around Facebook, X, and WhatsApp, has found the political language of Instagram and short-form video harder to master. The CJP itself began as a satirical social-media phenomenon, using humour, irreverence, and pop-culture references to articulate anger over jobs and examination irregularities before spilling onto the streets.

Following the protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP began experimenting more visibly with vertical videos, informal presentation, and youth-oriented formats. Younger NDA MPs also used expressions such as “delulu”, “FOMO” and “clocked it” during the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

The challenge goes beyond moving political messaging from one platform to another. Instagram and similar platforms reward humour, irony, spontaneity, and creator-driven content, a language considerably different from the centralised and polished messaging that the BJP successfully deployed through older social-media ecosystems. The SIR agitation, too, has generated memes, videos, satire and online games around protests, and police action.

The Sangh is meanwhile preparing for a large centenary event, Rashtra Vandanam, in Delhi’s Rohini on November 29. Bhagwat is expected to address the gathering at Sector 23, with RSS sources estimating participation of more than 1 lakh swayamsevaks and invitees.

“Apart from centenary celebrations, this will also be a show of strength at a time when the Opposition is fuelling unrest against the government,” said an RSS functionary.