CJP Wasn't Just Instagram Glitz, It Was Fuelled By Upper-Caste Youth Anger Over Jobs
CJP Wasn't Just Instagram Glitz, It Was Fuelled By Upper-Caste Youth Anger Over Jobs Reported By, Last Updated: July 29, 2026, 15:39 IST Several upper-caste
CJP Wasn't Just Instagram Glitz, It Was Fuelled By Upper-Caste Youth Anger Over Jobs Reported By, Last Updated: July 29, 2026, 15:39 IST Several upper-caste protesters said they felt disadvantaged in the job market and linked their economic concerns to the reservation system Rapid Read Many of those interviewed were either unemployed or working in low-paying jobs. If you followed the recent student protests primarily through Instagram reels and social media posts, you may have come away with the impression that the movement was driven largely by privileged urban youth and amplified by influencers. A placard that went viral read, “It’s so bad that even the privileged are here." Videos and photographs featuring celebrities and influencers, including Huma Qureshi, Swara Bhaskar, Kunal Kamra, Kusha Kapila, Vir Das and Munawar Faruqui, further reinforced that perception online. However, the picture at Jantar Mantar was markedly different. Many protesters had travelled from tier-II and tier-III cities in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab, with the first two states accounting for a significant share of participants. Two patterns stood out. First, many protesters did not come from affluent urban backgrounds and were often more comfortable speaking in Hindi than English. Second, conversations with protesters revealed a noticeable caste undercurrent, particularly among those who had travelled to Delhi. Many of those interviewed were either unemployed or working in low-paying jobs.
A sizeable section belonged to upper-caste communities, although the protest itself drew participants from diverse social backgrounds. Several upper-caste protesters said they felt disadvantaged in the job market and linked their economic concerns to the reservation system. Official data partly reflects these anxieties. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) Annual Report 2025, published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the unemployment ratio among the “Others" category, used for communities outside the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), stood at 1.11, compared with 1.07 for SCs, 0.94 for OBCs and 0.80 for STs. The same report also shows that the “Others" category recorded the highest proportion of people outside the labour force, at 1.04, compared with 1.01 for OBCs, 0.99 for SCs and 0.86 for STs. Ankur Dubey and Navneet Mishra, both final-year undergraduate students from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, travelled to Delhi to join the protest. “By next year we will be out there in the job market. We don’t have too many opportunities in Kanpur in my field. Then we keep seeing consecutive exam paper leaks. What makes things worse is that we don’t have the protection of reservation either. That is why we decided to come to Jantar Mantar because there was no protest in Kanpur," Dubey said. He said both had informed their parents before travelling to Delhi and were staying at an acquaintance’s flat in Laxmi Nagar during the protest.
The BriefWire