About a week ago, I left a WhatsApp group. It was one of those long-running groups with people I’ve known since school and college. And this wasn’t even the first time. I had left once earlier too, because I felt a bunch of people were piling on a topic and a community in a way that felt unnecessary and unfair.
This time, the trigger was the ongoing Gen Z agitation around NEET and related issues. The conversation in the group quickly turned into a one-sided chorus. Any dissenting voice—basically mine—trying to add context or even ask for balance was shut down. I was told to “check my facts,” as if disagreement automatically meant ignorance. At one point, someone even shared a post claiming Gene Sharp had suggested that once a protest leader (Wangchuk) gets seriously hurt or dies, the movement gains traction. (Gene Sharp died in 2018) I remember reading that and thinking: is this what we’ve come to, casually talking about tragedy like it’s strategy?
What bothered me most is that this group isn’t made up of uninformed people. These are educated, “learned” friends—people I assumed would understand what’s happening in the country, or at least be open to listening. But reasoned discussion versus blind patriotism (or whatever label we want to use) is becoming harder and harder to manage. It’s not about being for or against a political party. It’s about being able to hold a view without turning it into a shouting match, and being able to respect the fact that causes are complex.
The bigger pattern I’m seeing is that my generation seems increasingly disconnected from what young people are living through. It’s not that we don’t have opinions—we have plenty. But many of us don’t really read the papers anymore. For a lot of people, WhatsApp forwards have become the main source of information. And once your information comes in pre-packaged, it’s easy to cling to inherited beliefs—views passed down from parents, or picked up from the environment, or shaped by the disappointments we’ve carried for years.
That last part matters. Under a lot of this anger and certainty, there’s often unresolved angst: frustration with past governments, bitterness about missed opportunities, the feeling that “I tried my best and still didn’t get what I deserved.” Those emotions are real. But when they leak into every conversation, they can make people defensive, and that defensiveness can turn into hostility—especially when the topic is youth protests or the struggles of young adults.
And the reality is: young adults are having a tough time right now, and it’s likely to get tougher. India is producing a massive labor force. Many are educated, technically qualified, and still finding it harder each year to get stable employment. Add AI, global competition, rapidly changing skills, and a world that doesn’t come with a clear roadmap, and you have a generation trying to plan life in moving sand. It’s not a small problem. It’s not a “kids these days” problem. It’s a structural pressure cooker.
In this situation, I think many parents also need to rethink what responsibility looks like. You can’t fully outsource your children’s future to a government, an exam system, or elected officials. Yes, systems matter—and yes, they must be held accountable. But as parents, we also have a duty to stay alert, to ask questions, to push for fairness, and to make sure our kids get a real shot. If your community, state, or country isn’t delivering what it should, pretending everything is fine doesn’t protect your children. It just delays the reckoning.
What complicates this even more is where my generation—60 plus—often stands emotionally. Many people feel they’ve reached their destination. They’ve done what they had to do, built what they had to build, and now the goal is to stay put. There’s a fear of losing what was earned. And that fear, combined with old insecurities from our own growing-up years, can quietly block growth—not just for us, but for our children too.
It’s a tough conundrum, honestly. A lot of us don’t have the skills to navigate this world of information overload, rising polarization, and fast-changing economics. When I imagine my younger self trying to figure life out at 18 or 20 in today’s context, I know I would have struggled. That thought alone makes it hard for me to dismiss what Gen Z is feeling.
I don’t envy young people right now. But I do hope they keep growing—because if they grow, the country grows with them. And for that to happen, the least we can do is listen better, argue less, check our own sources, and stop treating every disagreement like an attack. Sometimes leaving a WhatsApp group is a small act. But it can also be a reminder: if we can’t practice reason and empathy in our own circles, we’ll struggle to build it anywhere else.
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