Meet India's feisty Gen Z protester who is taking on Modi

Neha Bora, a 29‑year‑old PhD student and theatre creator, has emerged as a prominent figure in the recent wave of Gen Z‑led demonstrations pressing for the resignation of India’s top election official. A long‑time member of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), a left‑wing organisation, Bora has served as its president for the past two years after a decade of involvement. Using they/them pronouns, Bora’s visibility has expanded beyond university campuses. Viral footage shows them being dragged along the street by a group of female police officers, scaling police barricades, raising a fist, chanting slogans, and subsequently being detained. Additional images depict Bora smiling while being escorted away by policewomen, which have also circulated widely online. In a recent BBC Bangla interview, Bora sought to contextualise the attention they have received. They stated: “I cognize it happened successful beforehand of the camera truthful it seems similar it's thing different,” they said. “But I person seen each pupil activists with the Left doing the aforesaid things that I person been doing. It's conscionable that determination is simply a camera connected me, truthful radical deliberation thing antithetic is happening.” The spotlight on Bora coincides with a series of high‑profile protests across India that observers describe as one of the most significant challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s twelve‑year tenure. One such movement is the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a Gen Z‑driven online satirical collective that organised weeks‑long demonstrations in Delhi during the summer over education reforms. The campaign concluded in July, shortly after Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan tendered his resignation. Parallel to the CJP’s actions, several opposition parties, notably the Congress, have taken to the streets demanding electoral reform. Over the past few days, clips of Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra being shoved, jostled, and detained have gone viral and dominated Indian news cycles. The protest scheduled for Saturday in Delhi, convened by the CJP, calls for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, whom activists accuse of manipulating electoral rolls to benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party. Both the Election Commission and the BJP have dismissed the allegations. Although Bora is not a formal member of the CJP, they have indicated that their group will also join the demonstration. Read the full story at BBC News →