Modi's Gen Z Reels Strategy: Can India's PM Master Instagram After Missing Youth Protests?

Narendra Modi, seventy-five years old and long accustomed to the formal machinery of power—scripted speeches, choreographed appearances, the careful distance of a strongman—has begun posting selfies on Instagram. In recent weeks, the Indian prime minister's feed shifted from the curated and official to something closer to casual: a get-ready-with-me reel, addresses to young people framed as conversations between friends, even a reference to Gen Z slang at a Delhi graduation ceremony. He has more than 106 million followers on the platform, making him one of the world's most-followed political leaders. But the reception has been something other than what his team likely intended.

The shift came after a reckoning. Earlier this year, youth protests swept India, organized loosely around the satirical Cockroach Janta Party and spread through memes, livestreams, and Instagram reels. The movement proved potent enough to force a federal minister to resign—a demonstration of political power that appeared to catch the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party off guard. For more than a decade, the BJP had built one of India's most formidable political machines online, leveraging WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and X accounts to amplify its message and shape the narrative. But young Indians, it turned out, consumed both content and politics differently. More than sixty percent of India's population is under thirty-five, and Gen Z voters—born between 1997 and 2012—are expected to form one of the country's largest voting blocs by the 2029 general election. Reaching them meant abandoning the old playbook.

Modi's first selfie-video reel broke his silence on the protests while they were still unfolding. Young users responded not with engagement but with mockery. They seized on a long pause after he said the word "friends," edited it, joked about it, critiqued the lighting and camera angles. The video accumulated more than 400 million views, but many of those views came attached to sarcastic remixes that inverted Modi's intended message entirely. His team adjusted in subsequent posts, experimenting with different angles, backdrops, and lighting. The BJP's social media pages began posting memes, slang, and pop-culture references. One reel, set in a gym, featured young people and an older trainer arguing that Indians should avoid the protests—a video many users dismissed as "cringe." Another borrowed the theme song from the 1990s sitcom Friends, with the caption "PM Modi is there for you," a reference to a show that resonated with millennials but holds little meaning for Gen Z.

Ginni Malia, twenty-two, articulated what many of her peers felt: she understood why the BJP wanted to connect with younger voters, but the timing troubled her. The videos adopted Gen Z language and formats while sidestepping the actual concerns that had fueled the protests. Among her peers, these reels were treated as comedy, not political outreach. The BJP appeared aware that its efforts were not landing as intended. During the protests, Modi reportedly instructed cabinet ministers to increase their social media engagement and reach younger audiences. On one Wednesday, federal ministers received a "report card" on their social media performance and were told to intensify their presence across platforms. The party also replaced its social media chief, Amit Malviya, who had held the position since 2015—a move some analysts attributed to the BJP's inability to control the online narrative during the youth movement.

The fundamental problem, according to experts who study political communication, runs deeper than tone or format. Joyojeet Pal, who teaches the political use of social media at the University of Michigan, explained that the BJP's strategy was built for a network-centric internet—one where coordinated groups on WhatsApp and X could amplify messages and shape what people saw. Instagram operates on different logic. The platform pushes content that generates engagement: longer watch times, replays, shares, comments. A reel posted by an account with two hundred followers can accumulate ten million views while content from accounts with massive followings languishes at a few thousand. This unpredictability poses a particular challenge for a party accustomed to controlling its message. Anurag Minus Verma, an author and commentator, noted that Instagram is fundamentally built around irony. Serious political messaging, packaged as reels, remains vulnerable to being trolled and recontextualized. Once Modi posts a video, he loses control of what happens next.

Other parties are experimenting too. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi posts selfie-style videos and candid pictures, and held an Instagram Ask Me Anything after the protests, offering playful responses like "have you seen me and Batman in the same room together?" But playfulness and political seriousness are not the same thing, and the platforms that reward engagement do not necessarily reward the kind of messaging a governing party wants to send. Experts cautioned against reading too much into the BJP's Instagram struggles. Electoral success, they noted, depends far more on organizational strength and a loyal support base than on how content performs on social media. The BJP could lose every Gen Z voter on Instagram and still sweep elections. For now, the party is learning to operate in unfamiliar territory, adapting to new forms of political communication as it has done before—from early adoption of social media to embracing podcasts and influencer interviews. But it will take time, and the rules are not yet written.