Of Rights, Entitlement and Worth: The Gen Z Protest as a Demand for Citizenship

Gen Z is no stranger to critique. Perhaps the most common of them is that we are entitled. In light of the recent Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)-led protest where the ‘Gen Z’ has demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for resilience, humour and conviction, I want to unpack what that critique means. In its most negative connotation, entitlement is a demand for something undeserved. We call those entitled who have not earned what they ask for. When used to describe Gen Z, this is exactly what critics are saying: that we ask for much but don’t work for it. This ties in neatly with the idea of youth being “worthless” – another popular critique for Gen Z (Read: cockroach). One of the criticisms levelled against the protestors, for instance, is that many did not study hard enough for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), or aren’t NEET students at all. This doesn’t just imply that they don’t belong at the protest; the truth is more sinister. It implies that they don’t have the right to make demands at all. You don’t have to look far for the accusation stated plainly. Days after the protest, a sitting BJP MP dismissed the students as a “gutter generation”, and when she turned to the young women among them specifically, she added that they weren’t good at studies either – as if that settled the matter of whether they had any standing to ask for something in the first place. This accusation only lands if you already accept a prior claim: that rights and dignity are things you earn, not things you are owed by default. That’s the claim I want to take apart. A right that has to be earned isn’t a right at all – it’s a privilege wearing the wrong badge. The entire trick of the entitlement accusation is that it takes something unconditional and quietly re-labels it as a reward, so that anyone who asks for it without having earned it looks greedy instead of being correct. Also read: Night Shifts at Jantar Mantar To understand how deep this runs, I want to start at the very beginning – with the politics of worth itself. World over, but perhaps nowhere more than in India, a person’s individual, social and political worth is often tied to things outside their control. Some lives are deemed worthier than others depending on factors like religion, caste and gender. What’s troubling is that this perceived worth then dictates a person’s ability to claim their rights. It is easier for a Hindu woman to demand accountability from the state for violence than it is for a Muslim transgender woman to demand the same, for example. Or for a rich woman over a poor one. People protest against the education system and NEET paper leak at Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi on July 24, 2026. Photo: PTI/Kamal Kishore. Worth economy Capitalism claims to offer a workaround to this system by selling us the idea that you can build your worth over time through economic productivity and achievement. And that once you’ve built it, you may claim your rights more easily. So, alongside cast