The protests stem from a massive government effort, known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), to revise India’s electoral rolls by removing dead, duplicate, and ineligible voters. Concerns intensified in the last month that under the SIR eligible voters are losing their right to vote, with 130 million names left off the draft electoral rolls since the start of the program.

The events of the last year are part of a larger pattern that has cast doubts on the legitimacy of India’s elections. There are growing fears the SIR was designed to advance Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of a centralized and authoritarian government. Evidence suggests that it handed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an electoral advantage in recent state elections by removing voters from marginalized communities, including Muslim voters.

The Gen Z protests have garnered support from a broad spectrum of opposition parties, including those on the Left. But the real energy of the protests is coming from the ingenuity and irreverence of young Indians who have flooded the streets of New Delhi despite the violent crackdown. In a country that has long touted itself as the world’s largest democracy, the developments are striking and could prove a turning point for its future.