The Gen Z protests that just concluded at the Jantar Mantar, against the NEET paper leaks, have truly shaken the country like nothing else.
For over a month and a half, the site of Delhi’s Jantar Mantar was occupied by aggrieved students, parents, and more who rallied against the paper leaks, the unfairness of the situation, and the government’s lack of accountability and sense of responsibility.
Many students sat at the protest site day and night, without leaving, getting beaten up by the police, locked up, and detained, which has now led to a complete change in how Indian Gen Z is perceived. However, one of the sectors that was unable to properly participate in the protest was corporate employees.
Given that they, including both Millennials and Gen Z, had fixed-hour jobs, they could not go to the protest site every day like the students. That is not to say they did not participate at all, with many going over the weekend, donating towards various forms of aid, including legal, medical, and food, and sending meals through Zomato and Swiggy.
A major concern for those who wanted to participate but could not because of a job was how their workplaces would react if they got to know about their participation in such political protests. Here, we examine the concerns these employees had and how Indian employers have since reacted to the Gen Z protest culture in particular.
Those Who Supported
First, employees and employers are not new to the concept of protests. The former have often held many of them to air out their grievances against something wrong happening at their workplace. These can include low salaries, unfair layoffs, a toxic work environment, sexual or other forms of harassment by seniors, and more.
However, the Jantar Mantar protests of 2026 were not against any company; rather, they were about a national issue. Although social media platforms were filled with protesters posting reels and updates from the protest site itself, there were several startups as well that joined the trend.
Many participated in trends, such as one where employees were seen discussing the protest during office hours, or one where a company posted about its employees hosting a mini-protest to be allowed to go to a protest as well.
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While none of these gives any indication of where the company itself stood in relation to the protest or whether they supported their employees showing activism, they certainly hopped on the trend bandwagon.
Some social media posts had people talking about how their employers and bosses not only allowed, but encouraged them to go to the protest.
One story that also went viral was of an employee who, speaking with the media, revealed that his boss personally encouraged him to join the protest and checked in on him beforehand.
The man in a video said, “I’m a daily-wage worker. If something wrong does not happen with me, I will be leaving for my office after the protest. My boss specifically asked me at midnight if I was going to the protest. I told him that I had a morning meeting, so he told me to post the videos for the evening. If any problems arise, let me know. He is my co-founder.”
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LinkedIn user Gargi Dwivedi, an employee at a Bengaluru-based investment company, also posted an email from the CEO, Vedant Gupte, in which he directly allowed employees to participate in the protests.
Read More: Does Your Passport, Career, Or Foreign Study Get Impacted By Protest FIR?
How Have Indian Employers Reacted?
A 2018 report by Nishith Desai Associates citing the Supreme Court verdicts in two cases, Kameshwar Prasad v State of Bihar (1962) and O.K. Ghosh v E.X. Joseph (1962), claimed that the court stated that, “merely because a person enters a Government service, the employee does not cease to be ‘a citizen of India’, nor does it disentitle the employee to claim the freedoms guaranteed to every citizen under the Indian Constitution.”
It added, “the service rule prohibiting all forms of demonstration without showing any proximate link with public disorder was unconstitutional and void.”
This draws on Article 19 of the Constitution of India, which guarantees citizens six fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, peaceful assembly, forming associations or unions, moving freely, residing anywhere in the country, and practising any profession or business.
Thus, as private citizens, any employee is free to sit in a peaceful protest in their private time outside of their working hours.
However, in the real world, Indian employers seem to be pretty divided on how to respond to the Gen Z protest culture.
While some new-age startups with a young executive team and employee base have been vocal about their stance on political issues, the same can’t be said for all companies.
There have been some companies that didn’t really seem to think it was any big deal, or at least didn’t let it show to their employees, especially those who participated.
As per an India Today report, Deepali Kapoor, an employee at an advertising agency in Gurugram, shared her experience: “My manager didn’t ask how the protest went. He simply smiled and said, ‘Back from changing the country?’ Everyone laughed. I laughed too. But I knew the joke was really about me.”
In the same report, a salesperson working in Gurugram said, “Nobody told me I had done anything wrong. But my reporting manager spent twenty minutes explaining why employees should stay away from politics. It wasn’t a disciplinary meeting. It was worse. It was a lecture.”
There was also a quieter, more anxious layer to all this, visible less in official company statements and more in how ordinary employees were talking to each other online.
On Reddit, under a post titled ‘Can your employer fire you for attending an anti-government protest in India?’ a user asked, “If an employee attends a peaceful anti-government protest (like the recent CJP protests) in their personal time, and photos/videos of them end up on social media, can their employer fire them simply because they’ve publicly expressed a political opinion?
Assuming:
It’s outside work hours.
They’re not representing the company.
They don’t mention the company or wear company branding.
The protest is peaceful and lawful.
Has anyone here experienced something similar, or are there any HR or legal professionals who know how this works in India? I’m interested in both the legal aspect and what typically happens in corporate workplaces. Are companies actually known to take action over something like this?”
The Reddit thread posted on r/IndianWorkers on July 23 received many replies, with user technoshayar writing, “Lawyer here. Peaceful protests are not illegal in India. And if you are an employee of a Private (Non-Govt.) Company, there is no law that restricts protests. If the employer terminates your employment, you can take legal action against them.”
However, user benbigpi commented that, “Depends on your boss. If he is watching TV channels day in day out and extremely devoted to BJP, then High chances. Otherwise, no one should care what you do outside the work.”
Several other comments seemed to echo this sentiment, with some believing that participating in a protest could lead management to perceive the employee as a ‘troublemaker’ or ‘disrupter’ to a ‘peaceful’ work environment.
This, in turn, could either lead to stagnation at the job or to being fired for made-up reasons if they cannot outright say that it’s because of the employee joining a protest.
Anushka Bharadwaj, a former HR executive, explained the mindset of companies, saying, “In all my years in HR, I’ve never seen a company policy that outright bans employees from attending peaceful protests in their personal time.
Most organisations rely on codes of conduct and social media policies instead. The concern isn’t the protest itself; it’s whether an employee’s actions create legal, reputational or business risks for the company.”
The varied workings of the Indian private corporate sector also allow companies to create their own Code of Conduct, a guide to what conduct is expected of an employee while employed at a particular company. These guidelines are unique to each company and also include what could happen if an employee flouts them.
As per India Today, Ankur Agrawal, Founder and CEO of The LHR Group, said, “Many organisations do not have specific policies focused solely on protests. However, most companies have broader codes of conduct, social media policies and workplace ethics guidelines.
These policies usually encourage employees to express personal opinions responsibly while making it clear that individual views should not be presented as the official position of the company.”
He did add, though, that this could change, given the scale of the Delhi protests, prompting companies to add guidelines covering these topics.
He said, “I think even if they don’t have one, they must be seriously thinking about having one now. What almost all mid-size and larger companies have is a code of conduct plus a social media or external communications policy, and those are what get applied.”
Does this mean that corporate employees cannot participate in political protests and activism? It is not that dire. Employees can participate, provided that they keep some things in mind. An Instagram reel explained some points employees should keep in mind:
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Another thing to remember is to do a quick check of the company’s Code of Conduct to ensure what they have stated, and then to take the correct steps.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: India Today, Business Today, Times Now
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: Protest india, Protest india 2026, gen z protest, gen z protest india, jantar mantar, jantar mantar protest, jantar mantar protest 2026, cjp, CJP protest, cjp protest delhi, cjp protest jantar mantar, cjp protest news, delhi protests, student protest, student protest india, student protest india 2026, gen z, india gen z, indian gen z
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