The decision of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government in Tamil Nadu to end the tenure of the High-Level Committee on Union State Relations (Kurian Joseph Committee) indicates that an open contestation on the principles of federalism with the Union is not as central to the politics of the TVK as it was to the preceding government. This shift raises interesting questions on whether the ideological contestation between Dravidian identity and the Union, which has hitherto been deeply embedded in politics in Tamil Nadu, is still central to the political consciousness of their voters. When we consider the strong Gen-Z influence on TVK voters, a reduction in the centrality of Dravidian identity to their politics would not be surprising. Both young voters in Tamil Nadu and the young protestors who have thronged protests in the rest of India this year have leaned towards a political discourse that is forward looking, high on promises of change and low on references to history, identity or shared pasts. Abhijeet Dipke’s placing together of M.K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar for example is only possible if the deep and often insurmountable differences contained in their respective views are left unexamined. This mistrust of politics that dwells on the past gives Gen-Z political actors great power to strike effectively against ideologies like Hindutva that are rooted entirely in narratives of historical victimhood. At the same time, it risks an entrenchment of existing structures of oppression and inequity because any critical analysis of such structures can also be dismissed as dwelling divisively on the past. The debates around federalism and caste justice on campuses offer two examples of the search for forward-looking politics effectively entrenching reactionary positions. Federalism and the politics of identityIn many ways, Part I of the Kurian Joseph Committee report transcends constitutional law. The tone and tenor of the report hint at a more ambitious reconceptualisation of the imagination of India. The report, which calls for a structural reset in union-state relations “comparable in ambition to the 1991 economic reforms”, argues that the territorial insecurities that necessitated the excessive centralisation contained in the Constitution at the time of independence no longer exist. Accordingly, both the Union and the states would benefit from a reset of responsibilities that localize governance and leave the Union government free to focus on national priorities. By rooting itself within the historical Dravidian push for state autonomy, the politics surrounding the report did two things. First, it acknowledged that a meaningful conversation on federalism in India would have to go beyond tinkering with specific provisions and encompass a critical examination of the fundamental nature of the Union. Second, it sought to build national consent for this exercise. Part I of the report, for example, was circulated by the previous Tamil Nadu government to chief ministers of the other southern states and received with considerable interest. An electorate that treats any politics rooted in the past with suspicion and offers its trust only to politics that claims to be brand new, divorced from history and relentlessly future looking, makes such critical examination difficult. When the debate on federalism is shorn of this broader historical context, the nature of the Union as a centralised unit organised around a Hindi-speaking core becomes set in stone. Discussions on federalism then risk becoming reduced to a series of piecemeal negotiations between the state and the Union for specific concessions, in which each state is portrayed as seeking exceptional (and therefore unfair) treatment for itself. Caste justice on campusesThe parents of Sahil Wakode, a Dalit student of IIT Bombay who died by suicide, have been protesting for justice in Mumbai since September. Even as the circumstances that led to Wakode’s death remain under police investigation, the posthumous harassment of Wakode and his family by the institute and segments of the media has continued. In the immediate aftermath of his death, the institute released (and later withdrew) a post on X, accusing Wakode of cheating in an examination. Small segments of inconclusive CCTV footage of the examination hall were also leaked from the institute’s cameras to the media. Upper caste dominated newsrooms were predictably quick to pick up these selective fragments and set a narrative of a student who couldn’t cope academically and of a professor being victimised for “doing his job”. While Wakode has been subjected to a cruel posthumous media trial, the allegations of casteist remarks being made by the professor in question, the professor’s own history of harshness towards students from marginalised backgrounds, the failure of IITs to ensure statutorily mandated caste diversity among the faculty, and the question of how exactly the institute handled a distressed student in this case have all been sidelined. Instead of opening much needed space for conversations around casteism on campus, IIT Bombay has treated students protesting for justice for Sahil Wakode within campus with harsh measures, including confiscating laptops and study material. It is noticeable that despite brutal state and institutional repression, these protests for accountability from IIT Bombay have not generated the same volume of support or sympathy as the protests for accountability for the NEET paper leak in July this year. While the NEET paper leak was presumed to be a universal struggle, the fight for safe, inclusive and equitable campuses is branded in the public discourse as a Dalit issue and left largely to Dalit organisations to fight. [If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. The Suicide Prevention India Foundation maintains a list of telephone numbers they can call to speak in confidence. Icall, a counselling service run by TISS, has maintained a crowdsourced list of therapists across the country. You could also take them to the nearest hospital.]The national and the marginalThis is because what is accepted to be a national (and therefore unifying) cause in the public discourse and what is branded marginal or divisive is determined by the dominant imagination of the nation. In any nation state, the need for homogeneity usually results in the choice of a single subject position which is then treated as the essence of the national. In independent India, scholars have noted, that this central subject position has usually been Hindu, Hindi speaking, ‘upper’ caste and male. Any politics that has challenged this imagination, such as the caste justice movements of the last century or the linguistic demands that emerge periodically have been branded as external to this core, and by implication, not national. This is reflected in the nomenclature used to describe such politics in the public discourse, for example, “caste politics” or “language politics”. Whether an issue is treated as national or not, is decided by how closely it affects this central subject. For example, student suicides due to the mismanagement of a national entrance exam (which could theoretically affect the central subject) are seen as a national concern, while student suicides due to caste based institutional harassment (which will never affect the central subject) are pegged as a “caste” issue. Measures to counter discrimination on campuses like the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 (Equity Regulations) are, instead of being seen from the perspective of the victims of discrimination, seen from the perspective of this central subject. This turns a conversation that should logically focus on discrimination on campuses into a conversation on “potential misuse”. This is not purely a matter of narrative. While staying the Equity Regulations earlier this year, the Supreme Court of India also endorsed the same inversion of priorities where potential misuse affecting the central subject is seen as a greater threat than the actual material harm suffered by students from marginalised backgrounds. The dominant imagination of the nation when unchallenged simply reflects and replicates existing power structures. The inequities generated by operating without challenging this central subject position are not limited to federalism or caste. On language, while the propagation of Hindi is treated as unifying and patriotic, rejecting its propagation is immediately termed as divisive. On gender, cases of intimate partner violence or cruelty where the victim is male are immediately deemed worthy of national news coverage, while basic demands like the criminalisation of marital rape or safety in public spaces are branded as niche women’s concerns. Even on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), it is useful to remember that the large scale disenfranchisement of Bengali-speaking Muslims in West Bengal did not by itself spark mass protests outside of the state. It was only when the SIR began to affect the central subject that the protests became national in nature. Also read: 9 in 10 Voters the Election Commission Wants Removed From Bengal’s Rolls Have Muslim NamesThe politics of Gen Z cannot grow without addressing this blind spotIn a caste-based society the dominant imagination of the nation is not necessarily representative of a majority. The central subject is in fact a powerful and privileged minority. Politics that simply replicates this imagination without challenge and takes its cues on what is national and what is marginal from it, will necessarily leave out more people than it includes. The politics of Gen Z, while endowed with admirable energy and incredible courage, has not yet demonstrated the reflective capacity to address the internalised prejudices of its members that create and perpetuate this dominant imagination of the nation. Without developing this capacity, the very real potential demonstrated earlier this year to create a broad based and inclusive movement representing a generation can dwindle. By keeping issues that are marginal, confrontational or which require a deeper examination of the past to reach an understanding of what constitutes equity and fairness in the present, out of the mainstream, the movement risks shrinking the idea of the mainstream itself to political irrelevance. Sarayu Pani is a lawyer by training and posts on X @sarayupani.Missing Link is her column on the social aspects of the events that move India.