Narendra Modi once claimed he was non-biological, and after watching the reel he dropped on Friday I’m convinced the man is not quite human.If you’re the person in charge – and this is the “Modi sarkar” we’re talking about – the human response to a situation where your subordinates fire pellet guns on peaceful protesters (nearly blinding one) and injuring hundreds with lathis should be to say you’re sorry. Some of the injured were in the ICU. Your apology may be insincere but if you are human, you will understand human psychology enough to know when it is prudent to appear contrite. However, Modi, in his first comments after dropping Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, did not ask for Gen Z’s forgiveness. Instead, he mounted the barricades of injured innocence, complained about the abuses that had been showered on him at Jantar Mantar, and then grandly declared he forgave “his daughters” for doing this. Of course, this pious posturing has not worked.First up, it’s clear that Modi’s so-called forgiveness is a hoax. The UP and Delhi police are actively investigating a 15-year-old girl for comments she made against the PM during the protest. Incidentally, it is not a crime to abuse the prime minister as long as you are not inciting violence, so there is in fact no grounds for a police case. The police action is also an open violation of the assurance JP Nadda gave on behalf of Modi’s government that none of the protesters would be prosecuted.Second, Modi doesn’t have the right to crib about “ap-shabds” when he has used them himself against women and against Muslims; when his party leaders and members use foul and filthy language, and when he follows people on social media who routinely give gaalis to critics of his government.If young Indians who’ve grown up or come of age in the past 10 years chose to ridicule Modi with abuses, this is because they’ve seen the language people in and close to the establishment have used. But there is also a wider point – one that Anand Teltumde has made so eloquently. Modi knows how to deal with the standard form of dissent. He simply out-spends and out-shouts his critics with his own slogans. But he and the BJP have no script at all for being laughed at. And the smart kids at Jantar Mantar understood this weakness and went for his jugular.Predictably, Modi is now trying to purge any evidence of the ridicule he was subjected to. Social media companies have been warned and thousands of posts are being deleted. And the criminal case filed against a 15-year-old girl on the very night Modi said he was “forgiving” her is intended to scare young people into scrubbing their feeds of anything critical of the PM.So far, Gen Z has reacted with ridicule to Modi’s last reel and that’s how it’s going to be. Until he apologises. After what he’s done to them, forgiveness is the last thing on their minds, and they will continue laughing at him all the way to 2029.