India, April 17 -- India's political conversation is quietly being reshaped by a generation that grew up with smartphones, digital payments, and real-time information. Urban Gen Z voters, those between 18 and 22 today, do not evaluate politics through the traditional lenses of ideology or party loyalty. Instead, they assess leadership much like they evaluate apps or start-ups: by performance, usability, and outcomes.

Forget the stereotype of the "distracted teen." After my informal interactions with over 1,000 urban Gen Z respondents in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad recently, I found a demographic that is deeply analytical and surprisingly pragmatic. For this cohort, politics is about a 'market-fit product'. When loo...