Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that youth in India do not just prefer to follow the system but also appreciate it, adding that they “get restless and even courageously question” authorities in cases of dysfunction. The prime minister’s remarks came as protests broke out in campuses across the nation soon after the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed in Parliament earlier this month.

Protests against the legislation began at the Jamia Millia Islamia University on December 14 and then spread to the rest of the country. So far, at least 26 people have been killed in clashes between the police and the protestors, 19 of them in Uttar Pradesh alone. At least 14 of these deaths were caused due to firearm injuries.

The Uttar Pradesh Police have registered a case against 10,000 unidentified students of the Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, according to a report. However, Aligarh Senior Superintendent of Police Akash Kulhary said that a case has been registered against 1,000, not 10,000 students. He attributed the difference to a clerical error. The students had assembled around the Aligarh Muslim University circle on December 15 to protest.

“One can even say with certitude here, that the country’s youth detests anarchy of any sort,” Modi said during the 60th edition of his monthly radio programme “Mann Ki Baat” on Sunday. “They despise any element of lack of governance and instability; abhorring any shades of nepotism, casteism, favouritism or gender discrimination. Thus, our new generation is an embodiment, a reflection of a new system, a new order, a new age, a new thought.”

Modi said that the new decade will witness active contribution of those born in the 21st century in the country’s development, and that they were growing up understanding important topics of this century.

The prime minister spoke about a healthcare initiative by an alumni organisation of former students of a school in Bihar’s West Champaran district. He also spoke about the skill development and employment programme called ‘Himayat’, operated in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh that helped those unable to finish their education in school or college.