Modi breaks Instagram’s Reel record with 300 million views as student protests sweep India

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted two selfie videos on Instagram as student protests swept the country, with the first Reel drawing more than 300 million views in 24 hours and breaking the platform’s record for a single clip. The 75-year-old leader recorded the videos late Thursday and Friday, choosing the short-video format most popular with the young demographic fueling demonstrations against his government. The previous single-Reel record belonged to YouTuber IShowSpeed, who filmed himself meeting the K-pop group BTS after the FIFA World Cup final earlier this month.

The protests trace back to India’s NEET medical entrance exam, administered on May 3 and cancelled on May 12 after a paper leak was discovered. Student organizer Abhijeet Dipke founded the Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, on May 16, naming the movement after Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant compared unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites” during a hearing. The CJP has since drawn more than 20 million followers across platforms, though exact figures vary by source, and organized nationwide marches demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Modi’s government has responded to the unrest with both digital crackdowns and public outreach. Authorities ordered GitHub to block Jack Dorsey’s BitChat messaging app after CJP organizers adopted it when facing restrictions on mainstream platforms. India is Instagram’s largest market with roughly 480 million users, and the government has separately summoned Meta executives over ad moderation failures and ordered the company to remove child safety violations from the platform.

The prime minister’s pivot to Reels is striking given that Modi, who has more than 100 million Instagram followers, has historically favored formal addresses and scripted appearances. Biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay told Bloomberg the prime minister appeared to be “at his wits’ end” over the protests, though Modi’s team has framed the videos as a lighthearted attempt to connect with younger audiences. Modi has previously used personal diplomacy to court technology leaders, but this marks his first attempt to compete with protest movements on their own turf.

The record-breaking viewership underscores how large India’s social media audience has become, even as the government tightens controls over the platforms that carry it. Whether the Reels gambit can redirect the conversation away from exam fraud and youth unemployment remains far from clear. The CJP shows no sign of standing down, and its ability to organize millions of followers despite platform restrictions suggests Modi faces a digital opposition that selfie videos alone may not contain.