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Cockroaches are hard to kill.
The harder you strike, the swifter they dodge.
And they thrive in toxic environments.
India’s increasingly autocratic Bharatiya Janata Party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is learning these age-old adages all over again.
It started with a swipe at the nation’s youth.
It exploded into a swarming political backlash.
And social media shutdowns, legal threats and attempted backdowns are feeding the multiplication of a new protest movement.
“There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment and don’t have any place in the profession,” Chief Justice of India Surya Kant raged during a Supreme Court hearing on Friday, May 15.
“Some of them become media, some of them become social media, some of them become RTI (government record access) activists, some of them become other activists – and they start attacking everyone.”
It struck a raw nerve.
Uproar surged through social media, with accusations of laziness and corruption flying thick and fast.
The next day, 30-year-old public relations student Abhijeet Dipke presented his own satirical suggestion: The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP).
“Launching a new platform for all the ‘cockroaches’ out there …. Eligibility criteria: Unemployed, Lazy, Chronically online, Ability to rant professionally.”
It was an instant sensation.
In just one week, the new digital movement had soared past 20 million followers – far outstripping the governing BJP’s longstanding (and heavily funded) social media presence.
Then, Dipke’s social media accounts and other Cockroach Janata Party sites suddenly went dark.
“I started a joke … now I get death threats,” Dipke told Indian media.
Cockroach Theory
“If you see one, there are many more hiding.” Or so the old proverb goes.
It’s a saying often used in business to warn of bad news. Now it seems true for politics, too.
AI-generated images and memes are everywhere.
The hashtag #MainBhiCockroach (I too am a cockroach) continues to trend.
And young Indian protesters are dressing up as cockroaches to make their presence felt.
“The campaign converted an insult into a collective identity, allowing users to participate through jokes, memes and symbolic support rather than formal political engagement,” an editorial in the Indian National Congress (opposition party) supporting National Herald reads.
“The movement also tapped into broader conversations around unemployment, political accountability and freedom of expression, themes that resonated strongly with younger users active on social media platforms.”
India is one of the youngest demographics in the world. About half its 1.4 billion population is under 30.
But long-term unemployment is on the rise. Including among university and college graduates. And that’s on top of questionably close relationships between the new billionaires and the nation’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“There is seldom just one cockroach in the kitchen,” India analyst Ullah Khan argues in The Diplomat.
“The emergence of the Cockroach Janta Party indicates that discontent within and with the Modi government may run far deeper than it appears.”
Political Katsaridaphobia
“Out of hatred for the cockroach, the ants voted for the insecticide …” Or so the old African proverb goes.
Governing BJP mouthpieces have labelled the Cockroaches “a premeditated conspiracy”.
They point to Dipke’s past work with India’s anti-corruption movements and the Punjab-based Aam Aadmi Party. He’s currently a communications student at Boston University in the United States.
“They can’t defeat a vibrant democracy with such violent anarchy,” former minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqv told local media.
The BJP accused the Cockroaches of sourcing most of their 23 million followers from key rival Pakistan. But Dipke released social media tracking data showing 95 per cent actually reside in India.
Then the government used national security legislation to stamp out the Cockroach’s online presence.
Then the Cockroaches’ Instagram and X (formerly Twitter, until Elon Musk took over) accounts went dark. Indians attempting to access X were told it had been blocked “in response to a legal demand”.
Dipke says his personal accounts and websites had also gone offline after being targeted by hackers. Sympathetic accounts and sites immediately sprang up in their place. But so too did fakes.
But the pantry door was already open. The cockroaches had bolted.
And the BJP’s aggressive pushback fanned the Cockroaches’ wings.
Lawyers, academics and opposition politicians are now joining the swarm.
“Attempts to suppress satire or criticism on social media often end up amplifying it,” notes Khan.
“Support for the CJP spread even faster after the ban. Killing one cockroach, after all, does not rid the kitchen of the infestation hiding within it.”
A Bug’s Life
“They tried to step on us. We came back,” the Cockroach website boasts.
It now has almost 23 million followers.
“The extraordinary traction the CJP accounts gained on Instagram and X, with more than 20 million followers, indicates that a section of India’s middle class and youth no longer feels represented by the existing political and economic order,” Khan argues.
“They are no longer willing to quietly survive on the rotten crumbs thrown at them.”
The Cockroach list of complaints sounds familiar.
Lack of representation. Crony capitalism. Corruption.
“Mission: Build a party for the young people who keep getting called lazy, chronically online, and — most recently — cockroaches. That’s it. That’s the mission. The rest is satire.”
And frustration.
The international think tank Freedom House has downgraded India’s status from “free” to “partly free”. It describes its government as an “electoral autocracy”.
“Fears of investigative agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate or the Central Bureau of Investigation being used against critics have discouraged open dissent among sections of the middle class,” Khan argues.
“The sudden rise of the CJP reflects this simmering frustration finally finding an outlet.”
Chief Justice Kand has since attempted to argue his words had been taken out of context: That he was instead talking about people with fraudulent degrees – not the young, educated unemployed.
But Prime Minister Modi’s government appears increasingly in damage control mode.
Its hyped national economic growth agenda is lagging. Allegations of religious oppression and bias are rising. And the US/Israel war on Iran has caused widespread cooking gas shortages and cost-of-living increases.
“Nothing of this was intentional,” says Dipke.
“It is the younger people who were actually very frustrated. They don’t have any outlet. They were really angry at the government.
“We have to understand that five years ago, nobody was ready to speak up against Modi or the government. The times are changing.”
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer
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