Could India's Gen-Z rebellion begin with cockroaches?

What if, one fine morning, a call is extended — "Cockroaches of the world unite!" And suddenly millions of pointless, lazy little creatures swarm out from their ugly dens — from behind boxes, from under beds, from the dark corners of old cupboards?

Lazy, yet resilient, cockroaches refused to evolve for the last 150 million years. All they have done is survive and breed. You chase them away with a broom, smash them with sandals, spray them with "Hit," and still they return. When filth piles up, cockroaches are bound to appear.

"What if all cockroaches come together?" — this was the exact question asked by 30-year-old Abhijit Dipke after Justice Surya Kant, the Honourable Chief Justice of India, compared India's unemployed youth to "cockroaches" during a hearing on May 15.

Within 24 hours, Dipke launched a website and social media handles on X and Instagram under the name Cockroach Janata Party (CJP).

The name itself mocks the ruling party at the Centre. Then there is the logo: a cockroach sitting on a smartphone with full internet connectivity — reflecting the Chief Justice's further accusation that professionally worthless youngsters turn into media or social media activists and attack everyone.

But does a cockroach really attack anyone? Its clumsy wing-flutters may create a nuisance, and its flat existence may carry messages for future propagation. It troubles, certainly, but rarely harms.

Cockroaches are the outcome of a systematic betrayal

The Cockroach Janata Party expects its members to meet certain standards. Gender, caste, or religion do not matter. Interested individuals are encouraged to conduct an eligibility self-check to ensure that they are effectively unemployed, physically lazy, chronically online, and capable of ranting professionally.

These criteria perfectly echo how Indian society increasingly views Gen-Z. Justice Surya Kant's remark, his later clarification notwithstanding, was not merely a personal slip of tongue. It reflected the broader mindset of India's comfortable middle class, which does not endure the chronic financial and professional stress that the country's youth face.

Gen Z, or those born between 1997 and 2012, now constitutes more than a quarter of India's population. Yet nearly 40% of young graduates remain unemployed, according to the State of Working India 2026 report by Azim Premji University—only around 7% secure permanent salaried employment within a year of graduation.

In rural India, post-COVID dependence on agriculture has increased. In urban India, the rapid expansion of the gig economy continues to suppress wages and compromise job security. The Modi Government endlessly glorifies India's "demographic dividend," while offering little assurance regarding the educational, professional, or economic aspirations of the youth.

At the same time, inflation, rising fuel prices due to the Middle East crisis, and the growing fear that artificial intelligence will consume skilled jobs deepen existing anxieties. Affordable education, healthcare, and housing remain increasingly inaccessible. Meanwhile, the gradual transfer of national wealth toward crony capitalists like Adani and Ambani becomes harder to ignore. Public trust in the judiciary is eroding rapidly.

The political trend of apoliticism

The CJP's manifesto contains five demands: no Chief Justice should receive a Rajya Sabha seat after retirement; the Chief Election Commissioner should face UAPA charges if legitimate votes are deleted; 50% of cabinet positions should be reserved for women; media houses owned by Adani and Ambani should lose their licenses; and any MLA or MP defecting from one party to another should be barred from contesting elections or holding public office for twenty years.

Rallies, slogans, and street-corner speeches no longer engage educated youth the way they once did. Instead, youngsters express their political consciousness through satire, memes, parody, and comedy reels.

The party also demanded the resignation of the Union Education Minister following the recent cancellation of the 2026 NEET examination due to a question paper leak.

The demands primarily target corruption and institutional decay, which easily makes one recall the 2011 anti-corruption movement — popularly known as the Anna Andolan — which sought to address political corruption through the Jan Lokpal Bill.

That non-partisan civil movement eventually gave birth to Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party while simultaneously strengthening the BJP's anti-Congress narrative before the 2014 general election.

Could the CJP similarly evolve into a larger anti-establishment movement?

The speculation becomes stronger considering that Dipke himself was associated with the AAP between 2020 and 2023.

For now, however, the CJP primarily serves as a platform to raise issues and demand accountability. "The rest is satire," they say.

Their website carries a smart aesthetic. There are leaderboards ranking top citizens, top states, and top revolutionaries by the number of issues they raise. Their headquarters? "Wherever the WiFi works."

Within days of launching, the CJP's Instagram following far surpassed that of the BJP. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Dipke remarked, "Those in power think citizens are cockroaches and parasites… They should know that cockroaches breed in rotten places. That's what India is today."

The emergence of the CJP as a voice of Gen Z inevitably invites comparisons with recent youth-led mobilisations in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal, all of which successfully toppled their respective governments.

Yet Dipke himself told the Dawn, "Whatever we do, we will do within the rights of the Constitution. We will do it democratically and peacefully. It won't be something like Nepal or Bangladesh."

Even so, the CJP has already announced its first mobilisation campaign — BharatX: Phase One — asking supporters to walk silently at 6 a.m., carrying Indian flags, use black profile pictures, and spread the movement across youth spaces.

Their website declares, "This phase is not about politics. It is about awakening people, building discipline, and creating a national youth movement focused on change, action, and the future of India."

In contemporary India, spontaneous issue-based civil movements often inspire deeper trust among educated urban and semi-urban youth than organised political parties do.

The Rat Dakhal movement in Kolkata, following the rape and murder of an on-duty trainee doctor in 2024, witnessed an unprecedented level of public outrage. Likewise, spontaneous worker protests across the NCR last April forced the Uttar Pradesh Government to revise minimum wages despite police crackdowns.

The CJP, too, emerges from accumulated resentment — not resentment over a single incident, but years of failed promises suddenly crystallised by one careless remark from the country's top judicial office. This resentment is directed against a right-wing political order, but its roots also lie in the unfulfilled promises offered by the right-wing itself.

When the "lingo" replaces the language

Large sections of India's youth have become deeply disillusioned with conventional political parties. But what language can an alternative movement speak?

In an era of collapsing attention spans and endless streaming of digital content, all political parties compete within a brutal marketplace of attention. Yet traditional political vocabulary increasingly fails to keep pace with Gen-Z's anxieties, humour, and communication style.

The cockroaches no longer wish to be crushed silently. They want to return humiliation with humiliation. And they prefer the open, horizontal space of digital media over the rigid hierarchies of traditional political parties.

Rallies, slogans, and street-corner speeches no longer engage educated youth the way they once did. Instead, youngsters express their political consciousness through satire, memes, parody, and comedy reels. The popularity of comedians like Kunal Kamra, Varun Grover, Samdish Bhatia, or Vir Das reflects precisely this shift.

This phenomenon is not unique to India. Across the world, Gen-Z movements are discovering new forms of political communication and organisation.

Rather than conventional party politics, politically charged identities forged through collective humiliation are becoming more effective at mobilising support.

In India, direct criticism of the government is also becoming increasingly risky amidst rising threats from reactionary Hindutva, hyper-nationalism, and restrictive laws like the UAPA. India's ranking in the World Press Freedom Index has continued to decline sharply.

Under such conditions, mockery becomes a political language. A recent example emerged in West Bengal, where sections of the Muslim community — responding to BJP-led restrictions on cow slaughter before Bakra Eid — protested by demanding that the cow be declared India's national animal.

Yet it would be mistaken to view the Cockroach Janata Party as a movement directed solely against the BJP. The party explicitly argues that no political force in India genuinely represents the younger generation. The mockery, therefore, is broader than electoral opposition. It is aimed at the political system itself.

The fate of the cockroaches

Political commentators remain understandably sceptical about the future of the CJP. Is this merely another viral digital moment, or does it signal something larger?

After all, there is nothing inherently revolutionary about allowing frustrated internet users to obtain symbolic party membership through a Google Form.

Yet the speed of the movement's popularity indicates something important: the cockroaches no longer wish to be crushed silently. They want to return humiliation with humiliation. And they prefer the open, horizontal space of digital media over the rigid hierarchies of traditional political parties.

Still, the larger question remains whether the ground for a mass movement truly exists in a country as vast, fragmented, and institutionally powerful as India.

Movements of that scale require a profound collapse of public faith in the existing system. That reality has not yet fully arrived in India. The BJP continues to dominate large parts of the country through so-called "double-engine" governments. Faith in Narendra Modi's "Vishwaguru" image, in slogans like Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, and in the broader Hindutva project, remains widespread — including among many young people visible on social media.

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Why then was the BJP government so quick to block the CJP's Instagram account?

Because the BJP sensed a challenge.

The BJP seeks to occupy the political imagination of Gen-Z itself, and the sudden popularity of the CJP suggested the possibility of losing a section of that psychological ground.

This insecurity also explains the increasingly coercive character of the Indian state. Through processes such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), many people have reportedly lost their voting rights. Simultaneously, journalists, activists, and dissenting voices face growing legal and administrative pressure.

As political space continues to shrink and the BJP's dominance grows more assertive, the conditions for public anger also become ripe.

For now, it is reasonable to see the rise of the Cockroach Janata Party as one stage within that larger preparatory process.
 

Arka Bhaduri is an independent journalist, executive editor at The International and The Hammer magazine, and a columnist for the Morning Star. He writes extensively on the political dynamics of South Asia and Europe

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