Listen to this article:

On May 15, 2026, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, presiding over a Supreme Court bench, described unemployed young Indians as ‘like cockroaches’ who, failing to find jobs, turn to social media, journalism, and RTI activism to ‘attack the system.’ He called such individuals ‘parasites of society.’ These were not words spoken by a politician at an election rally or by a television anchor in prime-time fury. They were spoken, on the record, by the occupant of the highest judicial office in the Republic of India, the officer constitutionally charged with being the final guardian of every citizen’s dignity.

Interestingly, after facing backlash the chief justice issued a clarification on Saturday (May 16) saying that a section of media misquoted him and called Indian youth “the pillars of a developed India”.

“I am pained to read how a section of the media has misquoted my oral observations made during the hearing of a frivolous case yesterday. What I had specifically criticised were those who have entered professions like the Bar (legal profession) with the aid of fake and bogus degrees. Similar persons have sneaked into the media, social media, and other noble professions as well, and hence, they are like parasites. It is totally baseless to suggest that I criticised the youth of our nation. Not only am I proud of our present and future human resource, but every youth of India inspires me. It is not an exaggeration to say that Indian youth have great regard and respect for me, and I too see them as the pillars of a developed India,” Surya Kant.

Words, however, have histories. The history of these particular words is one of the darkest in human civilisation.

In Rwanda, between April and July 1994, more than 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. The killing was preceded by years in which government-allied radio stations systematically called Tutsis ‘inyenzi’, that is, cockroaches. Teachers made Tutsi children stand up in classrooms and called them cockroaches in front of their peers. By the time the machetes came out, an entire population was already stripped of its humanity.........

© The Wire