Young people are revolting. India’s ‘cockroach’ campaign is just the latest example

May 26, 2026 — 3:00am

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The saying goes that if you happen to see one cockroach, it means there are many more you can’t see yet. But when India’s topmost judge likened unemployed youth to cockroaches, he had no idea how many were about to swarm.

His condescension provoked one young man into creating the satirical Cockroach Janta Party last week online with the question: “What if all cockroaches come together?”

Within a day, more than 3 million people had joined the party. Within a week, over 22 million had followed it on social media. That’s double the number who follow India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The judge soon recanted, but it was too late. A new youth protest campaign had been born.

Thirty-year-old Abhijeet Dipke invited “the lazy and unemployed” to join the movement with the hashtag #MainBhiCockroach, or “I too am a cockroach”.

Humanoid cockroaches in suits and ties were soon speaking at lecterns in AI-generated videos. In the campaign emblem, a cartoon cockroach in sunglasses munches into a lotus flower, symbol of Modi’s BJP. “The government is going to be shaken,” said the upstart party.

And the government of India was worried. Its Intelligence Bureau raised “national security concerns”, evidently fearing an uprising, according to The Indian Express newspaper.

BJP leaders tried to discredit the movement by saying that most of its followers were from Pakistan, “the anti-India crowd”, as they called it. Dipke responded by posting analytics showing that 94 per cent of followers were from India.

At the weekend, the authorities took down Cockroach Janta........

© WA Today