Cockroach Janata Party: When Dr Strangelove Met Candy AI At An Extinction Rebellion 'Happening' And Had A Virtual Lovechild

New Delhi: For most people, the mere mention of these bugs evoke a sense of disgust. The instinct to crush one under your boots the moment you see it is almost reflexive. That's why representatives of different political parties have repeatedly used them as brickbats against their opponents and those they designate as undesirables.

Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant’s "cockroach" remark about unemployed youth, made on May 15, has snowballed into a satire that gave birth to the now-viral phenomena of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), launched on May 16, and its simulacrum, the National Parasitic Front (NPF) launched days later. Simulacrum, because the original, CJP — a satirical take according to its founder — itself doesn't exist, except in ether. But beyond semantics, what is real is that the webpage — amplified by mainstream media's FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) compulsion — has taken India's social media world by storm within days.

At a more subliminal level, though, the virality — where it has acquired more Instagram followers in less than a week than the party that claims to be the world's largest based on social media followership — likely signals that at least a certain section of society has reached a stress point.

And this has been candidly admitted by CJP "founder" Abhijeet Dipke, 30, who completed his MS in Public Relations from Boston University, USA earlier this month, and is apparently on the lookout for a job now. Thousands of India's "jobless" youth can be found sharing Lives, Reels and memes, proclaiming themselves as "cockroaches", tagging their posts with #iamcockroach, and lining up to join the "movement".

Quite likely, many of them are self-aware of the reputation that 'roaches can survive a nuclear apocalypse, which would undoubtedly point towards a seething frustration with the real predicament staring at India's educated youth, where the true extent of joblessness isn't reflected in government data, but in the sheer numbers of applicants for menial government jobs, and their incommensurate qualifications.

On X, the CJP has also also put out across different posts its agenda with the tagline: "A developed India is not a dream. It is a national decision, a collective responsibility, and a generational mission", and included goals like free and world class public education for every child; free, accessible and high-quality healthcare for all; AQI below 25 in every major city; clean rivers and safe drinking water; 5+ per cent GDP; investment in R&D, science and innovation; putting Indian universities in the global Top 100; strong public schools, libraries and research institutions; ending brain drain; creating opportunities at home, among others.

But it's in its vision statement and manifesto, where — without naming names — the CJP seems to have roiled followers of established political parties on social media the most.

It is too early to say which way such a social media sensation will tilt, or whether it will sustain itself for long. Suspicions of "controlled opposition", as expressed by some social media commentators, or of the genesis of a GenZ movement similar to ones that have swept across most of India's neighbours in the recent past, can't be dismissed off-hand. What can be said — from the enthusiastic embrace of the Cockroach Janata Party by social media savvy politicians like the TMC's Mahua Maitra and Kirti Azad, and endorsement by influencers like Dhruv Rathee, to the account getting withheld from X at the time of publication — is that there's ferment in the air. Perhaps, Johnny Mercer summed it up best with his classic jazz standard: "Something's Gotta Give".

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