The Cockroach Janata Party Strikes Back After Government Action

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant could scarcely have imagined that an off-the-cuff outburst would trigger a political movement with more traction than many carefully crafted manifestos. In a moment of judicial irritation, he lamented the growing tribe of unemployed RTI activists, social media professionals and assorted nuisances who, according to him, hovered around the justice system like “parasites” and “cockroaches”.

The remark was perhaps intended as courtroom exasperation. But history shows that when people in authority begin comparing human beings to vermin, trouble usually follows. Fascist regimes have always needed creatures to squash. Adolf Hitler had Jews.

Others had kulaks, intellectuals, termites or migrants. Once the metaphor is accepted, the moral brakes begin to fail. Words prepare the ground for the armed to attack, as the Nellie massacre and other killing fields show.

Political satire turns into public movement

Alarmed by the backlash, the Chief Justice clarified that he was referring only to dubious lawyers haunting court corridors, little knowing that some of them have found a place in the judiciary as well. But by then, the cockroaches had already heard the summons.

India’s unemployed, whose numbers rise faster than official optimism, decided they would not be stepped on quietly. Enter Abhijeet Dipke, a former worker of the Aam Aadmi Party, who had what management consultants would call a disruptive idea, rather like Narendra Modi’s “Chai Pe Charcha”.

Why not embrace the insult? Why not create the Cockroach Janata Party as a political shelter for the jobless, the ignored, the loiterers and the overqualified chai drinkers of India, who possess neither government jobs nor influential uncles?

He invited every “lazy and unwanted cockroach” to join. The response was explosive. Within hours, the party’s Instagram account attracted lakhs of followers. Matters became serious when the CJP’s follower count crossed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s formidable 8.8 million. Suddenly, humour became a national security concern.

The account was reportedly withheld, accompanied by the predictable explanation that many followers came from Pakistan. This was rather unfair to Pakistanis, implying that they spend their time appreciating political satire instead of throwing brickbats, if not bombs, at one another.

Mockery as political resistance

What began as a joke has become an uncomfortable mirror. The CJP manifesto promises that retired chief justices will never be rewarded with Rajya Sabha seats and that women will immediately receive half the seats in Parliament without waiting for the next era of constitutional reform.

Behind the absurdity lies a sharp political instinct: mockery works when people are angry. NT Rama Rao and Joseph Vijay took a year to convert celebrity status into political energy. The cockroaches have done it in days.

Their newest slogan — “Cockroach Is Back” — may sound comic, but it carries a warning. When institutions dismiss citizens as pests, the pests eventually organise. And once cockroaches learn electoral arithmetic, even the mighty may need insect repellent.

Published on: Friday, May 22, 2026, 09:32 PM IST