Cockroach Janta Party: Did a Meme Just Become a Movement?
5/26/202630 min
When the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant called young professionals “cockroaches,” he likely didn’t anticipate a political uprising on social media. Host Dia Rekhi speaks to Sudhanshu Kaushik,president and CEO of the Centre for Youth Policy and Political commentator and Visiting Fellow - India Foundation Rajat Sethi, about the party— a meme-turned-movement that amassed 20 million followers, outpaced the BJP on Instagram, and triggered a government crackdown. Is this genuine youth disillusionment or chronically-online noise? And what does it signal for India’s political future?
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First 90 secondsDiya Rekhi· Host0:00
[instrumental music] A comment by the Chief Justice of India, an insect, a social media storm, an outpouring of support, a quasi-political movement, and a crackdown. All this in a span of just a few days. [instrumental music] We live in strange times, but nothing could have prepared me for what we saw go down with the Cockroach Janata Party or the CJP. What started off as a meme suddenly became much, much more than that. It took the pesky cockroach and turned it into a symbol of resilience and dissent. If you too are chronically online, visuals of a suited-up cockroach must have flooded your timeline lately, or even others just putting up Main Bhi Cockroach posts showing their support for the CJP, which by the way, isn't a real party, yet. But why does this matter? [instrumental music] Well, the youth is becoming an increasingly important vote bank for political parties in the country, and a vote bank that the BJP has seen support from. As per reports, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, 21% of young voters