‘Cockroach Janata Party': Youth - Gen Z’s Digital Resistance Against Chief Justice's Remark
Cockroach Janata Party has become a huge wave on social media. The digital community has gained millions of members within three days of its formation through Google Forms. In just a matter of days, the group has gained millions of followers on its Instagram and X (Twitter) accounts and has received symbolic enlistments from Trinamool Congress leaders Mahua Moitra and Kirti Azad.
Friday, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said during an open court hearing that “parasites” were attacking the system, and equated the youngsters to cockroaches “who don’t get any employment and don’t have any place in a profession”.
“There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in the profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists, and they start attacking everyone,” he said.
He later clarified that he was talking about people with fake degrees but social media was overflowing with vile resentment at the insult to the youth and this digital community was launched on May 16.
The man behind this initiative is Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old student of Public Relations at Boston University who previously worked with the social media team of the Aam Aadmi Party.
This platform was born of the youth’s protest against unemployment and the system and was intended as a satirical representation. Its tagline is “Voice of the lazy and unemployed” — a party for lazy, always online and unemployed youth. The plan is to use humour and memes to show the flaws in the system and the neglect faced by the youth.
Although the action is completely satirical, the community expresses 5 main requirements, pointing to serious political issues in the country:
1. No Chief Justice should be given a Rajya Sabha seat or other official positions as a reward after retirement.
2. Implement 50 percent reservation for women in Parliament and the Cabinet.
3. Defecting MPs and MLAs should be barred from contesting elections and holding public office for 20 years.
4. If voters’ names are illegally deleted from the voter list, the Chief Election Commissioner should be arrested under the UAPA.
5. Cancel the licenses of media houses owned by Ambani, Adani, etc., to ensure independent journalism, and investigate the bank accounts of journalists who blindly support the government.
The Cockroach Janata Party has now turned into a platform for the Gen-Z generation of the digital era to fight the country’s unemployment, youth frustration and disagreement with constitutional institutions in their own unique way through satire.
