India, which has designated national symbols for various flora, fauna, and even a microbe, is now facing the potential emergence of a national insect due to a viral online movement centered around the cockroach, which began with a remark by CJI Surya Kant comparing unemployed youth to the pest. This movement quickly gained significant traction through social media platforms, amassing a large following that proposed radical political reforms, and gained further attention when intelligence agencies reportedly warned the government of potential GenZ unrest if the cyber-cockroach phenomenon was not curtailed. The government's subsequent blocking of the movement has paradoxically amplified public discussion on issues like unemployment and rising costs, overshadowing previous nationalistic narratives, while the article suggests a more measured, less reactive approach would have been more effective.

India, which has designated national symbols for various flora, fauna, and even a microbe, is now facing the potential emergence of a national insect due to a viral online movement centered around the cockroach, which began with a remark by CJI Surya Kant comparing unemployed youth to the pest. This movement quickly gained significant traction through social media platforms, amassing a large following that proposed radical political reforms, and gained further attention when intelligence agencies reportedly warned the government of potential GenZ unrest if the cyber-cockroach phenomenon was not curtailed. The government's subsequent blocking of the movement has paradoxically amplified public discussion on issues like unemployment and rising costs, overshadowing previous nationalistic narratives, while the article suggests a more measured, less reactive approach would have been more effective.

India, which has designated national symbols for various flora, fauna, and even a microbe, is now facing the potential emergence of a national insect due to a viral online movement centered around the cockroach, which began with a remark by CJI Surya Kant comparing unemployed youth to the pest. This movement quickly gained significant traction through social media platforms, amassing a large following that proposed radical political reforms, and gained further attention when intelligence agencies reportedly warned the government of potential GenZ unrest if the cyber-cockroach phenomenon was not curtailed. The government's subsequent blocking of the movement has paradoxically amplified public discussion on issues like unemployment and rising costs, overshadowing previous nationalistic narratives, while the article suggests a more measured, less reactive approach would have been more effective.

India has a national animal, a national bird, a national tree, a national flower, a national fruit, even a national reptile—the tiger, the peacock, the banyan tree, the lotus, the mango and the king cobra, in that order. We have even a national microbe—Lactobacillus, the bacterium that works at night in our great Indian kitchens turning milk into curd for our morning lassi or thayir sadam. As environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan had proclaimed it the national microbe in 2012, after it was selected by kids at a biodiversity programme.

We have no national drink yet, though Montek Ahluwalia once made a bid for tea. That was when he was deputy-heading the Planning Commission, long before Narendra Modi christened it Niti Aayog and Modi bhakts claimed the vishwaguru had spent his schooldays selling the brew in kullads at Vadnagar. I guess the coffee lobby poured cold water into Montek’s morning cup.

Looks like we may have a national insect soon. I was betting on the ubiquitous mosquito that sings us to sleep, or the housefly with which we share our sweetmeats, but the cockroach is scurrying ahead. While dealing with a case of fake law degrees, CJI Surya Kant made a remark about “youngsters like cockroaches, who don't get any employment…. Some of them become media, some become RTI activists, and they start attacking everyone”.

He later clarified he was talking about fake-degreed lawyers. By then the genie was out of Pandora’s box and was breeding like cockroaches. An Indian-born Boston student launched an X and an Instagram account for a Cockroach Janta Party that swore to clean up India by denying Rajya Sabha seats to ex-judges, blocking defectors from contesting polls, arresting the chief election commissioner if any vote is deleted, offering half the elected seats to women, and cancelling licences of media houses owned by Adani and Ambani.

Within 78 hours, the followers to its Instagram account overtook the BJP’s, its X account crossed two lakh followers, and it got 3,50,000 members through online forms. That defied common sense. For, unlike the bee that gets into your bonnet, the fly that falls in your ointment, ants that crawl up your pants, the cricket that sings through the spring, or even the bumble-bee that troubled Shakuntala, the cockroach had never caught anyone’s fabulous, artistic, linguistic, poetic or political imagination. Though it breeds in millions, even Winston Churchill invoked the rabbit to condemn the breeding habits of Indians during the Bengal famine.

All the same, the whole movement would have waxed, waned or stayed like a poor joke on the internet, but for a few killjoys in our spy world who got butterflies in their stomachs. They warned the rulers that the Indian GenZ, like their Lankan, Bangla and Nepali cousins, could be misled from keypads to street revolts if the cyber cockroach was allowed to breed further. Like a housewife who brings the whole household down when she spots a cockroach in her kitchen, a panic-stricken government blocked the cyber cockroach.

The remedy has turned out to be worse than the malady. Suddenly everyone is talking more about jobless growth, exam paper leak, and rising grocery bills and transport costs than about 56-inch chests, mandirs, masjids, atmanirbharta or amrit kaal.

The best option would have been what the CJI showed. When asked to order a probe into the CJP’s attempts at “commercial exploitation, trademark appropriation and monetised circulation of… court proceedings”, His Lordship said, “Don’t take it so sentimentally.”

Are the killjoys in the IB listening?

prasannan@theweek.in

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