Sunil Gatade | India’s Cockroach ‘Conspiracy’: Will This Movement Bring Real Change?

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has gone from being a meme to a movement. What comes next? That is the obvious question.

The fact is that conspiracy theories abound in the national capital when events of such a highly political nature take place. They may be right or wrong, but the pundits as well as the doubters and the naysayers have their immediate say, whatever may be the final outcome.

They either may be on the dot or completely off the target, but one thing is clear: no incident, however insignificant, misses the sharp eye of the analyst. If he is biased, the view becomes short-sighted and far-fetched; and if not so, sometimes it becomes a revelation.

A brief news report on Swedish Radio way back in the 1980s had ultimately created a sensation. It led to the unravelling of the Bofors scam after it was dug into deeply by some intrepid journalists.

It was some decades ago, when freedom of expression was much as expected in the world’s largest democracy. India has, incidentally, ranked 157th out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, released by Reporters Without Borders, among the lowest-ranked democracies.

Sometimes, some speculation that is in the air in political circles finds space in some gossip columns, which helps some penpushers to peddle their pet theories with gusto.

At times, a small report buried in a nondescript newspaper creates havoc in a state as any news of someone falling prey to hunger leads to political turmoil amid calls for the overthrow of the local government. But that was mainly in the past. We are now in “Viksit Bharat”, or that is the claim. “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” looks like the credo.

In the early 1990s, a brief report about two Haryana constables on alleged surveillance duty outside New Delhi’s 10 Janpath, the official residence of former PM Rajiv Gandhi, ultimately led to the fall of the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government. That time, Haryana was ruled by the Janata Dal.

The moral of the story is the belief that unless one digs deeper, he/she fails to arrive at the truth. No one descends from the sky to reveal it.

So, now there are a vast number of theories about what actually is the true character of the fast-spreading “Cockroach Janta Party”. The views vary like the pendulum, from a “breath of fresh air” in Indian politics, to being a “handmaiden” of the beleaguered BJP.

Though not a political party in the conventional sense, the CJP, which took wings just out of satire on a controversial comment recently by the Chief Justice of India, virtually grew out of the public mood for change, especially due to the angry youth. Nothing looked set, but things fell perfectly well, as some say.

For some, it was not auspicious. The movement took wings when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was set to celebrate the completion of 12 years in power.

Some, however, see conspiracies, including major ones, behind all this “design”. They wonder as to how the Modi government, which always uses high-handed tactics against the Opposition, treated Abhijit Dipke, head of the CJP, when he arrived for the agitation from the United States recently with kid gloves.

How was the CJP given last-minute permission by the generally adamant Delhi police for the Jantar Mantar protest, when it is generally by and large denied to all non-BJP parties and other outfits? Why such special treatment to an organisation which has suddenly sprung up out of nowhere?

Given Mr Dipke’s earlier association with Arvind Kejriwal, it is claimed by some as a deep-rooted conspiracy involving the RSS on the one hand and the AAP on the other, given the background of the anti-corruption agitation launched by India Against Corruption headed by Anna Hazare at Delhi’s historic Ramlila Maidan some 14 years ago.

In reality, what the Anna Hazare movement achieved was the emergence of the BJP led by Narendra Modi on the national stage and Arvind Kejriwal becoming the chief minister of Delhi, all at the cost of the Congress.

Soon after, it became clear that the anti-corruption movement was backed to the hilt by the RSS, ever eager to promote the BJP for its larger good.

It happened at a time when an aggressive BJP, all guns blazing, had launched a virtual blitzkrieg on the Congress-led UPA government, accusing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of presiding over the most corrupt government at the Centre.

While some even see a CIA hand behind the sudden rise of the CJP, amid added pressure on the already embattled Modi administration, some in the BJP do speak of a “foreign hand”.

What added to the theories were reports that the vociferous protests organised by the Congress in several countries on the same issue virtually remained unreported in the mainstream media, which added grist to the mill.

The Congress, leading the opposition INDIA bloc, has been raising the issue for long, with Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi in the forefront, to pin the government down on each major issue, from foreign policy to domestic affairs. So, it was suggested that it was sort of taking credit.

Whatever it is, the proof of the pudding will depend on which of the detractors of the Modi Sarkar will hit it hard and fast. It will carry the game.

One thing is, however, clear: Chief Justice Surya Kant’s name will undoubtedly appear whenever “cockroach” comes up, in jest or seriousness. His controversial remark dubbing the struggling youth as “cockroaches” and “parasites” is bound to haunt him despite his clarifications.

In fact, he may go down in history as the first CJI unwittingly to give rise to a political movement.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi