Its ‘manifesto’ for the time being is aimed at highlighting the very pronounced pattern of injustice and unfairness that India witnesses now: it promises to end post-retirement rewards for judges; to protect every vote and arrest the CEC under UAPA if a legit vote is deleted for it says taking away voting rights is no less than terrorism; to reserve 50 per cent of positions in Parliament and all Cabinets for women; to free the media and end domination of corporate houses in the sector; and bar MLAs and MPs who defect from their party from contesting elections for 20 years
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism,” wrote Karl Marx in the iconic opening line of The Communist Manifesto. Almost two centuries later, another spectre is haunting the conventional world. That spectre is the youth, Gen Z, as they call it, who can move mountains, topple governments, and send chills down the spine of all conformists and the parasites of the system. It has now visited India, too, in the form of Cockroach Janta Party.
For beginners, it all started with a scornful and insensitive comment of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant about a group of people who can be loosely called activists.
All that the Chief Justice said was this: “there are youngsters like cockroaches who don’t get any employment. Some of them become media and RTI activists, and they start attacking everyone.” He was only echoing the sentiments of a section of the Indian society, of the haves, which feels threatened by that of the have-nots.
Such sentiments would have gone unnoticed in the past, but not anymore. Now, even the judges will be judged by every word they utter. It did not take 24 hours for an expatriate Indian to pick up the same derisive terms to build the foundation of the new movement of the unemployed, data-eating, online-active youth.
Its ‘manifesto’ for the time being is aimed at highlighting the very pronounced pattern of injustice and unfairness that India witnesses now: it promises to end post-retirement rewards for judges; to protect every vote and arrest the CEC under UAPA if a legit vote is deleted for it says taking away voting rights is no less than terrorism; to reserve 50 per cent of positions in Parliament and all Cabinets for women; to free the media and end domination of corporate houses in the sector; and bar MLAs and MPs who defect from their party from contesting elections for 20 years.
While some political parties, including the Left and the Andhra Pradesh unit of the Telugu Desam, have called for listening to the voice of the youth, parties on the right-wing have already expressed their decision to resist it.
It is no wonder that the Union government has blocked, though briefly, the website and the X account of the party in India after its support base swelled fast. Reports suggest that its Instagram account has three million followers; double that of the BJP! The RSS and the cyber warriors of the BJP have already declared war on the CJP.
The warning that Dr Martin Luther King Jr made to the American society in the last century is pertinent in the India of now. “Those who hope that the coloured Americans needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual,” he said in his historic speech in Chicago.
“There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the coloured citizen is granted his citizenship rights.” It may not be business as usual anymore in India, too. The mess in the educational sector, including the NEET question paper leak and the botched CBSE Class 12 answer sheet valuation, will only bolster their case.
The call for civil and fundamental rights could get louder, especially from the oppressed and neglected classes. There is little point in treating the new phenomenon as a spectre; instead, those who handle the levers of power and the society at large, will have to address it if we were to survive as a democracy.
