On May 15, 2026, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, presiding over a Supreme Court bench, described unemployed young Indians as ‘like cockroaches’ who, failing to find jobs, turn to social media, journalism, and RTI activism to ‘attack the system.’ He called such individuals ‘parasites of society.’ These were not words spoken by a politician at an election rally or by a television anchor in prime-time fury. They were spoken, on the record, by the occupant of the highest judicial office in the Republic of India, the officer constitutionally charged with being the final guardian of every citizen’s dignity.Interestingly, after facing backlash the chief justice issued a clarification on Saturday (May 16) saying that a section of media misquoted him and called Indian youth “the pillars of a developed India”.“I am pained to read how a section of the media has misquoted my oral observations made during the hearing of a frivolous case yesterday. What I had specifically criticised were those who have entered professions like the Bar (legal profession) with the aid of fake and bogus degrees. Similar persons have sneaked into the media, social media, and other noble professions as well, and hence, they are like parasites. It is totally baseless to suggest that I criticised the youth of our nation. Not only am I proud of our present and future human resource, but every youth of India inspires me. It is not an exaggeration to say that Indian youth have great regard and respect for me, and I too see them as the pillars of a developed India,” Surya Kant.Words, however, have histories. The history of these particular words is one of the darkest in human civilisation.In Rwanda, between April and July 1994, more than 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. The killing was preceded by years in which government-allied radio stations systematically called Tutsis ‘inyenzi’, that is, cockroaches. Teachers made Tutsi children stand up in classrooms and called them cockroaches in front of their peers. By the time the machetes came out, an entire population was already stripped of its humanity. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda later convicted Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines’s (RTLM’s) leadership for incitement to genocide through precisely this language.Also read: ‘Offends Spirit of Democracy’: Outrage over CJI Surya Kant’s ‘Cockroaches’ ‘Parasites’ RemarksIn Nazi Germany, Jews were called ‘parasites’ and ‘rats’. The words appeared in official pamphlets, schoolbooks, and speeches so routinely that it became, as Holocaust scholar Victor Klemperer documented, ‘mechanically and unconsciously absorbed’ by ordinary Germans. A 2022 study in PLOS ONE analysed Nazi propaganda between 1927 and 1945 and found that Jews were progressively stripped of human mental attributes in the language of state media in the years before the Holocaust. The word ‘parasite’ was not merely an insult. It invoked a biological logic: parasites are not negotiated with. They are removed from the host body.Ironically, the Jewish establishment later referred to Philistine people as ‘vermin’, leading to dehumanisation of an entire population, whose indiscriminate killing should evoke no human sympathy as per Israel. It is well documented that the words like cockroaches, parasites, vermin, termite have three distinct impacts:It frames the targeted group as exploitative and extractive persons, who attack a healthy body, extract illegitimately from it and weaken and infect the host body (nation/society).It implies the existence of a healthy ‘host’ that must be protected at all costs by removing the parasite.It positions the elimination of parasites as a therapy or a treatment. The violence against parasites is often considered a cure rather than a crime. Exterminating parasites carries no guilt.That’s why International law, developed in the context of holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur and other atrocities, is unambiguous on dehumanising language:The Genocide Convention (1948) prohibits ‘direct and public incitement to commit genocide,’ which international courts have interpreted to include sustained dehumanising language.The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article 20(2) requires states to prohibit ‘advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence.’The Rabat Plan of Action (UN, 2012) provides a six-part threshold test for when expression constitutes incitement, including assessment of the speaker’s position of authority.Under the Rabat Plan of Action criteria, dehumanising language from a chief justice of the Supreme Court, one of the most authoritative positions in a nation, would score very high on the ‘position and influence of the speaker’ criterion.It goes beyond the offensiveness of the words. The CJI’s language reaches places no politician’s speech can. When the apex court describes RTI activists and unemployed youth as cockroaches, every subordinate court in India receives a signal about whose grievances are legitimate and whose are not. Every government official who faces an RTI query receives a signal about how to regard the person filing it. The irony is constitutional and profound. The Right to Information Act exists precisely to enable citizens, including unemployed citizens with no institutional standing, to hold power accountable. Article 19 of the constitution protects free speech and the press. Article 21, interpreted expansively by the Supreme Court across decades, protects the right to live with dignity. The chief justice of India compared those who exercise these constitutionally protected rights to cockroaches. It came from the bench that is their ultimate enforcer.It is tempting to dismiss the remarks as judicial irritability, an impatient judge venting frustration at a difficult petitioner. But the context isn’t reassuring. India in 2026 is a society in which communal polarisation has deepened measurably over twelve years. Hate speeches have been normalised. Social strife and tension are common. So far it was restricted to minorities, Tribals, Dalits, activists labelled as Urban Naxals etc. But CJI’s statement will now be interpreted to paint the unemployed with the same brush. The narrative of hate has a new target, unemployed youth of India.CJI’s statement may have been a conditional and qualified one, targeting the unemployed who assert and ask questions. But the choice of metaphor will not be missed by anyone. It communicates that unemployment is no more an outcome of social and economic policies, that needs to be addressed by those in power. Rather, it effectively paints unemployment as an extortionist crime that needs to be cleansed. It’s not the unemployment that’s a problem, it’s the unemployed that now become a problem.India Hate Lab’s 2025 annual report documented 141 political speeches in a single year in which minorities were described as ‘termites,’ ‘parasites,’ ‘insects,’ ‘pigs,’ and ‘bloodthirsty zombies.’ The chief justice’s language in May 2026 did not stand apart from that ecosystem. It was absorbed into it and, by virtue of its source, amplified it.But his words are violative of the Preamble of the constitution that promises justice and dignity to every citizen. Article 21 has been interpreted, by the Supreme Court itself, to include the right to live with dignity. The chief justice of India is the sworn custodian of that commitment.When he describes unemployed young Indians as cockroaches, he is not merely being unkind. He is violating the oath of his office. When he describes those who file RTIs and criticise institutions as parasites, he is telling the most constitutionally active citizens of a democracy that their participation is vermin-like. And when the senior-most members of the legal fraternity respond with silence, they become complicit in normalising a vocabulary that history has repeatedly shown leads, when left unchecked, to consequences far beyond any courtroom.Words have consequences. These words, in particular, have a documented history of consequences. The chief justice should know that history. The nation must not allow it to repeat. It would be befitting that in honour of the high office that he holds, he withdraws the references and sets the examples right.Gurdeep Singh Sappal is Permanent Invitee, Congress Working Committee.