During a Supreme Court hearing on May 15, Chief Justice Surya Kant said that unemployed young people in India drift towards activism and attack the system like “cockroaches.” The honourable Chief Justice probably had no inkling of the political storm his words would set off, generating a new online political platform, a new language and catchy slogans. The ‘unemployed’ and the ‘lazy’ were invited to join the parody political brand, with the cockroach embraced as a respectable political metaphor.Never before have we seen such creative use of satire. The language is polite and urbane, there is no anger at being likened to cockroaches, no counter-allegations and no complaints. However, all that was needed to be said, is conveyed. The satirist makes gentle fun of something that should not have been said and of a system that should be interrogated. Within this fun filled messaging, is aggression and a sharp comment on the state and society. Are the unemployed responsible for their state of being/non-being, or is it the society that should be held to account?Hegel on povertySince the history of ideas throws light on what many of us, including distinguished jurists, may not perceive, let me go back briefly to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to understand the answer to the question posed above. But before that, a caveat is in order. Not every unemployed person is poor. Nevertheless, it is fairly evident that many of the unemployed belong, or will at some point belong, to the category of poverty. Armed with this caveat, let me get back to Hegel and his concern for the poor. In his magnificently crafted Philosophy of Right (1820), Hegel wrote that poverty is not an aberration. It is a product of industrial society and of the system of overproduction and under-consumption. It is, precisely this society, that banishes its victim to the twilight zone of poverty. We would do well to heed Hegel’s wisdom: “Against nature man can claim no right, but once society is established, poverty immediately takes the form of a wrong done to one class by another.” CJP’s use of satireIt is this wrong that the slogan of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has illuminated by inverting the terms of engagement. If we read between the lines of a light-heartedly plotted manifesto and the careful selection of words, we can discern an aggressive message: who is responsible for unemployment? Satire points to the existence and importance of an underlying norm or state of affairs by playing up its opposite. Yes, we are unemployed, but is this not a consequence of your social and economic order. The satirist assaults the target by their play of words and wit. And, wit is the sharpest form of political critique.The matchless wit Mark Twain famously said that “politicians and diapers must be changed often and for the same reason.” Of American politics, he said “politics is the only profession where you lie, cheat and steal and still be respected.” In the same vein, our Cockroach Janta Party asks indirectly: Have we chosen to be unemployed or lazy? Think and recognise that you have foisted this on us. The system needs to be challenged. Now deal with swarms of cockroaches.Also read: Cockroach Janta Party Memes Have Sent Everyone’s Antennae TinglingA continuing Indian traditionSatire is not new to Indian literature and film. We find, in Shrilal Shukla’s Raag Darbari, a wonderful example of satirical word play. Or, consider the sharp critique of the political and social system in Hindi film songs. Four years after independence, in 1951, Roop K. Shorey directed a film called Dholak. The lyricist was Aziz Kashmiri, with Shyam Sunder as the music composer. It starred Ajit and Meena Shorey; this was the same Ajit who became a beloved villain in Bombay films and whose dialogues sparked off a million jokes. Screengrab from the video of ‘Halla Gulla Laila’ song from Dholak (1951), Photo: Sadabahar HD Songs.On a fun filled evening of a college farewell party, students dance to the music and sing the joyful tune of ‘Halla-Gulla Laila’. They go on to sing: Aish karlon doston college ki diwaron mainKal se likhe jayoge sab ke sab bekaron mein choti-moti naukri dhoondoge akhbaron meinAaj nahi to kal milegi kisko yeh samjhaoge. (Friends have fun within the college wallsFrom tomorrow we will be counted among the unemployedWe will look for menial jobs in newspapersWho will you explain to that today or tomorrow you’ll find one)Four years after independence, young people knew that they would be jobless after finishing college. The message was serious but communicated through peppy music. Later, satirical poetry became the medium of sharp critique of a state which has failed to live up to the people’s expectations. The most famous of these songs was ‘Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan.’ Matters have not improved; unemployment still stares young people in the face. Today, if the slogan “the unemployed are welcome to join us” is asserted cheekily in the public domain, it is not an act of self-validation, it is an aggressive critique of the country’s priorities. A morally unacceptable fact of our collective life lies at the heart of this slogan, but it is sublimated by an aesthetic motif that has attracted, when I last checked, more than 20 million followers. The government, threatened by an online movement, shut down all on-line accounts of the organisation and its founders. Its supporters speak of how this is not a political movement and does not amounts to anything.They mistake the mood of the political moment. Recent history has shown, when people come together spontaneously in shared webs of solidarity against an oppressive state and an exploitative social order, they can move the proverbial mountain. Mass mobilisation has dislodged regimes that claim to rule by divine right.Also read: When T.N. Seshan Asked, ‘Are We Cockroaches?’ and Described Himself as OneA history of youth-led popular movementsThe coming together of the colonised in a movement of peaceful civil disobedience, conceptualised by M.K. Gandhi, dismantled a powerful empire. Stalinist governments collapsed like proverbial castles of cards merely through people assembling on the streets, as they did in Eastern Europe in 1989, with Germans bringing down the Berlin Wall which great powers had devised to separate them. In Iran, in 2022, women spectacularly called out the patriarchy by publicly discarding their head scarves and cutting off locks of hair. There are other examples, the Arab Spring, Hong Kong movement against extradition, the popular movement in Nepal that dismantled entrenched elites, and the uprisings in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Also read: Nepal’s Crisis Explained: Youth Anger, Corruption and a Failing Political OrderEstimates hold that, since 2010, protest movements have spanned every region of the world. These unplanned and unorganised protests, which are quintessentially urban, were initiated by the Arab Spring protests in 2010-2011, against corrupt and regressive regimes. The second wave of protests commenced in 2019 and spread across the world. Protests in Sri Lanka, April 2022. Photo: Nazly Ahmed/Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Dhaka: Damaged premises of Bangladesh former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, during the parliamentary elections, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. Photo: PTI.Twenty-first century protests across the world are distinct from the ideological battles of the twentieth century. Young people are inspired to protest against economic distress, inequality, election malpractices and corruption. The trigger for the uprisings can be a rise in the price of metro-tickets, as in Chile in 2019, or a rise in gasoline tax as was the case in France. They range from the Arab Spring and New York protests in 2011, to Bangladesh in July-August 2024, to popular protests in Seoul against President Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law in December 2024.The digital flash mobRemarkably social media has become a medium of mobilisation through messaging apps such as Telegram and personalised apps. Encrypted messages are used to announce where the next meeting will be and at the touch of a button huge crowds assemble in urban squares. The ability of protestors to link with others, coordinate and inspire millions to come onto the streets is extraordinary. The phenomenon has been termed the ‘digital flash mob.’ Also read: Leaderless Protests: A New Wave of Political Activism in the 21st CenturyFrance’s Yellow Vest protests sparked off demonstrations in Chile, Ecuador and Lebanon. Demonstrators in France took the name from the high-visibility vests that drivers keep at hand for emergencies. The movement, in a short period of time, came to represent popular resentment against an elite perceived as distant and arrogant, as well as growing anxiety surrounding an economy that had left many behind. Ultimately, the French government suspended the gasoline tax. In Hong Kong, protestors borrowed their rallying cry from a famous Bruce Lee quote: “Be formless, shapeless like water.” This approach allowed them to be mobile, adaptable and anonymous.Kathmandu: An aerial view of smoke rising from the Federal Parliament of Nepal premises after it was set on fire by protestors during massive anti-government protests, in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: PTI/Abhishek Maharjan.Some movements have the desired effect – the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt (2011), the resignation of the Algerian President Abulaziz Boutefilka (2019), the resignation of President Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka (2022), the exit of Sheikh Hasina from Bangladesh (2024) and the coming of a new government in Nepal (2026) – and achieve their objectives; often they do not. Sometimes they assemble rapidly and dissolve just as quickly. In other cases, such as the Yellow Vest movement in France, protests spurred by a rise in gasoline tax, periodically erupt to make a point. Led by young people, these protests have surprised everyone by their political passion and innovation. Commentators hold that they have little understanding of the institutional building or specific goals, beyond a rejection of existing elites and power structures. Yet, this does not prevent them from exercising their moral judgement that certain things must not be done or said to people. Therein, lies their genius and activism.Neera Chandhoke is a former professor of Political Science, University of Delhi.