By Rhea Mogul, Esha Mitra, CNN
(CNN) — The spiny, long-legged, and often reviled cockroach has become an unlikely symbol of dissent among India’s Gen Z, in a sharp rebuke to the ruling establishment in the world’s largest democracy.
The Cockroach Janta Party, its name a satirical riff on the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party, has amassed more than 19 million Instagram followers in less than a week, almost double the government’s audience.
It owes its existence to remarks made by Chief Justice Surya Kant, widely taken as calling the country’s unemployed youth “cockroaches.”
“There are youngsters like cockroaches, they don’t get any employment, they don’t have any place in profession,” he said during a court hearing on May 15.
Kant later clarified he was talking about people who entered certain professions using fake degrees. But the damage was already done in a vast nation where youth unemployment remains stubbornly entrenched.
The remarks ignited a viral protest, and Gen Z flipped the insult into a symbol of pride. AI‑generated images of the party’s virtual cockroach mascot now pepper social media feeds, news channels and newspapers in the country of 1.4 billion.
Though not a formal political party, the Cockroach Janta Party serves as a noisy, youthful forum for airing grievances over soaring youth unemployment, and what they see as political dysfunction and corruption.
“They are raising the issues of the nation,” said Amrita Singh, 21, a student from India’s capital Delhi.
“I believe the (Cockroach Janta Party) started as satire, but I really like the direction it’s going in,” said Sristhi, another student, who only gave her first name. “The youth need a platform where we can put up our demands, because most of the political parties somehow… miss the issues which are actually important.”
CNN has contacted the ruling BJP for a response.
Rebuke to establishment
There’s no doubt the BJP remains incredibly popular.
Often described as the world’s largest political party by membership, it recently expanded its footprint into the state of West Bengal, previously a rare opposition stronghold, further establishing its dominance in the country.
Since the party rose to power in 2014, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm, critics have accused it of stifling civil liberties and the press, pursuing a Hindu-first agenda, and inflaming religious divisions within India’s secular democracy. The BJP has repeatedly denied such characterizations.
The Cockroach Janta Party references this on its website.
“We do not check religion, caste, or gender,” it says on its sign-up form.
In its manifesto, the Cockroach Janta Party said it will cancel the licenses of “all media houses owned by Ambani and Adani,” referring to two of India’s richest men – Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani – who own prominent television channels and are seen as being close to Modi, “to make way for a truly independent media.”
The party’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, told the Associated Press that “five years ago, nobody was ready to speak up against Modi or the government,” adding that the times are now “changing.”
The political communications strategist and student at Boston University in the United States previously worked with the Aam Aadmi Party, a political outfit born from India’s anti-corruption movement in 2012.
“The youth are really frustrated and the government is not acknowledging their concerns,” Dipke told the news agency.
Supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party also took the discourse offline this week, dressing up as the insect to clean up India’s notoriously polluted Yamuna River in Delhi, according to n