The cockroach has survived extinction events. Can it survive Indian politics?

Whether the Cockroach Janata Party makes it past the algorithm and into the assemblies and crawls up higher will depend far less on followers and far more on the quality of the minds shaping what comes next

Few things in the world are as humbling as being blindsided. What starts as a joke can morph beyond metaphor and threaten to become a full-blown movement. At that point, even pundits must choose between plaudits and perplexity.

As the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) breezes past 20 million Instagram followers, consternation, enthusiasm, and surprise meld into one amorphous mass. No one had wagered on any party eclipsing the colossal figures of the one currently in power at the Centre. Yet in the rubble of that numeric boast, we are staring at figures so absurdly large that even most seasoned analysts are struggling to process.

So, what exactly is this? A short-lived backlash of the young? Or a diabolical moment that became a movement because it was a mood waiting to be mined? Is there something sinister about the speed it has gathered? Can it be stopped by conventional means, or is it the new force of prompt-engineered politics unveiling a brave new world?

As a coach to political parties, leaders, and hopefuls, I grapple with these questions. Watching the meteoric rise of a political movement, I oscillate between awe and annoyance, torn between magic realism and anxious echoes of past failures. Yet, coaching demands one skill above all: recognising when the pace of play changes, when the game itself alters, and when the rules lie in a shambles amid the ashes of the past.

Let’s begin with the spark. The Chief Justice of India compared unemployed youth who become RTI activists or social media voices to cockroaches and parasites. He later attempted to clarify, but it was too late. The metaphor escaped the courtroom and found its destined audience: Gen Z — digitally native, economically anxious, institutionally alienated. They didn’t flinch. They adopted it.

Within a week of launching, the CJP racked up more than 20 million followers. Its ‘headquarters’ was satirically described as ‘wherever the wi-fi works.’ Conspiracy theorists muttered about shadowy US deep state operations, mostly because the ‘masters in media’ student founder happens to be studying there.

What came next separated a viral moment from a political movement: a manifesto. Five sharp bullet-points demanded a ban on post-retirement Rajya Sabha sinecures for chief justices, UAPA charges on the chief election commissioner under if legitimate votes were deleted, 50% women’s reservation in Parliament, independent media with scrutiny of ‘Godi’ media anchors; finances, and a two-decade ban on defecting legislators.

This pattern is familiar. In Italy, comedian Beppe Grillo’s blogging and online youth meetups became the Five Star Movement, which by 2018 was the single-largest party in parliament, and his 31-year-old protégé was deputy prime minister. In Hungary, the Two-Tailed Dog Party began as street art mocking Viktor Orbán’s infrastructure failures; today it holds seats on Budapest’s city council. The lesson is identical: when institutional contempt meets digital organisation, institutions blink first. Today, both the means and the memes are far more powerful than before.

India’s political arithmetic, however, is far more complex. The leap from 20 million Instagram followers and 20 million EVM votes is not linear. Elections here run on caste equations, booth machinery, money, alliances, and relentless ground organisation. The CJP’s founders seem to be aware of this reality. The Bihar experiment — the quiet vetting of a candidate for the Bankipur Assembly by-election — suggests they know it acutely. That is the real test. Not followers on social media.

This is precisely where political communication and ‘craft-iness’ matter most. The CJP’s greatest asset right now is also its greatest vulnerability: it is emotionally coherent but institutionally unformed. A satirical opposition group, cheekily calling itself INC, already accuses the CJP of going mainstream and elitist — a charge that will only grow louder as the movement scales. Managing that internal narrative, keeping the irreverence without losing the integrity, converting outrage into organisation — these are not social media skills. They are the unglamorous grunge work of political image architecture.

The cockroach has survived every extinction event in history. Whether this one makes it past the algorithm and into the assemblies and crawls up higher will depend far less on followers and far more on the quality of the minds shaping what comes next.

The game has changed. The question is who understands the new rules well enough to write them.

Dilip Cherian, founding partner of Perfect Relations, is a public affairs consultant and branding strategist. Twitter: @DILIPtheCHERIAN

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH)