In the online republic that has suddenly emerged in India, the cockroach is the national insect, outshining the tiger, the peacock, and other worthy beings that stand for its identity, culture, and values. The Supreme Court is India’s highest seat of justice and wisdom, and so it was no surprise that a description made there of some of the country’s citizens assumed a local habitation and a name in an instant and moved millions, outnumbering the world’s biggest formation that puts the cow at the heart of its politics. If the unseen and the unwashed out there suddenly found resonance in a meme, the fault lies not with them, nor with the rival banners of the cockroach and the parasite. The words were seeds that sprouted in laughter, which cannot be banned or arrested even by the ED.

Who’s afraid of the lowly cockroach? The withholding of the emblematic cockroach collective’s social media accounts is both ridiculous and dangerous. What is online is at the same time real and unreal — real enough to be felt and unreal enough to be missed. It is comic to land a legal blow on an idea that is expressed so absurdly and so jokingly. Therein also lies the danger of the State turning intolerant, oppressive, and foolish. The cockroach became a sudden symbol that attracted concerns and anxieties, mostly of the young, perhaps because they are impatient and respond quickly. But to think of it as a Gen Z wave out to uproot the pillars of the State is to overreact. The agencies that found the meme platform a threat to national sovereignty have demeaned themselves. A State that considers humour or satire subversive undermines its own democracy.

The Cockroach Janata Party cannot yet be called a party, or even a movement. It is a mood against politics as it is practised now, and is not just against the ruling party. It is chaotic, perhaps even anarchic, unhampered by ideology, steeped in meme culture, and above all, anti-establishment. It is simple to a fault. India has seen such moods guiding campaigns against governments during the JP movement and the Anna Hazare agitation. But they had some leadership, organisation, and goals. This is an online crowd with slogans without grammar, and an idea without a definition. But when it is suppressed, it justifies its existence, and validates its legitimacy. Ideas are difficult to exterminate. They go underground, evolve, and survive, like cockroaches. The insect insurgency is a warning to those who hold that the end of history is near and that the future is an unwinding of the past. It tells us there are other futures, other possibilities, and other imaginations. (Source: DH)