The walk from Jantar Mantar to Connaught Place in central New Delhi on Saturday evening provided an unusual scene for the key corridor of power in the world’s largest democracy.
Satirical posters mocking India’s legislature, executive and judiciary were pasted on the walls, and sometimes “obscene” graffiti mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sprayed on the sidewalks.
These were all remnants of the thousands of young “Cockroach” movement protesters who took to the streets just hours before India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.
Celebrating Pradhan’s resignation, a main protest demand, some protesters were heard telling security officials to “see you at the next protest”, coming just days after several people were injured in clashes with baton-wielding police who fired tear gas into the crowd.
Instagram was also filled with photos from cities across India of young people dancing in front of police officers to the line “Everyone knows I’m a good girl, officer” from Lana Del Rey’s song “Playing Dangerous”.
Others held posters that read: “Cuff me, daddy” and some were seen climbing over police barricades.
India’s Gen Z inspires government change
This movement, known as the Cockroach Janata Party movement (CJP), began after an Indian minister publicly referred to unemployed youth as “cockroaches” in a derogatory comment. The name is also a play on Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Since a scandal involving a highly competitive university entrance exam broke in May, Gen Z protests have spread across India, challenging the political establishment with Instagram reels, viral trends, satirical jingles and posters.
“In our generation, humor has become a defense mechanism against pain, frustration and helplessness. This entire protest is driven by humor, driven by Instagram and social media,” Karan Azad, a 24-year-old law student, told DW at the Jantar Mantar protest site in New Delhi.
Another protester held a placard addressed to Modi, which read in translated Hindi: “Friend, you can’t even make tea,” alluding to Modi’s childhood days as a tea seller.
“I had to do my job. I’m young. If we don’t stand up for ourselves, no one will, we have to fight this battle ourselves,” he told DW without revealing his name.
A protester named Tushar, 24, held a printout of Modi depicted as an angel with the words, “I am an angel, don’t touch me.”
He said that he was not “afraid of a reaction” from the authorities, but rather he would have had “FOMO (fear of missing out)” if he had not attended the protests.
Ridhima, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, said, “If not us then who? Those who are not here, it just shows their cowardice and I am talking about those who are sitting on their chairs in positions of power.”
What caused the cockroach movement?
Content creator Arun Singh, known by his social media handle “The Jhumru”, said the meme culture kept the satire and humor fresh throughout the protests.
“It’s the meme culture that has fostered this kind of sentiment. As millennials, we’ve developed the language of memes by adopting Internet culture, but this younger generation was born with memes. That’s how they communicate,” he told DW.
Singh said the young protesters were described as “fearless”.
“They’re not afraid of anyone, they’re not worried about how they’re viewed and that’s what happens when you’re really young. That’s what drives their tenacity,” he said.
Mumbai-based comedian Aditi Mittal believes the fearlessness of Gen Z protesters comes from their living in a “hyper visual world”.
“They all have at least 500 followers. If anything goes up on their stories, it won’t be ignored,” he told DW.
Mittal also thinks that India’s Gen Z has inherited “total opposition”.
“The generation before us wanted better infrastructure. We, the millennial generation, aspired to a more equal world, our time was different in terms of the mistreatment of Muslims. We grew up in that and were constantly burnt with gas… It’s not so bad, it’s not happening. We were also extremely tolerant,” he told DW.
Mittal said, “Gen Z has inherited the right opposition. Education transcends religion and secularism, this may especially resonate for a country like ours, where education has been a means of escape from social class or financial status.”
Mittal also points out the difference between today and the Citizenship Act (CAA) protests of 2019, which was one of the last major protests that challenged the Modi government and focused on discrimination against Muslims.
“Anti-CAA protests continuously demand perfection of protestors. Treat them well.” [authorities] Even when they beat you or had a gun on you, the same language was spoken to us. But these little kids don’t stand around and wait. “They’re not putting pressure on themselves to be perfect,” he said.
attract attention with political humor
Satire is nothing new in Indian politics. For example, caricatures were used as a means of channeling anti-colonial anger in Bengal. Political cartoonists such as Abu Abraham and RK Laxman challenged the censorship imposed after former Prime Minister and Congress leader Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency, which suspended civil liberties between 1975 and 1977.
“Satire is a great way to get your point across. It’s like eating a healthy meal, but cooked in an interesting way that can be consumed. Humor has a better reach when it comes to content. It attracts more attention,” content creator Singh told DW.
Academic and author Ananya Vajpayee said this sense of humor created empathy with the students and kept the mood light and non-threatening.
“These were young boys and girls who looked small, were not strong, were not dangerous, sometimes unable to speak, who had drawn or written something strange on a piece of paper. The violent action immediately backfired because these were two equal forces facing each other,” he told DW.
India’s Gen-Z defeated ‘Brand Modi’
Modi is seen as an image-conscious politician and his 12 years at the seat of power in India have been defined by a carefully crafted image that relies heavily on impression management and public relations.
Many protesters directly mocked Modi and challenged his brand.
“The whole atmosphere has become so tense since the anti-CAA protests were called off. People have been punished for expressing any kind of criticism or dissent, and here you have thousands of students from every corner of the country crawling like cockroaches out of wood and making life hell for the Modi establishment,” Vajpayee told DW.
Vajpayee says the anger against Modi has probably caused “embarrassment” for the prime minister.
He said, “What these children are saying is like a punch in the stomach for Modi, if he is able to see all this. It is possible that people around him are keeping him away from this but the opposition sees it. The rest of the country on social media sees it.”
Edited by: Wesley Rahn