'Delulu', 'Clock it': 'Cockroach' protest brings Gen Z slang to India's parliament
The language of India's young, perpetually-online population has finally reached one of its oldest institutions. Days after a youth-led protest movement forced the resignation of
The language of India's young, perpetually-online population has finally reached one of its oldest institutions. Days after a youth-led protest movement forced the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, India's parliament found itself speaking the protesters' language. "Delulu." "FOMO." "Clock it." Until recently, those words belonged to Instagram comment sections, group chats and meme pages. On Tuesday, they echoed across the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) instead. As MPs debated a new anti-exam leak bill, introduced by the government after weeks of protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), Gen Z slang flew freely through the chamber.
Shiv Sena party's Shrikant Shinde accused the opposition of being "MIA" - missing in action - gripped by "FOMO", or the fear of missing out, before eventually becoming "delulu", Gen Z shorthand for detached from reality. Congress leader Deepender Singh Hooda, meanwhile, invoked the viral protest catchphrase "waste-guna-huiya" - a deliberately nonsensical meme popularised during the demonstrations - to poke fun at the government. Government lawmakers embraced the internet's lexicon too. Bansuri Swaraj of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declared that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "clocked it" - Gen Z slang for getting something right or spotting the solution - by introducing the law.
Her fellow MP Tejasvi Surya accused the opposition of being "delulu" for criticising the bill after failing to pass similar reforms while in power. Across the aisle, opposition leader Supriya Sule briefly stepped outside the debate to marvel at the aburdity of the moment. "Why are we getting into the lingo of
Gen Z?" she asked. Moments later, she was using "delulu" herself. It was an unusual moment. A movement that had begun online, fuelled by memes and Instagram reels, had not only forced the resignation of a cabinet minister but now seemed to be reshaping the language of the parliamentary debate that followed.
The BriefWire