‘Cockroach Janta Party’: Top Indian judge’s comment sparks satire, protest

Key points

• Controversial remark by Supreme Court’s chief justice triggers a political movement, with tens of thousands of mainly Gen Z users signing in.
• New Delhi, India – Abhijeet Dipke has barely slept in the last 72 hours, fielding waves of messages on social media after a casual joke took an unexpected turn.
• The 30-year-old, a recent graduate in public relations from Boston University in the United States, finds himself leading a sweeping satirical political movement – the so-called Cockroach Janta Party (“janta” is people in Hindi) – being joined online by thousands of people with each passing day.
• On Friday, India’s chief justice of the Supreme Court, Surya Kant, said during an open court hearing that “parasites” were attacking the system, and equated the youngsters to cockroaches “who don’t get any employment and don’t have any place in a profession”.
• “There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or...