00:00India's Gen Z has been losing its patience for quite some time, but a large section of it became
00:04absolutely furious when the country's chief justice recently compared young people to
00:09cockroaches who don't get any employment and just attack people. Although the judge quickly
00:14walked back his comments and said he was misquoted, the damage was done and India's
00:18Cockroach Janata Party was born. What began as an AI-generated internet meme has become a viral
00:24political movement almost overnight. The party has now amassed 22 million followers on Instagram,
00:31more than double the numbers for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bhartiya Janata Party or
00:36the BJP. The young people behind the cause have their reasons to be upset, shrinking returns on
00:42college education, the disappearance of good jobs and fading hopes of a middle-class life. And this
00:48was all a problem even before the arrival of AI. The self-described voice of the lazy and unemployed
00:53has already called for a lot of changes. But the hot button issue for the youth right now
00:58is their high school exam. Its importance can't be overstated. These tests determine what pathway
01:04students can explore in college and ultimately what jobs they will get. But the exam's integrity has
01:10been put under severe doubt by an ill-prepared switch to digitization. The bungled marking of
01:16scanned answer sheets has put the fate of millions of future college goers at risk. On Saturday,
01:21the cockroach party organized a protest rally in New Delhi and demanded the resignation of the
01:26education minister. The Modi government isn't taking this new challenge lightly. The BJP has
01:30steadily extended its control on society by polarizing the majority Hindu community against minority
01:36Muslims. And the opposition has become largely irrelevant in electoral contests that it says are
01:42neither free nor fair. While the government and the election commission dispute those claims,
01:47India is beginning to resemble a single-party state with weak checks on executive authority
01:52and little tolerance for expressive dissent. But even an unassailable hold of power can come unstuck
01:57if a grassroots protest is allowed to snowball. And the cockroach party's timing is particularly
02:02dangerous. The crisis in the Middle East is threatening India's energy, security,
02:06trade and investment. It remains to be seen if protests by the youth escalate or die down.
02:11For now though, the roach slur seems to have ignited their anger, not as a metaphor for running away
02:16from problems, but as a symbol of survival in the crevices of corruption and apathy.
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