Of cockroaches, Gen Z and political kitchens

The most dreaded and hated insect in the kitchen, cockroach, is in the news, ironically in the political ballroom. In fact, cockroaches are environmental marvels and ecological scavengers. They eat waste and are friendly decomposers. They have a great role to play in cleaning the environment. Around 99 per cent of cockroaches live in forests, fields and wetlands, while a mere one per cent live in our kitchen areas. Cockroaches in the kitchen, however, are not good for human health as they leave small droppings and carry disease.

If you want to know more about cockroaches, there are American cockroaches (periplaneta americana) and German cockroaches (blatella germanica). The American ones are found outdoors, in basements and in garages, while the German ones are found in kitchens, garbage bins and under the sink!

Cockroaches have a sense of quorum and if they find that they are sufficient in numbers, they take collective decisions and if any cockroach is separated from the flock, it suffers psychologically and physically from the isolation syndrome.

Now that cockroaches have ‘come straight into the political domain’, by way of a political party, even in a satirical sense, the support or opposition to cockroaches is strictly as per one’s political leanings or affiliations and not for hygienic or environmental reasons.

There was almost an overnight spurt in the online popularity of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), within a few days of its creation by a man, who was a former of AAP staying in the United States. It created a sense of ‘I told you so’ in the minds of anarchists and a fear of losing ground in the minds of those belonging to the established order, both ruling and opposition parties included.

There appeared arguments that the rise in popularity is not organic and was the result of a hyped-up use of bots and astro-surfing by NRIs. On the contrary, there are assertions that the anger that is highlighted by the online account of CJP is in the hearts of the youth in India and that if it is not addressed immediately and satisfactorily it may result in agitations aimed at bringing down the government of the day.

It is now very clear in social media circles that such a sudden virality would not happen organically, though the idea had some organic roots. It is now clear that the external digital insurgency was manipulated through inorganic inflation. Surely, the political and agitating platforms are no longer physical gatherings of thousands of people but are virtual platforms in terms of likes or followers in millions.

The topic in social media becomes the talk of the town. Pampered and cultivated, such virtual inflation can also trigger physical agitations as one saw in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The question is what enables such a virtual congregation to become a sustainable organisation of social activity.

India had seen such organised social activity during the freedom struggle championed by the Congress party under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership. Later Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) led a mass movement against the then Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency. ‘India against corruption’ (IAC) started by Anna Hazare and hijacked by Arvind Kejriwal was another such social movement. The freedom struggle was hijacked by Nehru and others to form the government against the wishes of Gandhi to disband the party and to start afresh. The JP movement could not last long with Indira Gandhi bouncing back to power within two years. Disappointment was writ large on Hazare’s face when the IAC became a political party in the name of AAP.

In all these cases it was the expectation and taste of political power that made the politically savvy to encash the mood of the times and to, subsequently, ride to power.

The political system in India is such that once somebody comes to power, the distance between him and his voters becomes too wide. The poor voter helplessly keeps watching the rising prosperity of the elected while he himself remains grounded to the reality of poverty, reality of unemployment and reality of social oppression. Many social scientists say that the popularity of CJP may not be organic, but the fundamental reason for the anger of so-called Gen Z is real and organic. Anger against what? In any developing society, it is unnatural if the youth are not angry and are conformists. Anxiety about the future creates anger against society. This mindset leads to agitation, which, in due course, leads to articulation of aspirations by way of organisation, which shall give way for action. It is doubtful if the CJP will follow the trajectory.

Let us address the anxiety and anger among the youth of the country. The anger is against the widening social and economic disparities. The anger is against unemployment, particularly a lack of government jobs. The anger is against the political class and increasing power distance. The lack of democracy and top-down approach in internal management of political parties, the undue entitlement felt by the newly elected leadership are the causes of desperate anger among the youth.

What is good for the nation may not be good for the ruling party in the ensuing elections. The Centre backtracking on farm laws and on caste census, are cases in point. Those who will not compromise are hailed as statesmen and those who compromise will be political leaders!

The triggers:

The unresponsive ruling government which pioneered the art of winning elections but not enough in the art of inclusive growth, economic meltdown due to West Asia crisis and the perceived communal hatred of the religious minorities. How many of these can be separated to be exclusively happening in India?

The challenge is how to articulate the Gen Z aspirations, real and romantic, into workable practical achievements other than the demand for removal of one minister or bringing down the government.

Is it that all the ruling and opposition parties agree that they failed in political articulation of the anxieties and anger of Gen Z? Can the opposition parties, who are happy about the discomfort of the ruling party, say that they would join the agitators till the government is brought down and then they go their own ways? Or they would join the new order and articulate how that order is going to be?

It takes a long time to comprehend the torturous distance between agitation and effective governance as experienced by Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) and AAP. Youth aspirations are always disruptive in the short run, and it takes hard work to sustain and make them effective in the long run.

If we look at the recent Gen Z-inspired movements in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, there is yet no dramatic or phenomenal change in the pattern of governance of those countries except that they brought down ruling governments which they termed as being despotic. India has the tremendous advantage of aspirational youth power and if the existing political and social organisations fail to articulate their aspirations into actionable government initiatives, we will be squandering away all the demographic advantage the country is presently bestowed with.

Cockroaches are not just penetrating ruling party basements and garages but also enter political kitchens.

(The writer is a retired Additional Transport Commissioner, Government of AP)