When the Chief Justice of India chooses to describe the unemployed youth of India as “cockroaches” and “parasites,” something has evidently gone profoundly wrong in our public discourse. Not only is the language offensive, it reveals a dangerous inversion of reality, directing public anger downward, at the powerless, while exculpating those who are actually responsible—those who possess authority, privilege and institutional power.
The response to the CJI’s remarks certainly indicates that this goes well beyond the tasteless comments of one individual in a position of constitutional authority. A satirical social media identity, the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), went viral, getting over 22 million Instagram followers in under a month. The id was blocked by a rattled Centre, only to resurface as the Cockroach is Back, even as efforts at suppression and evasion continue. Clearly, the comment—subsequently disowned by the CJI—had touched many a raw nerve.
The CJP phenomenon articulates the very real frustrations of Indian youth today, with employment opportunities rapidly shutting down. More than half of India’s population is under the age of 30, and is looking at a future shrouded in hopelessness. Even among the educated, the situation is desperate. In 2025, for instance, the Staff Selection Commission’s Multi-Tasking Staff recruitment—for jobs requiring only a Class X qualification—attracted 41 PhD holders, over 47,000 postgraduates, and nearly 5,80,000 graduates. More than 18,25,000 candidates applied for just 3,426 vacancies. Doctoral candidates and postgraduates were competing for peon, chowkidar and other low-level positions.
The same pattern repeats itself across the country. Railway recruitment examinations routinely attract crores of applicants for a few thousand positions. Recruitment of State police constables draws engineers, MBA graduates, and postgraduates. According to figures presented before the Lok Sabha, between 2014 and 2022 more than 220 million applications were submitted for Central government jobs, out of which only about 7,22,000 candidates were selected, a success rate of ~0.3 per cent.
The young man spending a decade or more preparing for examinations is not a parasite on society. He is the casualty of a market unable to absorb his aspirations—despite the ‘fastest growing economy in the world’. Every political leader, every institution and every public campaign has told him that education is the path to mobility. Then he discovers it was just a lie.
He is not the parasite feeding on the Republic; it is, in fact, those who control its institutions. Perhaps the worst of these are the criminals in politics. Election affidavits analysed by the Association for Democratic Reform indicate that over 45 per cent of MLAs across India and nearly 40 per cent of sitting MPs have declared criminal records, with 29 per cent of MLAs and 25 per cent of MPs charged with grievous offences. Individuals accused of violating the law sit in legislatures, making the law and running governments.
Then there is the bureaucracy, notorious for inefficiency, procedural delays, “rent-seeking”, and opacity, ranked as one of the worst in Asia.
We may also look at the extraordinary privileges and inefficiencies of the system the CJI presides over, with over 54 million cases pending in Indian courts, 93,000 of these before the Supreme Court. Cases routinely take decades to fruition, rewarding wrongdoers and bringing the ordinary citizen to ruin, even as poor undertrials spend years without bail.
The deepest problem is not corruption alone. It is impunity. When lawmakers accused of serious crimes sit in legislatures, when corrupt officials retire comfortably, when judicial delays become routine, and when accountability becomes selective, the state is hollowed out from within. Nations are not destroyed by their unemployed. They are weakened by institutions that cease to serve the public interest and begin serving themselves. India’s unemployed youth are not parasites on the Republic. They are among the principal victims of its failures.
Mass street protest led by the youth—the frustrated and angry Gen Z—have brought down governments in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal in our immediate neighbourhood. In New Delhi, there is a surface complacency, a conviction that ‘this can’t happen here’. An undercurrent of apprehension, nevertheless, exists—and is not entirely misplaced.
