New Delhi’s traditional newsrooms hardly have a clue about the typhoon currently ripping through Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar or the countless other cities across the country. They’re staring at the rise of the Cockroach Janata Party and dismissing it as “Gen-Z noise” or a social media fever. That’s a massive blunder. Walk into any cafe in Sambhajinagar, listen to the youth deliberating over their cappuccinos, and the failure of our political elite and analysts is glaring. We’re witnessing the most significant structural pivot in Indian politics since 1991. This isn’t just a digital insurgency; it’s a key moment in Indian politics. We’ve ditched the 18th-century mass mobilisation for the era of algorithmic sovereignty.
Look at the numbers. As of 22 May 2026, the CJP has officially overtaken the BJP on Instagram, with over 20 million followers and counting. The BJP’s digital machinery still operates on the old doctrine of “message redundancy.” As journalist Swati Chaturvedi writes in her book, I am a Troll, it is characterised by brute force, massive budgets, and a top-down broadcast model that clogs your feed. The CJP, with barely any posts, have traded the old-school physical Karyakarta for the attention capital.
In the 20th century, the exercise of power was mainly about the number of bodies that could take to the street. Today, it’s about hijacking collective screen time. The CJP has proven that attention is volatile as it moves across platforms instantly. Traditional “IT cells” can’t counter it, as there’s no headquarters to raid and no specific leadership to be bought off. It’s a ghost party—a decentralised, autonomous organisation that is everywhere and nowhere.
A symbol of survival
The spark that lit the fire was an ignorant statement by Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant. When he likened vocal, unemployed youth to “cockroaches”, he did more than offend them. He bestowed them with a perfect identity marker. Just as deplorables, the term used by Hilary Clinton to describe Trump supporters, became a rallying cry in the US during the 2016 presidential election, the cockroach has become a symbol of survival in India.
By embracing the insect, the youth are saying that they are essentially “anti-fragile,” as scholar Nassim Taleb would put it. Anti-fragile refers to people or systems that not only withstand chaos, stressful discourses, vulnerability but actually grow stronger and improve because of them.
The structures of the Congress or the BJP rely on centralised command and patronage networks. The CJP gains strength from disorder, it builds outside the framework. By withholding its X account, the government showed it doesn’t understand digital architecture.
It follows a simple rule of biology, if a colony is sprayed with poison and some individuals survive, the survivors develop genetic resistance. This is what we are currently witnessing. By trying to censor these “cockroaches”, the state has only accelerated their evolutionary fitness.
Also read: Cockroach Janta Party Dalit founder Abhijeet Dipke faces caste attacks on X
Digital insurgency
One can draw lessons from the Five-Star Movement in Italy. Initially started in 2005 as a blog by comedian Beppe Grillo, it gradually became the largest party in Parliament in 2018.
Grillo didn’t have men on the ground; he simply took advantage of a viral explosion that bypassed the Italian elite.
The CJP is India’s version, but with a distinct Jugaad factor. It allows a kid in Sambhajinagar to be a stakeholder in a national movement without ever attending a traditional rally. In Maharashtra, where the political scenario is a depressing game of cards being played between ageing dynasties and opportunistic alliances, the CJP is a total reboot. The youth aren’t looking for a new leader to worship; they want a new political architecture to inhabit.
Crucially, the CJP is the first movement to tackle sociologist Robert Michels’ “Iron Law of Oligarchy.” Michels famously argued that all democratic organisations eventually turn into feudal fiefdoms. But the CJP isn’t an organisation—it’s a protocol. Anyone can use the logo. Anyone can create the content. By remaining headless and digital-first, it sidesteps the corruption that has swallowed every other “alternative” movement in our history.
This shift has happened with lightning speed. The CJP is India’s first political unicorn, built on viral branding rather than decades of grassroots slog. It doesn’t treat the voter as a subject, but as a user to be engaged.
The government’s panic is palpable. They are trained to fight tangible enemies—people they can arrest or buy. But how do you put an algorithm behind bars? How do you bribe a sentiment that exists across a million screens? The digital insurgency has arrived, and it’s playing by rules the elite haven’t even read yet.
While the mainstream media is still trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing, a typhoon has already hit. The CJP has proved you don’t need a party headquarters if you own the screen. The insects aren’t just in the room; they’ve rewritten the rules of the house. And they are here to stay.
Nikhil Sanjay-Rekha Adsule is an expert in Constitutional Law and Senior Research Scholar at IIT Delhi. He tweets @Surajya_Raje_. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)