Democracy Cannot Survive if It Stops Listening

Published on July 16, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There are moments in the life of a nation when politics must step aside and humanity must take over.

This is one of those moments.

For more than two weeks, Sonam Wangchuk—an engineer, education reformer and one of India’s most respected public intellectuals—has been on an indefinite hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. His fast is in solidarity with students demanding accountability after repeated examination failures, including the NEET-UG paper leak controversy and wider concerns over the integrity of India’s examination system. Among the demands being raised are the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, comprehensive examination reforms, and accountability for failures that have affected millions of students and, according to the protest movement, contributed to immense psychological distress for many young people. (Reuters)

As I write this, reports indicate that Wangchuk has lost significant weight during his fast, prompting medical concern and even intervention from the Delhi High Court, which has directed authorities to monitor his health and act if medically necessary. Yet the larger political response remains one of silence rather than engagement. (Reuters)

Whether one agrees with his demands or not is almost beside the point.

What matters is that in a democracy, peaceful protest deserves to be heard.

Not necessarily accepted.

Not necessarily agreed with.

But heard.

This Is Bigger Than Left or Right

One of the saddest developments of our times is that every issue is immediately forced into a political box.

If you speak, you are labelled.

If you question, you are branded.

If you protest, you are presumed to belong to one camp or another.

But democracy is not meant to work that way.

You can be right-wing.

You can be left-wing.

You can be a centrist.

Or you may reject political labels altogether.

Yet if citizens undertake a peaceful democratic protest, particularly one involving a hunger strike, the government of the day has a constitutional and moral responsibility to engage with them.

Engagement is not surrender.

Dialogue is not weakness.

Listening is not defeat.

It is democracy functioning exactly as it should.

We Have Seen This Before

Many people have forgotten what happened during Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement.

Whether one agreed with every demand or not, the government led by Dr Manmohan Singh did not pretend the protest did not exist.

There were discussions.

There were negotiations.

There was communication.

The administration recognised that when a citizen undertakes an indefinite fast, particularly on an issue that resonates with millions, silence is not an acceptable response.

The government engaged because democratic governments are expected to engage.

Today, many observers—including political leaders from across the spectrum—have drawn attention to what they see as a stark contrast between that approach and the response to Sonam Wangchuk’s ongoing hunger strike. (The Times of India)

The comparison is not about glorifying one government or demonising another.

It is about asking whether democratic norms should remain consistent regardless of who occupies power.

Students Deserve Better

Every examination paper leak is more than an administrative failure.

It is a betrayal.

Students invest years of their lives preparing for competitive examinations.

Families sacrifice financially.

Young people postpone careers, relationships and dreams.

When examinations are compromised, it is not merely a question paper that leaks.

Faith leaks.

Trust leaks.

Hope leaks.

This is why so many young Indians have found themselves standing beside Wangchuk.

Not because they agree on every political issue.

But because they believe accountability matters. (AP News)

My Voice, Too

Today I wanted to attend the CJB protest at Azad Maidan.

Life had other plans.

There was a death in the family.

I attended a funeral instead.

Sometimes grief rearranges your priorities before you have a chance to make your own choices.

But not being physically present does not mean remaining silent.

So I am writing.

Because expression matters.

Silence helps nobody.

I Remember the Delta Wave

Perhaps this affects me more deeply because I remember another time when ordinary people screamed into the void.

During the Delta wave of COVID-19, I lost my aunt.

I nearly died.

My sister nearly died.

Hospitals were overwhelmed.

Families begged for help.

People cried out in desperation.

Many of us felt unheard.

Many of us felt invisible.

Those memories never truly leave you.

They remind you that institutions exist for people—not the other way around.

When citizens cry out, the system must listen.

If it doesn’t, it slowly loses not merely efficiency but legitimacy.

The Cost of Refusing to Listen

History teaches us that democracies are not destroyed overnight.

They weaken gradually.

One ignored protest.

One dismissed concern.

One silenced voice at a time.

The tragedy is not disagreement.

Disagreement is healthy.

The tragedy is indifference.

When governments stop responding to peaceful dissent, citizens begin to wonder whether peaceful methods still have meaning.

That is a dangerous place for any democracy to find itself.

My Hope

I am not asking everyone to agree with Sonam Wangchuk.

I am asking that we defend something even more important.

The right of peaceful protest to receive a meaningful response.

That principle should not depend upon who is protesting.

Nor should it depend upon who is in power.

Governments change.

Democracy must endure.

If we fail those who peacefully seek accountability today, tomorrow there may be nobody left willing to believe that peaceful democratic action can still make a difference.

And that would be a loss far greater than any political victory.

Democracy does not die because people disagree.

It dies when those in power stop listening.

Three Days Apart

Published on May 31, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

A partner going away for three days should, on paper, seem unremarkable.

People travel for work every day. They attend conferences, visit clients, take flights, stay in hotels, and return home. It is an ordinary part of adult life.

Yet for many people, such situations do not feel ordinary at all.

Three days can seem insignificant. A long weekend. A brief work commitment. Something that should barely register in a healthy relationship.

But relationships are not built on calendars.

They are built on histories.

And personal history often teaches that distance is never just distance.

For some, early experiences of love and loss create lasting associations between separation and heartbreak. Distance becomes synonymous with loss. Separation becomes the first chapter of every ending.

As a result, daily contact can become deeply important. Even a brief meeting, a touch, a glance, or a few words may provide reassurance.

Not because of possessiveness.

Because of fear.

Fear that love might disappear in the spaces between meetings.

Fear that absence might become indifference.

Fear that someone loved might simply drift away.

When relationships are built around extraordinary consistency, daily presence can begin to feel less like a habit and more like a law of nature.

Yet relationships evolve.

Sometimes intimacy that once felt effortless begins to fade. In some cases, betrayal follows. While infidelity can be deeply painful, what often proves even more unsettling is the gradual drifting away that precedes it—the sense that something precious has been slipping away long before it is recognised.

Such moments force difficult choices.

A relationship may end.

Or it may transform into something different.

For some couples, that transformation involves opening the relationship. For others, it takes a different form. Whatever the path, major changes often reshape not only the relationship itself but also future connections and expectations.

Many people who have experienced multiple relationships discover recurring themes. A desire for shared life. A need for presence. The comfort of knowing that someone loved will return home at the end of the day.

For queer people, these challenges can be complicated by family dynamics and social realities. A partner may be welcomed into one household while the same acceptance is not possible in another. There can be limits, boundaries, and compromises that heterosexual couples rarely need to consider.

When a relationship eventually includes living together, daily companionship can feel profoundly reassuring. Shared routines replace negotiated schedules. Presence becomes woven into everyday life.

Over time, life settles into a rhythm.

And perhaps that is why a sudden work trip can feel larger than it should.

Because it is not merely three days.

It is a reminder that life is changing once again.

Modern relationships are often shaped by work. New jobs bring rotating shifts, exhaustion, ambition, opportunities, and responsibilities. Couples may still share a home while seeing less of each other than ever before.

They sleep at different times.

They wake at different times.

They pass one another in hallways like travellers changing trains.

The relationship remains, but its shape changes.

Trust can further complicate these transitions. Even relatively small breaches of honesty can leave lasting cracks.

Trust is a fragile thing.

Once damaged, even slightly, ordinary events begin to feel threatening.

A work trip becomes more than a work trip.

A delayed message becomes more than a delayed message.

Silence becomes louder than it should be.

The mind begins supplying stories where certainty is absent.

When physical intimacy has also diminished, fears that might otherwise remain quiet often find a voice.

Questions emerge.

Has desire disappeared?

Has attraction changed?

Will distance create opportunities for someone else to occupy a place that once felt secure?

The mind starts constructing endings before anything has actually ended.

There is another layer to this dynamic.

Many long-term relationships eventually adapt to periods of separation. Partners travel independently. They pursue individual interests. They spend time apart while maintaining a strong emotional bond.

The longing may remain.

The missing may remain.

But distance becomes part of the relationship’s reality.

Yet accepting distance in one relationship does not necessarily make it easier in another.

Different relationships are built on different foundations. Some are rooted in independence. Others are rooted in shared space and daily presence. The loss feels more immediate when the closeness has been more immediate.

Perhaps what many people fear most is not the trip itself.

It is the possibility that it represents a broader shift.

A future in which work becomes the organising principle of life and love must fit itself around whatever remains.

The arguments in favour of work are easy to understand.

Work matters.

Financial stability matters.

Career growth matters.

People should not be shamed for ambition.

Yet many people live according to a different philosophy.

They do not look at a larger salary and see the meaning of life.

They look elsewhere.

At shared meals.

At conversations.

At affection.

At loyalty.

At the people who make a house feel like a home.

This difference in priorities can create tension.

Not because either perspective is wrong.

But because they speak different emotional languages.

One person may feel energised by achievement and advancement.

Another may feel most fulfilled by connection and presence.

Both desires are real.

Neither cancels the other out.

The challenge is that love often asks people with different emotional priorities to build a life together.

And that can be difficult.

Perhaps three days apart will prove to be nothing at all.

Perhaps there will be longing.

Perhaps there will be relief when the journey ends.

Perhaps life will resume its familiar rhythm.

Or perhaps such moments force a confrontation with something larger.

That love cannot be measured by proximity alone.

That seeing someone every day is not a guarantee they will never drift away.

That distance is not always abandonment.

And that the heart often reacts not only to what is happening now, but to everything that has happened before.

Maybe that is what these journeys are really about.

Not the destination.

Not the work.

Not even the three days.

They reveal the choice that exists at the centre of every meaningful relationship.

Fear urges us to treat uncertainty as evidence that love is already slipping away.

Faith asks something harder.

To accept that no amount of closeness can eliminate vulnerability, and no amount of vigilance can guarantee permanence.

Love has never been the absence of risk.

Love is the decision to remain open despite it.

So when someone we love walks out the door for three days, the real question is not whether they will leave.

It is whether we will allow fear to write the story before it has been lived.

The deepest act of trust is not believing that loss is impossible.

It is believing that love is strong enough to deserve our faith until proven otherwise.

And sometimes, that faith is as simple—and as profound—as trusting that the person we love will choose, once again, to come home.

Cockroach Janata Party

Published on May 21, 2026 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The Cockroaches Have Spoken

How an insult from the Supreme Court birthed India’s strangest youth movement

India wakes up every few months to a new outrage. A statement. A slogan. A clip ripped out of context. A politician saying the quiet part aloud. Social media erupts, hashtags trend for forty-eight hours, television panels scream at each other, and the nation moves on.

But this time, something unusual happened.

The insult refused to remain an insult.

It evolved.

What began as a controversial courtroom observation by Chief Justice Surya Kant — interpreted by many as likening unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites” — has now transformed into one of the most bizarre, hilarious, politically charged, and culturally revealing online movements India has seen in years. (Reuters)

The result?

The birth of the “Cockroach Janta Party” — a satirical digital political movement that exploded almost overnight across Instagram, X, and meme culture, attracting millions of followers within days. (AP News)

At the time of writing this, the Instagram account has crossed an astonishing 16 million followers, turning what may have begun as internet satire into something far more potent: collective rage disguised as humour.

The Remark That Sparked It

During a Supreme Court hearing, comments attributed to Chief Justice Surya Kant were widely circulated online as describing unemployed youth in terms associated with “cockroaches”. The backlash was immediate and visceral. (Business Today)

Soon after the controversy exploded, the Chief Justice issued a clarification, stating that his remarks had been misquoted and that he was referring specifically to people entering professions through fake or bogus degrees — not India’s youth at large. He also expressed pride in the younger generation of the country. (Reuters)

But by then, the internet had already done what the internet does best:

It had weaponised the insult.

From Slur to Symbol

There is something deeply fascinating about marginalised or insulted groups reclaiming language meant to demean them.

Queer people reclaimed “queer.”
Dalit writers reclaimed slurs once thrown at them.
Memes themselves are often acts of reclamation.

And now, unemployed, anxious, digitally exhausted Indian youth reclaimed the cockroach.

Not merely as a joke — but as identity.

The symbolism was unexpectedly powerful.

Cockroaches survive.
Cockroaches adapt.
Cockroaches outlive systems.
Cockroaches are impossible to eradicate.

Almost instantly, “Main Bhi Cockroach” began appearing online. AI-generated posters emerged. Satirical manifestos circulated. Young Indians dressed as cockroaches in protest videos. Meme pages turned into political commentary overnight. (Maktoob)

Enter Abhijeet Dipke

The movement was initiated by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old media strategist and former political social-media worker, who launched the Cockroach Janta Party as a satirical response to the controversy. (Republic World)

Its branding was brilliant in the way only internet-native politics can be brilliant: self-aware, ironic, absurd, and emotionally accurate.

The party described itself as:

“a political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth.”

Its tongue-in-cheek membership criteria included:

being unemployed “by force, choice, or principle”
being chronically online
being emotionally exhausted by the system
mastering the art of professional online ranting

Behind the humour lay something unmistakably real. (Republic World)

Why This Went Viral

People will dismiss the Cockroach Janta Party as meme politics.

That is precisely why they misunderstand it.

Humour is often the final language available to a generation that feels unheard.

India today has one of the youngest populations in the world, but also one struggling with unemployment, inflation, educational pressure, burnout, collapsing work-life balance, and an increasingly performative digital culture. (Reuters)

The Cockroach Janta Party did not become viral merely because it was funny.

It became viral because it converted humiliation into participation.

And participation into community.

For years, Indian youth have been told they are lazy, distracted, entitled, oversensitive, unemployed, overeducated, underqualified, politically apathetic, and perpetually online.

The Cockroach Janta Party answered:

“Yes. And?”

The Devdutt Pattanaik Connection

Interestingly, the metaphor itself had appeared earlier in cultural and intellectual commentary by Devdutt Pattanaik, who has often explored how language, symbolism, and mythological metaphors shape public imagination. In some of his online commentary, Pattanaik had also used the term “cockroaches” to describe trolls — people who attack others senselessly and anonymously online.

But when similar imagery emerged from the judiciary — especially in relation to unemployment and youth frustration — it acquired an entirely different moral and political weight.

A mythological metaphor in literature becomes symbolism.

The same metaphor from a constitutional authority becomes power speaking downward.

That difference matters.

The State Responds

As the movement continued growing, the reactions became increasingly surreal.

Reports emerged that the movement’s X account had been withheld in India. Its founder also alleged hacking attempts against the Instagram page. (The Times of India)

Naturally, this only intensified public curiosity.

Nothing accelerates internet mythology faster than attempted suppression.