Insult, But Pyaar Se: How Gen Z Turned Humour Into Protest Power
· Free Press Journal
When the Chief Justice of India compared the country's unemployed youth to "cockroaches" in a hearing, he did not anticipate that millions would embrace the insect as a symbol of resilience. A satirical movement bearing its name shook the country. Since July 18th, New Delhi's Jantar Mantar became a masterclass in protest as performance art—angry, but never humourless; disruptive, but scrupulously self-organised. Within hours, it spread across over 150 cities.
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Rennie Gupta (18) who attended the protests for a week, explained the trend of humour. "Meme culture is huge for us. A lot of people printed out memes they'd seen on Instagram, and people, you know, they're familiar with these memes so they looked at it and they laughed."
How It All Started
The Cockroach Janta Party, founded by Abhijeet Dipke, turned the CJI's jibe into a direct parody of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's own name. Memes, short videos and Instagram carousels mocking the government's handling of national exam scandals—including the NEET 2026 paper leak—did more to mobilise India's Gen Z than any traditional speech has in recent collective memory. Young people staged mock political rallies for the cockroach mascot, complete with makeshift posters and crowds chanting absurd slogans, turning a generation's inside jokes into a cause. RJ Megha Mehra pointed to the "Vastaguna Huiya" trend — a mispronounced line from an old Vine video, "Can you give me a ho yeah?", repurposed into the local equivalent of "six-seven"-style viral nonsense.
This irreverence carried onto the streets. DU graduate Priyanshi Kashyap carried placards reading "This govt lies more than my ex" and "Ache din kab leak honge?", taking a jab at both the NEET leak and the BJP's old campaign slogan. She traced the instinct to her college days of street theatre, where using whatever was on hand was second nature. Even litter became material. One protester handed out Parle Melody candies, making sure wrappers were disposed of properly; another distributed Vicks for sore throats.
Violence against humour
The most striking act of restraint came on July 20, when the protests turned violent. As police began a baton charge at the Patel Chowk barricade, three young women broke from the crowd and walked to the front. "We decided to go to the very front and attempt to talk to the police," Gupta said. "We headed up and formed a human chain, interlocking arms." The police didn't negotiate though, tear gas came moments later, and one of the women was hurt in the crush that followed, a reminder that even carefully peaceful gestures met with state authorized force that day.
Music and solidarity became their own form of resistance. Students who'd travelled from across the country sang the national anthem to hold back the Rapid Action Force, and doused tear gas shells in pothole water. Others filmed themselves fleeing police and mocking their pursuers' fitness. They banged steel plates with spoons—the same gesture citizens performed during the 2020 pandemic, repurposed now as a demand for accountability. Viral reels like "Kuchupuchu tum kab aaoge" and fit checks staged in front of police lines made the point that fear wasn't on the menu. Many of the protesters keeping that spirit alive online, mostly women, are now being targeted and harassed as meme pages leak their identities. Urvashi Palandurkar, who filmed herself dancing to "I don't know what to do" at the protests, faced backlash on television—and responded with a video mocking the news channel for working an unrelated jab at Babur, the Mughal conqueror, into its headline of the report.
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Behind the noise was seen a generation of discipline and warmth. Cartons of water and food poured in from across India—until organisers asked supporters to send cleaning supplies instead for a day. Volunteers turned up with brooms and garbage bags; a Sikh service group ran shifts inspired by the ethic of seva; a private domestic-help company sent its own staff to keep the site clean. Shirsha Nath (27) attended the protests in Kolkata and noted "how safe it felt for women and girl, that's not something you can take for granted at a protest this size. And when a few troublemakers tried to pelt stones at the police lines, we stopped them first. We weren't going to let a handful of people turn a peaceful protest into something it wasn't”, she said with conviction.
Taken together, these moments reveal a movement fluent in two languages: the memes and reels that built its army online, and the anthem, seva and quiet bravery that gave it discipline on the ground. India's youth showed a dissent equal parts satire, solidarity and sanitation—perhaps the clearest signal yet of how this generation intends to be heard.