As expected, since the massive youth uprising against the dictatorial regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi erupted on the streets of Delhi a few months ago, leaders of the Cockroach Janata Party would be jailed.
On October 10, Cockroach captains Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Das were arrested, rather kidnapped, by the Modi police, and their whereabouts are unknown.
The uncertainty surrounding their fate is deeply troubling.
In an abysmal scenario, we can feel that these young revolutionaries will face long incarceration, torture or even be finished in the jail cells.
EROSION OF DEMOCRACY
However, this brutal treatment of Cockroach stalwarts will not defeat the resolve and determination of the Indian youth out to stop the fast erosion of democracy in India.
If the regime believes that locking up these young leaders will silence the movement, it may be committing a monumental political miscalculation.
The government can lock up the cockroaches, but it cannot fumigate an entire generation’s anger.
Their crackdown will spark more unrest and could quickly develop into an inferno that can char Modi’s evil reign.
Atrocious regimes, sooner or later, always face their demise, even if it involves anarchy.
Youth power toppled authoritarian and tyrannical governments in India’s neighbouring countries.
It has happened in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and then Nepal.
THE “VOTE-CHOR” LEADERSHIP OF MODI-SHAH
Now the same juggernaut is steadily and firmly rolling across the soil of a nation ruled by the “vote chore” leadership under Narendra Modi and his sidekick, Home Minister Amit Shah.
The hurricane rattling the Delhi throne is the cockroaches.
These are the youth, the students, the Gen Z and the frustrated, dismayed and angry population of India today.
They were promised the “Achche Din”, good days, a bright future by rulers who came from the soil of Gandhi.
The irony is striking.
The land of Mahatma Gandhi, who gave the world Satyagraha, the moral force of peaceful resistance, is witnessing a confrontation between young protesters demanding accountability and a political establishment accused of suppressing dissent.
The most powerful weapon available to peaceful demonstrators is not violence but persistence, solidarity and the courage to speak truth to power.
The peaceful weapon used in the present massive protests, which have mobilized the entire nation from east to west and north to south, will slash the brutality of the anti-Gandhi establishment.
Post-independence India is now seeking its second independence from the dictatorial raj under the Bharatiya Janata Party of Modi-Shah, supported by their “Andh Bhakats”, the blind followers, and the shameless “Godi Media.”
Modi has failed the nation, particularly its youth, leaving them without jobs and a future.
WEAPONIZATION OF GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS
However, the larger concern is democracy itself.
The Modi rule has immensely destroyed every fabric of India’s democracy.
After more than a decade of his leadership, India faces deepening unemployment and shrinking democratic space.
Not only that, since 2014, as the nation’s prime minister, he has created deep divisions between Hindus and minorities, hatred against Muslims, Christians and the low-caste Dalit communities.
Modi has corrupted every governing body, its bureaucracy, the judiciary, the cinema, cultural institutions, Indian history, the armed forces, the police, and the media.
He did immense damage to the Opposition, the backbone of the democratic system, with forced or lucrative “buying” traps into the BJP cage.
The autocratic and brutal rule of Modi imprisoned hundreds of political opponents, scores of activists, lawyers, scholars, artists and dissenters.
The case of Umar Khalid, who has been imprisoned since 2020 without a completed trial, has become a prominent symbol of these concerns.
MOCKERY OF DEMOCRATIC NORMS
Modi has made a mockery of Parliament and shredded democratic norms and ethos.
This regime has shamelessly weaponized its investigative machinery, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax (IT) Department, which systematically attempts to dismantle the political opposition.
When formal institutions collapse, and power acts with total impunity, must a nation wait for the scheduled calendar of a 2029 general election to remove such a regime from power?
One such institution is the Election Commission, corrupted by its chief, Gyanesh Kumar, the target of the present stir for his resignation.
Precisely, this is where the “Cockroaches” matter.
TERRORISM OF MODI’S RAJ
The Cockroach leaders have given a frustrated generation something more powerful than a slogan: a name, a voice and a shared identity.
Meanwhile, Modi’s “Achche Din” are down the drain, from which the cockroaches are multiplying and emerging.
Cockroaches are notoriously difficult to eliminate.
Their sheer numbers, along with the combined opposition’s support, will bring down the BJP-Modi-Shah curtain, as it did in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
The tyrannical powers can imprison the cockroach leaders and thousands of others actively involved, but they cannot apprehend the spirit and resolve to free India from the terrorism of the Modi Raj.
-Promod Puri
promodpuri.com
