In May this year, the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Surya Kant, in a petition seeking contempt proceedings against the Delhi High Court for delaying the implementation of Supreme Court guidelines for the designation of senior advocates, made the above remarks.
The petition was about delays in professional credentials, and presiding over the Supreme Court bench, with Justice Joymalya Bagchi, CJ Kant also described the youth as “parasites of society” and sparked a national outcry.
The following day, May 16, 2026, he issued a clarification, stating that he had been misquoted and that his “criticism was strictly directed at individuals entering professions with fake or bogus degrees”. He stressed that he was not criticising the youth of India who were the “pillars of a developed India”.
CJP
That clarification, however, did not stop the controversy, leading to the creation of the satirical online movement "Cockroach Janta Party" (CJP) by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old Indian activist, political communications strategist and public relations graduate, who is pursuing a master’s degree at the Boston University in Massachusetts, in the US.
As a satirical online platform, CJP copied the mannerisms and faux pas of the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the government of India, in a humorous way.
They used social media to organise, make fun of the government, advocate and pressure to ensure that their voices were heard, using AI-generated visuals, sharp memes and internet culture.
They also organised protests across the country, demanding solutions to the “recurrent competitive exam paper leaks in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical education, and the Common University Entrance Test (CUET); chronic youth unemployment and lack of accountability in governance”.
By default, they wanted the resignation of the Indian Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
Within weeks of its creation, the CJP gained 22 million followers on Instagram alone, according to Al Jazeera reports, surpassing online followers of majort political parties of India.
Last Friday, finally, the robust Indian PM, Narendra Modi, capitulated to the demands of these “cockroach” youth and accepted the resignation of the Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.
Unemployed
In Ghana, the closest a group of young people have come to forming a protest group is the Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana, created in 2011; a non-partisan advocacy group that addresses the rising rate of graduate unemployment in the country and pressures government stakeholders to implement targeted job-creation and skills-development initiatives.
In July 2017, they rebranded into the Association of Graduates in Skills Development, focusing on skill-building programmes and entrepreneurship training for young graduates.
The organisation seems to be collaborating well with government agencies, such as, the National Youth Authority (NYA), which is under the Ministry of Youth Development and Empowerment.
Ghanaian youth are such a force to reckon with that they get whole chapters written about them in political party manifestoes. Some parties dedicate whole manifestos to the youth, committing to their welfare and development.
However, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) figures show that more than half of Ghanaian youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). In other words, these young people are idle, staring into thin air.
Government initiatives abound under the ministry, but is that enough? Are these targeted initiatives enough to ensure that these GSS figures read differently?
Lesson
The CJP is a lesson to those ruling: to work hard and do things differently to secure the futures of the youth.
If they do not do that and become comfortable in their offices, the youth will one day break the yoke of condescension over the necks, put on by those who rule, and nothing will stop them from ensuring they are heard, as was recently played out in India.
This is their age and time; the world is now lived virtually.
They can organise in the twinkling of an eye and ensure the toppling of bureaucracies not fit for youth development purposes.
It is disheartening that those with the responsibility of ensuring that our youth have hope fail, and later on castigate the same people they are supposed to help.
Political figures of youth in employment, training and other forms of occupation on government agnecies’ websites must be desegregated by the GSS, for the full figures of the nature of these employment and skills development efforts.
The must be deliberate effort to enhance the welfare of the youth in Ghana.
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