Radiant roaches
EITHER his parents were prescient, or they couldn’t care less. The first thought that struck me when he introduced himself as Professor Roach was “Oh my! Poor chap must have been the butt of jokes all his life.” Turns out, the joke was on me, as the lowly — like the Indian supreme court chief justice is to some — loathsome, creepy-crawly has come into its own.
Half the world lives in fear of a nuclear holocaust resulting from a war; the rest is apprehensive about an accident, such as a leak at a nuclear facility similar to Chernobyl in Ukraine or Fukushima in Japan. Cockroaches are said to be sufficiently equipped to survive in a post-apocalyptic, radioactive environment. Their slow-dividing DNA makes them 200 times more resilient to radiation than humans. It is not for nothing that they outlived the mighty dinosaurs.
Fortunately, not of the nuclear type, but leaks led to the formation of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in India. Exam paper leaks seem to have become endemic in the subcontinent. From competitive civil services exams to entry tests for professional education institutions administered locally, to internationally governed O- /A-Level exams — paper leaks, maladministration and the subsequent cancellation of exams have become a bane for youth in the region, leading to mental distress — and suicide in some cases.
The miseries of retaking exams are not limited to preparing for them again and paying exam fees anew; the consequences include becoming overage for job-related exams, missing application deadlines for higher education admissions and scholarships, not meeting visa timelines and battling against a rising tide of competitors. Though we may appear like insects to the power elite, we breed like rabbits.
The CJP-led protest in Delhi had an added element — Bollywood.
Little would India’s chief justice have known that his flippant remark in an academic degrees’ case, likening petitioners to cockroaches, would unleash a wave of online satire that soon turned into a real-life political tsunami. Much has been made of the power of social media in the past instances, like the so-called Arab Spring and the Turks rallying to crush a military coup. Much was made of a similar popular wave, albeit in the pre-social media age: Tiananmen Square in China. The recent public anger against an unresponsive government in India culminated in a victory for the protesters when their chief tormentor finally asked the Union minister for education to resign.
Here, meanwhile, protest in AJK is likely to simmer until the fairness of the phased legislative assembly elections in the region matches “all other elections in Pakistan”, as stated by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in a recent interview.
While overconfident governments overplay their hand proscribing groups, blocking news and internet and resorting to brute force, the CJP-led protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi had an added element — Bollywood. Without judging anyone’s intent, not all band-wagoners were created equal.
Those jumping into the fray on the students’ side and those defending the BJP government included has-beens and wannabes in equal measure. Among the entire cast of characters, though, a most outstanding comic performance came from one Ms Ranaut, who looked into the camera and narrated how she and fellow legislators feared for their lives inside the Lok Sabha building while the New Delhi police valiantly stood between them and the violent mob outside. On our side, the award for the best comic cameo must go to a three-time former prime minister who wants his younger sibling to first win the elections for the party heading the ruling coalition at the centre and then nominate him as PM of AJK!
Protesters and their supporters may be routinely labelled as traitors and agents of the perennial enemy across the border. But, the late poets Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Habib Jalib, Bismil Azimabadi and Ram Prasad Bismil are not helping their narrative at all. Though all were born before Partition, they are equally revered on all post-Partition sides, including West Bengal and Bangladesh.
While different groups continue to be branded as ‘traitors’ and ‘foreign agents’, a rich tradition of resistance literature has carried the baton since we threw off the foreign yoke. In the mid-1980s, when I was at Jamia Karachi, a Baloch classmate told me that his father had written the famous verse “I am progeny of the Baloch”. Over time, I gradually lost touch with my Baloch classmates from Gwadar, Dasht, Turbat and Panjgur; I don’t know where they are now. I pray their families do.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2026
