India, May 25 -- When the Chief Justice of India described unemployed youth as behaving "like cockroaches" - people who become RTI activists, media workers, or social media critics who "attack everyone" - it triggered outrage across legal and public circles. But beyond the outrage lies a startling revelation: a Chief Justice demonising the lived reality of millions of struggling Indians and abandoning all constitutional morality, demanding explanations that go beyond "the media misquoted me."

What makes the remark particularly revealing is its conflation. In a single breath, the unemployed, the RTI activist, and the media worker are bundled together as a class of irritants. Those who lack jobs, those who seek transparency, and those who...