India, Aug. 2 -- Every generation discovers its own language of dissent. India's Gen Z found theirs in memes, reels and satire. What began as an online response after the Chief Justice reportedly referred to unemployed young people as "cockroaches" soon evolved into the Cockroach Janta Party, a fictional political formation that attracted millions on social media and entered the national political imagination. Anonymous creators became organisers, Instagram pages became political communities and digital humour became political mobilisation. Yet the movement did not emerge in a vacuum.

Long before CJP captured the internet's imagination, the Congress, the Indian Youth Congress and the National Students' Union of India had been campaigning...