India, June 20 -- The historic city of Amritsar, globally revered for the serene waters of the Golden Temple, became the stage for an entirely different kind of gathering this weekend. Thousands of young people, primarily Gen Z and young millennials, converged near the technical institutes and public squares of the city. They did not carry the traditional, heavy flags of established political blocks. Instead, they held up crude, cardboard cutouts of household pests and signs bearing a single, provocative acronym: CJP.

The Cockroach Janta Party, an organisation that began less than a month ago as a tongue-in-cheek internet meme, has officially crawled off the screens of millions of smartphones and onto the highly volatile political terrai...