All Eyes on India

The Cockroach Movement 

It started with a remark. India's Chief Justice Surya Kant, during a court hearing on 15 May, was widely reported to have referred to the country's unemployed youth as "cockroaches" and "parasites of society." Within 24 hours, that insult had become a movement. Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communications strategist and former Aam Aadmi Party worker, founded the Cockroach Janta Party on 16 May, a direct parody of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The name was not chosen in spite; it was chosen with precision. 

Within days, the movement amassed over 350,000 sign-ups and more than 20 million Instagram followers. The hashtag #MainBhiCockroach, "I am also a cockroach,” swept across social media as young Indians, many of them unemployed or underemployed, claimed the slur as a badge of identity. What began as an internet punchline rapidly became a vehicle for venting anger over unemployment, corruption, and the state of Indian democracy. 

The establishment noticed. On 21 May, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ordered the CJP's X account withheld in India under Section 69(A) of the Information Technology Act. Days later, founder Dipke alleged on X that the government had also taken down the movement's official website. The crackdown only amplified the story internationally. Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar attempted to discredit the movement by claiming 49 percent of its followers were from Pakistan and only 9 percent from India, a claim that was met largely with mockery online. 

The CJP carries five demands: no Rajya Sabha seats for retired Chief Justices, prosecution for vote deletion, 50 percent women's reservation in Parliament, cancellation of media licences held by Ambani and Adani, and a 20-year ban on political defectors. Satirical in tone, serious in substance, and apparently unsettling enough to warrant a government response.

India’s Diplomatic Traffic 

The foreign ministers of Australia, India, Japan, and the US Secretary of State met in New Delhi on 26 May for the 11th Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar led the talks, joined by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi. On the sidelines, all three visiting ministers held separate bilateral meetings with Jaishankar and called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  

The timing carried unmistakable strategic weight. By hosting the Quad's first foreign ministers' gathering on Indian soil since 2023 in the immediate aftermath of Trump's Beijing visit, New Delhi signalled that the grouping's strategic rationale remains operative regardless of what bilateral recalibrations may be occurring between Washington and Beijing. The message, understated but clear: the Indo-Pacific architecture holds.  

The meeting produced concrete deliverables. The four partners launched the Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration initiative, aimed at enhancing information sharing and maritime domain awareness with an initial focus on the Indian Ocean Region. A new Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework was also announced, designed to coordinate investment and strengthen supply chains across mining, processing, and recycling. A separate Quad Initiative on Indo-Pacific Energy Security was unveiled to bolster regional energy resilience.  

Ministers also assessed the conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia, where the Iran war's disruption to energy markets has sharpened the urgency of regional supply chain cooperation. Analysts described the meeting as one of the most consequential diplomatic engagements in the Indo-Pacific in recent years, a characterisation that, given the week's extraordinary diplomatic traffic through both Beijing and New Delhi, is difficult to dispute.

Written by Sarthak Ahuja
May 29, 2026