When the Constitution Meets Pest Control

India’s unemployed youth finally have a judicial identity. Not citizens. Not aspirants. Not victims of a shrinking job market and an increasingly brutal competition economy. No, according to the highest constitutional office in the judiciary, some of them are apparently “cockroaches.”

During a Supreme Court hearing on May 15, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant reportedly remarked:

“There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don't get any employment or have any place in profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists and they start attacking everyone.”

A sentence so breathtakingly dismissive that it almost reads like rejected dialogue from a dystopian political satire. Except it was spoken in open court.

The context, we are told, matters. The bench, also comprising Joymalya Bagchi, was hearing a petition involving advocate Sanjay Dubey’s pursuit of senior advocate designation. The court was irritated by repeated filings and aggressive conduct. Fair enough. Courts have every right to discipline frivolous litigation.

But somewhere between criticizing one lawyer and diagnosing the decline of civilization, the discussion took a dramatic leap into sociology, employment theory, media criticism, and insect classification.

Apparently, unemployed youth armed with RTI applications and social media accounts are now a constitutional nuisance species.

The New Hierarchy of Citizenship

India’s young population has spent the last decade being celebrated in speeches as the “demographic dividend.” Politicians describe them as innovators, dreamers, entrepreneurs, nation-builders, startup warriors, digital revolutionaries. Every government advertisement beams with twenty-two-year-olds holding laptops against sunsets.

But reality has a crueler screenplay.

Competitive exams get delayed for years. Recruitment scandals erupt with exhausting regularity. Degrees multiply while jobs evaporate. Engineering graduates drive delivery bikes. PhDs prepare for clerical exams. Entire generations live suspended between aspiration and exhaustion like passengers stranded on a platform where the train announcement never arrives.

And from the summit of judicial power comes the verdict: cockroaches.

One must admire the efficiency of the metaphor. Cockroaches survive in harsh conditions, adapt to hostile environments, and refuse to disappear despite systemic neglect. Perhaps the comparison was accidentally more accurate than intended.

RTI Activists: Democracy’s Villains, Apparently

The remark becomes even more troubling because of who was specifically targeted: media workers, social media critics, RTI activists, and “other activists.”

Interesting choice.

The Right to Information Act was not created so citizens could decorate filing cabinets. It exists because transparency is essential to democracy. RTI activists have exposed corruption, administrative failures, recruitment irregularities, environmental violations, and misuse of public funds. Many have been harassed. Some have even been killed.

But now, questioning institutions can apparently be interpreted as “attacking everyone.”

How convenient for power.

Across democracies, institutions increasingly demand reverence instead of accountability. Criticism becomes “anti-national.” Questions become “disruption.” Dissent becomes “toxicity.” And now unemployment-linked frustration becomes an infestation problem.

The language changes, but the instinct remains the same: delegitimize criticism by dehumanizing the critic.

Judicial Irony in Full Robes

There is something deeply ironic about constitutional authorities using language that strips dignity from citizens.

Indian courts routinely invoke Article 21, the right to life and dignity. Judges deliver eloquent observations on empathy, equality, and constitutional morality. They remind governments that citizens are not statistics.

Yet when frustrated youth criticize institutions online, suddenly the vocabulary shifts from constitutional compassion to pest management.

Words from ordinary citizens disappear into the noise of the internet. Words from a Chief Justice carry institutional gravity. They shape public culture. They signal what kind of criticism is acceptable and which citizens deserve respect.

And that is why this matters.

Not because one angry courtroom remark will destroy democracy overnight. Democracies rarely collapse with cinematic explosions. They erode through accumulated contempt. Through small moments where powerful people stop seeing struggling citizens as human beings and begin seeing them as irritants.

The Employment Crisis Nobody Wants to Own

India’s unemployment problem is not imaginary outrage manufactured by “social media activists.” It is measurable, visible, and deeply political.

Young Indians are entering a labor market where opportunities are increasingly unequal, precarious, and concentrated. Even educated urban youth face shrinking pathways into stable professional life. Rural unemployment continues to simmer beneath official optimism. Government recruitment remains painfully slow. Private sector growth often rewards connections, privilege, and elite networks.

This frustration inevitably spills online because traditional institutional channels feel inaccessible.

When systems stop listening, people start shouting. And sometimes tweeting.

The Fragility of Powerful Institutions

Perhaps the most revealing part of the episode is not the insult itself but the insecurity beneath it. Strong institutions tolerate scrutiny. Fragile institutions treat criticism as rebellion. Confident systems answer questions. Defensive systems attack questioners.

The judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, occupies a sacred constitutional position precisely because it is expected to rise above pettiness, prejudice, and contemptuous rhetoric. Citizens may disagree with judgments, but they should never feel that the institution fundamentally despises them.

Calling unemployed youth “cockroaches” crosses that line.

It transforms frustration into contempt and criticism into caricature.

The Real Threat

The real danger to institutions is not RTI activists, angry graduates, or noisy social media users.

It is the widening distance between elite power and public suffering.

A democracy survives not because citizens remain silent, but because institutions remain humble enough to hear uncomfortable voices without reaching for insults. The unemployed youth of India do not need pity, and certainly not exterminator metaphors. They need opportunities, fairness, and institutions capable of treating them with dignity even when they are angry.

Because once a democracy starts viewing its frustrated citizens as vermin, the problem is no longer unemployment.

The problem is arrogance wearing constitutional robes.