Arundhati Roy Says Cockroach Protests Have Shattered Modi's Public Image

Acclaimed Indian author Arundhati Roy has argued that a wave of youth-led protests has punctured the carefully crafted public persona of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claiming the Indian leader has lost the aura of invincibility that his government and allied media outlets spent years constructing.

Speaking to Al Jazeera's Imran Khan in an interview broadcast this week, the Booker Prize-winning novelist said the movement centered on the satirical Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, had achieved something years of conventional political opposition could not. By mocking rather than merely confronting the government, she suggested, the protesters had exposed the gap between Modi's projected image and the realities facing ordinary Indians.

Roy described the moment as one in which "something is boiling just under the surface," adding that she believed the political climate in the world's most populous democracy was on the verge of significant change. In her assessment, the prime minister has been publicly called out in a way that has cost him his previously unassailable standing.

The Cockroach movement drew its name from an insult reportedly directed at young critics of the government. Rather than rejecting the label, the activists embraced it, adopting the cockroach as a defiant symbol of resilience and turning the slight into a branding tool that spread rapidly across social media.

According to Roy, that tactic proved uniquely effective because it combined humor with serious political critique. She noted that the young organizers relied heavily on Instagram reels and other digital formats, producing content that was irreverent in tone yet pointed in its message, and that this approach dismantled the prime minister's "carefully confected image" far more effectively than traditional protest methods.

Roy rejected the suggestion that Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party simply misunderstood social media or the technological habits of young Indians. She pointed out that the BJP was among the earliest political forces in India to embrace digital campaigning, building a formidable online apparatus long before its rivals. The problem, in her view, was not a lack of familiarity but an accumulation of grievances that reached a breaking point.

She traced the movement's momentum to a series of compounding crises. These included the 2024 general election, in which Modi failed to secure a full parliamentary majority, as well as mounting scandals over exam paper leaks, allegations of electoral manipulation, and widespread unemployment. Together, she said, these factors produced what she characterized as an irreverent yet deeply serious explosion of public anger.

The author also pointed to a fresh controversy that has reignited the cockroach protests. She said campaigners were preparing demonstrations across the country in response to a newspaper investigation that allegedly exposed serious compromises in India's election system. Roy noted that activists and writers had warned about such vulnerabilities for years, but that the new reporting appeared to offer concrete evidence.

Beyond the protests, Roy offered a bleak portrait of contemporary India, describing it as a nation of extreme contrasts in which enormous wealth coexists with severe deprivation. She argued that the country is home to vast numbers of people living in deep poverty and conditions of humiliation, and she called it a scandal for leaders to boast of superpower status while so many citizens remain disempowered.

She was dismissive of the argument that India's difficulties can still be attributed primarily to British colonialism. While acknowledging that the colonial legacy once explained much, she contended that the current government is now actively making conditions worse, including by eroding fundamental freedoms.

Roy drew a stark comparison between India's founding era and the present day. She said that the writings and speeches of figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Bhimrao Ambedkar, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and Jawaharlal Nehru could not be expressed safely in today's India, because those who voiced such views would face imprisonment. Students, activists, and lawyers, she added, are repeatedly caught in the criminal justice system, and the threat of anti-terrorism legislation hangs over dissent.

She also cited Modi's Independence Day address from the Red Fort, in which he warned against what he called "dimaghi Naxal," a term meaning intellectual Maoists. Roy presented the remark as evidence of official hostility toward critical thinking and political dissent.

The interview touched on Roy's own identity as well. Asked whether she considers herself a novelist, an essayist, or a political activist, she declined to categorize herself, saying such labels are best left to others. She also reflected on the role of satire in her work, suggesting that the personal and the public are inseparable in her writing and that even a fairy tale can carry political meaning without becoming a blunt manifesto.

Roy's comments arrive at a moment when India's political landscape appears unusually fluid. The Cockroach movement's fusion of comedy, youth culture, and grassroots organizing has unsettled assumptions about how opposition to the government can be expressed and how quickly public sentiment can shift.

Whether the protests translate into durable electoral change remains uncertain, but Roy's intervention signals that the conversation in India is broadening beyond conventional party politics. For a government accustomed to controlling the narrative, the emergence of a movement that laughs at power rather than simply challenging it may prove harder to contain than any traditional rival.