From Kafka
“When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into monstrous vermin.”
—-The Metamorphosis
“Was he an animal, that music could move him so?”
Even after becoming insect-like, Gregor experiences beauty and longing. Kafka suggests that consciousness and suffering may matter more than outward form.
—-The Metamorphosis
Existential crisis of youths and unemployed
Rightly, the pain and sufferings of students in India have already touched its pinnacle, although they endlessly strive to succeed. Nearly, 40 students are committing suicide, reflecting a dire state of national emergency (India Today, 2026). Young students are being relentlessly propelled into infinite competitive trap, where self-worth is inherently tied to performance metrics, and failure becomes annihilation. But who decides failure when there is systemic failure, as institutions are crumbling amidst populism, hate mongering and stark polarisation. Institutions like universities, courts, election commission, parliament and several others are predestined to crumble when a toxic brew of religion laced poison is steadily engulfing the very soul of nation. While India’s overly centralised governance (a cocktail of corporate and the head of state) remains propelled by opaque non-biological machinery of algorithms, helpless students find themselves trapped in merciless systems of systems. It is radically simpler for bureaucratic zombies to label unemployed youths, activists and students as cockroaches, as they can easily shirk their responsibility as well as accountability towards scavenge survival.
Existential crisis of Kafka’s Samsa gets reflects in Indian students and unemployed:
“The true horror, Gregor Samsa would understand, is not waking up as a cockroach — it is waking up as an Indian student: forever preparing, never arriving, endlessly judged by a system that has already decided your worth is negligible.”
The Cockroach “Metaphor”
The cockroach is one of the most powerful and enduring metaphors in language, politics, literature, and psychology. It functions on multiple levels: biological, symbolic, emotional, and ideological. The Cockroaches possess biological traits that make them perfect vehicles for metaphor:
Why the Metaphor is powerful
The cockroach combines disgust + fear + admiration for resilience. It sits at the intersection of:
- Biological instinct (pathogen avoidance)
- Social hierarchy (“low-life”)
- Political power (justifying elimination of “pests”)
Gen Z embraced this as a representation of their generation facing unemployment, economic anxiety, job market collapse, intense competition, mental health struggles, and systemic neglect. They created memes, AI-generated anthems, party logos (cockroaches in suits/sunglasses), manifestos, membership cards, and parody campaigns. The party describes itself as the “Voice of the Lazy & Unemployed” located “wherever the WiFi works.”
This is a classic reclamation of a dehumanizing slur — transforming insults into identities. Gen Z turned an elite insult into a badge of honor and a vehicle for expressing frustration. This is also Gen Z’s signature style, using absurdity and self-deprecation to cope with serious existential issues.
“Non-biological governance commits its greatest atrocity by believing it can overwrite the ancient code of life. Yet the biological instinct — that stubborn, filthy, unbreakable will to survive — has outlasted gods, plagues and empires. The cockroach generation will inherit the ruins, not because they are strong, but because they were never meant to be managed by silicon and fear.”
Chandra, D. 2026
References
American Psychological Association, 2003. Ewwww, gross! Psychologist Paul Rozin offered insights into the science of disgust, [online] https://www.apa.org/monitor/oct03/gross
BBC, 2024. Cockroaches: The insect we’re programmed to fear [online] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140918-the-reality-about-roaches
India Today, 2026. Why India losing nearly 40 students to suicide daily is a national emergency [online] https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/why-india-losing-nearly-40-students-to-suicide-daily-is-a-national-emergency-2914612-2026-05-20
Mowarin, M. 2024. A linguistic reading of the metaphor of genocide in Hotel Rwanda [online] https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA374695684&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=02564718&sw=w&p=LitRC&userGroupName=anon%7E1569614c&aty=open-web-entry
The Atlantic, 2019. In Rwanda, We Know All About Dehumanizing Language [online] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/rwanda-shows-how-hateful-speech-leads-violence/587041/
