Cockroaches strike back

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant could scarcely have imagined that an off-the-cuff outburst would trigger a political movement with more traction than many carefully crafted manifestos.

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In a moment of judicial irritation, he lamented the growing tribe of unemployed RTI activists, social media professionals, and assorted nuisances who, according to him, hovered around the justice system like “parasites” and “cockroaches”. The remark was perhaps intended as courtroom exasperation. But history shows that when people in authority begin comparing human beings to vermin, trouble usually follows. Fascist regimes have always needed creatures to squash. Adolf Hitler had Jews, Others had kulaks, intellectuals, termites or migrants. Once the metaphor is accepted, the moral brakes begin to fail. Words prepare the ground for the armed to attack, as the Nellie massacre and other killing fields show.