The government dividend 🇮🇳
As 'cockroach' protests erode the state's credibility, new data reveals the PR sector's growing proximity to power.
It started as a joke. That might well explain the remarkable emergence of India's Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which must be the first viral meme account to turn into a nationwide political movement. It is a story that is now attracting global interest, as it should, demonstrating how Asian youth culture can force itself onto the political agenda of the world's largest democracy.
The intensifying protests in Delhi have taken many by surprise, given the challenges that face any new social movement. Not least one that represents young people who are systematically disenfranchised by a political landscape in which seniority and entrenched interests dominate.
If, like me, you're fascinated by India's biggest political story of the moment, you could do worse than read our earlier analysis of how the CJP's utterly authentic, platform-native communications approach underpinned its dramatic rise to prominence. But it also arrives at a telling moment for an industry that has come to rely on its own government dividend.
