Monish Navlani

"Empire’s don’t fall on lack of preparation. They fall high on their horses and loaded with redundancies." - Cal Bradford.

@LiveFromALounge Best laugh I had all week.

Pied piper’s mice got played royally.

@TheSanjivKapoor Fwiw, CCU feels like an airport and not a shopping centre with aircraft access.

Clueless comment from someone who has clearly never been there, but still feels qualified to comment. The background is the old, decommissioned terminal. These photos is the new one. It is BLR T2? No. But it is not a bad terminal, especially considering it is an AAI airport.

@TheDeshBhakt @CBS @StephenAtHome So suddenly "satirists" can't take a joke.

No - this is a not a parody account, this is the President of The United States of America… using AI to mock one of his most popular critics and claim victory after forcing @CBS to shut his show down. But for @StephenAtHome this is the best goodbye he could have hoped for… while he had special guests on his last show // IMAGINE THE PRESIDENT gatecrashing into your party!!!🎉 This is the power of American Late Night TV & while it comes under unprecedented attack under the Trump Administration…. I am sure the likes of @JimmyKimmelLive @jimmyfallon @jonstewart @iamjohnoliver @Trevornoah will keep speaking truth to power 🔥🫡

@gauravsabnis @twitellectual x.com/i/status/20450…

Dear @twitellectual, USA (2nd most diabetics in the world) allows misleading "no added sugar" labels for date sweetened chocolate so India (most diabetics in the world) should allow the same is such bizarre whataboutery. What next? US gun laws too? Abortion laws?

@sabsezyadaa @darab_farooqui @ManishaBaw45537 Most importantly, Arab Spring is the worst analogy in my opinion. Bahrain crushed their protestors, Syria descended into a civil war, Libya is a basket case, and Egypt is back to same with a different guy.

@sabsezyadaa @darab_farooqui @ManishaBaw45537 Yes, for sure. I read Darab's post twice before I responded. But like you, I feel this isn't organic. Just the way we learnt too late that IAC "protests" in 2011 weren't organic. I was skeptical of IAC then, just the way I'm skeptical of this now.

Eighteen Million Cockroaches Don't Lie On the Cockroach Janta Party, people's anger, and Congress's massive mistake Eighteen million followers in three-four days. Let that sink in. Not eighteen million built over decades of organisational work. Not eighteen million through RSS shakhas running for a hundred years. Not eighteen million through state machinery, government advertising, or captive institutional support. Eighteen million in three-four days. Spontaneously. In response to a judge calling young Indians cockroaches. And Congress's response? Suspicion. Distance. Warnings. That tells you everything. 1. You Don't Own People's Anger Here is the basic democratic principle Congress seems to have forgotten. When millions of people express themselves freely and voluntarily, you don't get to decide if their feelings are legitimate. You don't get to check who started the movement before you decide whether the anger counts. The anger belongs to the people. Not to the party. You cannot abuse people's faith simply because it is not flowing in your direction. You cannot dismiss a people's movement simply because you are not the carrier. Who died and made you the owner of all opposition? It's the oldest rule of politics. Either you manufacture a mass movement, the way RSS did over a hundred years, patiently, methodically, or if you can't do that, you at least learn to ride one. This is a question of survival for Congress. Not just electoral survival. Existential survival. Because if you can't manufacture and you refuse to ride, what exactly are you? You become the status quo. You become the thing people are angry at. Maybe if Congress stopped opposing this movement and started engaging with it, they would learn something. About who they are. About how people's movements actually happen. About the distance that has grown between them and the people they claim to represent. The moment a political party starts gatekeeping which people's movements are acceptable, it has already lost. 2. The Cause Is Not Complicated On May 15, 2026, the Chief Justice of India called unemployed young people cockroaches. Parasites of society. People with no place in any profession. This is the man whose job is to protect the Constitution. The Constitution that guarantees every Indian their dignity and freedom of expression. The next day, Abhijeet Dipke launched the Cockroach Janta Party as a joke. And the joke connected. It hit a raw nerve. Because the joke wasn't really a joke, it was a mirror. And eighteen million people looked into it and recognised themselves. Within 48 hours, tens of thousands had signed up. Within three days, eighteen million were following on Instagram. 96% of interactions verified from India. When the government withheld their Twitter account, they opened a new one. Within hours it crossed a hundred thousand followers. This is cause and effect. Nothing more complicated than that. A CJI insulted an entire generation. That generation responded. No PR budget does this. No AAP social media strategy does this. If AAP had this kind of digital firepower, they would be winning elections. They are barely making their daily bread right now. The answer is simple. People recognised their own pain, and they responded to it. Every generation finds its medium. Freedom fighters had pamphlets. The Anna generation had Jantar Mantar. Gen Z has Instagram. The medium changes. The rage against injustice does not. 3. The Anna Movement Argument Cuts Both Ways Congress keeps invoking Anna Hazare's movement as a warning. Be careful, they say. These things get hijacked. The argument is not wrong. But it is neither perfect nor effective. Here is why. The Anna movement worked. Congress of all parties should remember this. In 2011, Congress was in power. Congress was the status quo. The Anna movement channelled the anger of millions against a government that had grown arrogant and corrupt. And that anger contributed directly to Congress's collapse in 2014. The Anna movement didn't fail. It removed Congress. Now it is 2026. BJP has been in power for twelve years. The unemployment is real. The institutional contempt is real. The shrinking freedoms are real. And a mass movement is rising, pointing directly at the current establishment. For Congress to use Anna as a warning against CJP is almost surreal. Back then, Congress was the target. Today, they should be the ally. Instead, they are playing gatekeeper. The Anna parallel doesn't warn against CJP. It vindicates it. 4. The Government's Own Actions Have Answered the Critics Here is the detail that mainstream coverage keeps missing. The Indian government withheld CJP's Twitter account. Think about what that means. You don't suppress what you think is hollow. You don't mobilise state machinery against a PR stunt. You don't withhold accounts of movements you expect to fizzle out on their own. You suppress what genuinely scares you. The government's own action is an accidental endorsement. Every young Indian who saw "this account has been withheld in India" understood immediately. The establishment is afraid of cockroaches. The CJI called them parasites. The government then proved, through its own action, that the contempt is not one man's opinion. It is policy. They handed CJP its best story on a plate. 5. Yes, Stay Suspicious. But Do the Work First. Let's be honest. Suspicion is not entirely wrong. Dipke did work with AAP between 2020 and 2023. Movements do get infiltrated. New faces will join CJP, some may have murky backgrounds. The pressure release valve is a real risk. Millions feel heard, vent their anger, and then nothing actually changes. The establishment survives intact. These are legitimate concerns. They deserve to be watched. But Dipke is a Dalit. And it is a very important factor. A Dalit young man, from Maharashtra, studying in Boston, builds a mass movement in three days, even if it's by accident or as a joke, that eighteen million Indians join. That is not a small thing. That is a story about aspiration, about dignity, about who gets to speak in this country and who gets told to sit down. Congress, the party that has built its entire identity around Dalit inclusion and social justice, is opposing this movement without even picking up the phone. Think about what that says. Not about CJP. About Congress. And here is the question nobody is asking. Has Congress even tried to contact Dipke? Have they called him? Met him? Engaged with CJP's actual demands? Because if they had and Dipke turned out to be evasive or clearly running a proxy agenda, then suspicion would be earned. The criticism would have had standing. But if they haven't even tried, then what they are expressing is not caution. It is ego. What does Congress think? That Dipke and eighteen million young Indians will walk into their durbar, bend their backs, and do three adaabs before they are granted permission to be angry? This is a feudal mindset. The durbar mentality. The expectation that people come to power, not that power goes to people. And it is precisely this mindset that has driven young India away from Congress in the first place. If Congress genuinely believes in people's voices, the path is simple. Go to them. Talk to Dipke. Engage with the movement. If something feels wrong after that conversation, say so publicly. But oppose first and engage never? That is not democratic vigilance. That is aristocratic hubris. 6. This Is Sour Grapes. And It Will Cost Them. Let's say it plainly. Congress had years to become the voice of Gen Z's frustration. The unemployment didn't start last week. The NEET scams didn't start last week. The institutional contempt for ordinary Indians didn't start last week. Where was Congress as the medium for this anger? To be fair, Congress is agitating right now. There are big mobilisations on the NEET issue in Jaipur and Karnataka. The party is not sitting idle. But are young people joining those agitations? Are the eighteen million cockroaches showing up? They are not. It's only NSUI. That gap between Congress's agitations and young India's energy is exactly the gap CJP is filling. That is not Congress's enemy. That is Congress's opportunity. Because here is the obvious truth. Congress and CJP want the same things. Accountability. Institutional respect for citizens. An end to the contempt that calls young people parasites. This is a common minimum programme waiting to be written. The only thing standing in the way is Congress's ego. Bend and ask for help. That is not weakness. In a democracy, that is how you build power. Instead, Congress is raising suspicions about a movement it should be embracing. That is sour grapes. And sour grapes directed at your own potential voters is not just petty. It is a historic mistake. 7. What Is Actually at Stake The real damage here is not electoral. It is deeper. When opposition parties start opposing people's movements, they send a message to ordinary citizens. Your participation is only welcome when it flows through us. That message produces disillusionment. It teaches people that the system, all of it, not just the ruling party, does not want their voice. That disillusionment is far more dangerous to Indian democracy than any single viral movement, however imperfect CJP may turn out to be. The millions who joined CJP are not naive. Many joined with full irony intact. They know it is young and unproven. But they joined because for one moment, someone gave a name to what they felt. The name was cockroach. And they said, yes, we are cockroaches. We are here. And you cannot squash us. You don't respond to that moment with suspicion. You respond with respect. The anger is real. The cause is clear. The effect is in front of us. Eighteen million cockroaches don't lie.

@darab_farooqui @ManishaBaw45537 The mistake you are making is thinking internet is real life. As @sabsezyadaa rightly said, this smells of inorganic BS. x.com/i/status/20575…

Fair point. Followers are not feet on the ground. Nobody is arguing that. But Arab Spring started on social media. Hong Kong started on social media. Every major people's movement of the last fifteen years began exactly here. Online. Dismissed as stupid noise. Until it wasn't. And eighteen million in three-four days is not just rare. It is unique. Find me one other example in Indian political history. RG's 28 million were built over years, through party machinery, a famous last name, and institutional support. These eighteen million came in three days because a judge called young people cockroaches. That is not the same thing. Not even close. Nobody here is claiming this is a revolution. Three simple points. Congress is wrong to oppose before engaging. The numbers are organic and organic means real. And you cannot cancel people's will just because it hasn't hit the street yet. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. But dismissing it before it has had a chance to become anything is not analysis. That is fear. Or Hubris.

Rare sensible take on the cockroach thing. Indians are so brain dead, they can be taken for a ride by a literal insect.

@sabreenaGS Ameen.

Mark my words. Within the next ten years, Israel will be dismantled (iA). Don’t worry. 😉

@virsanghvi This smug attitude is why Indians aren't welcome.

Indians need visas to enter Thailand again. Crazy move. As it is, with the drop in the value of the rupee Indians are rethinking foreign travel As Indian tourism to Thailand drops it is Thai businesses that will suffer. Indians will just go to Vietnam which is cheaper anyway

@_amitbehere Even in this rant, the poster doesn't mind showing his/her racism by calling infrastructure in India as "Sudan level". Just call it Indian level. No need to drag another country where you've never probably been.

Indians live in filth because we refuse to accept the country is a #VishwaGutter Forget accept, we are arrogant about living in a #VishwaGutter. Almost stunning, this level of delusion and low IQ. We were better earlier. We accepted we were flawed, fucked up. Hence we at least tried a bit to be better. If/When a country/society accepts it has problems, accepts it is shit, then only it can improve.

Today marks Nakba Day, an annual day of remembrance to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed. Inea is a New Yorker and a Nakba survivor. She shared her story with us — one of home, tradition and memory over generations.

@gauravsabnis Amit phrased it better x.com/i/status/20562…

My grandfather was smoking until the last day he died at age 90. So let's all start smoking cigarettes!

@_amitbehere Couldn't agree more. Slovaks, Czechs, and Filipinos are much more efficient and effective with the same cost advantage.

Indians are the laziest IT workers in the world. No one shows up before 10 am. Ever. And no matter how long they sit in the office, 10 hours, 12 hours, 8 hours, 2 paise ka kaam nahi karte. The general rule of thumb of Indian IT employees is to do the absolute bare minimum (which can be often zero) that allows them to say *something* in their standup meetings. And to be fair, it's not like most IT public can do anything even if they wanted to. Most don't really have any real capability beyond being able to converse in English and follow basic instructions. Calling most of them software engineers is a huge stretch.

@avidandiya @BajrangDalOrg They can walk to Ayodhya.

I wonder where are those elite rich andhbhakts are going for their honeymoon after marriage now after a suggested restriction on international travel was given. If they still decide to go they should be certified as anti nationals urban naxal by the likes of @BajrangDalOrg @vivekagnihotri @SureshChavhanke

@suchetadalal I'm surprised they have so many functional/operational locations.

By now each property would have been fully excavated, right? How long and how many will be raided? Any time frame? #ADAG

There is so much grace in saying -sorry, I messed up!! Or- sorry I worded that wrong. Or - sorry, I was having a bad day. Or - sorry , I was pissed . So many options, but people choose to dig in and make it worse. That does not make you brave- it makes you dishonest.

@gauravsabnis The last part has caused me lot of conflicts with friends and colleagues. Glad to see this hokum being called out.

I roll my eyes hard when even educated desis with advanced degrees say things like "xyz food has a cooling effect and abc food has a heating effect." Pseudoscience is so ingrained in us! PhD holders will still push vaat pitta kapha nonsense.

@gauravsabnis Typical cringeworthy parallel in Mumbai: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/toi-ori…

In recent years, almost every country I've visited has some kind of a memorial or public acknowledgement of COVID deaths. Most touching is the wall in London along the Thames, starting at Lambeth. The historic site of pandemic deaths, hospitalization, and research.

@darab_farooqui @PurohitSubir Congratulations on continued rise of USD.

Pain is coming, man. This is going to be very painful for everyone.