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By:

C.S. Krishnamurthy

21 June 2025 at 7:45:51 pm

A Spade Has No Party

There is something reassuring about a spade. It does not ask who is holding it before doing its job. It digs where it is told to dig. A hole made by a government worker is no different from one made by an opposition worker. The earth, fortunately, has no political affiliation. That simple image offers a useful way of looking at the Cockroach Janata Party, or CJP, a youth-led movement that has emerged around concerns over education, employment and accountability. Its significance may...

A Spade Has No Party

There is something reassuring about a spade. It does not ask who is holding it before doing its job. It digs where it is told to dig. A hole made by a government worker is no different from one made by an opposition worker. The earth, fortunately, has no political affiliation. That simple image offers a useful way of looking at the Cockroach Janata Party, or CJP, a youth-led movement that has emerged around concerns over education, employment and accountability. Its significance may ultimately lie less in whether it becomes a political force and more in what its emergence says about the changing relationship between young citizens and traditional politics. The CJP story reportedly began almost as a joke. But jokes sometimes possess an inconvenient habit of revealing truths that solemn speeches avoid. What began as satire attracted digital attention and developed into youth mobilisation. Beneath the humour lies something more serious: a generation that may not want another political flag, but wants existing flags to pay attention. A New Language Established political parties appear increasingly uncertain about how to speak to Gen Z. The problem may not be a lack of communication, but its direction. Traditional politics has often spent too much time speaking at the young and too little time speaking with them. Gen Z’s concerns are hardly confined to the digital world. Education, employment, security, dignity and accountability remain real-life concerns. Social media may provide the vocabulary, but the grievances are not virtual. Digital platforms have simply provided a meeting ground where concerns that conventional political structures may have failed to accommodate can find expression. This does not automatically make CJP a political party, nor does every participant necessarily subscribe to a common ideology. Its significance may instead lie in its ability to provide a forum for a generation-based articulation of concerns. We use the word “political” rather carelessly. Anything involving public affairs, government or collective decision-making is political in the broadest sense. But political does not necessarily mean partisan. A citizen demanding better examinations, employment opportunities or accountability from a minister is participating in democracy. He need not be preparing an election manifesto. This is where CJP becomes interesting. Its real test is whether it can remain an independent voice without eventually becoming another conventional political formation. Imagine a movement saying: we will criticise the government when it is wrong, the opposition when it is wrong, and ourselves when we are wrong. That would be an unusual political creature. It would also be a useful one. The real test of non-partisanship is not what a movement says about neutrality. It is whether it applies the same yardstick to everyone. If a government mishandles education, question it. If another government does the same, question it again. If a political party demands accountability in opposition but forgets the principle in power, call that out too. A spade should remain a spade even when somebody paints it in party colours. The Cricket Test The temptation to choose sides is understandable. Political discourse increasingly resembles cricket played by spectators who have forgotten that the scoreboard exists. A batsman from our team can edge the ball and we call it bad luck. The same edge by the other team becomes evidence of cheating. The problem is not cricket. It is our loyalty to the shirt. Democracy suffers from the same habit. We become so invested in who said something that we forget to ask whether it is true. An independent political voice must therefore be prepared to disappoint its own supporters. That is easier said than done. Digital technology has made mobilisation remarkably easy. But digital reach is not democratic depth. Followers are not necessarily volunteers, and viral outrage is not sustained civic engagement. The CJP’s challenge, therefore, is to convert attention into participation and measurable accountability. Every movement born outside established politics eventually encounters the gravitational pull of politics. Remaining independent is considerably harder in practice than in principle. CJP’s credibility will depend upon whether it can resist becoming what it criticises. Yet there is another, more interesting measure of success. If, a year from now, political parties begin placing education, employment and youth concerns more prominently at the centre of their agendas because they fear ignoring younger citizens, the CJP may have achieved its purpose without becoming a conventional party. Perhaps that is the deeper relevance of CJP that it may remind political forces that citizens are not permanent spectators in the democratic arena. (The writer is a retired banker and author. He can be reached at krs1957@hotmail.com. Views personal.)

Faltering Trajectory

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has long been treated as a model of quiet reliability. However, that reputation is now under strain after the PSLV-C62, carrying 16 satellites, experienced a deviation during its third stage of flight shortly after lifting off from Sriharikota. ISRO confirmed that the rocket did not proceed along its expected trajectory, though it has stopped short of declaring the mission a failure.


In most launch vehicles, the third stage is where a mission is effectively decided. A problem at this point rarely allows a satellite to reach its intended orbit. That was the case last year when the only PSLV flight of the year failed at precisely this phase. The repetition of the same problem a year later is therefore difficult to dismiss as coincidence. PSLV-C62 was meant to mark the vehicle’s return to service after that setback. Instead, it has reopened questions that ISRO never fully answered.


For decades the PSLV has been the backbone of India’s space programme. It has lofted lunar probes, interplanetary missions and hundreds of commercial satellites, giving India a reputation for affordable and dependable access to orbit. With only four failures in its first 63 launches, the vehicle came to symbolise ISRO’s understated competence. The fifth failure, if confirmed, would not in itself be catastrophic. But two consecutive breakdowns in the same stage of flight suggest something more troubling than statistical bad luck.


After the 2025 failure, ISRO followed standard procedure by appointing a failure-analysis committee. What it did not do was publish the committee’s findings. The engineering community, satellite customers and even parts of India’s own space ecosystem were left in the dark about what went wrong and how it was fixed. When a launch vehicle flies again without such clarity, it asks its users to trust that the problem has been solved. PSLV-C62 now casts doubt on that assumption.


The implications stretch far beyond ISRO’s own laboratories. This flight carried satellites from Brazil, Nepal and Britain, all of whom entrusted Indian hardware with their orbital ambitions. It also carried seven satellites belonging to Dhruva Space, a Hyderabad-based start-up that represents the new private face of India’s space sector.


The Indian government has made commercial space a strategic priority. It has opened satellite manufacturing, data services and even rocket production to private players, hoping to replicate in orbit the start-up energy that transformed its software industry. The PSLV sits at the centre of this plan. It is the rocket that most Indian firms expect to use, and the one foreign customers already recognise.


Repeated third-stage anomalies undermine that confidence. ISRO has earned enormous goodwill through decades of frugal innovation. It remains a technically formidable organisation. But as India seeks to become a commercial space power, its national agency must behave like one.


If India wants the world to keep betting on the PSLV, ISRO will need to offer something more than reassurance. It will need to offer answers.

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