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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.)

Himalayan Warning

The Himalayas are becoming a graveyard of warnings ignored. Nepal’s latest flash floods have killed at least 165 people and left more than 800 missing, including hundreds of Indian tourists. What makes the catastrophe especially disturbing is that the torrent was not an entirely unforeseeable act of nature.


The flash floods that tore through the Bhotekoshi River corridor were initially attributed to a 4.4-magnitude earthquake. The US Geological Survey has since concluded that the seismic signal was generated by a glacial collapse and debris flow. An avalanche blocked the Lhende tributary before the resulting torrent burst downstream, striking Timure and the Rasuwagadhi area near Nepal’s border with China with devastating force.

 

The Himalayan disaster landscape is changing, while the systems meant to anticipate it remain dangerously behind. The Himalayas are not merely experiencing more disasters; the disasters themselves are becoming harder to predict because several hazards can cascade into one another like an ice collapse, landslides, temporary river blockages, sudden releases of water and torrents carrying enormous quantities of rock and debris.


Nepal has seen this pattern before. The 2021 Melamchi floods demonstrated how glacial deposits, landslide dams, extreme rainfall and rapid snowmelt can combine to produce destruction vastly greater than any single trigger might suggest. Research into the disaster found that the flood generated a cascading process of erosion and landsliding that dramatically reshaped the valley.


There is therefore something profoundly unsettling about the familiar language of surprise that follows every Himalayan disaster. Nepal’s geography has always made it vulnerable, but climate change is complicating that vulnerability. The World Bank has identified glacial lake outburst floods, floods and water-related hazards intensified by torrential rain and snowmelt among the country's major climate risks.


For India, the tragedy is particularly sobering. The missing include large numbers of Indian nationals, including pilgrims and tourists from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and several other states travelling through one of the region’s most difficult and strategically sensitive corridors.


This should prompt more than condolences and rescue operations. India and Nepal need a much more serious Himalayan disaster architecture of shared monitoring of glaciers and unstable slopes, real-time river and debris-flow warnings, better communications in remote valleys, clearly marked evacuation routes and regular coordination between disaster agencies, border authorities and tourism operators.


The Himalayas do not respect political boundaries. A warning missed in Tibet or Nepal can become a humanitarian emergency downstream. India cannot afford to treat Himalayan risk as Nepal’s problem until the flood reaches its own territory.


While the immediate priority is rescue, once the survivors are accounted for, the harder question that must be asked is how many more warnings does the Himalayas have to deliver before South Asia treats them as warnings rather than surprises?

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