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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.)

Saraswati: River, Civilisation, and the Meaning of Knowledge

Satellite imagery, groundwater studies, archaeology, and ancient texts affirm that the Saraswati River was not a myth but a civilisational reality.

In the 1960s and 70s, Saraswati Puja was observed every Friday in schools, with children enjoying prasad of jaggery and roasted chickpeas. While they repeated that Saraswati was the goddess of knowledge, few understood what knowledge—or even being a student—truly meant. As the Saraswati River was believed to be long extinct, textbooks referred only to the Indus (Sindhu) Valley civilisation.


In the 1980s and 1990s, Moropant Pingale and archaeologist Dr. Wakankar of Ujjain led expeditions to trace the Saraswati River, with support from Padmashri Darshanlal Jain of Jagadhari and researcher Shri Kalyan Raman of Chennai. Their collective efforts helped establish that the Saraswati River did exist and that Indian civilisation originated along its banks.


Since the establishment of the Haryana Saraswati Heritage Development Board in 2015, sustained efforts have been made to revive the Saraswati River. Stretching nearly 400 kilometres through Jind, Fatehabad, and Sirsa, the river has seen its water flow successfully restored in these regions over the past three years.


All major archaeological sites excavated in Haryana—including Rakhigarhi, Kunal, and Bhirana—lie along the paleo-channel of the Saraswati River. Excavations at Baholi and Bhagwanpur in the 1990s found sand identical to that along the river’s course in Rajasthan and Gujarat, marked by high porosity and rapid water drainage.


Scientific Evidence

Institutions such as IIT Roorkee, the Geological Survey of India, ONGC, ISRO, the National Institute of Hydrology, and the Central Ground Water Board—along with other scientific bodies—have established the reality of the Saraswati River. Satellite imagery, groundwater studies, research papers, Survey of India maps, and revenue records corroborate its existence. The Rigveda refers to Saraswati as Ambitame, Naditame, and Devitame, underscoring her central role in the rise of India’s earliest civilisation.


Geological studies suggest that the Saraswati River existed for over six crore years, flowing nearly 1,600 kilometres from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea before drying up due to tectonic changes around 4000 BCE. The Vamana Purana records that Balarama, Krishna’s elder brother, did not join the Mahabharata war, choosing instead to undertake a pilgrimage along the banks of the Saraswati River.


Originating from the Bandarpunch glaciers in the Garhwal Himalayas, the Saraswati River flowed southwest, entering the plains at Adibadri in Haryana’s Yamunanagar district near the Shivalik foothills. Cities such as Kurukshetra, Sirsa, Kalibangan, Pehowa, and Suratgarh developed along its banks, which also hosted the ashrams of sages including Markandeya, Vashistha, and Vishwamitra. Flowing through present-day Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat, the river met the sea in the Rann of Kutch; its 3–12 km-wide riverbed and over 1,200 riverside villages point to its vast scale.


The Saraswati River is mentioned 75 times in the Rigveda, while the Ganges appears only once. Vyasa is believed to have composed the Bhagavata Purana at Adi Badri, and the Mahabharata records that the war was fought between the Saraswati and Drishadvati rivers, a region known as Kurukshetra. Once, turning the Thar Desert lush and green, the river’s revival today has become a matter of public demand.


Civilisation and Memory

Indian civilisation developed along the banks of the Saraswati, not the Indus (Sindhu). Those unfamiliar with Samskrit often confuse the term 'Sindhu', a masculine word meaning 'ocean' or 'sea'. As the Saraswati dried up, communities migrated, though some continue to preserve its memory, identifying themselves today as Saraswats.


Beyond geography and archaeology, Saraswati also represents India’s understanding of knowledge itself.


Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, is worshipped during the Shishir (winter) season on the fifth day of the bright half of Magha, known as Vasant Panchami, a major social festival in eastern India.


In Telangana, a Saraswati temple at Basar on the banks of the Godavari draws large crowds on Vasant Panchami for Vidyarambha, the initiation of children into learning.


The Vishnu Purana defines "vidya" as "Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye”—knowledge that grants liberation. By contrast, modern education largely prepares students for employment rather than liberation, focusing on worldly sciences such as physics, chemistry, zoology, and botany.


In India, both moral and spiritual sciences evolved, with spiritual sciences aimed at liberation and taught primarily in Gurukuls and Samskrit institutions.


Spiritual Sciences

The sixteen philosophical systems (darshanas) are outlined in the Sarvadarshanasangraha by Madhvacharya. Except for Charvaka, the remaining systems aim at liberation—moksha, samadhi, kaivalya, or nirvana—and are therefore regarded as vidya. Learning and living by even one of these traditions is seen as worship of knowledge, or Saraswati, which first requires mastery of Samskrit and its grammar. The period around Vasant Panchami is thus an apt time to begin learning Samskrit and resolve to study one of these scriptures.


(The writer is national organiser of Samskrita Bharati. Views personal.)


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