History has a funny habit of changing its clothes while keeping the same heart.
In the mid-1970s, I was a young engineer posted at Barauni Refinery in Bihar. My days revolved around transformers, switchgear, maintenance schedules and keeping the refinery running. Little did I know that outside the refinery gates, history was quietly warming up its engines.
That was the period when the JP Movement was taking shape.
I was not one of the protesters. My attendance register was at the refinery, not at Gandhi Maidan. But living in Bihar during those turbulent days was like staying next door to a volcano. You didn't have to climb it to feel the ground trembling.
The movement began with frustrated students who felt corruption, inflation and misgovernance had pushed them into a corner. They persuaded the seventy-two-year-old Jayaprakash Narayan to come out of political retirement and lead them. Imagine that! Young people searching for a leader, and the leader they found had already earned the right to spend his evenings peacefully with a cup of tea.
Instead, he chose revolution.
Those were fascinating days.
Today, if someone sneezes in Bengaluru, within minutes someone in Boston says "Bless you" on social media. In 1974, there was no internet, no smartphones, no social networks and certainly no television in every home. Yet somehow the message travelled across India.
Sometimes I wonder whether human beings were actually better communication networks before they invented communication networks.
News travelled through newspapers, pamphlets, railway journeys, tea stalls, trade unions, college campuses and endless conversations. Every bus conductor seemed to know the latest political gossip. Every tea shop doubled up as a newsroom. Every passenger became an unpaid correspondent.
In the refinery, I had another fascinating source of information. Our trade union leaders, many of whom belonged to the CPI, seemed to have an astonishing supply of political updates. Every lunch break became a live news bulletin. There were no breaking-news tickers—only breaking conversations.
The movement kept gathering momentum.
Then came 1975.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency.
From the government's perspective, the situation was slipping towards anarchy and extraordinary measures were necessary. Civil liberties were suspended, opposition leaders were arrested and press censorship became a reality. Overnight, politics stopped being just another discussion topic. It entered people's homes, their workplaces and even their whispers.
Living through that period taught me something textbooks never could.
Every generation eventually finds its own way of making power uncomfortable.
Fast forward fifty years.
Today I watch another phenomenon unfolding—what many young people online jokingly call the "Cockroach Party" movement.
What a wonderfully irreverent name!
Apparently the idea is simple. Cockroaches survive everything. Ban one account, ten more appear. Delete one post, screenshots multiply. Silence one voice and a hundred memes arrive wearing sunglasses.
If JP borrowed a loudspeaker, today's youngsters borrow the algorithm.
The similarities between the two movements are remarkable.
Both were born out of frustration.
The JP Movement questioned corruption, authoritarianism and the failure of institutions to listen.
The Cockroach movement questions hypocrisy, bad governance and political doublespeak. The methods are different, but the instinct is remarkably similar—hold those in authority accountable.
The biggest difference is not the objective.
It is the technology.
The JP Movement was completely "boots on the ground."
You had to travel.
You had to attend meetings.
You had to stand in crowds under the hot sun.
You had to shout slogans until your throat surrendered.
Participation demanded physical effort.
Today's activism often begins with a smartphone.
A fifteen-second video can trigger a nationwide debate before dinner.
A meme created over morning coffee may be discussed in Parliament by evening.
A hashtag travels faster than the Rajdhani Express ever could.
Back then, news spread from mouth to mouth.
Today it spreads from share to share.
The language has changed too.
JP's speeches carried the moral weight of the freedom struggle. They spoke of democracy, sacrifice and Sampoorna Kranti—Total Revolution.
Today's language is lighter on ideology and heavier on sarcasm.
A political speech becomes a remix.
A policy announcement becomes a meme.
Humour has become the new protest banner.
As someone who enjoys writing with a smile, I secretly admire this evolution. Sometimes humour can puncture arrogance far more effectively than anger.
Of course, neither movement was perfect.
The JP Movement had a towering moral leader but depended heavily on physical organisation. It eventually culminated in the historic 1977 election.
The Cockroach movement has no single leader. That makes it difficult to suppress—but also difficult to sustain. It rises in waves, disappears for a while and then suddenly reappears when least expected.
Rather like its namesake.
The state's response has also evolved with technology.
During the Emergency, censorship meant controlling newspapers, arresting leaders and restricting public meetings.
Today the battlefield is digital—account suspensions, content moderation, internet shutdowns, legal notices and endless online counter-narratives.
Different weapons.
Same contest.
Looking back, I feel fortunate to have witnessed both eras.
As a young engineer in Barauni, I watched history through conversations at tea stalls and trade union offices.
As an eighty-year-old writer, I now watch another chapter unfold through WhatsApp, YouTube, X and Instagram.
The stage has changed from Gandhi Maidan to the smartphone screen.
The actors have changed.
The costumes have changed.
Even the slogans have changed.
But the underlying script remains surprisingly familiar.
Whenever people feel that formal channels stop listening, they invent new ones.
Yesterday it was the village square.
Today it is the group chat.
Yesterday it was the loudspeaker.
Today it is the meme.
History, I have realised, never really repeats itself.
It simply upgrades its operating system.
And having lived long enough to witness both versions, I can only smile and say—technology may have accelerated the messenger, but the message itself remains delightfully old:
"We are watching."
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