On the trail of the cockroach

Cockroaches and ideas can endure, and sometimes, suddenly take off

The insect, feared and derided, and for long an object of disgust, is clearly having its moment in the sun. And, perhaps, its 15 minutes of fame.

2 min readOct 17, 2026 06:57 AM IST First published on: Oct 17, 2026 at 06:57 AM IST

The dung beetle adorned the sarcophagi of pharaohs and gods. Long before it became a trinket sold to tourists, the scarab was a symbol of power and prosperity in ancient Egypt. Butterflies, ants, termites, and spiders hold a place among the sacred, from the Americas to Africa and Asia. Not so the cockroach. That doesn’t mean the formidable insect doesn’t have a place in metaphor and imagination, as an object of fear, derision and, most recently in India, politics. The arthropod can be stomped on; its life ends by the much larger Homo sapiens with a macabre crunch. But it is equally a symbol of endurance, of the creature that will outlast most others in a nuclear apocalypse. And, much to the horror of the katsaridaphobic, it can — relatively rarely, but with surprising speed — take flight.

The diminutive insect entered India’s political lexicon after a seemingly stray remark by the Chief Justice of India about the young and restless. From there, a viral social media phenomenon turned into a protest movement. Now, a symbol for the forgotten and stepped on is set to become larger than life: The Shree Keshav Ram Leela Committee, organisers of the annual Ramlila in Pitampura, has decided to burn a 30-foot effigy of a cockroach on Dussehra. The effigy-burning, it is also being said, is part of the Swachh Bharat campaign, and cockroaches will feature in the asura army.

The insect, feared and derided, and for long an object of disgust, is clearly having its moment in the sun. And, perhaps, its 15 minutes of fame. For those seeking to stamp out its current virality — digital and on the street — setting a 30-foot effigy on fire might help, or it might not. Because cockroaches and ideas can endure, and sometimes, suddenly take off.