rewrite this title Revolt of the Cockroaches: How India’s Gen Z Humbled Modi

Fifteen years later, the Gen Z protests in Delhi and other Indian cities have incinerated Modi’s carefully constructed political brand, delivering death by a thousand burns. The target of the anger and scorn in all the insulting posters, slogans, and graffiti of the protest zone was not the education minister but Modi himself.

It was an exhilarating spectacle to watch a prime minister elevated to the status of a demigod through the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars of public money spent on ubiquitous advertising campaigns, becoming the butt of a torrent of wickedly humorous, profanity-laced slogans from young men and women in the capital. The eminently Instagrammable viral burns of the protesters were deliberate, taking apart and inverting each element of Modi’s political brand. 

The weapon of choice was satire. The unofficial anthem of the protest was a call-and-response chant: “Chappan inch ka chhota bandar,” followed by the crowd’s chorus, “Bhaag Narendra, Bhaag Narendra.” (“The little monkey with the 56-inch chest. Run Narendra, Run Narendra!”) The viral reel that originated the chant features two women, who seem to be in their early 20s, dressed in casual streetwear, leading the chant while a man holds a poster depicting Modi as a little monkey.