Cockroaches show strong evidence of sentience, including the capacity to feel pain, learn from experiences, and exhibit complex social behaviors. Recent scientific reviews, such as those by Gibbons et al., indicate that cockroaches meet multiple criteria for sentience, such as having nociceptors, showing flexible self-protective behaviors, and demonstrating associative learning.
Youth dissatisfaction in India today is driven by a mix of economic frustration, broken education-to-work promises, and a feeling of being disrespected or ignored, and the recent “cockroach movement” is a sharp, viral expression of that anger.[1][2] Many of the underlying themes closely parallel concerns raised in the UK (including in the Milburn Review): high youth unemployment, poor-quality work, mismatched education, and a sense that institutions are failing a “digital” generation.
1. India: what young people are dissatisfied about
a. Jobs without futures – or no jobs at all
- India has a huge youth population (over half under 30), but the economy is not creating enough good jobs.[1][4]
- Unemployment for 20–24‑year‑olds is above 40% in some estimates, and many who do work end up in informal, insecure roles without contracts or benefits.[1]
- A striking pattern is “educated unemployment”: the higher the level of education, the more likely a young person is to be unemployed.[1] This creates intense resentment: they did what was asked (study, get degrees) and still cannot get decent work.
b. The “cockroach movement” as a symbol of humiliation
- The so‑called cockroach protest/movement involves young people using cockroach imagery and language online to express how they feel treated by the system and the labour market.[2]
- According to reporting referenced in that article, youth are effectively saying they are treated as disposable, invisible and dirty—like pests—despite being the generation that was promised a “rising India.”[2]
- It captures two emotions:
- Humiliation: long queues for low‑paid jobs, scams, arbitrary recruitment, and exam leaks.
- Contempt for the political class: a sense that leaders talk about “demographic dividend” but treat young people as numbers, not humans.
c. Education that doesn’t deliver
- Many young Indians are in colleges that offer outdated curricula, poorly trained faculty and weak links to real jobs.[1]
- Degrees do not translate into skills employers want, producing a skills mismatch and deep frustration among graduates.[1]
- Young people see this as a broken promise: they invested years and family savings in education that doesn’t pay off in the labour market.
d. Precarity and inequality
- Around 90% of workers are in the informal economy, often in agriculture, construction and low‑paid services with no social security.[1]
- Small and medium enterprises struggle with red tape and finance, and formal sector job creation is weak.[1]
- Many young people face precarious, low-status work or are pushed back into family farming, which feels like going backwards.[1]
e. Gendered dissatisfaction
- India’s female labour force participation is among the lowest in the world.[1]
- Young women often face the double bind of limited job opportunities and strong social expectations to prioritise unpaid care, leading to frustration with both labour markets and gender norms.[1]
f. Broader life dissatisfaction and attitudes
- Survey work (e.g. Lokniti-CSDS) has recorded significant anxieties about jobs, corruption, inequality and the quality of education, and a strong preference for secure government jobs as a way out of uncertainty.[5]
- Dissatisfaction with one’s job or life is closely linked to desire to exit (e.g. migration, further study, or dropping out of the labour market).[5]
2. How this parallels youth dissatisfaction in the UK
The context is different (India is a lower-middle-income country with a vast informal sector; the UK is high-income), but the emotional core and several structural issues are similar.
a. Jobs, quality work, and NEETs
- UK youth face high NEET rates (not in education, employment or training) and rising economic inactivity driven by ill health and weak transitions from education to work.[Milburn Review coverage]
- Both Indian and UK youth report:
- Difficulty finding stable, decent work even after following official advice (study, get qualifications).
- Being channelled into low-paid, insecure roles that do not match their aspirations.
b. Broken education-to-work promises
- In India, degrees often do not deliver jobs because of poor quality and weak skills relevance.[1]
- In the UK, Milburn highlights poor transitions, patchy vocational routes, and a mismatch between training and real labour demand, especially for those not on academic tracks.
- In both countries, young people feel they did what adults told them (stay in education) but the system did not hold up its end of the bargain.
c. Humiliation, stigma, and being “looked down on”
- India’s cockroach movement is a direct metaphor for feeling treated as pests—disposable, disrespected and blamed for systemic failures.[2]
- In the UK, Milburn talks about a “bedroom generation” and youth supposedly lacking resilience or work ethic; many young people experience stigma around being NEET or on benefits, and media narratives often frame them as lazy or entitled.
- In both contexts, youth feel that public discourse blames them, not the systems that produced high youth unemployment/inactivity.
d. Digital and social media dimensions
- Indian youth are heavily online; social media amplifies both mobilisation (e.g. cockroach protest) and feelings of inadequacy when they see curated success stories that don’t match their reality.
- In the UK, Milburn explicitly links social media to sleep loss, mental health deterioration, unrealistic expectations and “quitting culture.”
- Across both countries, a hyper‑connected generation is using social media to express discontent, but is also shaped by online cultures that can deepen anxiety, frustration and comparison stress.
e. Desire for dignity and voice, not just income
- Indian youth protests (including the cockroach trend, exam-related agitations, and job protests) demand fair recruitment, respect, and an end to corruption and arbitrary treatment.[2][5]
- UK youth interviewed in the Milburn work and similar research say they want work that is meaningful, fairly paid, and where they are treated with respect, not just any job.
- In both settings, dissatisfaction is about status, dignity and fairness, not only about wages.
3. Key contrasts
- Scale and formality of the labour market
- India’s problem is dominated by large‑scale informal work and underemployment; the UK’s by inactivity and skill/job mismatch in a predominantly formal labour market.
- Role of the state
- In India, the state is still seen as a crucial provider of coveted secure government jobs, and dissatisfaction often focuses on exams, recruitment processes and corruption.[5]
- In the UK, the focus is more on welfare, health, and education systems failing to support young people effectively, plus criticisms of employers and precarious work.
Despite these differences, the underlying pattern is similar: a large, digitally connected youth cohort that has been told it is the country’s “future” but experiences blocked mobility, poor-quality work, and a sense that institutions are not built for them.
If you’d like to anchor this further, I can sketch a short comparative framework you could reuse: “five shared drivers of youth frustration in India and the UK, and three policy levers that look similar across both contexts.”