India proudly calls its youth the country’s “demographic dividend.” We constantly hear that India’s greatest strength is its young population. Over 65% of Indians are below the age of 35. More than 360 million people are between 15 and 29 years old. By 2030, India is expected to have the world’s largest working-age population. Young people are celebrated as the future workforce, the drivers of innovation, the face of Digital India, and the backbone of a five-trillion-dollar economy.
But recent remarks comparing unemployed youth and activists to “cockroaches” and “parasites” by the Chief Justice of India exposed a disturbing contradiction at the heart of modern India. How can a country celebrate its youth in speeches and insult them when they struggle to survive? As someone who has spent more than 23 years working directly with adolescents and young people, I found these remarks deeply painful, dangerous and profoundly disconnected from reality. India’s youth are not parasites. They are carrying the burden of failures created by systems much larger than themselves.
Today’s young Indians are perhaps the most educated generation in the country’s history, yet millions remain unemployed or underemployed. Degrees no longer guarantee stability or dignity. Families spend enormous amounts on education, coaching classes and competitive exams, hoping their children will secure a better future. Instead, many graduates spend years trapped in uncertainty, endlessly preparing for government jobs because secure employment opportunities remain painfully scarce. Young people are repeatedly told to “work harder” while systems continue shrinking opportunities around them.
India’s economic growth story has failed to generate enough meaningful employment for its youth. Millions remain trapped in informal work with low wages, exploitation and no social security. Young women face even harsher realities, with significantly higher unemployment and social restrictions further limiting opportunities. This is not laziness. This is systemic failure. Yet instead of honestly confronting these structural problems, institutions increasingly appear impatient with the frustration of young people themselves.
At the same time, India is witnessing a silent mental health emergency among youth. Anxiety, burnout, loneliness, academic pressure and depression are becoming normalised. India continues to report one of the world’s highest suicide rates among people aged 15 to 29. Behind every statistic is a human being silently struggling ” a student crushed by expectations, a graduate unable to find work, a young person battling addiction, or someone pretending to be “fine” while emotionally collapsing. Young people today are carrying pressures that previous generations often fail to fully understand.
Substance abuse among youth is also increasing across many regions of India. But addiction cannot be separated from hopelessness, unemployment, emotional distress and collapsing support systems. Young people are not collapsing because awareness posters are missing. They are collapsing because sustainable support systems are missing. Ironically, the same Chief Justice had recently come to Goa associated with a widely publicised 30-day anti-substance abuse campaign focused on youth. There were speeches, events, media visibility and symbolic engagement. But what changed structurally afterwards? Did it create stronger mental health systems? Did it strengthen rehabilitation infrastructure? Did it improve employment opportunities? Did it build sustainable youth support mechanisms? Or did it become another campaign that disappeared after the headlines faded?
This is precisely the frustration many young people feel today. India increasingly specialises in tokenism. Campaigns are launched. Slogans trend. Speeches are delivered. Photographs circulate. Then silence returns. Young people do not need symbolic concern. They need serious investment in their futures. One cannot stand on platforms speaking about “saving youth” from addiction while simultaneously using dehumanising language against unemployed young people struggling to survive. That contradiction matters because it exposes the superficiality of institutional engagement with youth issues.
Words spoken from constitutional offices carry enormous weight. Words like “cockroaches,” “parasites,” “termites” and “vermin” are not harmless metaphors. History repeatedly shows that dehumanising language normalises hostility against vulnerable groups. When such language comes from the highest judicial office in the country, the damage becomes even more serious because the judiciary is expected to embody constitutional morality, dignity and empathy. Courts are often the last refuge for citizens failed by systems of power. Young people expressing frustration, criticism or dissent are not enemies of democracy. They are often products of systems that have repeatedly denied them opportunities, security and hope.
Many young people today turn towards activism, journalism, RTI work and digital advocacy because these spaces allow them to question institutions and demand accountability. That does not make them parasites. It makes them citizens participating in democracy. Democracies are strengthened when young people engage critically with systems, not when they are silenced or mocked for doing so. Throughout history, every generation that challenged injustice was once labelled disruptive, irresponsible or dangerous. But history ultimately remembers those who questioned systems far more kindly than those who dismissed the struggles of the powerless.
India’s demographic dividend is not permanent. This window will begin narrowing after 2030. If India fails to create meaningful jobs, strengthen mental health systems, reform education and invest seriously in young people, the consequences will not merely be economic. They will be social, psychological and deeply political. A generation that feels unseen, unheard and disrespected eventually loses faith not only in institutions but also in the promise of the nation itself.
And perhaps that is the deepest tragedy of all. Despite overwhelming pressure, millions of young Indians continue to study, innovate, migrate, support families and dream of better futures. They continue to survive inside systems that often fail them repeatedly. That resilience deserves respect, dignity and investment ” not ridicule. India’s youth are not cockroaches. They are the exhausted backbone of a country that keeps demanding resilience from them while offering shrinking pathways to survival. If institutions continue mocking their pain instead of addressing it, the Republic itself must confront a dangerous question: what happens when an entire generation stops believing that the system sees them as human beings worthy of dignity at all?
(The writer is an Assistant Professor of Social Work, Goa University and founder of Human Touch Foundation)
