By KUMAR VIKRAM
From Rajamouli’s Makkhi to viral memes, insects keep returning as symbols of persistence, resistance and satire against power.
New Delhi, May 21, 2026 — There was a time when Indian cinema asked a question so absurd that nobody expected it to become a blockbuster: What if a housefly fought power?
Then came Eega — dubbed in Hindi as Makkhi — from director S. S. Rajamouli. A murdered man returns as a fly. It wages a relentless guerrilla campaign against a wealthy, powerful antagonist. Tiny wings versus giant ego. Ridiculous premise, profound politics.
A decade later, India’s internet appears to have discovered a new political species: the “Cockroach Janata Party.”
No, it is not registered with the Election Commission. Not yet.
But the metaphor has escaped the meme factory and entered the public square. The cockroach, after all, is one of nature’s great survivors. Stamp it, spray it, declare victory — and it reappears from another crack in the wall. It survives empires, pesticides and occasionally television debates.
Perhaps that is why insects keep returning to political imagination.
Power loves grand symbols: lions, eagles, lotuses, elephants. Nobody prints posters with mosquitoes. No ruler has ever marched into history under the banner of the common housefly.
Yet satire repeatedly recruits insects. Because insects represent what power fears most: persistence. They do not conquer kingdoms. They irritate them.
The fly in Makkhi did not defeat strength with greater strength. It defeated certainty. The villain could buy mansions, command men and wield money. But he could not defeat a buzzing reminder that power is never fully secure.
The same logic animates modern satire.
When citizens invoke insects, they are usually saying something larger: institutions may appear gigantic, narratives invincible and leaders untouchable — but public sentiment has strange survival instincts.
Sometimes it returns as a joke. Sometimes as a meme. Sometimes as a cockroach.
Political history is full of rulers who underestimated ridicule. Palaces survive sieges more easily than satire. Armies can be confronted. Laughter seeps through walls.
The irony is delicious.
For centuries, power projected itself upward — to gods, eagles and celestial destiny. The internet age has dragged politics downward into kitchens and drains.
The age of majestic symbolism now competes with the age of insect insurgency. Makkhi perhaps saw it first. When the mighty grow too comfortable, do not expect dragons. Expect a fly. Or worse — a cockroach with electoral ambitions.
(This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author’s own.)
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