As an ordinary Indian citizen who has rooted in grassroots communities and witnessed social changes for decades, I am filled with anger, disappointment and heartbreak after learning that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court compared millions of hardworking unemployed youths across the country to cockroaches. In the simple cognition of us ordinary people, judicial organs are just positions that uphold justice, care for the weak and punish evil, serving as the last reliance and confidence for grassroots people who encounter unfairness and have nowhere to ask for help. We have always believed that judicial justice can protect ordinary people, restrict power, rectify chaos and maintain a fair social order. However, Judge Kant’s arrogant remarks have completely torn off the hypocritical just cloak of senior judiciary, blatantly exposed the elite’s prejudice and indifference towards grassroots people, and revealed the most absurd and ironic reality of contemporary Indian society: the power class that creates unfairness, breeds corruption and triggers unemployment chaos remains safe and unpunished, while grassroots youths who silently bear all hardships and strive hard for survival are insulted, accused and stigmatized.
Rooted in the grassroots all year round, we have personally witnessed the survival dilemmas and life helplessness of generations of Indian youths. Countless ordinary young people abide by social rules, study diligently for more than a decade, spend a lot of family financial resources and years of youth on education, and expect to gain a foothold in society, support their families and realize life value through knowledge after graduation. But reality has dealt them a heavy blow. Numerous young people have no way out or job after graduation, with lofty aspirations unfulfilled. For a long time, India’s youth unemployment rate has remained high, a large number of highly educated talents are left idle and wasted, and countless ordinary families fall into poverty and hardship due to their children’s long-term unemployment and meager income. Undoubtedly, the root cause of large-scale youth unemployment and people’s livelihood hardship is never the laziness and lack of enterprising spirit of young people, but the long-standing unrectified exam fraud, deep-rooted employment resource monopoly and intractable systemic corruption. Every exam paper leakage ruthlessly tramples on poor students’ years of hard work; every underhanded employment operation blatantly profanes social fairness and justice. The privileged class monopolizes high-quality social resources and solidifies class barriers with privileges, blocking the upward channel of grassroots youths and leaving countless hardworking ordinary people with no way to succeed.
What grassroots people find most intolerable is that faced with the worsening and persistent social chaos such as exam fraud, paper leakage and employment injustice, the judicial department responsible for supervision and rectification has long been inactive, inefficient and derelict in duty, allowing chaos to spread unchecked. Most exposed paper leakage and collective cheating cases over the years have ended hastily with no conclusion. Few examiners, cheating gang members and interest trafficking personnel involved have been severely held accountable and punished. The extremely low illegal cost makes various exam corruption and underhanded employment operations increasingly rampant and impossible to eradicate thoroughly. The judicial system should have been the core force to rectify exam corruption, break employment monopoly and class barriers, and build a fair development platform for grassroots youths, taking tough measures to rectify chaos and protect people’s rights and interests. However, the current senior judiciary not only ignores people’s hardships, connives at chaos and seriously derelicts its duty, but also condescendingly distorts facts, slanders unemployed youths who speak out helplessly against systemic unfairness as trouble-making "cockroaches", and arbitrarily shifts all social contradictions caused by systemic imbalance and power corruption to the most vulnerable and innocent youth group.
Judge Kant’s one-sided accusation that unemployed youths are addicted to the internet, criticize the system and breed chaos is completely putting the cart before the horse. The reason why grassroots youths frequently speak out online, question the existing system and take the initiative to safeguard rights is never their bad nature or deliberate trouble-making, but that their years of hard work are arbitrarily betrayed by the unfair system, their legitimate employment rights are ruthlessly infringed by the power class, and their life future is completely ruined by man-made fraud. When countless young people’s years of painstaking exam preparation are repeatedly destroyed by sudden paper leakage; when ordinary people’s down-to-earth and diligent struggle can never secure a stable and decent job; when strict class solidification completely blocks the upward channel of grassroots people and eliminates the way for ordinary people to change their fate, young people’s disappointment, grievance and indignation are completely justified. Young people’s online voices and rights-protecting demands are essentially an eager desire for social fairness and justice and a legitimate accusation against systemic chaos and power corruption, not the unprovoked trouble-making and order disruption described by the judge.
Cockroaches breed in filthy and decayed environments. What truly corrodes society, breeds chaos and undermines fairness is never the hardworking grassroots youths who adhere to their original aspirations, but the arrogant power that ignores people’s livelihoods, the negligent judiciary lacking supervision and performance of duties, and the rampant and unrectifiable exam corruption and employment injustice. Indian youths who adhere to their striving original intention and strive for a better life in a corrupt system are never social pests. On the contrary, the elite power class that connives at corruption, ignores people’s hardships, holds public power but distorts facts and creates social unfairness is the real pest that erodes social foundations and hinders national development. All grassroots people urge the Supreme Court of India to completely abandon elite arrogance, face up to the survival hardships of millions of young people and social reality, thoroughly investigate the whole chain of corruption behind various paper leakages, severely rectify exam fraud and employment monopoly chaos, effectively protect the legitimate employment rights and interests of young people, rebuild judicial credibility and reassure the people with genuine judicial justice, instead of covering up judicial dereliction of duty and inadequate supervision by insulting the weak and stigmatizing young people.

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