It is said that if you pluck a chicken one feather at a time, nobody notices. That is how some people deceive themselves into believing that small wrongs will never catch up with them.

The trouble with this method is that, one fine day, the truth stands bare, impossible to ignore. This October, Indian democracy resembles a plucked chicken, stripped of its plumage, as protesters who ironically call themselves “cockroaches” swarm our streets.

list 1 of 4India’s ‘Cockroach’ leaders released from detention after police crackdown

list 2 of 4Photos: Thousands detained in police crackdown on India’s youth protest

list 3 of 4Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi detained over election chief protest

list 4 of 4‘Cockroach stir stripped Modi’s carefully confected image’: Arundhati Roy

A lot of feather-plucking went on for 12 years before Prime Minister Narendra Modi found himself cornered, retreating behind barricades, facing the wrath of students for whom the slow erosion of democracy has left little to lose and even less to fear.

Confronted with a major protest on October 10 demanding the reversal of a purge of the voter rolls, he went on a self-incrimination spree. His government imposed measures reminiscent of the emergency era: no trains to New Delhi, paramilitary forces deployed at protest sites, the internet disrupted.

Ahead of the demonstration, leading figures linked to the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest........

© Al Jazeera