最初是印度高等教育体系中反腐败的Z世代抗议，很快就演变成对总理纳伦德拉·莫迪政府的更广泛挑战。不满的核心在于，1.3亿选民可能被从选民初步名单中除名而丧失选举权。
What began as a Gen Z agitation against corruption in India’s higher education system has quickly morphed into a much broader challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. At the heart of the discontent is the potential disenfranchisement of 130 million voters dropped from draft electoral rolls.
周日，国大党领袖、议会反对党领袖拉胡尔·甘地在首都领导了一场游行，要求选举委员会主席吉亚内什·库马尔辞职。来自全国各地的数千名示威者聚集在新德里的拉姆利拉广场，参加近年来最大规模的反政府集会之一。前一天，反对派团体举行了一场象征性的公开弹劾，学生领袖尼哈·博拉指控库马尔通过将新选民登记与2002年的祖先记录挂钩，将年轻选民拒之门外。该委员会坚称，此次改革只是简化核查程序。
On Sunday, the Congress Party’s Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in parliament, led a march in the national capital to press for the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, the chief election commissioner. Thousands of demonstrators from across the country gathered at New Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan in one of the biggest anti-government rallies in recent times. A day earlier, opposition groups held a symbolic public impeachment where student leader Neha Bora accused Kumar of locking out young voters by linking new registrations to ancestral records from 2002. The panel insists the overhaul merely streamlines verification.
与欧洲的相似之处难以忽视。从巴黎和马德里到贝尔格莱德，年轻人都走上街头，反对根深蒂固的精英阶层。他们的诉求各不相同，但前提是共同的：一个面临流动性停滞、感到被完全忽视的一代人。在印度，这场持续六个月的运动自称“蟑螂人民党”，这个名字反映了该国4亿Z世代群体成员觉得自己受到掌权者的对待方式。
Parallels with Europe are hard to miss. From Paris and Madrid to Belgrade, youth have taken to the streets against entrenched elites. Their grievances vary, but the premise is shared: a generation facing stalled mobility and feeling utterly ignored. In India, the six-month-old movement calls itself the Cockroach Janta Party — a name that captures how members of the country’s 400-million-strong Gen Z cohort feel they are treated by those in power.
印度的抗议者最初要求教育部长达尔梅德拉·普拉丹因入学考试泄露事件下台，迫使莫迪在7月接受其辞职。受此胜利鼓舞，抗议者已将矛头指向更根本的事物：选票。一名内阁部长可以牺牲。但让库马尔倒台，将对支撑莫迪政治授权的选举进程产生怀疑。
India’s protesters started by demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s ouster over leaked entrance exams, forcing Modi to accept his resignation in July. Emboldened by that victory, the agitators have moved on to something far more fundamental: the ballot box. A cabinet minister is expendable. But letting Kumar fall would cast doubt on the electoral process that underpins Modi’s political mandate.
选举监督机构表示，希望通过清除已故、已迁移或在多个选区登记的选民，为选民名单“带来纯洁”。内政部长阿米特·沙则更为直截了当，称这是“发现、删除、驱逐”非公民（如罗兴亚难民和来自孟加拉国的非法移民）的工具。
The election watchdog says it wants to “bring purity” to the voter rolls by weeding out those who have died, moved, or are registered in more than one constituency. Home Minister Amit Shah is far more direct, hailing it as the tool to “detect, delete, and deport” noncitizens, such as Rohingya refugees and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
然而，迄今发现的违规证据与这种言论的规模不可同日而语。正如特朗普对非公民影响美国大选的无根据断言一样，印度出现的数字表明，这一现象可能远比声称的要小。对六个州的名单修订调查显示，该项目在近1亿选民的池子中只能识别出1600名涉嫌外国国民。
Yet the evidence of irregularities uncovered so far is incomparable to the scale of that rhetoric. Much as Donald Trump has made unsupported assertions about noncitizens influencing American elections, the numbers emerging from India suggest the phenomenon may be far smaller than the claims imply. An investigation by the of the revision across six states shows that the project could only identify 1,600 suspected foreign nationals from a pool of nearly 100 million voters.
在西孟加拉邦——投票前最早接受这一大规模整顿的州之一——莫迪的印度教右翼政党印度人民党在5月取得了突破性胜利。这一结果立即引发了对清洗行动的质疑：女性和穆斯林被不成比例地移除，而一些分析发现，删除幅度越大，印度人民党的表现越强。然而，反对派和公民社会团体的法律挑战未能阻止这一行动在全国范围内推开。仅在德里，就有33%的选民从草案名单中消失。
In West Bengal, one of the early states to be subjected to the overhaul before voting, Modi’s Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party won a breakthrough victory in May. The result immediately raised questions about the purge: Women and Muslims were disproportionately removed, while some analyses found an association between heavier deletions and stronger BJP performance. However, legal challenges by the opposition and civil-society groups failed to stop the nationwide rollout of the exercise. In Delhi alone, 33% of voters were missing from the draft list.
这时，年轻人挺身而出，在Instagram上夺回了叙事权。在迫使普拉丹辞职后，蟑螂运动抓住了9月23日一项调查的契机，该调查揭示，库马尔在三人选举委员会中的同事们多次反对以他们的名义做出决定。
That’s when the youth stepped up and wrested control of the narrative on Instagram. Flush from forcing Pradhan's resignation, the cockroach movement seized on a Sept. 23 investigation revealing that Kumar’s colleagues on the three-member election panel had repeatedly objected to decisions being taken in their name.
尽管首席专员本人未回应要求其下台的呼声，该选举机构否认其内部存在分歧。它甚至向最高法院提交了宣誓书，以此为由，坚称所有记录的更改均由现场授权官员执行。然而，媒体报道不断描绘出违规行为的严峻图景。
While the chief commissioner hasn’t personally responded to calls for his ouster, the poll body denied there was a rift in its ranks. It even filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court to that effect, insisting that all changes to the records were carried out by authorized officers on the ground. Yet a steady stream of media reports keeps painting a grim picture of irregularities.
为平息公众愤怒的积聚，该委员会表示将开展协调一致的运动，恢复被删除的记录。但这可能为时已晚、力不从心。德里警察隶属于内政部长沙阿（莫迪的二号人物），将抗议学生拖上警车并殴打他们。这种残暴行为加强了年轻人的决心，同时震惊了他们的父母，其中许多人属于通常支持莫迪的城市印度教中产阶级。
To defuse the buildup of public anger, the commission said it would run a concerted campaign to bring back expunged records. That may be too little, too late. Delhi Police, which reports to Home Minister Shah, Modi’s No. 2, hauled protesting students into vans and beat them up. The brutality hardened youth resolve while shocking their parents, many of them part of the urban, Hindu middle class that typically votes for Modi.
真正的考验将在明年初于北方邦到来，这是一个人口超过巴西的贫困北方邦。主导北方邦对总理至关重要，因为北方邦向议会派出的议员比任何其他邦都多。而利害关系远不止于下一次选举。政府正在推进两项可能进一步使印度的政治平衡从较富裕的南部转向较贫穷、人口更多的北部的变革：根据新的人口普查重新分配议会席位，以及同步举行全国和邦级选举。这两项变革合在一起，可能会削弱联邦制，将更多权力集中在新德里，让南部对其政治前景感到焦虑。
The real test comes early next year in Uttar Pradesh, an impoverished northern state more populous than Brazil. Dominating UP, which sends more lawmakers to parliament than any other state, is vital for the prime minister. And the stakes extend well beyond the next election. The government is pursuing two changes that could tilt India’s political balance further away from the richer south and toward the poorer, more populous north: redistributing parliamentary seats according to a fresh population count and synchronizing national and state elections. Together, they could eviscerate federalism and concentrate more power in New Delhi, leaving the south anxious about its political future.
然而，即使在印度人民党的传统票仓中，受过教育的选民中也出现了不满的迹象。在最近为毕业生和教师保留的选区举行的地区选举中，执政联盟赢得了总体选票，但在莫迪的选区瓦拉纳西以及印度右翼的思想摇篮那格浦尔遭遇了尴尬的失利。
Yet there are signs of discontent even among educated voters across the BJP’s traditional strongholds. In recent regional elections in constituencies reserved for graduates and teachers, the ruling alliance won the broader tally but suffered embarrassing losses in Varanasi, Modi’s own constituency, and Nagpur, the ideological cradle of the Hindu right.
六月，这位76岁的总理打破了印度民选政府首脑连续执政时间最长的纪录，超越了贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫鲁1952年后的执政期。即使在后莫迪时代，这一里程碑对执政党而言仍将是强大的政治资本——前提是印度人继续信任产生这一纪录的选举进程。
In June, the 76-year-old prime minister broke the record for the longest continuous tenure as the head of an elected Indian government, surpassing Jawaharlal Nehru’s post-1952 run. That milestone will remain powerful political currency for the ruling party even in the post-Modi era — provided Indians continue to trust the electoral process that delivered it.
正是这种信任正遭到青年运动的挑战。但由于社交媒体审查严厉，且警方拘留的威胁始终存在，抗议活动有可能失去声援。这解释了部分组织者为何在战略上倾向于甘地，尽管另一些人仍担心被一位老派政客吞噬。“蟑螂党”支持了周日的游行，但未参与。学生领袖博拉在集会上发表了讲话。
It is precisely that trust the youth movement is challenging. But with heavy social-media censorship and the constant threat of police detention, the protest risks running out of oxygen. That explains the tactical gravitation of some organizers toward Gandhi, even as others remain wary of being swallowed by an old-guard politician. The cockroach party supported Sunday’s march, but didn’t participate. Bora, the student leader, spoke at the rally.
如果最终卡住莫迪强大政治机器的扳手，竟是这个不安的联盟——一位被一群自称“蟑螂”的年轻人推入战场的建制派王朝继承人，他们将自己投入齿轮之中——那将是莫大的讽刺。
It would be a supreme irony if the wrench that finally jams Modi’s formidable political machine turns out to be this uneasy alliance — an establishment dynast pushed into battle by a swarm of self-proclaimed cockroaches throwing themselves into the gears.