A recent public debate in India, triggered by a passing remark about unemployed youth and "parasites of society" by India's Chief Justice Surya Kant, brought cockroaches into the national conversation. Young people, disillusioned with the system, responded by creating the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). But few cared to look beyond the stereotype of the cockroach as a common household pest and a "dirty insect".

What is little known, however, is that the "Supreme Nature's Court" has reviewed the cockroach's performance and utility for over 300 million years and repeatedly renewed its license to exist. In fact, not coincidentally, a research team comprising scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) recently released a genetic barcode library of cockroaches to uncover hidden native diversity. The news was released by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the Indian government's nodal agency for disseminating official information to the media, under the caption "Beyond Pests"! The work of ZSI scientists has been published in the prestigious international taxonomy journal Zootaxa.

Clearly, their work proves that the cockroach is not simply an insect. It is a masterclass in resilience, adaptation and systems thinking. Its story invites humanity to reconsider how it defines value in the biosphere and how often civilization mistakes ecological necessity for social nuisance.

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), established in 1992 during the Rio Earth Summit, has as its primary objective the preservation of the planet's life-support systems through three main pillars: conserving biodiversity, using resources sustainably and sharing genetic benefits equitably. The CBD promotes living in harmony with nature and understanding the vital functions that living creatures perform. A total of 196 countries are signatories to the CBD.

The CBD treaty requires each nation to study and protect its native wildlife. Scientific studies show that countries like India are home to nearly 200 species of cockroaches. The vast majority are native species that live harmlessly in forests or caves. The CBD views cockroaches as an important part of natural ecosystems. While a few species are urban pests, global CBD reports highlight their vital ecological role in breaking down organic matter and recycling soil nutrients. All species of cockroaches have an evolutionary place in biodiversity.

Nature neither creates nor supports redundancy. Every surviving species carries a lesson written millions of years ago. Nature—the greatest teacher, classroom and observatory, with 4.5 billion years of experiential learning—tells this story vividly. The tragedy is that human beings are the only students in nature's classroom who have not listened to the teacher. The tragedy is not that the cockroach exists. The tragedy is that humanity has yet to understand why it exists.

A Highly Misunderstood Creature

For generations, humanity has looked upon the cockroach with disgust. It has become a universal symbol of dirt, nuisance and unwanted survival. We crush it without hesitation, ridicule it in popular culture and associate its presence with poor hygiene and urban decay.

While cockroaches are widely misunderstood and stereotyped purely as household pests, most wild species are harmless; in fact, they play a critical role in supporting and regenerating vital components of nature, including soil. As one of the oldest and most diverse insect groups on Earth, they play a critical role in maintaining natural ecosystems by decomposing organic matter, recycling nutrients and supporting forest food webs. Because these wild species are highly sensitive to environmental disturbances, they serve as crucial indicators of ecosystem health.

These findings shift the focus away from household pests and celebrate the country's hidden wealth of wild insects. India's official biodiversity assessments, updated by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), show that the country is home to 191 distinct cockroach species, more than 60 percent of which (119 species) are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else on Earth.

Wisdom of Supreme Nature's Court

Long before humans built cities, before mammals dominated the land and even before dinosaurs appeared, the ancestors of today's cockroaches had already found their place in Earth's evolving systems. For more than 300 million years, they have survived continental drift, volcanic winters, ice ages and mass extinctions. Entire branches of life disappeared while the cockroach lineage continued to adapt.

Nature rewards not arrogance but adaptability. This lesson is increasingly relevant in an era of climate disruption, where resilience rather than dominance will determine the future of both ecosystems and civilizations.

We should not judge an entire society or civilization by a few individuals. Science recognises thousands of cockroach species. Only a tiny fraction have adapted to human settlements and become household pests. The overwhelming majority spend their lives unnoticed in forests, wetlands, grasslands and natural ecosystems, participating quietly in the grand cycles that sustain life.

Humanity has condemned an entire evolutionary family because a few members learned to exploit our own wasteful habits. Ironically, this mirrors one of civilization's recurring mistakes—judging entire communities, cultures or systems by isolated examples rather than understanding the whole. Nature teaches integration, not prejudice.

Nature perfected the circular economy billions of years ago. Every fallen leaf, dead branch, discarded fruit and decomposing organism becomes raw material for cockroaches. Cockroaches are among the silent workers that keep this circular economy functioning. By consuming decaying organic matter, they accelerate nutrient recycling, enrich soils and support the productivity of forests upon which biodiversity—and ultimately human well-being—depends.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) call for responsible consumption and production. The cockroach has been practising circular resource management long before humanity invented economics. They are examples of how the SDGs can be implemented. Perhaps our universities should study nature's waste managers—the vast range of non-domestic cockroach species—with the same seriousness that they study industrial engineers and AI.

They do not protest against pesticides or humanity. They are humble servants of nature, busy developing their own algorithms and understanding the models and patterns of nature.

The Silent Infrastructure of Biodiversity

Before attaching the moniker "cockroach" to any people or community, it should be understood that ecosystems depend on both visible and invisible infrastructure. Trees capture carbon. Rivers transport nutrients. Pollinators sustain agriculture. Decomposers return life to the soil. Cockroaches occupy an essential position within this living infrastructure. They feed birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, while their digestive systems host microbial communities that contribute to decomposition and nutrient cycling.

Like the ozone layer, which protects life without demanding recognition or a security fee from human civilization, many ecological services remain invisible until they begin to disappear. Human civilization often notices nature only after it has been degraded. The wiser course is to understand it before we lose it.

The battle against cockroaches is not fundamentally a battle against nature. It is the consequence of a collision between natural adaptation and human-designed environments.

A handful of species discovered that cities provide permanent warmth, food and shelter. They became extraordinarily successful urban opportunists. Public health demands that these species be managed in homes, hospitals and food systems. Scientific pest control is both necessary and responsible. But management should never become a philosophy of eradication.

For centuries, rural communities have lived closer to ecological realities than modern urban societies. Farmers understand that organisms considered pests in one context often perform indispensable functions in another. Traditional knowledge rarely divides nature into categories of absolute good and evil. Instead, it recognises relationships, seasons and balance. Nature remains humanity's oldest university, and rural societies remain among its most experienced graduates. The cockroach demonstrates that ecosystems operate through cooperation, recycling and interconnectedness rather than isolated competition.

Development has too often been framed as a choice between economic growth and environmental protection. Nature rejects this false choice. Nothing becomes waste. Everything becomes a resource for another process. This offers a powerful metaphor for the "third way" of sustainable development, where economic prosperity, ecological integrity and social well-being reinforce one another instead of competing.

The future belongs not to linear economies but to circular civilizations inspired by nature's own design principles.

Understanding Nature Before Judgment

Scientists believe cockroaches will continue adapting to changing climates because flexibility is embedded in their evolutionary success. The question is whether humanity will demonstrate similar wisdom. Our technological achievements have advanced rapidly, yet our relationship with nature often remains rooted in domination rather than partnership. Climate change, biodiversity loss and resource depletion all point to the same conclusion: humanity cannot negotiate with ecological laws. Nor can humanity create its own laws and interpretations without first understanding and learning from nature.

The cockroach will never become a beloved creature. Nor should public health concerns be ignored. But reducing one of Earth's oldest survivors to a symbol of disgust reveals more about human perception than ecological reality. Every surviving species represents an experiment that has passed the ultimate test of time.

Ozone-layer-protection diplomacy has taught the world that global problems require balanced solutions rather than simplistic extremes. The same principle applies to climate change and, more importantly, biodiversity. The answer lies in intelligent coexistence and ecosystem management, not ecological intolerance.

Lessons From a Cockroach

The greatest lesson of the cockroach is not biological but civilizational. It reminds us that resilience matters more than appearance, contribution more than popularity, and systems more than individual components. The cockroach, unnoticed beneath our feet, is one of countless silent sherpas carrying the weight of planetary systems that sustain life itself towards the summit of sustainability.

The Zoological Survey of India, while releasing its research last month, stated: "DNA barcode studies on the cockroaches of Peninsular India have opened new avenues for understanding the evolutionary diversification of endemic lineages, revealing possible Gondwanan biogeographic affinities and highlighting how long-term geographic isolation and continental history shaped the fauna of the Indian subcontinent."

As humanity searches for pathways towards climate stability, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, we would do well to remember that nature has already spent billions of years perfecting solutions. Our responsibility is not merely to protect nature. It is first to understand it.

India's Gen Z seeks opportunity, purpose and impact. The cockroach's greatest lesson is not survival but service—quietly sustaining ecosystems through recycling, resilience and adaptation. As young people lead the journey towards sustainability and Net Zero, the question is not whether they are cockroaches, but whether they will learn from them.

(The author is a noted environmentalist, former Director of UNEP, Coordinating Lead Author, IPCC 2007 (Nobel Peace Prize laureate), IIT alumnus, and Founder of the Green TERRE Foundation, Pune. Views are personal.)