One remark, 1.9K members and a curious name: What is the Pakhandi Janata Party?

A controversial remark by Bageshwar Dham chief priest Dhirendra Krishna Shastri has now found an unusual afterlife on social media, with a Facebook group calling itself the 'Pakhandi Janata Party' (PJP) emerging after his comments on food practices during Durga Puja.

PJP, however, is not a political party. It is a Facebook group that has adopted a political-sounding name in what appears to be a satirical response to the controversy.

The group currently has around 1,900 members, according to the Facebook page shared with this report.

What is the Pakhandi Janata Party?

The name 'Pakhandi Janata Party' appears to draw from the language used in the controversy surrounding Shastri's comments in West Bengal.

While addressing an event in Liluah on Sunday, Shastri said there was something about West Bengal that he did not like, referring to the consumption of non-vegetarian food near Durga Puja pandals during Navratri and Durga Puja.

He went on to appeal to Hindus to 'wake up' and remove people he described as not pious and sacrilegious.

The remarks triggered a strong reaction among Bengali Hindus, with the comments becoming the latest flashpoint in a wider debate over food, religion and Bengal's cultural practices.

The development came days after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad said on August 26 that non-vegetarian food should be kept away from Durga Puja pandals.

Against this backdrop, the Facebook group using the name Pakhandi Janata Party emerged online.

Its name appears to turn the word 'pakhandi' associated with the controversy into a parody of the naming conventions used by political parties.

There is currently no indication that PJP is a registered political party or an electoral organisation. Its presence, based on the information available, is confined to the Facebook group.

Rather than treating 'pakhandi' simply as a label from the controversy, posts on the group appear to reclaim and play with the word through humour and satire.

One popular post responds to a question about what would happen if someone's partner were an 'andhbhakt', or blind supporter.

Another post uses a pun on 'pa-khandi', turning the word into a reference to leg pieces, and invites members to 'feast' together during the Puja days while asking them to take a pledge.

Another post simply declares: 'I am a proud PAKHANDI... Best wishes to all Pakhandis.'

The posts underline the group's apparent intent to turn the controversial word into an inside joke and a shared online identity rather than allowing it to remain a criticism.

From 'cockroach' to 'pakhandi'

The emergence of PJP draws an obvious comparison with the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), another parody identity that originated from a taunt.

CJP began after the word 'cockroach' became part of a controversial remark.

Rather than allowing the insult to remain simply a social-media talking point, its creators turned the term into the name of a satirical political identity.

The 'Janata Party' suffix in both names adds to the parody. CJP uses 'Cockroach' where a conventional political party name might use 'Bharatiya', while PJP uses 'Pakhandi' to create a similarly irreverent political label.

The two, however, are at very different stages. CJP went on to attract substantial attention online and evolved from a parody into a broader youth-driven social media movement.

PJP, at present, is a Facebook group with around 1.9K members and has not demonstrated a comparable scale.

Can PJP become the next CJP?

That is perhaps the more interesting question surrounding the new Facebook group.

CJP demonstrated how quickly an apparently throwaway joke can acquire a life of its own when it taps into wider public sentiment.

Its growth showed that an insult or taunt can sometimes be reclaimed, repackaged and turned into an online identity.

PJP has a similar starting point: a controversial public remark, a provocative word and a social-media community built around that word.

However, there is no guarantee that the trajectory will be the same.

PJP's emergence is directly linked to a specific controversy surrounding Bageshwar Baba's comments on non-vegetarian food during Durga Puja.

Whether it can move beyond that controversy and build a broader following will determine if it remains a Facebook parody or develops into something significantly larger.

For now, therefore, PJP is best understood as a social-media parody group, not a new political party.

Its emergence nevertheless highlights a growing internet phenomenon: words used as taunts or insults can increasingly be reclaimed by social-media users and transformed into identities of their own.

CJP showed what can happen when such an identity catches fire. PJP has now taken its first step: Whether it can produce the same spark remains to be seen.