They Were Tracked by Meta Glasses and Called Cockroaches. They Won Anyway.
India’s student protesters, dubbed ‘Cockroaches’ by the state, forced a minister’s resignation despite being tracked in real time by Meta Glasses. They won by reclaiming a slur and refusing to let surveillance kill their movement. But the databases remain. The victory is real — and so is the unease that comes with knowing the tools of repression didn’t disappear. They just got smarter.