The Cockroach Janta party, born from an online joke after remarks by India’s chief justice, has mobilized millions of discontented young people into protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Founded in May by university graduate Abhijeet Dipke, the movement targets crippling exam leaks and high unemployment.
From an Online Joke to a Millions-Strong Movement Against the BJP
What began as a satirical web project has rapidly evolved into one of the most unexpected political challenges for India’s powerful right-wing ruling party. The movement emerged in May following comments from the chief justice of India during a supreme court hearing, where the nation’s unemployed youth were compared to “parasites” and “cockroaches”. In response, 30-year-old Abhijeet Dipke—an Indian national who recently graduated from university in the United States—put out a call on social media asking: What if all cockroaches came together?
Dipke built a website and social media accounts for the satirical Cockroach Janta party (CJP) as a direct jab at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The party adopted a biting manifesto and the tagline: A political party for the people the system forgot to count.
The public response was overwhelming. Within two weeks, the CJP’s Instagram page amassed more than 22 million followers, eclipsing the ruling BJP’s follower count. While the Modi government, highly intolerant of criticism, attempted to block the social media accounts on national security grounds, those efforts were not successful.
Exam Leaks, NEET Pressures, and Economic Despair
Beyond its satirical origins, the CJP channeled widespread anger over systemic educational and economic failures. Dipke focused the mobilization around crippling medical entrance exams known by the acronym NEET, where question papers have repeatedly been sold to the highest bidder. The academic pressure is severe: more than 2 million students compete for just 130,000 places. Families routinely spend their life savings and get into high levels of debt to pay for their children to be coached for these notoriously gruelling medical exams. More is now spent in India on private tuition than the government’s entire higher education budget.
A string of exam leaks has forced millions of students into re-takes and been linked to dozens of suicides in recent years. Students and other CJP members are demanding the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, while the Modi government has been accused of not taking responsibility for the exams fiasco. According to one recent study, almost 40% of India’s graduates below the age of 25 are unemployed, giving voice to wider frustrations for millennials and Gen Zs over an education system in crisis and a failing job market.
Street Protests and Political Future
The CJP’s first offline protest took place in Delhi. Aiyar says, There is deep economic dissatisfaction and distress, which has translated into a lack of hope about the future.
She adds, This could reflect growing exhaustion with a government that has been in power for a long time. Its failure to deliver on the promises it built its reputation on may have reached a tipping point.
For her, the protests are about far more than a single policy failure, noting that the message from protesters is clear: We're exhausted. We need a new kind of politics, a new political grammar – one rooted in ideas and focused on governance and delivery.
Political scientist Suhas Palshikar argues the Cockroach movement may simply provide an outlet for public anger before gradually losing steam, much like the farmers’ protests. Writing on X, he questioned, Where will the Cockroach movement go? Perhaps nowhere – it will allow venting of frustration and taper off,
while also cautioning against romanticising it as a Gen Z uprising. It would be a mistake to imagine a youth movement or a Gen Z movement – these are only convenient myths for commentators,
he argued, adding that its ideological and political character… is currently fluid
, with different political forces likely to seek influence over it.
However, Palshikar notes the protesters have undeniably shown a willingness to confront the state. The young have shown their angst and their disgust. They have borne the brunt of the democratic government's brutal police. They have also shown that only street action makes this regime… listen and talk.
Whether that energy can endure, he argues, will depend on many factors, including state repression, media blackouts, leadership challenges and the difficulty of building a broad social coalition. Economist Surajit Mazumdar of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University also believes the movement already points to something much larger than examination paper leaks.
