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11-06-2026
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: Saurav Kushwaha, 17, packed just a change of clothes and boarded an overnight train with his elder brother to reach New Delhi early on Saturday from their village in central India’s Madhya Pradesh.
The brothers rested on a footpath, waiting for Abhijeet Dipke to arrive from the United States.
The anger in Indian youth where half of the country’s 1.4 billion population is under 25 has been simmering for a while now, exacerbated by paper leaks and discrepancies in the country’s largest school boards and that anger seemed to have found an unexpected outlet in a satirical political party, the so-called Cockroach Janata Party (Cockroach People’s Party, or CJP), born out of taunts and jokes.
The Indian chief justice’s comments last month equating the youth with cockroaches drew widespread ire. In turn, Dipke, a recent graduate of Boston University, pondered on social media at the time: “What if all cockroaches came together?”
It became a sensation on the Indian internet, making way for the launch of the CJP, a play on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Dipke’s casual joke attracted more than 22 million followers on Instagram, double that of Modi’s party, which has been in power since 2014 but Dipke and hundreds of others who turned up in New Delhi on Saturday, demanding that Modi’s education minister resign, are not joking any more.
“The warning to the Modi government is simple: get the education minister to resign,” Dipke said, addressing a swelling crowd. “Or we will not leave from here.”
‘All cockroaches, assemble!’
Part of this movement is Kushwaha, the student from Madhya Pradesh, who has just cleared the 12th school-leaving exams from India’s Central Board of Secondary Education. The process had been mired in controversy over several discrepancies, including digital marking on the answer sheets.
He is not sure if he can afford higher education, but Kushwaha is angrier about the government “that has been indifferent to the people who voted them to power”.
The school board’s fiasco came just a week after the top medical examination for graduates was cancelled after the paper was leaked. Such events, the distraught students say, are an annual affair, with no political accountability.
After gaining online traction, Dipke’s CJP first tapped on the youth’s anger to galvanize support for the movement.
The party had called for “all cockroaches to assemble” at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in the capital, to demand Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. “I followed them on Instagram for fun,” Kushwaha said among the crowd. “But there is a chance that we can actually get the minister to resign.”
That would be a first for Modi’s 12 years in power, if and when it happens.
India’s Gen Z population, the largest such cohort in the world has only seen the rule of Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP. Critics say the government has criminalized dissent, with India slipping in multiple democratic indices since Modi rose to power in 2014.
A season left behind
Still dressed for the chill he had left behind in the US, Dipke stepped into New Delhi’s sweltering, oppressive heat in a black zip-up hoodie, with a cap pulled low over his face. Pushing through a crowd of cameras jostling for a glimpse, Dipke reached for the mic and gestured to the crowd to erupt in slogans. Drenched in sweat, he shrugged off the hoodie.
In his opening words, Dipke recalled the anxious overnight flight, saying his family feared he would be arrested after landing in New Delhi.
