The victory of the Indian Cockroaches on 25 July is the first achievement in the process of awakening Indian youth, irrespective of caste, class, religion, and ideology. We all know that the Indian education system has been in danger since Independence. The Cockroach Janata Party re-ignited the discourse on the Indian education system through this protest. This Cockroach movement outshines the 1968 Paris Student Movement (PSM) against General De Gaulle and his right-wing educational policies in France. Though the world-famous 1968 Paris Student Movement awakened French youth and helped reshape the French education system, General De Gaulle was re-elected in the next election. Yet it remained the most popular student movement in human history until yesterday.
The Indian student movement of 2026 is much bigger, better organized, and better articulated in terms of the goals it set against the more religious fundamentalist regime of the RSS/BJP. General De Gaulle was not under the grip of an unregistered, 100-year-old Hindutva, small upper-caste-controlled organization like the RSS and its handpicked Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and his cabinet colleagues. The name of the party, Bharatiya Janata Party, is only the outward face of the real power wielders. The real ruling is being done by the RSS, about which the world now knows much better. The RSS formulates the ideological basis of the Indian education system that the Government has no alternative but to implement.
The Indian Cockroach Youth Movement (CYM) won an immediate victory by forcing the Indian Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, to resign, making the Government agree to pay compensation to the parents of students who died by suicide after the medical JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) was cancelled because of paper leaks across India, and securing the withdrawal of all FIRs filed against the protesting students. The students protested continuously for 36 days. It gave hope to those who had felt helpless for almost 12 years as the right-wing onslaught on the education system continued. No opposition criticism could change the functioning of the Government.
However, we have to wait and see how this movement helps reshape the Indian education system, which has been deeply damaged by the imposition of primitive ideological syllabus content and a religious teacher-student relationship. The RSS took control of every educational institution, while big business forces aligned with the RSS set up a parallel system for the rich, with which the RSS had no problem. There is a caste connection to the right-wing agenda as well.
The upper-caste rich have space in private-sector education and employment. The examination system that the BJP Government devised is meant to secure seats for the rich in top institutions through coaching and, much more disgustingly, through the paper leak system. Paper leaks are not an accidental process in this regime. They are systemic and allowed from above. Sometimes they are exposed, and many times they are managed through the channels controlled by the RSS/BJP and monopoly houses. If these paper leaks had affected only Dalit, OBC, and Adivasi youth, they would not have entered any media network. This time, however, even the upper-caste middle class, which is a regular vote base of the BJP, though not its financial support base, has also been victimized. Since the RSS/BJP have mastered managing votes through EVMs with the tacit support of the Election Commission itself, it appears they no longer care about the actual votes of upper-caste Hindus either. The RSS/BJP have reached a stage where they believe every Government institution supports them, as these institutions are filled with their own ideologically trained personnel. They also believe that the judiciary has now been brought under their control. How this entire system of governance will change the basic structure of the nation in the future remains to be seen.
It was in this atmosphere that a new Gen Z satirical party called the Cockroach Janata Party was born on the American internet through Abhijeet Dipke.
WHAT IS THIS FUNNY COCKROACH JANATA PARTY?
When any educated upper-caste person or foreigner heard the name Cockroach Janata Party, it would likely be dismissed as crude satire created by a semi-cracked individual. But this satire emerged in the background of a statement by the sitting Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kanth, who referred to unemployed youth as “cockroaches and parasites.” It challenged the stereotypical understanding of the cockroach. It would have been impossible for an upper-caste boy or girl to embrace the identity of the cockroach, which is commonly seen as an ugly species found in kitchen sinks, thriving in wet dirt inside sink pipes, and spreading into kitchen holes and vessels. Cockroaches are hated in households, particularly by women, when they appear around food in kitchens. Generally, men are not the cooks in Indian homes, though they do work as chefs in large restaurants. The Chief Justice used the term “cockroach” with similar disgust while referring to unemployed youth, though he later clarified that he was actually referring to unqualified lawyers wasting the courts’ time.
In Indian casteist society, the term also carries a social connotation. Anyone could interpret that statement according to their own background and ideological understanding. Dipke interpreted it from a Dalit identity perspective.
In private conversations among the leisurely rich, mainly upper castes, this slur is used as a metaphor for Dalits, who are viewed as the dirtiest of the dirty because they were historically associated with leather work, sanitation work, and other forms of production-related labour considered unclean. Abhijeet Dipke, being a Dalit, grew up in a social and academic environment where humiliating caste names and caste identities were defiantly reclaimed: “Yes, we are Dalit; yes, we are Chandals; yes, we are Mochi.” Abhijeet turned the Chief Justice’s cockroach metaphor on its head and posted in an assertive tone: “Yes, all of the unemployed are cockroaches. What if all of them unite?” He transformed the Chief Justice’s slur into a rallying cry. Before the rise of Dalit identity politics in colleges and universities, a Dalit youth would not have done this. No upper-caste youth would have thought of turning such an insult into the foundation of a new politico-cultural movement among unemployed youth across caste and religion. They are all sailing in the same boat of unemployment.
The anger against the creators of unemployment—the RSS/BJP and the monopoly houses—took a dramatic turn with his announcement of the Cockroach Janata Party and its manifesto of the unemployed and the lazy. Cockroaches are also stereotyped as symbols of laziness. However hard Dalits work in India, upper castes often describe them as lazy, while the exploitative rich are invariably portrayed as hardworking. Abhijeet Dipke has suddenly become a 24×7 working “lazy” Cockroach on social media.
Initially, the party’s subscribers appeared to be mainly Dalits and Adivasis, with relatively few OBCs. Gradually, OBCs, unemployed women, and finally almost everyone except hard-core RSS/BJP supporters and job-secure youth linked to monopoly houses joined Abhijeet’s party online. Abhijeet was careful in selecting his spokespersons while he was still in Boston. Caste plays no role in his method of mobilization. One simply has to be “lazy” (meaning hardworking in this context) and willing to identify with the cockroach—the abused unemployed.
ABHIJEET’S LEADERSHIP QUALITIES
He is the first Dalit leader to become acceptable to youth of all castes, communities, and religions, and gradually to their parents as well. He and his team handled the movement from 6 June, when the CJP launched its first protest at Jantar Mantar, until 25 July, the day the protest was withdrawn, in a manner unmatched by any other mass movement in Indian history. The movement won its battle and concluded by singing the National Anthem under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Undoubtedly, this is the first instance of its kind in Indian history. The team, consisting of young men and women, displayed remarkable skills in handling the masses, the media, the police, and finally the Government. They demonstrated commitment, conviction, and clarity. They communicated effectively in English and Hindi, while Abhijeet also spoke Marathi fluently.
Ambedkar was a great intellectual, speaker, and writer. Abhijeet is an outstanding communicator and persuasive speaker. He never allows emotion to overwhelm him, yet he is capable of inspiring the masses.
Abhijeet and his leadership were wise enough to move away from the Gen Z protest style seen in some neighbouring countries. They understood how Gen Z movements in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal confronted their governments through muscle power and violence. Had they followed the same path, they might have been crushed and suffered a major defeat. Instead, by adopting Gandhian and Ambedkarite methods of peaceful protest, they won the first battle.
They had also learned from Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption movement. At that time, much of the Indian media supported the movement against the Government. In contrast, during this movement many of the same media houses sided with the Government and attempted to mislead the public. Educated Gen Z activists, however, used their mobile phones to create reels that spread rapidly across social media. As a result, the narrative of their movement could not be controlled by the mainstream media, because social media had become a far more powerful platform for reaching the public.
Gaurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka, and leading team members such as Ratna Singh, Vijeta Dahiya, Aafreen Nawaz, and Deepak Baliyan did a remarkable job of communicating, negotiating (particularly Gaurav and Ashutosh), and carrying forward the movement. They never lost sight of its larger purpose.
Sonam Wangchuk’s hunger strike added a certain aura, but that method of starvation has its own weaknesses. Twenty-first-century youth have evolved new methods of mobilizing and sustaining large gatherings over long periods. The Gandhian method does not require a mass protest involving standing, sleeping, singing, dancing, speech-making, and creating space for every idea, voice, and artistic expression to help transform the Indian mind, which has been divided, stunted, and controlled by RSS/BJP religious ideologues for decades. We should not forget that the RSS has constrained the growth of the Indian mind for a century. They neither starve nor respect or listen to starving leaders. Did they respect Gandhi’s fasting and self-sacrificial methods? Wangchuk should not repeat that strategy in future. Let the Cockroaches try their own methods.
WHAT, IN THE FUTURE?
The CJP is not a leaderless movement. It is a movement of young leaders guided by constitutional democratic principles. This method of mobilizing and sustaining large numbers of people in one place for such a long period was not tested by Buddha, Ambedkar, Gandhi, or Nehru. The CJP is an entirely new experiment. As a true and visionary Ambedkarite, Abhijeet concluded the more than 40-day protest with the warning: “Do Not Make Me a Hero.” That reflects the true spirit of Ambedkar.
The team should register the Cockroach Janata Party. It should not follow the RSS model of remaining unregistered and functioning for decades without even maintaining a bank account while possessing organizational properties. The BJP Government will harass them. They should register both as a society and as a political party with the Election Commission so that no one else can pre-empt the CJP’s identity. It should function as a legal organization and a political party on record while continuing to operate as a movement pressing for educational reforms for some more time. In the future, when it matures, it could play a political role.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist, and author. His forthcoming books are A Shudra Life and Harappa: God’s City of Civilization.
https://countercurrents.org/2026/07/how-the-cockroach-janata-party-changed-indias-student-politics/
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 