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Despite police crackdowns and accusations of brutality during protests this week, India’s ‘youth-led’ Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) is showing no signs of slowing down, as it gathers support from the public and opposition politicians.
The group is demanding education reforms and the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who oversaw exams in the country which were subject to corruption claims. The group began after India’s Chief Justice, Surya Kant, allegedly compared unemployed young people and activists to cockroaches and parasites during a court hearing. He later said he was only referring to people with “fake and bogus degrees”, but when graduate Abhijeet Dipke used the name Cockroach Party to start a satirical group online, it gained millions of followers rapidly and grew into one of the most unexpected challenges to the powerful, nationalist government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to take care of the country’s youth in a midnight video, after the party called for nationwide protests to be held again on Friday and talks between representatives of the Cockroach Party and government officials later took place in Delhi, but as our Global Affairs Correspondent and India specialist Anbarasan Ethirajan explains, the fractures between young people in India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) run deeper than anger over exam fraud.
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