‘They have sold themselves’: At ‘cockroach’ gathering in Delhi, protestors rage against the system

“Inquilab zindabad! Vande mataram! Jai Bhim!” Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke shouted a few minutes past noon on Saturday at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. Long live the revolution! I bow to you, my motherland! Victory to Bhimrao Ambedkar!

Dipke started the Cockroach Janta Party in May as online satire in response to the Chief Justice of India allegedly comparing India’s unemployed youth to cockroaches. The campaign soon trained its guns on the Modi government and Dipke called for its first street protest in Delhi on June 6.

The three slogans he had chosen were ordinarily associated with three distinct, and often warring, political groups in India: communists, Hindu nationalists and Ambedkarites. But the Cockroach Janta Party leader blended them together seamlessly in his short address to the crowd that had gathered to listen to him.

Questions of ideology did not seem to matter much for the hundreds of people who showed up in the sweltering Delhi heat either. Nearly every protestor that Scroll spoke to echoed Dipke’s demand that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan must be held responsible for the spate of paper leaks under his watch.

“I have come here to seek the education minister’s resignation,” said Zeenat, a 16-year-old from Bihar’s Gaya district, who will have to re-appear for the entrance examination for medicine undergraduates on June 21 because her earlier attempt at clearing it was annulled last month.

But Pradhan was only the tip of the iceberg. As Scroll spoke to teenagers like Zeenat, left-wing activists, early-career professionals and middle-aged business owners who had gathered at Jantar Mantar, it was clear that the protestors were disillusioned with the institutions of the republic itself. They had little hope that things would self-correct.

‘Can't even conduct an exam’

Zeenat was among the 22 lakh students affected by the recent cancellation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.

“I feel very disheartened,” she added. “I was certain that I would get into a medical college this time, but they cancelled the paper. My Class XII results were not good either, even though I had thought that I did well in the examinations.”

Zeenat moved to Delhi to prepare for the NEET. She was staying with her elder sister, Zainab, in the Mukherjee Nagar neighbourhood, known to be a hub of coaching centres for entrance examinations. Zainab, too, had accompanied her to the protest. Both sisters had worn cockroach masks to cover their faces.

“If they can’t even conduct an examination properly, what hope will we be left with?” Zainab asked. “For her NEET paper, I took her to Bihar in the general compartment of the train because no other ticket was available. Soon after we came back to Delhi, that paper was cancelled. The least that the education minister can do is resign. He must take accountability.”

Aarav Kejriwal, another 16-year-old at the protest, invoked the same word when asked why he had come to Jantar Mantar.

“To demand accountability from the government,” declared the Class XII student from Noida, Uttar Pradesh, as he rattled off recent instances of paper leaks. “There are so many discrepancies in the system. We need a person to take accountability.”

Mobilising Gen Z

Aarav Kejriwal had defied his parents to come to the protest, where he was distributing Cockroach Janta Party flyers. He said that he had discovered the initiative on social media.

Political parties and their student outfits have been raising the issue of paper leaks repeatedly in recent years, but could not make much headway in capturing the attention of teenagers like Kejriwal. The cockroach campaign appears to have broken new ground in this regard.

Student activist Aishe Ghosh, 31, attributed this success of the Cockroach Janta Party to the youth-oriented vocabulary of its campaign. “We have been saying the same thing, but there is sometimes a certain lingo that people connect with,” argued the PhD scholar.

Ghosh is a former president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union. She shot to national fame after a violent attack on her university in January 2020 had left her with an injured head. She was among the several left-wing student activists who attended the protest on Saturday.

“We welcome the response that the Cockroach Janta Party has got,” Ghosh added. “We see it as a reflection of how frustrated the youth is.”

Divyanshi, a second-year student of political science at the Delhi University, put the campaign’s popularity down to its innovative messaging. While the party’s failure to appoint even a single woman as spokesperson had not sat well with her, she still appreciated its overall presentation.

“It’s new for us,” said Divyanshi, who grew up in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. “I don’t know what will be the outcome, but it is good to see. Such things have become very rare. It is a rare aesthetic.”

For many, the Cockroach Janta Party protest was the first such protest they had attended. The suspense about whether the police would grant permission for the event caused confusion among those interested in attending. The green signal from the police only came after Dipke had landed in Delhi from the United States, which delayed proceedings at Jantar Mantar by over an hour.

The ever-changing instructions from the organisers, communicated via X and Instagram, also added to the chaos. As a result, the campaign’s spokespersons, who were on the ground before Dipke reached the venue, had to face questions from angry protestors.

Growing disillusionment

However, most people that Scroll met were willing to look past these lapses and welcomed the initiative, citing what they described as their frustration with the state of institutions in India.

“How dare the chief justice compare our children to cockroaches?” asked Pradeep Kumar, a 44-year-old business owner who drove down from Moti Nagar in west Delhi. “If we protest against paper leaks, the police try to stop us. The system is compelling us to become cockroaches.”

Retiree Kulbhushan Tandon, who had accompanied Kumar to the protest, seconded him. “They have sold themselves out,” the 75-year-old remarked when asked about institutions such as the judiciary and the media. “The police, the judiciary are all good for nothing.”

Some attendees even questioned the integrity of the Election Commission of India. The Cockroach Janta Party’s manifesto alludes to the controversial special intensive revision exercise carried out by the commission.

“If a single legitimate vote is deleted – in any state, of any party – the Chief Election Commissioner shall be charged under UAPA,” its website reads, referring to India’s draconian anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. “Stripping a citizen of their vote is terrorism by other means.”

Vicky, 25, hails from Nalanda in Bihar and is preparing for the civil service exams in the Karol Bagh area of central Delhi. He wore a t-shirt with Mohandas Gandhi’s picture and was carrying a copy of the Constitution to the protest.

“The Bharatiya Janata Party has come to power by fraud,” he said, referring to the November elections in Bihar, which followed the special intensive revision exercise in the state. “The Election Commission has sold its soul. We will all have to take to the streets sooner or later.”

‘Godi media go back!’

No other institution drew more criticism than the media at the protest. Chants of “Godi media go back!” were raised repeatedly and several protestors had run-ins with journalists seen to be working for pro-establishment outlets.

Deepti, a 36-year-old scientist, was taking part in a protest for the first time on Saturday. She complained that a television journalist to whom she gave an interview had tried to discredit the cockroach campaign by questioning her intelligence and not letting her speak.

“That journalist ruined my whole experience,” she lamented. “I wanted to talk about the problems that the youth are facing. I came here with a lot of hope. But I was not able to express myself.”

The state of the media also finds mention in the Cockroach Janta Party’s manifesto.

“Media houses owned by Ambani and Adani shall have their broadcasting licences cancelled to make room for genuinely independent press,” it says on its website. “Bank accounts of compliant anchors shall be audited.”