NEW DELHI: Supporters of India’s viral cockroach-themed youth movement staged their first protest in New Delhi on Saturday, after gaining massive online support among young Indians and weeks of dominating social media feeds and news headlines.
The Cockroach Janta Party, an online movement that started out as a satirical joke, has amassed more than 22 million followers across India in less than a month and turned into an outlet for discontent among young people who are proudly calling themselves “cockroaches.”
The party, whose name is a play on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, gained momentum right after India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant likened critics and some unemployed youth to cockroaches during a court hearing in mid-May.
Though Kant later said his comments were taken out of context, CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke used the insult as inspiration for a parody political party, drawing support from young people frustrated by a lack of jobs and a string of controversies in the education system.
On Saturday, the viral online movement took its first offline shape at the Jantar Mantar protest site, where hundreds gathered to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan following recurring leaks of examination papers that threaten to derail the careers of millions of students.
“We want a government that is accountable, someone that listens to the people … That’s why we’re here,” Aamir Sayyad told Arab News.
“The main motive of this protest is to send a message to people who are sitting in power that the youth is not happy, that people are not happy, people are out here protesting because of the way you are running the country, the way you are running the education system, it is flawed and it needs to be corrected. It’s high-time.”
The protest saw lively participants enduring Delhi’s heat, with some wearing cockroach masks and others carrying books to symbolize their aim to reform the education system, as police officers kept a heavy presence around the area.
Dipke, a political communications strategist and Boston University student, arrived in the capital on Saturday morning to participate in the protest.
“My mother was very scared that this government would throw me in jail. In this country, every mother feels this fear when their child raises their voice against this government,” he told fellow protesters.
“How long will we live in fear of this government?”
Dolly Kumar, a recent graduate of Delhi University, described CJP as a student-led initiative founded on common issues.
“I think it’s in the hands of the government to invest in the youth. We have a youthful population … (but) we have a great rate of unemployment in the country as well. And again, we see our youth preparing for competitive exams … but what we see is mismanagement,” she told Arab News.
India has the largest youth population in the world, with more than 65 percent of its 1.4 billion population under the age of 35.
A State of Working India report published by Azim Premji University earlier this year showed that 67 percent of all unemployed youth aged 20-29 are graduates. In 2004, graduates constituted just 32 percent of the unemployed.
Saturday’s protest became an “opportunity to speak our minds” and work out “all problems we have been facing as Gen-Zs,” said Maria Zubair, who is doing an MBA program in New Delhi.
While the first demonstration is focused on demanding the resignation of the education minister, protesters see potential for other issues to emerge as a focus for the movement.
“I think as the movement will unravel, there will be more things that we’d want to point out, which are going wrong in this country,” said Asra Zakia.
The movement also saw support from the older generation, including retired math professor Nandita Narain, who said that exam irregularities have been a longstanding issue in India’s education system.
“In fact, it’s now the first time that we find the youth of India has woken up because the matter has become so terrible that it crossed all limits,” she told Arab News.
Narain was optimistic about the future of CJP as a youth movement and hoped that it would gain support from different facets of Indian society, including the opposition.
“I hope that the organizers will not get disheartened or misled into partisan agendas, they should keep the focus and also look at the larger picture,” she said.
“Those who are opposed to these policies of the government should support this movement, support the young people, and it should remain peaceful, that is very important.”