Thousands of Indian youths marched toward Parliament in New Delhi on Monday under the banner of the “Cockroach Janta Party.” The crowd, which formed at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site a few miles away from Parliament, included students, young professionals, and families with children. Demonstrators were quickly met with police batons and tear gas after breaching barricades surrounding the protest site in an attempt to march on Parliament.
The Cockroach Janta Party may have begun as a satirical embrace of an insult … but its name captures precisely the way many young Indians believe their government regards them.
The “cockroaches,” a name adopted by student activists in May after India’s Supreme Court chief justice compared unemployed young people to the insects, are demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Repeated leaks of entrance examinations for medical colleges and government jobs have sparked mass outrage among the Indian youth. In this year’s medical entrance exams alone, nearly 2.3 million students compete for about 130,000 seats across the country. Allegations that papers were sold for as much as 5 million rupees forced authorities to cancel the original results and require the students to take a new examination.
For many millions of Indian students, these exams represent the best — and sometimes only — opportunity to escape poverty for themselves and their family. Around a dozen students reportedly committed suicide following news of the scandal.
Beyond Minister Pradhan’s resignation, the Cockroach activists want an authentic independent investigation into the leaks, compensation for the families of the students who died, and reforms to restore confidence in the examination system which determines the lives of so many people. Government officials connected to Prime Minister Narendra Modi have supposedly reached out to representatives of the movement.
The depth of outrage can be difficult to understand from an American perspective, where one compromised exam does not carry existential consequences for a student’s life. Across India, and South Asian countries broadly, families spend years and considerable portions of their income to prepare their children for the ultra-competitive entrance exams. Success or failure determines stability, social standing, and financial security for entire families, not just a career path decision.
India is not the only South Asian country where anger over the education system has exploded politically. Student demonstrations in Bangladesh in 2024 over quotas reserving coveted government jobs for favored groups and resulting crackdowns on protests roared into a full-fledged, nationwide revolt that ousted the 15-year regime of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The circumstances in India are not the same, but both movements strike the same chord in young people of Gen Z: that a lifetime of work and preparation does not mean a whit when corruption and political favoritism stand above merit.
The Cockroach Janta Party may have begun as a satirical embrace of an insult and a jeer at Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party — both “Janta” and “Janata” mean the public or the masses — but its name captures precisely the way many young Indians believe their government regards them: numerous, bothersome, and disposable. Modi’s government can negotiate over compensation and replace a minister fairly easily. Convincing millions of disenfranchised young people that honest work and merit are still the rules of the game will be a taller task.
READ MORE from Henry Zavalick:
Modern-Day Snake Oil in the Wellness Aisle
Image licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.
