The 37-day protest staged by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) about the leak of exam papers and education policy in India quickly became a referendum on India’s economy, state violence, and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s hold on and approach to power. What began as a satirical campaign on social media became a serious challenge for the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While the CJP’s main demand—the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Prasad—has been fulfilled, both the protesters and the central government continue to contest narratives of what happened in the summer of 2026 and what it means for India’s youth, politics, and future governance. On August 11, 2026, South Asian Voices spoke with senior journalist Vijaita Singh about how the protests began and where they may lead. Singh is Deputy Editor of The Hindu.
SAV: How and why has this protest movement emerged? How is it different from other protests in India, for example the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in 2019-2020 or the farmers’ protests in 2021?
VS: Let me take you back to May this year, when the Chief Justice of India made some remarks about fake law degree holders, calling them “cockroaches.” This caused a major uproar online. Abhijeet Dipke, who was associated with the Aam Aadmi Party and is now studying in Boston, caught onto the adjective and created an Instagram handle called the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), modeling the name after the ruling BJP, which got 20 million followers in a very short time. Then he opened a page on X as well, which was eventually taken down by the government, and Dipke had to go through a legal battle to get it back. But at the time, the government was of the view that this is just an online sensation, and they kept pushing this narrative that most of the followers are from the United States or from countries outside India. With a lot of pressure on him to prove that this was not merely an online fad, Dipke arrived in India on June 6. While the police had made all sorts of arrangements at Jantar Mantar, even then, they were dismissive and thought it was just an online movement, and that it was too hot for people to come out to protest.
But that assessment was wrong. Even that day, the government was trying to push the narrative that only 400 to 500 people came out. But there were easily 2,000 to 2,500 people, and they were there throughout a very muggy day.
“I went to Jantar Mantar for myself and saw people from all walks of life. This had never happened during the anti-CAA agitation or the farmers’ protests.”
The thing is that protests have been delegitimized in this country for so long. When the Prime Minister uses words such as “andolan jeevi” (someone who lives for and off protests), it gives the connotation that if you protest, then you are with some “deep state” and you are trying to destabilize the country. But I have covered agitations in Delhi for years—the Anna Hazare anti-corruption protest in 2010, the Nirbhaya gang rape protest at India Gate in 2012—so I was keen to observe how this is different. I went to Jantar Mantar for myself and saw people from all walks of life. This had never happened during the anti-CAA agitation or the farmers’ protests. In those instances, only people who related to that particular cause were there. But here, you could find grannies, you could find mothers, you could find young people who had never seen an agitation in their lives and had just come to witness what a protest looks like. I even met police who were stationed there who said they supported the protesters, as they were also Gen-Z.
SAV: How would you disentangle some of the dynamics underlying the protests, from the state of the education sector, to the job market for young people and India’s economic story over the past few years that has often been described as “jobless growth,” to online mobilization, to dissatisfaction with “the system” more largely? What picture does this paint of India’s youth and how has it evolved over the last 15 or so years?
VS: Education in India is in such a dire state, especially with all the revisiting of history. In the absence of the timely publication of results of competitive regional and national exams, there is a lot of frustration among people. When they graduate from college, they’re not getting the jobs they want, and especially with AI coming, there are a lot of IT jobs that have just vanished. The job scenario everywhere in the world is quite tight, but in India, which is a services-based industry, we were exporting engineers and specialists to foreign countries, but with AI, that has essentially stopped. And the second Trump administration has also instituted a lot of visa restrictions.
Domestically, the government says that they have created a lot of jobs, but they count gig economy jobs, like delivering for Blinkit and Uber, in those numbers. But people are joining this fast economy because they don’t have another option. Any vacancy that is advertised by the government, even for the post of a constable, where the minimum educational qualification is say Class 10, people with PhDs also apply. Since the pool of secure and prestigious government jobs is shrinking, people went to these protests to vent out their suppressed emotions, because for long, nobody was talking about these issues. Education cuts across all social dynamics.
Gen-Z have not seen any other government at the center other than the BJP government. So, when they feel frustrated and come out on the street, they don’t have this inkling to go back and blame the Congress party; they will blame the BJP. And the BJP will have to be prepared to take the flak. Because all of this is having a broader impact. For instance, the middle class, which is a key voter base for the BJP, are worried about their children’s future. While that sentiment is there, the parents are also supportive of the government broadly. But when the Gen-Z see their parents defending the government vociferously, they challenge it; they are willing to call out injustice. This is a great cultural change that the country is witnessing.
And with social media, people are much more aware now. They are not only restricting themselves to what the government is saying. They’re looking for alternate opinions. And all of this was reflected in the way the crowd turned up at Jantar Mantar. For instance, when Dipke began his “indefinite sit-in” from June 20, people had started trickling in. But when the police forcibly removed activist Sonam Wangchuk, more people came. The government had no idea that so many people would turn up. On July 20, there was violence against protesters, against women. And although the government had shut down the internet, when people stepped outside that New Delhi area and uploaded the videos of what they’d seen and experienced, double the number of people came in the evening after seeing what their friends had gone through.
Those visuals were really stark and spread like wildfire. Even fence-sitters were enraged. People started asking: how can you use pellet guns against peaceful protesters who were not even firing at you? That had a cascading effect. The kind of abusive language hurled at the Prime Minister at that protest site, it was unheard of. But this is all a reflection of people’s pent-up feelings over the last few years coming out.
How would you describe the arc of how the central government has reacted to the protests, both while they were ongoing and now that they have disbanded?
The only trigger I could figure out that changed the government’s approach was the abusive language against the Prime Minister. Initially, the government was prepared to tire out the protestors. Even on July 20, instructions were given to police to not use force against protesters. But once the first barricade to keep protestors out fell down, there was no second line of defense for the police. They had anticipated 5,000 to 6,000 people, but easily 70,000 to 80,000 people turned up. Despite the metros being shut, despite internet being blocked, people were just walking to Jantar Mantar. When I arrived at the site, people were just walking towards the Parliament saying that nobody had stopped them. At that point, it became a security issue. Then they were tear-gassed and lathi-charged about 100 meters from the Parliament. So, the government and police were caught off guard.
The prior evening, the government had started realizing some of the impact of Sonam Wangchuk’s removal when people started coming en masse. That was when they opened the first channel of communication with Saurabh Das and Ashutosh Ranka of the CJP. They offered talks with the District Magistrate of the New Delhi area, which was rejected by CJP, who only wanted to talk to either the Prime Minister or any union minister. This negotiation went on and finally, the CJP agreed to speak with union minister and former BJP president JP Nadda. But even then, if you listen to what Das has said since, Nadda made them wait for 4 hours. The sequence of events shows that the government was not serious.
The internet ban on July 20 was only until noon. The authorities had initially thought the crowd will gather and then be dispersed by the afternoon, but that did not happen. Then it was extended to 6pm, only for it to go on for another 4 days. After July 20, the movement moved beyond Abhijeet Dipke and Sonam Wangchuk. People were just there to protest. They were just there to express their angst against the government, against the NEET paper leak. Seeking Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation was just a manifestation of that anger. It was only after Pradhan’s removal that the protest was called off.
Was it the concern about the Prime Minister’s image at home or India’s standing abroad due to the protests that led to the government eventually relenting on Pradhan’s resignation?
Yes, Pradhan’s resignation was in large part a response to the direct calling out of the Prime Minister by the protesters, to forestall further damage to his image domestically as well as internationally. The images and videos from the protests and the violence were being talked about worldwide, the foreign press was covering it, so I think that was one of the key factors.
You see, Pradhan being the target of popular ire was one thing, but hurling profanities directly against the Prime Minister has never happened before. But BJP’s narrative over the last few years has been that Prime Minister Modi is responsible for every success, from a new drain to a railway station being inaugurated in the country. So, the protesters’ message seemed to be that if you own every success, failures are also yours. That is why the Prime Minister addressed the youth directly through that vertical, reel format on Instagram in the dead of the night. But even that did not cut ice with the young people.
The Prime Minister said he was shocked by these very strong, derogatory words being directed against him. But many people who have spoken out, especially women, have been facing this sort of abuse for years, especially on social media. This culture has been normalized for so long that Jantar Mantar was really an outlet for people to speak up in protest for the first time.
“This was the most serious challenge that the government has had in the last 12 years because Gen-Z is also an important voting bloc for them.”
What, if anything, might India have learned from watching similar student-led Gen-Z protests that eventually toppled governments in the region from Nepal to Sri Lanka to Bangladesh?
Initially, there was a real concern within the government that this may turn into a Bangladesh or Nepal-type situation. But after July 20, they analyzed that this crowd was not there to forcibly take power. They’re just seeking accountability. An honest report was sent to the government by intelligence agencies, as well as the police, that these are people among us. They’re not there to forcibly enter the Parliament, or anything like we saw in Nepal or Bangladesh. It was not a violent agitation.
What will be the impact of the protests on the Indian government’s standing domestically and internationally, if any?
This was the most serious challenge that the government has had in the last 12 years because Gen-Z is also an important voting bloc for them. Until now, the government was thinking that everybody is on their side, except for a certain section of society. But with this movement, the government could not neatly label it or reduce it to just one group. That was the most difficult part. For example, in the case of the anti-CAA protesters, a section of the BJP’s supporters could say it was just “the Muslim bloc,” or with the farmers, they pejoratively used the word “Khalistani.” But in this case, everyone from all sections of society was there. I met an older woman at Jantar Mantar who came from a village. She stopped a policeman and told them, in Hindi, “yesterday you beat up the children, today please beat me.” She had come just to show love and solidarity to the young people.
With the protests disbanded, how do you expect the CJP and its supporters to operate going forward? Might this be the beginning of an alternate political movement potentially leading to the rise of another political party? How might that play out in the run-up to the 2029 elections?
Even on June 6, when Dipke came to India, everybody in the media dismissed him and the online movement he was building. But I was of the view that we should wait and watch. For now, the CJP has said that they want to be a pressure group, because if they create a new party, that will only eat into the votes of the opposition and end up benefiting the BJP, which they don’t want.
This student issue has also hit a raw nerve in the country, because, currently, Jharkhand is also seeing similar protests, where the same kind of violence was used against students. The CJP protests have given everyone this boost of courage to speak up, to demand their rights without being labeled a terrorist or an anti-national.
As for impact on the general elections, the BJP is naturally concerned. That is why they asked Dharmendra Prasad to resign, to course-correct ahead of 2029, and even the upcoming state elections in UP. That is also where all this messaging to ministers to be more active on Instagram has come from, to help them connect with Gen Z. Until now, they were getting away with leaning on the communal narrative. But even that was dented by the theft of donations at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, which was quite embarrassing for the government and the party. That otherization narrative is not working anymore.
Views expressed are the interviewee’s own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of South Asian Voices, the Stimson Center, or our supporters.
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Image 1: Wikimedia Commons
Image 2: Wikimedia Commons
