While capitalist democracies celebrate Indian leaders and draw up trade and military agreements, a deep unrest among young students across India is taking on ominous tones. On Monday, July 20 - the opening day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session - that unrest arrived at the gates of power itself.
Thousands of supporters of the youth-led “Cockroach” movement gathered at Jantar Mantar in the heart of New Delhi to march on Parliament, just a few kilometers away, demanding the resignations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Police denied permission for the protest and surrounded the barricaded site, raising the prospect of a confrontation. By mid-morning, Delhi’s Deputy Commissioner of Police put the crowd at around 10,000, warning that the site had run out of space. Television footage showed police striking some protesters with batons after they tried to breach the security barricades - even as police denied any use of force and insisted the protest was being handled professionally.
The movement’s name is itself an act of defiance. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) emerged in May after the Chief Justice of India compared some unemployed young people to “cockroaches” during an unrelated hearing. Chief Justice Surya Kant, hearing a contempt petition, remarked that there were youngsters “like cockroaches” who find no employment or place in their profession and instead become activists who “attack everyone”. Rather than recoil, India’s young people embraced the slur. Supporters turned it into a satirical movement that has attracted millions of followers on social media.
Its founder, Abhijeet Dipke - a political communications strategist who once worked with the Aam Aadmi Party and studied in the United States - announced a “platform for all the cockroaches out there”, with membership open to anyone unemployed, chronically online, and able to rant professionally. What began as a meme has hardened into the most serious public challenge Modi has faced in his third term. Those who identify as “cockroaches” cast themselves as survivors of a “decaying” political system under his government.
At the heart of the anger is the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test - NEET - India’s unified national entrance examination for undergraduate medical programmes. The government scrapped the May 3 exam after credible evidence of a widespread paper leak and systematic irregularities surfaced. More than two million aspirants were left battling for fewer than 130,000 spots in medical colleges.
The Modi government has centralized these high-stakes exams, and repeated leaks have exposed a rot beneath the surface. Those with money were able to buy leaked papers; for the overwhelming majority, clearing these exams is one of the few routes out of India’s grinding poverty and scarcity of opportunity. Families pour their savings into coaching centres, mortgaging their futures on a child’s single shot at a seat.
The human cost has been devastating. The CJP claims the number of student suicides rose from 11 before its June 20 rally to 29. Dipke sent an open letter to Modi demanding ₹1 crore (around £77,000) in compensation for the families of aspirants who died by suicide, noting that many face financial ruin from loans taken to fund their children’s preparation. The students’ first and central demand has been simple: that Pradhan resign and someone take responsibility for the loss of life.
The government’s response has been contempt rather than accountability. Speaking to NDTV, Pradhan referred to the Cockroach Janta Party as the “B-team of terror groups”. He also dismissed the movement as “disruptive elements”, saying those “rejected in democracy have come in disguise”.
The spark for Monday’s march was the removal of Sonam Wangchuk. The 60-year-old social activist had been fasting since June 28 in solidarity with the movement, demanding the education minister’s resignation. Before dawn on Saturday, July 18 - the 20th day of his hunger strike - a court order demanded he be moved to hospital against his wishes, citing his worsening condition. His family alleged that police also attempted to remove the remaining hunger strikers.
Wangchuk is a respected figure with a history of standing against the state. Last year, Modi’s government accused him of inciting people through allegedly provocative statements during protests in Ladakh, the Himalayan territory to which he belongs, where he has campaigned for statehood and Sixth Schedule constitutional protections. His wife has gone to court over the forcible removal, though the Delhi High Court declined the family immediate relief.
The removal backfired. A day after Wangchuk was taken away, Jantar Mantar witnessed its biggest turnout since the protest began, drawing people well beyond the Gen Z base - professionals, families, students keeping overnight vigil. Angered by the removal, Dipke escalated the CJP’s demand to include Modi’s resignation and urged supporters to march on Parliament.
For years the BJP government has shown little tolerance for dissent, pressing ahead with the sale of public assets to a set of favored industrialists. Many of these students have come to doubt the “India Shining” narrative and the claim of India’s ascent as a world power; they have watched the promise and measured it against their own prospects.
I write as a Christian archbishop, not as a partisan. Scripture is unambiguous that a society is judged by how it treats its young and its poor. When a state centralizes the one gate through which the poor might pass, and then lets that gate be sold to the highest bidder, it is not merely maladministration; it is a betrayal of the least of these. The Church in India has run schools and colleges for two centuries precisely because education is where dignity begins.
There are, at last, tentative signs that the government feels the pressure. As the crowds gathered on Monday, the government appeared to open its first talks with movement leaders, with a cabinet minister holding meetings with CJP members, though no consensus had been reached.
The tragedy is how avoidable this was. The government could have addressed the unrest when the first suicides occurred and when the students raised their single, modest demand. Instead, through dismissal and force, it has widened a grievance about one exam into a challenge to the Prime Minister himself. A movement born from an insult now stands at Parliament’s door - and the youth once called cockroaches have made themselves impossible to sweep away.
I originally wrote this on July 20. In the few days since, student protesters have been hit with batons and subject to tear gas. They remain undeterred in their quest to make their voices be heard by India’s government.
Archbishop Joseph D’Souza is an internationally renowned human and civil rights activist. He is the archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church of India and serves as the President of the All India Christian Council.
