Hundreds of supporters of the Cockroach People’s Party (CJP), an Indian youth movement that began as a satire on social networks, held their first protest this Saturday in New Delhi after the return to the country of its leader, Abhijeet Dipke.
With cockroach masks and copies of the Indian Constitution in hand, the protesters demanded the resignation of the Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan, following a series of leaks, technical errors and cancellations in different official exams that have caused outrage among Indian youth.
“The exam answers are being sold before the exam takes place. They can cost 10 lakhs (about $10,500). People who buy the answers are victorious; while others who cannot pay for them cannot advance,” the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union, Aditi Mishra, told EFE during the demonstration.
Concern about these official tests, often decisive in a country suffering from 15.3% youth unemployment, was what pushed many young people to join the CJP demonstration on Saturday.
Navya Dubey, 18, explained to EFE that some of her friends had suicidal thoughts after the leak of the answers to the NEET exam, a demanding admission test for medicine and dentistry programs, in May. The Government canceled the exam after more than 2 million candidates had taken the test.
The protest, carried out on a secondary street and surrounded by the Police, took place without incident and in the midst of heat that reached 40 degrees.
The founder of the movement, Abhijeet Dipke, assured that the protests will continue until the Education Minister resigns.
“This was just a trailer,” said the political communication strategist, who lives in the US and is a student at Boston University.
The origin of cockroaches
The CJP was born on May 16 after the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant, compared some unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites.”
The statements caused a stir in a country where more than half of its 1.4 billion inhabitants are under 30 years old. In a matter of days, the movement surpassed 22 million followers on Instagram, more than doubling those of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Shortly after, X’s CJP account was blocked “in response to a legal demand.” The local media The Indian Express reported that the blockade request came from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
After receiving support from several personalities and some politicians, Dipke announced that he would return to the country despite fearing arrest.
“It’s time to turn this little joke into a revolution,” the party posted on social media on Friday.
