Cockroach Janta Party

What began as a tongue-in-cheek swipe against remarks made by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of India snowballed into a satirical political movement on social media and then mobilized thousands of protesters on the ground demanding social reforms. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP; “Cockroach People’s Party”) is not a registered political party but a caricature of one. In just a matter of days, the CJP garnered more than 20 million followers on Instagram—eclipsing those of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress, India’s biggest political entities. Though built on self-mockery and Internet memes, the independent pressure group posed potent questions to the political establishment and positioned itself as a mouthpiece for the frustrations of India’s Gen Z, resulting in one of the biggest protest movements in India in more than a decade. (See also: Generation Z protests.)

How did the Cockroach Janta Party start?

CJP’s website and social media handles were created on May 16, 2026, by Abhijeet Dipke, a political communications strategist and Boston University graduate who had worked with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The “cockroach” in CJP’s name references comments made by Chief Justice Surya Kant a day earlier in a Supreme Court hearing, in which he compared some youth to “cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in profession.” He also said that some of them become journalists, social media activists, or right-to-information campaigners and “start attacking everyone.” Although the top judge later clarified that his remarks related only to individuals with spurious degrees and not India’s youth in general, the remarks kicked up a social media storm, which fueled thousands of sign-ups on CJP’s website, taking even Dipke by surprise.

Early activities

With the humble but resilient cockroach as its mascot, the CJP racked up followers and shared content on Instagram that touched on several topical issues in India, including unemployment, rising fuel prices, and delays in competitive examinations. In the first few weeks of CJP’s online existence, its website and some of its social media handles faced suspensions, and Dipke claimed that the parody account and his personal Instagram handle had been briefly hacked.

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Several notable personalities and even politicians, including Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav and Trinamool Congress members Mahua Moitra and Kirti Azad, endorsed the parody account and the associated movement. CJP’s website proclaims that it is the “Voice of the Lazy & Unemployed” and features a mock manifesto that raises questions on disenfranchisement, press freedom, and controversial political practices, including the appointment of retired judges to Parliament. All these half-serious demands notably echo criticisms of and allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP administration. However, critics of the CJP have insinuated that the movement may have been orchestrated by opposition parties, given Dipke’s past links to the AAP.

In the early days of the movement, Dipke took pains to distance it from comparisons to violent Gen Z uprisings in Nepal and Bangladesh, saying that the CJP would maintain peaceful dissent within the bounds of the Constitution of India.

Protests and Parliament march

On June 1, 2026, Dipke announced CJP’s plans to take its campaign offline beyond social media, with a protest planned for June 6 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Ahead of the event, journalist Saurav Das, whom CJP named its chief spokesperson, led a news conference at which the group said that the gathering would seek the resignation of the central government’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, over controversies surrounding qualifying examinations for medical studies as well as school board examinations. Dipke traveled to India from the United States, where he resides, to lead the demonstration. A large number of supporters, mainly young people and students, gathered at the site on the day to demand Pradhan’s resignation, calling on him to take moral responsibility for “paper leaks” related to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), a mandatory exam for admission to medical courses in the country. About 2 million students appear for the exam every year, competing for only about 130,000 seats. Some students invest in years of intense preparation for the exam. Days after the NEET 2026 was conducted, the results from the exam were invalidated as reports swirled that questions from the exam had been secretly divulged to some students prior to the exam and that other irregularities had been identified. With grueling preparation wasted and prospects of qualification dashed, more than 20 NEET students died by suicide in the following weeks, which became a major focus of the CJP’s protest. Social activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had voiced his support for the CJP earlier and called himself an “honorary cockroach,” also attended the peaceful protest.

The CJP organized protests in other parts of the country, including Pune, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Bengaluru in the following days. The movement held a second protest in Delhi on June 20 that was supported by various left-leaning student organizations and, later, farmer unions. The organizers, led by Dipke, decided they would continue their protest indefinitely until their demands were met—overstaying the period authorized by the Delhi Police. On June 28 Wangchuk began a hunger strike at the protest grounds demanding Pradhan’s resignation. He also sought a speedy resolution of talks with the government around constitutional demands in his home territory of Ladakh. The fast lasted 20 days before he was forcibly removed from the protest grounds by police officials and taken to a hospital. Dipke went on a hunger strike himself until being asked to call it off by Wangchuk. Organizers intensified the campaign by calling on protesters to march to the Parliament of India on July 20.

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Protesters came in huge numbers for the CJP-led march to Parliament. Despite police barricades, crowd-control measures, and restrictions on movement, supporters spilled into the streets and marched through central Delhi toward Parliament, though they were impeded from reaching its premises by the police, who used tear gas and batons to push back crowds. In response to the police action against protesters, Wangchuk said he would continue his fast at the hospital. He ended his fast on July 24 after meeting with a delegation of union ministers and receiving public assurances from Modi of action on examination mismanagement, but the CJP said it would continue the protest until Pradhan tendered his resignation.

On July 21 members of the Indian National Congress and other opposition parties demonstrated in front of Modi’s official residence demanding accountability for the police crackdown against peaceful protesters. Several members, including the leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, were detained and removed by police.

In the days following the Parliament march, tensions were high in Delhi as protesters continued to occupy the Jantar Mantar protest grounds and neighboring areas. Subway lines were closed off and several central paramilitary troops were flown in. On July 25 Pradhan resigned as education minister. Soon after this key demand was met, CJP spokespeople announced at a news conference that the group was ending the protest “in good faith” after the government assured it that its other demands—compensation to the families of the students who died by suicide and revocation of police cases filed against student protesters—would be met.

Organization and later campaigns

The education minister’s resignation marked a breakthrough for the CJP and made many take it more seriously as a pressure group. Over the next few weeks, the outfit sought to bring structure to what had, until then, been more or less an informal coalition of like-minded individuals and volunteers. Though still unregistered, the CJP announced a 12-member national working committee, with Dipke as national convener and Das and Ashutosh Ranka as co-conveners. The group later appointed joint secretaries, national spokespeople, regional oversight bodies, and a social media team.

In early August the CJP said that it would launch a nationwide “listening tour” in September in which representatives would travel the country to engage with youth as well as political, civic, and student organizations to gather support and give direction for a planned reform drive. In the interim the group organized the School Thik Karo (“Fix the Schools”) campaign, calling on citizens and stakeholders to review the infrastructure and operations of local government schools. The objective was to create a database of issues that would inform a broad reform strategy. CJP leaders began the campaign with audits of schools in their home states, and several individuals followed suit, often documenting their reviews on social media. The reactions to the drive were varied: Although some schools reportedly acted quickly to fix major issues, in some states CJP members and volunteers faced violence and were prevented from reviewing certain schools.

The CJP repeatedly accused the government of not following through on its promise to quash cases linked to the June–July protests registered by the police. Citing the government’s delay in providing a list of all relevant complaints to the Supreme Court, which had the authority to dismiss the cases, the CJP called for a protest in Delhi in early September but aborted it after the government gave assurances that it would keep its promises and the Supreme Court struck down the cases.

October SIR protests in Mumbai and Delhi

In late September, a media investigation uncovered alleged irregularities in the functioning of the Election Commission of India and its review of electoral rolls in an exercise called a special intensive revision (SIR), which provisionally struck off 130 million people from voter lists nationwide. On October 2 the CJP organized an agitation in Mumbai demanding the resignation of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, for the purported lapses. It called for a protest on October 10 in Delhi, where student organizations and opposition parties had separately begun demonstrating against the chief election commissioner. Ahead of the planned protest, there was a mass deployment of police and paramilitary forces in the heart of the national capital, and the administration choked transportation routes to Jantar Mantar.

On the day of the protest, Dipke, Das, and Ranka were detained by police after landing at Delhi airport, and other members of the team were also obstructed before they could reach the protest grounds. Social media was flooded with reports of journalists, lawyers, members of Parliament, and protestors being detained, as the administration issued orders prohibiting public gatherings and made efforts to prevent large-scale mobilizations. The CJP leaders were released a day later upon signing undertakings to maintain peace and good behavior for a year. They claimed that the Delhi Police had illegally detained them and seized their phones. They also said their agitation against the chief election commissioner would continue but also announced a pause in on-ground protests. Nevertheless, opposition parties and youth organizations separately led thousands of protestors in a march to the Supreme Court on October 12, though they were prevented from reaching its premises by law enforcement. That same day, however, the Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar from the list of designated protest sites, based on a recommendation of a committee created by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The police said the decision was made following the Supreme Court’s observation that “suitable alternative sites” were needed for protests because Jantar Mantar lacked basic amenities and inconvenienced commuters in the busy central Delhi area. Three new sites were designated as alternatives, but at some distance from Jantar Mantar. Critics claimed the move would shift the nucleus of popular protests away from the politically significant center of Delhi, which houses the Parliament and several media offices. The CJP demanded that Jantar Mantar be reinstated as an official protest site. In the early hours of October 13, Das, Ranka, and other CJP members climbed barricades and gates to enter the Jantar Mantar protest grounds in a symbolic show of defiance and were detained shortly after. On October 14 Das and Ranka were placed in judicial custody for five days.

Dipke called for supporters to gather in central Delhi on October 16 and wave the Indian flag in protest against Das and Ranka’s detention. Though Dipke was detained before he could reach the designated area, hundreds of CJP protesters and youth organizations carried out the protest nonetheless despite massive police deployment. Dipke was formally arrested, reportedly for violating the terms of the undertaking he had previously signed, and was subsequently released on bail on October 17. Das and Ranka’s judicial custody was extended by two days, and they were released on October 21 after signing a fresh undertaking not to call further protests at Jantar Mantar unless it was officially redesignated as a protest site.