What Is the Youth-Led ‘Cockroach Movement’ Staging Mass Protests in India?
Time · LC · trust 49/100
India’s youth-led “cockroach movement” was born just over two months ago as a satirical online campaign. But it has quickly swelled into a formidable real-world political force, bringing tens of thousands of protesters into the streets in the country’s capital in recent days to call for the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and reforms to India’s troubled education system.
Thousands of supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) continued to protest in the capital of New Delhi on Wednesday even after demonstrations earlier in the week erupted into violent clashes with the police that left dozens of people injured.
The movement’s Monday protests in New Delhi marked one of the country’s largest anti-government gatherings in years, with an estimated 20,000 people, made up mostly of students and young people, taking to the city’s streets. Amid the massive protests, a senior government minister reportedly met with CJP representatives to hear their demands, in what was seemingly the government’s first move to hold talks with members of the movement.
But in central Delhi, the protests confronted an aggressive law enforcement response. Police set up barricades and used batons and tear gas to disperse thousands marching on Parliament. Video from The Associated Press showed protesters gathering together to push over the tall yellow barricades and sometimes climbing atop them as droves of Delhi Police stood guard in riot gear.
Delhi Police said that around 180 people were injured amid the Monday clashes, including 118 security personnel and 60 protesters. Meanwhile Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the cockroach movement, said 150 protesters were receiving treatment in hospitals.
The movement called off another march on Parliament that had been planned for Tuesday over safety concerns.
"We will not march again because the police will hurt the youth again," Dipke said at a press conference on Tuesday.
But a sit-in continued into Tuesday and Wednesday in Jantar Mantar, close to the Parliament building. A separate sit-in was also held at the residence of the country’s right-wing prime minister, Narendra Modi, where the leader of the country’s opposition party was detained on Tuesday. The following day, members of the opposition party held a protest in Parliament in support of the cockroach movement protesters.
After weeks of silence in the face of the movement’s growing momentum, Modi on Tuesday made his first comments since May about a widespread leak that led to the cancellation of national medical entrance exams this spring, an issue that has been one of the driving forces behind the protests. The Prime Minister defended the government’s response and vowed to strictly punish those involved, according to a cabinet minister.
Pradhan, meanwhile, condemned the protest at Modi’s residence in a post on X and stated that the government “remains 100% committed” to discussing the exam leak and “addressing every genuine concern of our youth on the floor of the House.”
“We owe our students more than outrage. We owe them answers, reforms and accountability,” he wrote. “That is exactly what our government remains committed to delivering.”
Still, the CJP demonstrations have shown no signs of abating.
Here’s what to know about the growing movement, and the ongoing protests it’s leading in India.
Members of the Indian National Congress (INC) scuffle with police during a march to Lok Bhavan in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, on July 22, 2026. Protesters gathered to condemn the detention of opposition leader of parliament, Rahul Gandhi, during a protest in New Delhi, earlier in the day. Jwala Kotesh—NurPhoto/Getty Images
In the spring, Indian authorities voided the results of the May 3 NEET exam, the country’s highly competitive entrance exam for admission to undergraduate medical programs, after an investigation found that questions had been leaked.
The incident marked just the latest in a series of leaks and other irregularities that have impacted the exam in recent years. As a result of the May test being voided, more than two million students have been forced to re-take the stressful and costly exams, prompting outrage and demands for systemic reform.
That situation has served as the most immediate spark for the exploding momentum of the cockroach movement and a core focus of its ongoing protests, which have also tapped into young people’s broader anger over extremely high unemployment rates and economic pressures.
The CJP itself was born in response to a comment the Chief Justice of India’s Supreme Court made during an unrelated hearing the same month of the testing scandal, in which she compared young unemployed people to "cockroaches” and “parasites.”
“What if all cockroaches came together?” Dipke, who was then living in the U.S. after graduating from Boston University, wrote on his social media in response.
That initial post drew a huge reaction amid the backlash to the justice’s remark. And Dipke proceeded to build out the movement from there. He created social media accounts and a website for the CJP—whose name references both the justice’s remark and the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—and garnered a fast-growing following as he did so. Within mere weeks, over 20 million people had followed Dipke’s accounts, and the Modi government temporarily blocked the X account for the CJP in the country.
As the movement gained momentum, Dipke decided to return to India to lead it in Delhi, and at events across the country.
“Build a party for the young people who keep getting called lazy, chronically online, and — most recently — cockroaches,” the CJP articulates its “vision” on its website . “That's it. That's the mission. The rest is satire.”
A demonstrator wearing a cockroach mask during a protest organized by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in Mumbai, India, on July 16, 2026. Indranil Aditya—NurPhoto/Getty Images
The movement’s website features a manifesto detailing…
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