A 30-year-old Indian living in the United States posted a single line on X in mid-May: “What if all cockroaches came together?” As a satirical reaction to a comment made by the Chief Justice of India, he launched a meme page called the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Instagram and X. Just over two weeks later, with teen anger rising in the meantime over exam-related controversies, he is preparing to put his “what if” to the test.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, who misses the usual Gen-Z birth-year bracket by just one year, announced on Monday, June 1, that he will fly into India on June 6 to lead a peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, demanding the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan over a run of botched examinations.
This comes as the youth’s concerns, centred around joblessness, have since amplified, with teenagers exposing holes in the examinations systems too.
Offline protests were held by some student unions on Monday, outside the ministry offices in New Delhi. “We will not let this government play with our future. We are not scared of anything,” a young woman detained by the police said.
Dipke’s announcement thus seeks to convert an almost entirely online movement, which has more than 20 million Instagram followers plus some on other platforms, into a physical one.
Jantar Mantar plan
Dipke, a Maharashtra native who has lived in the US for two years as a student, said he had turned down recent job offers there for the love of India.
He asked supporters to gather at Delhi airport on the morning of June 6, from where, he said, they would go together to the Parliament Street police station to seek permission for the demonstration.
With the June 6 march, Dipke is seeking to bring together the city-level protests that have sprung up separately and channel them into a single demonstration in the capital. He was once part of the comms team of the AAP, which too emerged from a somewhat-similar moment over a decade ago.
Dipke acknowledged that his family fears he could be arrested on arrival.
Four exams, three teens
The protest call caps weeks of anger over four examinations in particular. The NEET-UG medical entrance test, held on May 3, was cancelled by the National Testing Agency (NTA) after a paper leak; the CBI is investigating, and a retest is set for June 21, for which the government plans to fly question papers using the Indian Air Force. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “personally suprevising” this retest, the government has told the Supreme Court.
CBSE Class 12 results were dogged by repeated “coming soon” delays and then by problems with its first-time On-Screen Marking (OSM) system. The SSC-GD Constable exam on May 25 descended into chaos at centres in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — at one Kanpur centre, 819 candidates were issued admit cards for each shift against a capacity of 399. The CUET-UG admission test was delayed at some centres on May 30 due to a technical glitch.
Much of this outrage was driven by three teenagers whose posts went viral.
Vedant Shrivastava, a Delhi Class 12 student, found that the Physics answer sheet CBSE sent him was not his; he was trolled online and even labelled “anti-national”, Pakistani and “deep state agent” before the board admitted the mix-up and sent the correct copy.
Sarthak Sidhant, 17, alleged in a blog that CBSE had allegedly rewritten its tender rules to favour the firm running OSM, Coempt EduTeck.
And Nisarga Adhikary, 19, claimed he found a “master password” in the marking portal’s code; CBSE first rubbished the claim, then said the vulnerabilities had been “contained”.
The CJP has folded all of them into a single demand for accountability.
Movement born from a judge’s comment
The Cockroach Janta Party takes its name from a remark by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, who compared some unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites” — a comment he later said referred to holders of fake degrees.
Dipke, a public relations professional and political strategist who studied journalism in Pune, took a master’s in PR at Boston University, and once worked on the Aam Aadmi Party’s social-media campaigns, redfined the word.
His party calls itself a front “of the youth, by the youth, for the youth”.
Dipke has said the venture began as satire and that he is now weighing whether to turn it into a credible movement or a formal political party, though no decision has been taken.
He noted on June 1 that nearly 8 lakh people signed the CJP website petition seeking Pradhan’s removal, and that more than 1 crore students across the NEET, CBSE, CUET and SSC-GD examinations have been affected.
He also said protests over the exam disruptions were already held offline in cities including Lucknow, Jaipur and Delhi, and in Maharashtra.
The government, meanwhile, blocked CJP’s account on X, a matter now before the Delhi High Court, which on May 29 declined to immediately restore it and asked a review committee to examine the blocking.
Dipke says he has been branded a “national security threat” by the blocking logic.
Police cover has been put at his family’s home in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. His parents have wished he won’t go further. “Such people are arrested,” his father has said.
The cockroach motif has since spread well beyond Dipke. A religious storyteller in UP, Deepak Sharma, dressed as the insect to highlight Yamuna pollution and floated a separate “CJP”, ‘Common Justice Platform’. A ‘Bee Party of India’ has emerged too.
The youth wing of the main Opposition party Congress has launched an ‘Indian Youth Cockroaches’ campaign.
A Haryana lawyer even approached the Election Commission to register CJP as a party with himself as convener.
And in a token of genuine virality, Punjab Police have warned of scammers circulating phishing links in the movement’s name.
Oppn sees moment of reckoning for Modi
Political reactions among Opposition parties have largely aligned with the pro-“cockroach” rhetoric. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has been consistently raising the exam issue, accusing PM Modi of ruining the education system.
AAP’s Atishi and TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee have also attacked Pradhan, while the CPI(M), the Samyukt Kisan Morcha and activist Sonam Wangchuk have backed the campaign.
Ruling BJP leaders have questioned its credentials. Lok Sabha MP Nishikant Dubey has underlined Dipke’s AAP link, while minister Kiren Rijiju even alleged a large share of CJP’s followers were from Pakistan, though Dipke cited analytics to show about 95% of his followers are in India.
Beyond exams, the CJP seeks to tap a wider youth frustration into a peaceful movement for change, Dipke has told news agency Reuters. Government data shows unemployment among Indians aged 15 to 29 ran at about 9.9% last year, more than triple the overall rate of around 3.1%, while the period has also seen rising fuel prices and gas shortages linked to the Iran war, the news agency noted in context.
Minister Pradhan has, however, said he takes “full responsibility” for the exam system disruptions. He has promised there would be no further lapses.
The repairs remain a work in progress — CBSE’s Class 12 re-evaluation portal, already delayed once, was still not live by Monday evening. It was to open on May 29 originally.
