# How India’s Cockroach Party Became a Political Force

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 28 Jul 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/ad718afe-2ca5-4bd2-84cf-b495013bcf62/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

Weeks of student-led protests forced the resignation of India’s education minister, in a rare public setback for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, guest host Rebecca Choong Wilkins and Bloomberg reporter Atul Dev discuss how India’s cockroach movement grew from a satirical online joke into a powerful anti-Modi protest and why its economic grievances resonate so deeply among young Indians at this moment. Read more: Awakened Indian Students Hand Modi One of His Biggest Setbacks India Youth Protests End as Modi Bows to Group’s Demands Hosted by Rebecca Choong Wilkins; Produced by Naomi Ng; Reported by Atul Dev; Edited by Jeffrey Grocott, Paddy Hirsch and Julia Weaver. Fact-checking by Rachael Lewis-Krisky and Julia Press; Engineering by Taka Yasuzawa, Alex Sugiura, Emma Munger Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:08] Speaker 2: It started out as kind of a joke, a satirical
[0:16] Speaker 2: political movement in India that moved from social media to
[0:20] Speaker 2: the streets.
[0:21] Speaker 1: It's a packed house at Poploss protest in New Delhi,
[0:25] Speaker 1: Central Delhi area. Thousands of protesters have gathered over.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Here and finally to the highest levels of Prime Minister
[0:33] Speaker 2: Narendra Modi's government.
[0:35] Speaker 1: It's the first time since Prime Minister in the Randramodi
[0:37] Speaker 1: took power in twenty fourteen that one of its ministers
[0:40] Speaker 1: has resigned under public pressure.
[0:47] Speaker 2: Protesters in New Delhi erupted in celebration over the weekend
[0:52] Speaker 2: following the resignation of India's Education Minister. His decision to
[0:56] Speaker 2: quit comes after weeks of cockcroach protests, which kicked off
[1:00] Speaker 2: in June amid outrage over a botched National Medical School
[1:04] Speaker 2: entrance exam. Some two million students who dreamed of becoming
[1:08] Speaker 2: doctors took the exam and when it emerged that answers
[1:12] Speaker 2: had been leaked in advance, disrupting what for many young
[1:16] Speaker 2: Indias is a rare pathway to economic advancement.
[1:20] Speaker 3: Anger over India's education systems spilling onto the streets.
[1:24] Speaker 2: It sent tens of thousands of self proclaimed cockroaches into
[1:28] Speaker 2: the capitol.
[1:35] Speaker 3: Police in New Delhi used teargas embatons on Monday to
[1:38] Speaker 3: disperse thousands of students marching on Parliament. The rally, led
[1:42] Speaker 3: by the so called Cockroach Janta Party, was the largest
[1:45] Speaker 3: in India's capital in recent years.
[1:47] Speaker 1: It all came to a head last week when the
[1:50] Speaker 1: protesters called for a march to the Parliament on Monday,
[1:54] Speaker 1: and way too many people showed up, choking every arctatial
[1:58] Speaker 1: road leading to the parliament at all.
[2:00] Speaker 2: Dave is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News in New Delhi.
[2:04] Speaker 1: It led to scuffles and skirmishes between the protesters and
[2:08] Speaker 1: the police, and the police used force, including tear gas
[2:12] Speaker 1: and batons and allegedly even pellet guns. Since then, the
[2:17] Speaker 1: protests only drew and over the weekend, the resignation of
[2:22] Speaker 1: the Education Minister was accepted by the Prime Minister, which
[2:25] Speaker 1: was a remarkable development.
[2:27] Speaker 2: The protest that toppled the Education minister also announced a
[2:31] Speaker 2: powerful new force in Indian politics. Young people, frustrated by
[2:36] Speaker 2: dwindling job opportunities in a country where unemployment among college
[2:40] Speaker 2: graduates far outstrips the national average.
[2:43] Speaker 1: And the thing worth understanding here is that it is
[2:46] Speaker 1: not about a single.
[2:47] Speaker 4: Exam paper leak. It is a much larger problem.
[2:51] Speaker 1: It should be looked at as a moment that sort
[2:54] Speaker 1: of crystallized all of that anger among Indian students.
[3:04] Speaker 2: This is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
[3:07] Speaker 2: Rebecca Chung Wilkins in for one half every week we
[3:11] Speaker 2: take you inside some of the world's biggest and most
[3:14] Speaker 2: powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive
[3:18] Speaker 2: this ever shifting region. Today on the show, India's Cockroach Protests.
[3:24] Speaker 2: How they drove so much change so fast, and what
[3:27] Speaker 2: they tell us about how young people in India feel
[3:30] Speaker 2: about their government and their future at all. Protests in
[3:44] Speaker 2: New Delhi have been intensifying and spreading until last weekend
[3:48] Speaker 2: when we had the resignation of the Education Minister. You've
[3:51] Speaker 2: been on the ground for all of it. Some of
[3:53] Speaker 2: our listeners will just be tuning into this story for
[3:56] Speaker 2: the first time. Tell us what is the Cockroach movement?
[4:00] Speaker 1: The Cockroach Junta Party, as they call themselves, is a
[4:03] Speaker 1: satirically named political movement that drew out of the cuff
[4:07] Speaker 1: remarks that were made by the Chief Justice of India
[4:10] Speaker 1: in May during a court hearing and he referred to
[4:14] Speaker 1: some of the unemployed youngsters as cockroaches. And this guy
[4:19] Speaker 1: who was sitting in Boston decided to sort of start
[4:24] Speaker 1: a website called Cockroach Junta Party.
[4:27] Speaker 2: That somebody was Aberjeet Dipka, an Indian national who was
[4:31] Speaker 2: finishing graduate school at Boston University and looking for a job.
[4:35] Speaker 2: When the top judge called some unemployed young Indians cockroaches
[4:40] Speaker 2: and parasites, Dipka set up a satirical website that he
[4:44] Speaker 2: built as a home for India's lazy, unemployed and forgotten
[4:48] Speaker 2: and a voice for millions of young Indians who feel
[4:51] Speaker 2: neglected by traditional politics.
[4:54] Speaker 1: And very quickly, over twenty two million people joined it online.
[4:59] Speaker 1: And then he sort of posted this now famous stueet
[5:03] Speaker 1: that was all over the protests that asked what if
[5:06] Speaker 1: all the cockroaches came together? And he moved back to India.
[5:11] Speaker 1: He came to this designated protest site in Delhi called
[5:14] Speaker 1: Junta Monther and he had been sitting there for about
[5:16] Speaker 1: a month until last week.
[5:19] Speaker 2: So you have this satirical CJP Party and it's that
[5:22] Speaker 2: sort of a nod to Murdy's BJP right exactly. They're
[5:26] Speaker 2: not quite a political party, but they have actually rallied
[5:29] Speaker 2: around this key set of demands, so tell us what
[5:31] Speaker 2: they are.
[5:32] Speaker 4: They call themselves a social movement.
[5:34] Speaker 1: They have so far made it a point to remind
[5:38] Speaker 1: everyone that they are not a political party. So this
[5:41] Speaker 1: whole thing sort of galvanized into a student tanger and
[5:45] Speaker 1: everything because of a spate of exam paper leagues in India,
[5:50] Speaker 1: which is a big problem. And there was this one
[5:53] Speaker 1: particular exam that is taken by students out of high
[5:56] Speaker 1: school for entrance examinations for medical college across India, and
[6:01] Speaker 1: this is a very high pressure exam and students appeared
[6:06] Speaker 1: for it, and then before the results were to be announced,
[6:08] Speaker 1: it was found that papers were leaked in advance and
[6:13] Speaker 1: some people had an unfair advantage.
[6:15] Speaker 4: So they had.
[6:15] Speaker 1: To cancel the entire nationwide examination and reconvene it. And
[6:20] Speaker 1: this sort of precipitated a lot of anger that people
[6:24] Speaker 1: were feeling. So the cockra Junda Party's demands was resignation
[6:29] Speaker 1: of the Education minister. Their second demand was that the
[6:34] Speaker 1: families of over twenty children who committed suicide because of
[6:39] Speaker 1: the exam paper league should be compensated. But the movement,
[6:43] Speaker 1: it is worth noting it wasn't contained to those demands
[6:47] Speaker 1: because at the front lines of the march to the Parliament,
[6:51] Speaker 1: the people who were shouting in the streets were not
[6:55] Speaker 1: taking the name of the education minister. Their anger was
[6:58] Speaker 1: channeled directly at prime and sterner Athromodi, which is why
[7:02] Speaker 1: the protests in themselves or to signifies something larger.
[7:08] Speaker 2: That larger thing, roughly speaking, is economic pressure.
[7:12] Speaker 1: If you do well in school, if you can get
[7:15] Speaker 1: to a decent college and earn a decent livelihood, you
[7:18] Speaker 1: can lift your family out of poverty or out of
[7:21] Speaker 1: the lower middle classes into something of a viable livelihood. Now,
[7:26] Speaker 1: if we look at the figures, the family spending on
[7:31] Speaker 1: education has risen substantially over the last two decades. The
[7:36] Speaker 1: families that are sending their children to study for their
[7:39] Speaker 1: exams are generally enrolled in coaching institutes, which cost a
[7:42] Speaker 1: lot of money. So it is not simply a question
[7:46] Speaker 1: of reappearing for the exam, but reinvesting all of that
[7:49] Speaker 1: money and the added pressure of doing well in the exams.
[7:54] Speaker 1: So the pressure is financial, it is emotional, it is psychological,
[7:58] Speaker 1: and it is something that will lot of students have
[8:01] Speaker 1: to go through, and the anger sort of rose out
[8:05] Speaker 1: of the ideas that despite having to deal with all
[8:08] Speaker 1: of that, they should not have to deal with the
[8:11] Speaker 1: failures of the state.
[8:12] Speaker 2: So the anger about the exams, that's all happening in May.
[8:16] Speaker 2: We're now at the end of July and the CJP
[8:19] Speaker 2: has seemingly transformed. How did it grow so quickly?
[8:24] Speaker 1: When abg the founder of the CGP, decides to show
[8:27] Speaker 1: up in New Delhi and sit at the protest site
[8:31] Speaker 1: called Jhantarmant, he is joined by a prominent Indian activist,
[8:35] Speaker 1: Sonom Wangchuk, who says that he is going to be
[8:39] Speaker 1: fasting on to death or unless the Education Minister designs
[8:42] Speaker 1: and the government takes responsibility for the failures of the
[8:46] Speaker 1: exam paper leagues.
[8:47] Speaker 4: Then, two days before.
[8:49] Speaker 1: The opening of the monsoon session of Indian Parliament, the
[8:52] Speaker 1: Daily Police showed up at the protest site and they
[8:54] Speaker 1: forcibly removed.
[8:56] Speaker 4: This activist and admitted him to a hospital.
[8:58] Speaker 1: The CGP had already called for a march onto the
[9:01] Speaker 1: parliament and that was when it became a major story.
[9:06] Speaker 1: It angered a lot of people because it conveyed to
[9:09] Speaker 1: them the absolute authority that the government enjoys to do
[9:14] Speaker 1: whatever it wants.
[9:15] Speaker 2: And then last week the police used tear gas and
[9:18] Speaker 2: batons to prevent students from marching to the parliament. So
[9:23] Speaker 2: how quickly did that moment change the narrative in favor
[9:27] Speaker 2: of the protesters.
[9:29] Speaker 4: It happened pretty fast.
[9:30] Speaker 1: I mean, the sight of students being beaten by the police,
[9:35] Speaker 1: police firing tear gas not in the air, but directly
[9:38] Speaker 1: into the crowd of protesters, and every protester out there
[9:43] Speaker 1: was armed by a camera. They captured this high ranking
[9:47] Speaker 1: police officer who just walks across and slaps a woman
[9:51] Speaker 1: across her face. And these videos they went viral on
[9:55] Speaker 1: social media and that changed the narrative very very fast.
[9:58] Speaker 1: It sort of just took a moral tone of these
[10:02] Speaker 1: non violent protesters who are going out there and being
[10:05] Speaker 1: beaten up by the police. And what I can say
[10:08] Speaker 1: is that I have never in my entire reporting life
[10:12] Speaker 1: hurt the kind of language that was used in the
[10:17] Speaker 1: slogans against Prime Minister Mody at all.
[10:21] Speaker 2: As you've reported, the cockroach Janta Party called off the
[10:25] Speaker 2: latest protests after the resignation of the Education minister, but
[10:29] Speaker 2: doesn't rule out future protests. So what happens next.
[10:34] Speaker 1: When the protesters were walking away, they smilingly turned to
[10:38] Speaker 1: the police officers, some of them had beaten them over
[10:40] Speaker 1: the past week, and like goodbye, we will see you
[10:43] Speaker 1: the next time. So it is it is this sense
[10:46] Speaker 1: of like we have achieved this victory, but do not
[10:49] Speaker 1: think that.
[10:49] Speaker 4: This is over.
[10:51] Speaker 1: This is a very significant moment that not only a
[10:55] Speaker 1: cabinet minister has resigned, but a cabinet minister has resigned.
[10:59] Speaker 4: Under direct public pressure.
[11:03] Speaker 1: This is not the same government that it used to
[11:06] Speaker 1: be until about two weeks ago. And this is where
[11:09] Speaker 1: I go back to the language that was used in
[11:12] Speaker 1: the slogans against near either Modi. There was a sense
[11:14] Speaker 1: of fear about speaking about the government that has completely
[11:20] Speaker 1: gone out of the window.
[11:23] Speaker 2: The protest forced India's government to back down. But is
[11:28] Speaker 2: this just a one off victory or the start of
[11:31] Speaker 2: something bigger? After the break, we look at what these
[11:34] Speaker 2: demonstrations reveal about jobs, inequality and Mody's political future. To
[11:50] Speaker 2: contain the political fallout from the protests, Indian Prime Minister
[11:54] Speaker 2: Narendra Modi has made direct appeals to students and announced
[11:57] Speaker 2: several measures to address their concern That includes creating high
[12:02] Speaker 2: level Cabinet committee to look into an exam reform and
[12:06] Speaker 2: setting up fast track courts to tackle the exam paper leaks.
[12:10] Speaker 2: But Bloomberg's are told deav says this address is just
[12:14] Speaker 2: part of the problem. The protests tapped into deep frustrations
[12:18] Speaker 2: over jobs, opportunities and inequality in India's fast growing economy.
[12:26] Speaker 1: India is growing, you know, mecroeconomically. The situation looks rather pleasant,
[12:31] Speaker 1: but the opportunities are simply not available to a lot
[12:35] Speaker 1: of people. In nineteen eighty three to four percent of
[12:39] Speaker 1: Indians had a graduate degree. That number has gone up
[12:42] Speaker 1: to almost twenty five percent at this moment. But these
[12:46] Speaker 1: graduates are not finding jobs. If they are finding jobs,
[12:51] Speaker 1: they are not finding.
[12:51] Speaker 4: Any good jobs.
[12:53] Speaker 1: Bloomberg's analysis for the labor data collected by the Indian
[12:57] Speaker 1: government showed that out of every hundred graduates, only four
[13:02] Speaker 1: and I repeat, only four had been able to secure
[13:06] Speaker 1: a job with a contract, a paid leave and social
[13:10] Speaker 1: security benefits. Imagine you are among the very privileged in
[13:15] Speaker 1: India and you have gone for your higher education in
[13:18] Speaker 1: usc UK eure of Australia, you know, one of the
[13:20] Speaker 1: foreign countries, and you graduate from there. First thing, you
[13:24] Speaker 1: run into immigration curbs, right, and this is a world
[13:28] Speaker 1: of hard borders, and they're encountering this very difficult position.
[13:32] Speaker 1: Then you have just below them are the graduates of
[13:34] Speaker 1: these extremely prestigious educational institutes and they are failing to
[13:39] Speaker 1: find jobs you know, that they think they should deserve
[13:42] Speaker 1: after going through that rigorous education. Third of those are
[13:47] Speaker 1: people who are trying to, you know, find jobs in
[13:51] Speaker 1: state governments, you know, lower level but salary jobs in police,
[13:56] Speaker 1: in railway and postal departments and things of that nature.
[14:00] Speaker 1: And at the bottom end of this pyramid are the
[14:02] Speaker 1: people who cannot access any of those things, who are
[14:05] Speaker 1: at the desperate end, and they are thrown into this gigwork.
[14:10] Speaker 2: So is this set of protests and all of the
[14:13] Speaker 2: other issues that have been raised. Is this a setback
[14:16] Speaker 2: or threat to Mody?
[14:18] Speaker 4: Well, it has dented his image. This is narangu mo.
[14:21] Speaker 4: They taking a step back.
[14:23] Speaker 1: And the people know that if they protest, if they
[14:26] Speaker 1: protest meaningfully, if they protest peacefully, and if they have
[14:30] Speaker 1: a genuine gravance that they would like to raise with
[14:32] Speaker 1: the state, and if they stick to their ground, they
[14:35] Speaker 1: can make the government bend its need to them.
[14:39] Speaker 4: That is how it has changed.
[14:42] Speaker 2: But not enough a tool says to pose a significant
[14:45] Speaker 2: threat to Mody's Baratia Junta party just yet.
[14:49] Speaker 1: Electorally, the b Shappe is doing very well. They just
[14:52] Speaker 1: had a landflight victory in West Bengal, but they have
[14:56] Speaker 1: numbers to show or for their majority in the parliament.
[15:00] Speaker 1: That is why they had set themselves a really ambitious
[15:03] Speaker 1: legislative agenda for this session of the parliament that we
[15:06] Speaker 1: can Monday before everything got taken over by student protests.
[15:10] Speaker 4: But these protests have changed something.
[15:14] Speaker 1: Now how does that reflect electorally in the coming elections.
[15:19] Speaker 4: It's too early to tell.
[15:22] Speaker 2: Some of these grievances around protesters and young Indians, especially
[15:26] Speaker 2: around jobs and economic opportunity, don't have quick fixes. So realistically,
[15:31] Speaker 2: what options does the government actually have?
[15:35] Speaker 1: That is a very good question because the problems with
[15:38] Speaker 1: the Indian education system are structural and they will take
[15:41] Speaker 1: years to address. What the government needs to do is
[15:46] Speaker 1: to take it seriously and set out a plan and
[15:49] Speaker 1: that follow that plan, because this is a big problem
[15:53] Speaker 1: for India.
[15:54] Speaker 4: The median age at.
[15:55] Speaker 1: The moment is hours around twenty nine and all these
[16:00] Speaker 1: will if nothing else moves the needle for this government.
[16:03] Speaker 1: They have to remember that all these people are going
[16:05] Speaker 1: to vote.
[16:07] Speaker 2: We have seen these gen Z protests emerging in Bangladesh, Nepal,
[16:12] Speaker 2: Indonesia in recent years. How does what's happening in India
[16:17] Speaker 2: fit into that broader trend.
[16:21] Speaker 1: Well, the way I see it is that India is
[16:23] Speaker 1: in a much more secure position. This is a government
[16:26] Speaker 1: that commands, you know, with absolute authority, almost every arm
[16:32] Speaker 1: of the state. This is not a weak government. It
[16:35] Speaker 1: is also a very popular government that won its third
[16:38] Speaker 1: election and just want a state election with a landslide victory.
[16:43] Speaker 4: But to the.
[16:44] Speaker 1: Larger point of how does this situation compare with Nepal
[16:48] Speaker 1: or Bangladesh. The language that I heard in the streets,
[16:50] Speaker 1: and the kind of slogans that were raised in the street,
[16:53] Speaker 1: and the kind of grievances that they were airing in
[16:55] Speaker 1: the way they spoke about the opportunities that they do
[16:58] Speaker 1: not find access to, you know anymore. It sort of
[17:01] Speaker 1: conveys that there is a social contract between the young
[17:05] Speaker 1: people of a country and its government, and what you're
[17:07] Speaker 1: seeing is is that that is beginning to collapse in
[17:11] Speaker 1: India as well.
[17:12] Speaker 4: But I think we are far from a situation.
[17:17] Speaker 1: Like in Nebal the reason these protests took place in
[17:21] Speaker 1: the first place, I mean it was already the frayme
[17:24] Speaker 1: of that social contract.
[17:26] Speaker 4: Right, Why are.
[17:27] Speaker 1: Young people coming to the streets demanding to be heard?
[17:30] Speaker 1: They do not feel like they are being heard by
[17:32] Speaker 1: the government, and that was the situation that they were
[17:36] Speaker 1: trying to remedy.
[17:37] Speaker 4: And now they have secured a victory.
[17:39] Speaker 1: Does this embolden them or does it allay their anxieties
[17:43] Speaker 1: for a little bit, I don't know.
[17:50] Speaker 2: This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
[17:53] Speaker 2: Rebecca Cheung Wilkins. To get more from The Big Take
[17:56] Speaker 2: and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe
[18:00] Speaker 2: day at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast offer. If you
[18:03] Speaker 2: liked the episode, make sure to subscribe and review The
[18:05] Speaker 2: Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps
[18:08] Speaker 2: people find the show. Thanks for listening, See you next time.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.