Why have India’s Gen Z protesters called for a march to parliament?
After a prominent activist on hunger strike is forcibly removed from protest site, organisers announce a march to parliament. New Delhi, India – Tens of
After a prominent activist on hunger strike is forcibly removed from protest site, organisers announce a march to parliament. New Delhi, India – Tens of thousands of protesters, most of them students, are expected to march to India’s Parliament from a protest site in the heart of the national capital to demand the resignations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his education minister. For nearly a month, supporters of the viral “cockroach” movement have occupied New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar area, India’s most popular protest site, located a couple of kilometres from parliament, after back-to-back scandals related to examination paper leaks, technical glitches and cancelled tests triggered outrage in the world’s most populous country. On Saturday, dozens of police officers forcibly removed activist Sonam Wangchuk from the protest site, 20 days after the 59-year-old Gandhian began a hunger strike in solidarity with the cockroach movement. Police cited a court order and Wangchuk’s “deteriorating health condition” to defend their move. But Wangchuk’s wife, Gitanjali J Angmo, said her husband was taken to hospital against his will and accused the government of “illegal detention” disguised as medical care. Angered over Wangchuk’s removal, Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), has now demanded Modi’s resignation and urged his supporters to march to parliament on Monday, the first day of its monsoon session. As thousands have responded to Dipke’s call, New Delhi is on edge amid a heavy deployment of police and paramilitary forces. Other activist groups and political parties have expressed their solidarity with the march and asked people to join. Here is everything you need to know about the Gen Z-led protest and how things reached this point What is the cockroach movement? It is made up primarily of young Indians who identify themselves as “cockroaches”, casting themselves as survivors of what they see as a “decaying” political system under Modi’s government.
They have organised under the CJP, a satirical “people’s party” born out of a joke after India’s top judge casually likened government critics and unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites”. The comment sparked a furore, prompting Dipke, a former Boston University student, to ask on Last month, Dipke landed in New Delhi from the United States, aiming to harness a viral internet moment into an on-the-ground movement. The movement started with a single demand: the sacking of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who it accused of inaction over frequent exam paper leaks, which have led to the deaths by suicide of dozens of students in the past decade. South Asia has emerged in recent years as ground zero of Gen Z protests with India’s neighbouring Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal seeing mass protests and the toppling of unpopular governments. India has the world’s largest Gen Z cohort, which has been facing unemployment, record-high inequality and religious tensions since 2014, coupled with the country’s slide in multiple democratic indices. What is happening at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar? The CJP movement is calling for sweeping reforms to India’s competitive examination system and compensation for the families of students who died by suicide over the leaks and the exam results. But Pradhan has refused to step down and even called the protesters the “B team of terrorists”. Modi, who has not held a news conference in more than 12 years but is active on social media, has not reacted to the protests yet. Meanwhile, Wangchuk, an acclaimed engineer-turned-educator from the northern region of Ladakh, continued a hunger strike he started on June 28. He held a similar strike in September, demanding special status for Ladakh, a Himalayan region that Modi’s government split off from India-administered Kashmir in 2019.
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