The cockroach rebellion in India

Around 2 million young Indians joined an online call within hours of a viral remark by the country’s chief justice, who had called unemployed young people who question the government “cockroaches.” Instead of rejecting the label, a student in Boston named Abhit Deepkey proposed owning it. That moment, just over two months before this conversation, launched the “Cockroach movement” — a youth uprising that has shaken the confidence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in ways that may not fade quickly.

The movement’s origin and demands

The movement formalized itself as the “Cockroach Janatha Party,” a deliberate echo of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Its immediate focus was the leak of papers for the NEET exam — the national eligibility and entrance test for medical school and other publicly funded professional training. Papers had been leaked more than a hundred times in the past decade. For students from lower-middle-class families, a good NEET score means access to a reasonably funded institution with lower fees; their parents often spend 25 to 40 percent of household income on coaching for these exams. The movement’s three demands were: the resignation of the education minister, financial compensation for the families of 23 students who took their own lives this year because of exam cancellations and stress, and the removal of police FIRs (first inform