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None of this was intended. It was just supposed to be a joke. Last Saturday morning, Abhijit Dipke arrived in Delhi straight off the plane from Boston and staged a protest in the 40° heat. I got down there around 11:00 a.m. and found lots of young people chanting and banging drums. Until recently, Dipke was a 30-year-old Indian communications consultant living in Boston in America who was fond of posting memes on the internet. Now, he's accidentally found himself at the helm of a movement. His Cockroach People's Party began as a joke in response to a nasty comment made by the Chief Justice of India's Supreme Court comparing India's many jobless young
people to cockroaches, but the joke quickly spiraled. The party has attracted millions of followers online. So, Tom, tell me a bit more about this gathering. What was it all about? So, lots of people I met at the protest were angry about two specific education scandals. One involving a leaked medical entrance exam paper, the other involving the credibility of a whole exam board. So, that's why they were calling for the education minister to resign. But, the Cockroach Party is trying to make a bigger argument really that these two scandals reflect a broken system that is failing young Indians. They're asking for the resignation of the education minister, but they also want reform to exams and changes to the way that the media
works. And lots of them were really arguing that this was a sort of watershed moment. They were sort of saying, "We're now biting back as cockroaches and this is going to give us more confidence to express ourselves in the future." So, this is essentially a popular street movement. How unusual is that in India? Well, Rosie, the street really matters in Indian politics. Many of the country's political heroes have really forged their reputations there by amassing giant crowds with the drums and the slogans and the placards. Of course, you think of Mahatma Gandhi, also B. R. Ambedkar, who secured the rights for Dalits by organizing these giant street rallies, and also Narendra
Modi. So, he cut his teeth as a student organizer, and protest played a big role in him coming to power nationally in 2014. The previous Congress government was dogged by corruption scandals, and a huge street movement emerged with hunger strikes and so on. And actually, Modi's most difficult moment as Prime Minister was a giant protest in 2020-21. And that was when hundreds of thousands of farmers blockaded national highways in India and forced him to drop a set of new farm laws. So, all that is to say that these kind of protests absolutely have been a vehicle for change before in India,
including under this government. But, this one is very much in its infancy. And what is the change that they're really pushing for? As you say, it's not just the education scandals that sparked this particular moment. Well, you're right. I mean, Indians and young Indians in particular have a lot to be angry about. It's not just education scandals. There's a real lack of jobs. Lots of them are graduating and finding it hard to meet the sort of aspirations and the higher aspirations that they have. And others I spoke to explained that they'd been afraid to criticize the government, and this was one of the first times they'd seen the youth really fight back.
A lot of those expressions of angst seems to be things that resonate around the world from youth movements. And we have had particular ones in Asia, in Nepal, in Sri Lanka, in Bangladesh that have actually toppled governments. Where does this fit into that? I mean, it's true that you hear some of the same kind of messages at those protests, but I would be quite cautious about drawing too many parallels there. So, in those countries that you mentioned, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, you really had a whole swathe of young people turning against really quite corrupt dictatorial regimes. That's not the situation in India. So, the BJP, which is ruling nationally, Mr. Modi's party, is still by far the most popular
party in India, including among younger voters. But there are real frustrations among the youth with how the system is working. But you're covering the cockroach movement, presumably because you do think it does have legs in some form. Well, to be honest, Rosie, you know, that this has generated a lot of interest online. It's It's quite a furor over the last sort of three or four weeks since it emerged. But I actually came away from this protest a little bit more skeptical about how big this thing will get. So, for one thing, the protest itself was very small. There was only around one or 2,000 people there. That's a fraction of the size of the farmers protest that I mentioned. The group has
promised more rallies, but it's not at all clear that it's got the stamina or the organizational clout to really mount a long sustained campaign. And at the moment, I would argue that they also lack a strong leader and a coherent message that would really appeal to a really large number of Indians. So, at the protest, Dipka was leading endless rounds of chanting slogans, but the speakers weren't really loud enough for most of the crowd to hear what he had to say. I think India is in a tight spot. You know, everyone has been put under pressure by the Iran war, energy prices are rising pretty fast here. Some people are struggling to get hold of cooking gas. Inflation is rising pretty sharply.
So, the mood here isn't complete satisfaction with the government and in some ways these protests are tapping into that. But, I think at the moment the government's bet is that they can ride it out. Tom, thank you very much for talking to me. Thanks, Daisy.
