India's 'Cockroach Party' takes aim at Narendra Modi's government after national exam debacle

India's 'Cockroach Party' takes aim at Narendra Modi's government after national exam debacle

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Muheet Ul Islam
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Fri, 07/24/2026 - 18:52

Paper Leak sparks student protests as anger mounts against India’s Bharatiya Janata Party

Supporters of India's Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) hold placards and chant slogans during ongoing protests, days after thousands of protesters marched towards parliament demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, India, on 24 July 2026 (Bhawika Chhabra/Reuters)

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Sitting on the ground and beating a tambourine, Arya Singh was surrounded by a large crowd, mostly students, at a square in New Delhi.

“The government that is incompetent must be replaced” and “Long live the revolution”, the voices chanted in unison, led by the 18-year-old Singh.

For nearly a month, students from across the country have been gathering at Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century astronomical observatory and designated street site for protests.

Protesters are demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, and the education minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet. 

The demand comes after the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), one of the world’s largest medical entrance exams, was leaked; it determines admissions into five-year undergraduate medical courses in India.

More than 2.3 million students appeared for the Optical Mark Recognition, or OMR-based exam contesting a total of 137,000 seats on 3 May.

However, an intelligence report about the paper leak through the social media application Telegram in Rajasthan forced authorities to cancel the exam, and a re-examination was held on 21 June.

Between the cancellation and the re-take, at least 12 students were reported to have taken their lives, according to an investigation by Indian Express, which reported that stress, grief and uncertainty led the students to do so. Further self-inflicted deaths have since been reported.

“Those twenty students who committed suicide had given up all outdoor activities, sports, picnics, everything, to prepare for their exams. This is not suicide, it is murder,” Singh told Middle East Eye. 

“If this had happened elsewhere, the minister would have taken responsibility and stepped down. But in India, he continues to hold on to his position without any accountability,” she added.

The ‘Cockroach Party’

The protests have been spearheaded by what is now known as the "Cockroach Janta Party", or CJP. It started as an online movement and satirical gesture after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, during an open court hearing, said that “parasites” were attacking the system and compared unemployed youth and activists to pests.

“There are youngsters like cockroaches who don’t get any employment or have any place in the profession. Some of them become media, some become social media, RTI activists and other activists, and they start attacking everyone,” Kant said. 

'They call us cockroaches, and maybe we are, because the system is decayed. What else can they expect such a rotten system to produce?'

- Arya Singh, protester

He later backtracked, saying that his remarks referred to individuals with fraudulent degrees and not to India’s youth, whom he called “the pillars of a developed India”.

His comments drew widespread anger, especially among Gen Z, who are dealing with unemployment, rising prices and growing religious divisions and communal violence after 12 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule. 

The movement gained further traction after Sonam Wangchuk, a well-known engineer, education reformer and climate activist from Ladakh, joined the protests in support of the CJP by going on a 26-day hunger strike that ended on 24 July.

During the last days of his strike, the 50-year-old was forcibly removed from the protest site by Delhi Police and admitted to a hospital. 

Wangchuk ended his strike after being assured that the police would no longer use force against protesters, that protesters would not face punishment, and that negotiations with the government would continue.

Protesters demanding the resignation of India's education minister go on an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi (Wasim Nabi/MEE)

Singh wears the "cockroach" title as a badge of honour.

“They call us cockroaches, and maybe we are, because the system is decayed. What else can they expect such a rotten system to produce?” Singh, the protester, said. 

“The more rotten the system becomes, the more cockroaches it will produce,” she added, saying that this is why they are “out to show what happens when there is no accountability in the government.”

'Brute force'

Abhigyan, 26, a New Delhi resident who goes by one name, has been among the leading faces of the protest. He told MEE that the movement is against corruption, injustice and intolerance, and accused the government of arrogance.

'This is not the response expected from a democratic nation but from a fascist regime' 

- Abhigyan, protester

He said the BJP-led government has used “brute force” against students through lower-level party workers while senior leadership has publicly pushed narratives painting protesters as “anti-national” or as “terrorists”.

“This is not the response expected from a democratic nation but from a fascist regime, and that is what we are witnessing,” Abhigyan said.

Delhi Police, Abhigyan alleges, used sticks with iron nails to beat students, installed iron barricades with an electric current to give shocks, and used pellet guns to disperse the protest when they tried to march towards the Indian parliament on 20 July. 

The Delhi Police, however, in its post on X, termed such reports as “completely false and misleading”.

Abhigyan says there are three confirmed pellet-gun injuries while 65 people were admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, of which 15 were in critical condition.

“No person in their right mind and with faith in humanity can defend this, unless their employment depends on it or they are simply paid to defend it,” he said, adding that Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are responsible for escalating the current crisis.

“The protesters did not have the resources to escalate the situation,” he said. 

'What kind of government is this?'

Far away from the main gathering, another group of protesters sat in a circle, reciting a poem: “Paper leak ki sankiya 80 se bhi paar hai, Kaise sarkar hai, Kaise sarkar hai,” which translates to, “Leaked papers have now crossed eighty. What kind of government is this?” 

'BJP is turning the majority of the Indian population, the youth, against them'

- Vijay Ratawal, aspiring doctor and protester

The students were referring to allegations reported in different studies that nearly 70 paper leaks of various exams have taken place in the country during Modi’s tenure.

“The use of force is making us reconsider whether the BJP should remain in power. There were doubts earlier, but now everything has turned black and white: [those] who want to benefit the common people and [those] who only want to hold the most powerful chair in the country,” Vijay Ratawal, a 21-year-old aspiring doctor protesting with the group, told MEE. 

“BJP is turning the majority of the Indian population, the youth, against them,” he said. 

The families of the protesters, Ratawal said, do not trust the system, as they have seen their dreams shatter not only due to exam leaks but also because of the implementation of policies that go against the interests of common citizens.

“The entire BJP cabinet is incompetent; they have set the country on fire on every front,” Ratawal said, citing the farmers’ protests in Gujarat, the violence in Manipur, and the tribal Chita Andolan (funeral pyre protest) in Madhya Pradesh.

“The need of the hour is to ask the BJP regime to step aside and leave the positions they hold to competent people who will serve the country without greed or lust for power,” he said, adding that the silence Modi shows is a lack of commitment to the youth of the country.

A large crowd of protesters march through a tree-lined street, waving Indian flags and holding placards while demanding accountability and the resignation of the Indian education minister (Wasim Nabi/MEE)

Senior citizens like Jankabi Krishnakumar Nirmohi, a 72-year-old farmer from Bhojpur in Bihar, also took part in the protests. He said that his aim was to support the ongoing protests against what he described as the “dictator mindset” of the Modi government.

“In 1974, the Navnirman and JP movements were launched against rampant inflation, food scarcity and government corruption, demanding systemic political change and workers’ rights. The intensity of those protests was much higher than this one, but the cruelty unleashed on students by the BJP government today has no parallel in Indian history,” Nirmohi told MEE. 

“When parliament loses its way, the streets begin to speak, and that is when decisions are made,” he said.

“The shamelessness of Modi can be seen in his post on X, in which he praised the education minister on his birthday while students were protesting against him,” Nirmohi said. 

“He did not even mourn the loss of the 20 students who died by suicide. The greetings and the blessing wishes show clearly where his support lies,” he concluded.

Gen Z battleground

South Asia in recent years has become a battleground for Gen Z-led protests, resulting in governments being toppled in countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. 

Sanjay Kumar, an Indian political scientist, psephologist and professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, or CSDS, told MEE that the youth have sent a clear signal of their unhappiness with the BJP government. 

However, he expressed scepticism about the extent to which the movement can sustain itself.

'When Parliament loses its way, the streets begin to speak, and that is when decisions are made'

- Sanjay Kumar, political scientist

“Yes, the protest is a clear indication that there is unhappiness among the youth against the current government, especially with regard to the NEET paper leak,” Kumar said, adding that opposition leaders also visited the protests in solidarity.

Kumar said he cannot confirm whether the protests were being organised by opposition political parties, as reported by sections of the Indian national media.

“My assessment is that it was neither started nor organised by opposition parties,” Kumar said. “However, once the movement began, [the] opposition saw it as an opportunity and tried to take advantage of it by sending a message to the youth that they are the ones looking after their interests.” 

But Kumar does not see a direct parallel between what is happening in New Delhi and the events that took place in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

“It is not useful to make such comparisons, because those are smaller countries, and something happening in the capital here has very different implications for the country,” Kumar said, 

“If you speak to people in rural areas, which make up nearly 70 percent of the population, I do not think this movement will have much resonance. The momentum is issue-specific and limited to a particular section of the population, mainly the youth of the country,” he added.

Noor Ahmad Baba, a political scientist and former professor at the University of Kashmir, believes that the BJP has not asked for the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the education minister, because the government does not want to show any signs of weakness.

Meanwhile, Dharmendra Pradhan accused the Indian National Congress (INC), the main opposition party, of using students as political tools and disrupting the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

“Even after the government conveyed its readiness for a comprehensive discussion, the Congress chose political spectacle over democratic debate. Their objective was never solutions for students; it was disruption for political headlines,” he said in a post on X. 

“The students of India deserve far better than being treated as tools in a political campaign. They deserve certainty over chaos, solutions over slogans and responsibility over disruption,” Pradhan added. “We owe our students more than outrage. We owe them answers, reforms and accountability. That is exactly what our government remains committed to delivering,” he said.

But Baba says the government has not faced a challenge like this before and “it does not want to show any sign of weakness by asking for Pradhan’s resignation”.

“It will be interesting to see how the BJP handles this situation,” he added, saying that “having no precedent in the past does not necessarily ensure that a new precedent can’t be created.”

Academic Freedom

New Delhi

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