They are crawling out everywhere. Millions of young Indians have begun calling themselves cockroaches. Since late May, they have been demonstrating in city after city, refusing to back down.
“Long live the Cockroach Party! Take us seriously! Give us education and jobs!”The new “party” came into being in May after India’s Chief Justice referred to student activists and unemployed young people as “cockroaches” and “parasites.” The next day, Abhijeet Dipke, an Indian living in the United States, turned the insult on its head and launched the viral parody known as the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).
Since then, CJP has gathered remarkable momentum. With more than 22 million followers on Instagram, it presents itself as “the party of the lazy and unemployed.” Not even Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s powerful ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), commands such a large digital following.
To understand why a despised insect has suddenly become a political mascot for an entire generation, it is worth looking at the hard numbers. India, a country of nearly 1.5 billion people, has an urban youth unemployment rate of around 15 percent. Some 400 million Indians are between the ages of 15 and 29, and the population is growing by 11 million a year. Such figures inevitably create problems if young people are left idle.
CJP has clearly struck a chord among millions of young Indians who feel neglected and unfairly treated. But the authorities, too, feel targeted, albeit in a different way. Modi’s government quickly blocked the cockroaches’ newly opened account on X. One cabinet minister, Kiren Rijiju, went a step further and accused the pests of colluding with India’s arch-rival Pakistan.
“Nonsense,” Dipke replied. “You should take the problem seriously instead of trying to explain it away.”
Prime Minister Modi has been in power since 2014. During his tenure, India’s economy has grown rapidly. This year, the country is expected to post GDP growth of between 6 and 7 percent, and foreign investors continue to pour in. Yet growth remains uneven and has failed to absorb the large cohorts of young people entering the labor market each year.
Discontent is particularly strong among university graduates. Many have taken out substantial loans to finance their studies, only to discover that secure and suitable jobs are available to only a fortunate few. Students also claim that universities and higher educational institutions are riddled with corruption, and that examinations are too often tainted by cheating and manipulation. As a result, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has become a prime target for the protest movement.
Dipke, the movement’s self-styled founder, has made Pradhan’s resignation its principal demand.
“We will continue protesting until Pradhan is removed,” he shouted at a rally in Delhi two weeks ago.
After studying political communication in the United States for the past two years, the thirty-year-old returned home in early June. His ambition is not merely to keep the movement alive, but to take it to new heights—if necessary.
Now the summer heat hangs over India like a suffocating blanket. People do not have much energy for political activity, students included. Many have returned home for their holidays. Dipke’s challenge is therefore to translate frustration into tangible results. He plans to spend the summer gauging public sentiment and coordinating young activists across the country.
Will he eventually launch a real political party?
“Who knows?” he said in a recent interview. “We are still at an early stage.”
Indian newspapers have been cautious about predicting what comes next. Prime Minister Modi has chosen to sit back and wait, apparently hoping that the cockroaches will simply wither away and die. That may happen, but the opposite is equally possible.
Both Indian and foreign demographers warn that India faces a historic test of enormous proportions. During the next forty years, its population may increase by more than 200 million people. The prospect is dizzying.
At the same time, low-skilled workers will continue to migrate from rural areas to cities and towns. India therefore needs not only high GDP growth, but also more labor-intensive industries—in practice, jobs that do not rely excessively on assembly lines and robots.
Highly educated young people must likewise be offered meaningful employment. If the authorities fail on both fronts, the vast wave of young Indians could become a source of social and political instability.
Modi and his advisers understand the danger. Last year, the government approved a plan aimed at creating 35 million new jobs by 2027. According to The Hindu, however, the target is nowhere near being achieved, and much stronger measures will be required.
The government’s ambitions are further complicated by the ongoing automation of Indian industry. Although India still has a relatively low robot density compared with China and other industrialized countries, business leaders are eager to modernize production. Ultimately, it is a matter of remaining competitive in a world of increasingly fierce economic rivalry. Foreign investors, for their part, have little interest in employing more workers than necessary.
The struggle against corruption is no less daunting. When a student spends years preparing for examinations only to hear of leaked papers, cheating and purchased favors, it feels like an ambush. On Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, India ranks 91st out of 182 countries in 2025. China, which faces similar challenges, performs somewhat better.
The government in New Delhi insists that corruption has declined thanks to the growing digitalization of public services. Digital payments and transfers leave less room for corrupt middlemen. Yet critics argue that this is only part of the picture. At higher levels—in politics and business—the old culture of favoritism and corruption survives.
And when 2.2 million students are forced to retake their medical entrance examination because of paper leaks, corruption affects society on a massive scale. The first test was held on May 3. The resit is scheduled for June 21.
In recent weeks, frustration has found free expression on social media. As “an angry pair of parents” wrote on WhatsApp:
“We raise our children to be honest and upright. When the system fails them, it is hardly surprising that they turn into cockroaches.”
