The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) agitation at Jantar Mantar on 6 June is a reflection of the anger that has engulfed the Gen-Z due to the constant paper leaks and rising unemployment under the Narendra Modi regime.
The movement was triggered accidentally when the Chief Justice of India called unemployed youth "cockroaches" and "parasites" during a court hearing. A 30-year-old young man, Abhijit Dipke, based in Boston, US, created a satirical account named Cockroach Janta Party, which made history. In five days, it attracted more than 20 million followers on Instagram, a number unheard of in today’s social media age.
Whatever the conspiracy theories, the reality is that no such huge number can be generated for any account. It shows and establishes that youngsters and parents are angry about the way education is being handled by the present government.
NEET, CBSE-OSM Rows Were the Last Straw
The country has witnessed competitive exam papers leaks as a routine affair. And when students hit the streets to protest, they were badly treated, met with lathi charge, water cannons and tear gas. This has happened from Bihar to Rajasthan. The anger was brewing, though the media tried to avoid these protests and refused to highlight the paper-leak issues at a national level, because it did not want to embarrass the central government and the respective state governments.
But the NEET paper leaks proved to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. NEET paper leaks impacted the careers of 22 lakh students. The exam was held on 3 May, but immediately it was known that the paper leaks had impacted, and, after initial denial, the government was forced to cancel the exam finally on 12 May.
This time, anger among the Gen Z was so palpable that the media had no choice but to take up the issue. The matter was referred to CBI, and arrests did happen, but only foot soldiers were caught. The big fish did not attract CBI’s attention, despite the demand that the leak was not possible without someone at the top being involved.
The issue after the arrest would have died down on its own. But CBSE's OSM (On-Screen Markin) glitches complicated and compounded the matter. On 13 May, the CBSE exam results were announced, and many students reported that the On-Screen Marking system, which was used this time to check answer sheets, had many glitches, such as ‘unmarked answers’ and ‘blurred scans’. Many students also complained that they got much lower marks, and a few of these complaints were reportedly found to be true when their answer sheets were physically checked. As the chorus grew, magnified by TV media and followed by newspapers prominently reporting the government, it was forced to admit its mistakes. But will it lead to the minister's resignation? I am not sure.
And Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was seen taking the responsibility for the lapses in TV interviews. This was a pleasant surprise to me, as the Modi government is not known to accept its follies; it is more used to shifting blame and finding scapegoats outside the purview of the government structure.
Students and parents started demanding Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. It was at this time that cockroaches entered the scene, and a call from Boston came: Gen Z would gather at Jantar Mantar to demand the resignation of the education minister, and finally, they did.
But will it lead to the minister's resignation? I am not sure.
Dharmendra Pradhan's Controversies Galore
Dharmendra Pradhan has proved to be the most controversial and inefficient minister in the government, especially over the last six months, which have been particularly bad for the ministry. First, it was the NCERT controversy when a chapter on Corruption in the judiciary attracted the ire of the Chief Justice Surya Kant. He was so outraged by the chapter that he threatened the government with dire consequences.
The Supreme Court was so upset that it ordered the authors of the chapter to be banned from any future government job. All three writers were sacked, but later saved by the grace of the Supreme Court, when it moderated its order.
The second mess occurred when the University Grants Commission (UGC) released new guidelines for universities and colleges. According to the new UGC Equity Regulations 2026, ‘any caste-based, religious and gender based discrimination on campus will be severely penalised. The upper-caste students were particularly incensed when they found mention of Other Backwards Classes (OBCs)
Large-scale protests were seen on the road, and I was especially surprised when I scanned through many pro-Modi and pro-BJP social media pages and accounts. Even the Prime Minister's staunch supporters were extremely agitated by the guidelines. The PM was severely criticised. A narrative of being betrayed by the government they thought was their own was set in.
The upper caste, the most loyal voters of the BJP, were seething with anger. This anger could prove counterproductive to the BJP’s electoral fortunes. The Supreme Court stepped in and stayed the guideline, reverting to the 2012 guidelines until the new guideline is formalised. The government was saved, and the crisis was postponed for a future date.
Now the government is in a bind. If it withdraws those guidelines, then the backward castes can get upset and can accuse the government of bowing down to the pressure of the upper caste. The OBCs comprise almost 50 percent of the population. Either way, the BJP is troubled.
Youth Want Education, Followed by Jobs
In 2014, when Modi was contesting the election as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, he very assiduously built a brilliantly carved image of the darling of the youth, which in today’s age is called Gen Z. Modi started cultivating young first-time voters with his address to the students in Delhi at the Shri Ram College of Commerce.
He especially tapped young voters through social media and digital platforms. He was seen as the new messiah who would make their future better. His victories in 2014 and 2019 were also in many ways due to youth power.
In 2014, he promised to give two crore jobs every year. But by 2019, that promise proved to be a hoax as India witnessed the highest unemployment in 45 years, a fact the government refused to acknowledge on the eve of elections. The youth, though decidedly upset, was ready to give one more chance to the BJP government then.
Jobless growth has been the Achilles' heel of this government. And it was one of the reasons the BJP slipped to 240 seats in the 2024 elections. So far, the government has not found a solution to the crisis.
At the time of writing, the unemployment rate is rising to 5.2 percent, with urban unemployment data being at 6.6 percent. According to other surveys, the unemployment rate among the age group 15 to 25 is approximately 40 percent, and it is 20 percent among the age group 25 to 29.
These numbers tell a story of youth who are highly disillusioned and upset with the government. And this anger compounds further when the government goes wrong with paper leaks and the implementation of OSM in CBSE.
The government should be worried, as it has seen how Gen Z has poured their anger onto the streets in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. I am not suggesting that this will happen in India, as India is too big a country, but if youth are angry and venting their anger on various digital and physical platforms, then the government should be extremely worried and take tough measures to fix the crisis.
Will it do the same? I am not very sure, but I will surely wait and watch.
(Ashutosh is co-founder of SatyaHindi and a former member of AAP. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)