How The CJP Protest Forced India’s Education Minister to Resign.
Thirty-six days. That is all it took.Thirty-six days of tear gas and lathi charges, of students sleeping on Parliament Street in the Delhi summer heat, of a 59-year-old activist slowly starving himself in a hospital bed, of a satirical party named after an insult becoming the most feared political force in the capital.On July 25, 2026, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned. India’s youth had demanded it. And for once, India’s government listened.The Exam That Stole a Dream From 2.27 Million PeopleTo understand what happened at Jantar Mantar, you need to understand what NEET means in India.It is not just an entrance test. It is the single examination that decides whether you become a doctor. One paper. One day. One chance — for which families mortgage homes, students give up their teenage years, and coaching institutes in Kota charge fees that consume entire life savings.On May 3 and May 7, 2026, over 2.27 million students sat for NEET-UG. Then the NTA cancelled both dates. The paper had leaked. Not rumoured to have leaked. Not allegedly leaked. Pradhan stood in front of cameras on May 15 and admitted it himself: “We were confirmed that, under the guise of a guess paper, the actual examination questions had indeed been leaked.”Two months of preparation, wiped out. Families told to wait for a re-exam. And somewhere, the people who had bought the paper in advance — who had already known every answer before they sat down — were untouched.Students began dying by suicide.That is when the streets started filling up.The Party Born From an InsultThe Cockroach Janta Party already existed when NEET collapsed. It had been born in May from a Supreme Court judge’s courtroom remark that compared unemployed youth to cockroaches and parasites of society. Abhijeet Dipke, a student in Boston, had turned that insult into a party name, a manifesto, and an Instagram account that hit 22 million followers in under two weeks.The government’s response was to block it. Under Section 69A of the IT Act, on national security grounds.Nothing radicalises a generation faster than being called a parasite and then being silenced for objecting.When the NEET leak broke, CJP shifted its entire focus. The demands became specific: a transparent investigation, accountability for student suicides, and the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan. The movement that had started as satire now had a body count behind it. Nobody was laughing anymore.Day 22: The Day Students Tried to March Into ParliamentJuly 20 was chosen deliberately. It was the first day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session. The CJP organised a ‘Chalo Sansad’ march — thousands of students walking from Jantar Mantar toward Parliament, carrying one demand: Pradhan must go.Delhi Police had other ideas. Barricades were erected. When the crowd pushed through, the response was immediate and brutal. Lathi-charges. Tear gas. Water cannons. Students who had come to knock on their Parliament’s door were beaten back from its gates.ThePrint’s entire reporting team came back with eyes burning from tear gas. Some took blows.Inside Parliament — the same building students were being stopped from reaching — the Opposition brought the NEET issue to both Houses. Adjournments followed. Speeches were made. And outside, the students lay on the road, coughing, bleeding, and refusing to leave.Sonam Wangchuk was arrested and taken to hospital that evening. He had been fasting for 22 days.The Hunger Strike Nobody Could IgnoreSince June 28, Wangchuk had been on an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar alongside six students from the All India Students Association. He is 59 years old. He is famous — the engineer-activist who inspired the film 3 Idiots. He had no political affiliation that the government could use to dismiss him.That was precisely why he mattered. He brought legitimacy to a protest that the ruling party wanted to paint as anti-national. His face on the news each evening made it impossible for ordinary people to look away.By week three, celebrities were speaking up. By week four, the government had no clean options left.On July 23, after 26 days, Wangchuk ended his fast — but only after the government gave written assurances: no cases against peaceful protesters, parliamentary debate on education reform, and compensation for the families of students who died by suicide.Pradhan’s resignation was not in that deal. The CJP rejected it as insufficient.The protest continued.July 25: A Minister FallsThat morning, police were once again firing tear gas at Jantar Mantar.Then Pradhan opened X.”Considering the situation that has arisen at Jantar Mantar and across the country, so that antinational forces do not take advantage of this situation… I have sent my resignation letter to Prime Minister Modi,” he wrote. “I deeply respect the aspirations, feelings, and legitimate expectations of the country’s youth.”At Jantar Mantar, Abhijeet Dipke grabbed a microphone.”We have done it, we have done it,” he screamed.Around him, students who had been gassed and beaten and called anti-national for 36 days began to cry, to dance, to hold each other. Nineteen-year-old Lavanya Bharti, her voice shaking, told reporters: “They called us lazy and unemployed. We are lazy enough to sleep on Parliament Street for days. We have erased the fear that Modi spent years building. Cockroaches are crawling all over you, Modi.”Hours later, CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka walked out of the Constitution Club of India having shaken hands with JP Nadda and Jitendra Singh. “All our demands have been accepted,” he said. “We request the protesters to withdraw immediately and return home peacefully.”It was over. All three demands — Pradhan’s resignation, compensation for families of students lost to suicide, no action against peaceful protesters — accepted.What This Was Really AboutEvery one of the 2.27 million students who appeared for NEET 2026 has a family. Say six people per family — parents, siblings, grandparents. That is roughly 14 million people directly affected by what happened on May 3 and May 7.India has produced paper leaks before. What it had not produced before was a generation angry enough, organised enough, and digitally fluent enough to refuse to absorb the humiliation quietly.AAP leader Manish Sisodia
The Cockroach Janta Party: How a Judge’s Insult Became India’s Loudest Youth Protest in Years
One Remark. One Week. Twenty Million Followers.It started with a judge. It became a movement. And then the government tried to shut it down — which, as anyone who has followed internet culture for five minutes could have predicted, only made it louder.The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, is an Indian satirical political movement founded on May 16, 2026 by Abhijeet Dipke, a political communications strategist who formerly worked with the Aam Aadmi Party. Within days of its launch, the fake party had garnered more followers on some social media platforms than India’s main political parties. The CJP’s Instagram account surpassed the BJP’s 8.7 million Instagram followers within four days of launch, reaching 10.9 million by May 21, over 14 million by May 22, and 22.8 million as of May 26.To put that in perspective: the BJP has been around for over 40 years. The CJP has been around for less than two weeks.Where It All Started: A Judge, a Courtroom, and a Word That DetonatedOn May 15, 2026, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant compared some unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites of society” during a Supreme Court hearing on fake professional credentials, according to The Wire.The context, as the Chief Justice later clarified, was specific. Kant tried to put a lid on the controversy, insisting he hadn’t referred to unemployed youth in general as vermin, just those who get jobs by faking degrees. “What I had specifically criticized were those who have entered professions like the bar with the aid of fake and bogus degrees,” he said.The clarification was accurate. The damage was already done.Gen Z and millennial social media users adopted the moniker as a satirical badge of protest against unemployment and inflation. Because here is the thing about calling India’s unemployed youth cockroaches in 2026: the youth unemployment crisis is not a fringe issue. It is the defining economic anxiety of an entire generation. When you hand that generation a slur and a Wi-Fi connection, you do not get contrition. You get a movement.The Man Who Built the Movement in 24 HoursAbhijeet Dipke, an Indian student studying public relations at Boston University, launched the online party on May 16 — turning the judge’s purported insult into a symbol of youth anger. The pseudo-party describes itself as a “political front of the youth, by the youth, for the youth” and a “Voice of the Lazy and Unemployed.”The party’s website went live on May 16 under the tagline “Voice of the Lazy and Unemployed.” Dipke used artificial intelligence tools like Claude and ChatGPT to design the website and the manifesto. AI-generated images were used to promote the movement across issues.The name “Cockroach Janta Party” is a play on the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party. The founder claims that CJP is not affiliated with any political organisation. That last point matters. This is not Congress in disguise. It is not an AAP operation. It is not an opposition front. It is something that established political commentary in India genuinely does not have a framework for: a purely organic, social media-native, Gen Z-first satirical movement that is angry at everyone.Dipke said: “We have to understand that five years ago nobody was ready to speak up against Modi or the government. The times are changing.”The Manifesto: Satire With Real Demands InsideThe CJP is self-described satire. But its manifesto is not a joke. The Cockroach Janta Party manifesto has five demands: first, no Rajya Sabha seat for any retiring Chief Justice; second, the Chief Election Commissioner to be held accountable under UAPA for deleted voter rolls; third, women’s reservation raised to 55 percent; fourth, time-bound Election Commission action on vote deletion; and fifth, political literacy for India’s youth.In its manifesto, the Cockroach Janta Party said it will cancel the licences of “all media houses owned by Ambani and Adani” — referring to two of India’s richest men, Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, who own prominent television channels and are seen as being close to Modi — “to make way for a truly independent media.”Read that list again. The SIR voter roll deletions that dominated the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu election campaigns. Women’s reservation, which Parliament passed but failed to implement. Judicial accountability. Media independence. Political literacy. These are not troll demands. These are the actual policy grievances of a generation that watched the 2026 elections unfold and concluded that the system was not working for them.The movement has also engaged in offline activities, with volunteers participating in protests and clean-up drives dressed in cockroach costumes. A cockroach cleaning up a city. The metaphor practically writes itself.The Government’s Response: A Masterclass in How Not to Handle SatireHere is where the story pivots from funny to serious.On May 21, 2026, MeitY directed X to withhold the CJP’s @CJP_2029 account under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, citing Intelligence Bureau inputs on national security. No public order was issued. The blocking order remains confidential under Rule 16 of the Information Technology Blocking Rules.The IB cited “national security concerns” and a threat to the “sovereignty of India.”Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar alleged that 49 percent of CJP followers are from Pakistan and only 9 percent are from India. However, a screen recording from Dipke shows that over 94 percent of the audience is Indian.The government did not ban the manifesto text directly, but it blocked every platform the manifesto was published on: X withheld under Section 69A on May 21, the Instagram account hacked on May 23, and the .org website blocked by MeitY on May 23. The CJP continues to operate at an alternative domain.By moving to block the account, the government ended up validating the very criticism the satire sought to make. A parody page that might otherwise have remained a passing internet joke suddenly acquired political significance because of official intervention. In trying to suppress ridicule, the authorities amplified it.This is a lesson as old as the internet and apparently still being learned: nothing makes a meme go more