India Comes Onboard: ‘Cockroaches’ and the Global Gen Z Revolts

‘Nobody funds me. I hate this Government for free.’

– A poster at Jantar Mantar during the CJP protests

Young people are the lifeblood of any transformative movement, not only because of their physical prowess but more so because of the innovations they bring to a movement. Be it the New Left, Civil Rights demonstrations, or the Anti-War movements, youth activism proliferated during the 1960s and  1970s. This was not restricted only to the West, but anti-caste movements and the non-Stalinist left-wing movement in India also gained significantly from those movements in the West. In recent times, the mettle of the 1960s student activists has been taken over by the Gen Z, also known as ‘Zoomers’, ‘iGen’, ‘post-Millennials’, and the ‘Homeland Generation’. The Gen Z – typically born between 1997 and 2012 – have been at the forefront of the new wave of protests against neoliberal and fascistic governments globally. This generation has come of age while being exposed to dangerous levels of socio-economic precarity. However, they have also been far more entrenched in the digital ecosystem than previous ones, which it has used to drive protests not only in countries in the Global South like Bangladesh, Togo, Kenya, Nepal, Madagascar, Peru, Chile, and Morocco, but also at the heart of global capitalism in countries such as France, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria, demonstrating the interconnected nature of global capitalism and the rise of authoritarianism and fascism. Gen Z protests globally have used various social media platforms – Discord in Morocco and Nepal, Facebook and WhatsApp in Bangladesh, Signal in Sri Lanka, Reddit in the Philippines, TikTok and X in Kenya, to name a few – to mobilise and organise. The ‘zoomers’, driven by short attention spans, economic stagnation, and an increasing desire to be heard and have their demands acted upon, have often risen when their parents and the older generations quietly adjusted.

Gen Z protests have erupted following the governments’ lacklustre attitude towards social inequality globally, and especially in countries where a predominantly young population lives. India is one such country. With a median age of approximately 29 years coupled with alarming unemployment rates, lack of adequate formal employment opportunities, and rising suicide rates of students, it was only a matter of time before the Gen Z started revolting in India like its global counterparts. The Indian Gen Z revolt becomes important not only because it represents the largest cohort of young people – India has the largest adolescent and Gen Z population in the world – but also because the stakes becomes extremely high whenever any consequential examination comes under scrutiny in India, a country where civic freedom is on a constant decline and passing a high-stake test remains the only way out for a majority of the populace from the clutches of structural violence inflicted upon by class, caste and gender. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), India’s newest politically apolitical movement, is the most recent entrant to the wave of global Gen Z revolts. Self-positioning as being representative of India’s ‘burnt out youth’, the CJP had four basic qualities that it sought in its potential members: being unemployed, being chronically online, lazy, and having ‘the ability to rant professionally’. Built and envisaged digitally, the CJP differed greatly from the traditional political structures that one finds in India. The desired qualities posted by the CJP represented the biological design of cockroaches that makes them difficult to be wiped out of existence and enables them to survive extreme conditions.

The CJP criticised the gerontocratic nature of Indian politics, where old age is often seen as a marker of better governing abilities. It highlighted that the gerontocracy often cannot address the issues and causes of young people. Corruption and accountability emerged as two of the most important issues taken up by young protesters. The basic demands placed by the CJP and other protesters were related to the allegations of corruption and accountability over high-stakes testing processes in India, which facilitate students’ procurement of high school diplomas, entry into universities for higher education, and public sector jobs. Most of the high-stakes testing in India within the domain of education – such as Joint Entrance Examination (Main) for entry into elite government engineering colleges, the National Entrance Eligibility Test (NEET)-UG for admissions into medical colleges, or the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for entry into highly-ranked central universities – have come to be managed centrally by the National Testing Authority (NTA), an autonomous body under Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, since 2018. It all began with the paper leaks of the National Entrance Eligibility Test (NEET)-UG 2026 – the second time in a couple of years –, and how the central government led by Narendra Modi and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) mismanaged the issue which resulted in the deaths of over 10 students. The issue further escalated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)-OSM Scam, which directly resulted from the mismanagement that occurred because of the central government’s focus on hyper-centralisation of the education infrastructure in India, even though the NEET issue remained the primary focus. The education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan – who had himself protested and had been lathi-charged (beaten with a stick) by the police for protesting against paper leaks back in the 1990s – was at the centre of attention, not only because of the NEET paper leaks and the CBSE scam but also because such issues have become a systemic issue in the Indian examination ecosystem. While the wider protests against the issues were going on – usually led by left-wing and centre-left students’ organisations – the beginnings of the Cockroaches’ agitation, however, were relatively accidental.

The Wrath of the Cockroaches

During a Supreme Court hearing on the 15^th of May 2026 regarding a lawyer’s attempt to get designation as a ‘Senior Advocate’, the bench – which included the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant – questioned the petitioner’s general conduct, his social-media activity, and his repeated ‘aggressive’ pursuit of the designation. The CJI argued that young people in India questioned judicial and legal institutions through social media and activism and that the degrees of some – predominantly young – lawyers should be checked by the authorities. During the hearing, he made a comment that young people in India were cockroaches and parasites: ‘There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don't get any employment and don't have any place in the profession. Some of them take to the media, some of them take to social media, some of them become RTI activists, some of them become other activists’. Even though the CJI issued a clarification the next day, the damage had already been done. The comment made by the CJI sparked an online uproar that culminated in Abhijeet Dipke – an Indian student then residing in Boston and having a history of working with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – founding the CJP as an online satirical movement, in an attempt to transform the insult into a badge of honour. Mocking the ruling BJP, the CJP’s Instagram page surpassed 3 million followers within days, eventually growing to over 20 million, which is more than the BJP. On June 3, the CJP appointed three spokespersons for the first time: Saurav Das, Vijeta Dahiya (who was later removed), and Ashutosh Ranka. Dipke returned to India on June 6, and the CJP began its first physical demonstration at the Jantar Mantar protest site, demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, Modi’s Minister for Education.

By then, the cockroaches had spread nationally, with people from far-flung areas adopting the mettle of the cockroach and demonstrating on the streets. Some of the Members of Parliament (MPs) from opposition parties proclaimed themselves to be ‘cockroaches’. Many from the urban left as well, initially became engaged with the same. A nationwide campaign began on June 11, which released a manifesto outlining the demands of the CJP. There were instances of BJP supporters and activists slapping Dipke at Jaipur and throwing ink at him in Delhi. He also later recalled that seeing the virulent attacks against him, he had to shift his parents to a safe house. The five major demands highlighted by the CJP were: ‘no Chief Justice be granted a Rajya Sabha seat as a post-retirement reward’; ‘If any legitimate vote is deleted, in any state regardless of who governs it, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) shall be arrested under the Unlawful Activities and Prevention Act (UAPA) — taking away the voting rights of citizens is no less than terrorism’; ‘Women shall receive 50% reservation, not 33%, without increasing the strength of Parliament. Additionally, 50% of all Cabinet positions shall be reserved for women’; ‘All media houses owned by Ambani and Adani shall have their licenses cancelled to make way for truly independent media. Bank accounts of Godi media anchors shall be investigated’; and ‘Any MLA or MP who defects from one party to another shall be barred from contesting elections — and from holding any public office — for a period of 20 years’. The BJP, naturally, fails on all counts being a government that is built on anti-woman policies, negligible women politicians with decision-making capabilities, a complete reliance on ‘Reliance’ and other billionaire funds, strongarming and control over mainstream media, and horse-trading of elected politicians. It was thus a foregone conclusion that the ruling establishment would feel threatened by any popular movement that put forth such demands. 

On June 20, the CJP began an indefinite sit-in at Jantar Mantar with Sonam Wangchuk, an educator and activist known for having a pragmatic and opportunistic approach towards politics,[i] joining them on June 28. Wangchuk started an indefinite hunger strike supporting the demands of the CJP. He was joined by the All India Students’ Association (AISA) activists – the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation – led by Neha Bora, their national president, and Danish Ali, the Joint Secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU). On July 18, following a severe health decline, the Delhi police forcibly shifted Wangchuk – undertaking the operation in civilian clothes and covering Wangchuk with a white banner – to the Safdarjung Hospital. N. Sai Balaji of the AISA noted:

As the left, our fight was with the students. The issues taken up by the CJP were something that we had been fighting against for a long time as an organisation, and so it was natural for us to be a part of the movement. Even though on the question of the hunger strike, we differed in our analysis with other left-wing organisations; we remained transparent and accepted that the CJP and Sonam Wangchuk were the main leaders and that we intended to join them in their hunger strike. That is when Neha and others stepped in. We were resolute that would do no replacement, and that anybody who sits at the hunger strike will carry on for as long as they can.

While the police were successful in removing Wangchuk, they could not remove Neha and other activists from the AISA who were sitting on hunger strike owing to the human chain formed around them by common students. This moment, as Balaji notes, became the defining moment of the movement. Following the removal of Wangchuk, Dipke of the CJP, and Students’ Federation of India (SFI) activists – the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – Aishe Ghosh and Adarsh Saji also sat on a hunger strike demanding the return of Wangchuk. Throughout the duration of the protest, there were issues associated with the water supply, temporary sunlight roofing, and intimidation. In one particular instance, it was also alleged that the Delhi police had forcefully tried to dismantle the temporary bookstall set up by the All India Students’ Federation, the students’ wing of the Communist Party of India (CPI).

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The plan for the ‘Sansad Chalo’ march to Parliament was kept intact, which was met with a brutal lathi-charge and tear gas by the Delhi Police. It is important to mention here that unlike the police forces of other states, which remain under the control of the state government, the Delhi Police are controlled by the Home Ministry of the Central Government. The march occurred despite JP Nadda, BJP’s floor leader in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Indian Parliament), inviting the CJP for a round of talks. Neha Bora broke her fast amidst activists and protesters that day as well, before participating in the march. The SFI activists also broke their fasts in their office in Delhi. Sonam Wangchuk, however, broke his 26-day hunger strike in the hospital on July 24 amidst BJP politicians, while the CJP held a second round of talks. By then, the BJP had unleashed a range of weaponry against the movement and the protesters, labelling them as ‘terrorists’, ‘the gutter’, ‘viruses’ and ‘hired goons’. The threats against Dipke and others, along with the disturbing videos coming out of various global cities – London, Vancouver and Tokyo to name a few – reminded people of how Georgian protesters were harassed by Georgian authorities both at home and abroad.

The government’s attempts at criminalising the protest and the protesters have been a standard tool adopted by neoliberal governments against Gen Z movements. One can here take the example of the Claudia Sheinbaum government in Mexico and its handling of the ‘Generación Z México’ protests in November 2023 against rising crime, corruption, and the handling of cartel violence. One can also look at how Thai authorities dealt with the Gen Z protesters in Thailand, slamming them with arrest warrants and intimidating them with authoritarian force. Despite the threats against the protesters and the constant vilification on mainstream national media – referred to as ‘Godi Media’ or ‘Modia’ –, the government this time could not save its face and the entire government built on narratives had to give in, eventually. The government, as Anand Teltumbde argues, was taken by surprise because young people were not attacking the government directly but were rather ‘insulting it’ with humour and satire, something that the government was not prepared to handle. It was not prepared to face a situation like the ones that erupted in Delhi and Patna, where young people asked the police to hit them because they were experiencing a ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO), or that they could request the police to throw water cannons on them because it was boiling-hot and humid.

On July 25, the Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan finally resigned. While his letter of resignation was all about how he had to resign to ensure social ‘stability’, it marked a major concession by the Modi government. The political importance of the resignation increased because the Modi government repeatedly made claimed that ‘is sarkar mein istife nahi hote’ (Resignations do not occur in this government). Two incidents played a key role in this resignation. The first was the ‘abduction’ of Sonam Wangchuk by the Delhi authorities, citing his deteriorating health. And the second was how the Delhi Police brutally tried to suppress the protesters on July 20. That morning, close to 100,000 people – mostly young people and students – came to Delhi to become a part of the ‘Cockroach’ March to Parliament. Students and protesters were beaten with nail-laden sticks, others were shot at with pellet guns (previously used only in Kashmir) and some were hit with tear gas. The right-wing media largely argued that the police had to use repressive measures because the protesters had come too close to the parliament. An activist recounts:

The protesters would have entered the parliament. These movements are hard to predict, and even for people like me, who are almost veterans, it was difficult to predict what the people would do. This differed greatly from the usual times when we have a plan of action. This was organic, and anger just erupted on the streets. The police, instead of understanding this, behaved like mercenaries. I am sure they also have children, but it did not look like they had any, going by how they were beating the students.  

The brutal and inhumane suppression by the police gave the movement the momentum that it needed, and Delhi saw large numbers of students and young people flocking to the Jantar Mantar protest site from the morning of July 21. News on the mobilisation was extremely difficult to find in real-time because the mainstream media refrained from covering the protests, and when they reached the site, the protesters resisted them. It is noteworthy to say that many mainstream media channels like NDTV resorted to using AI-generated videos to showcase ‘violence against the police’ and ‘vandalism of public property’. The independent media and other content creators stepped up at this moment and widely covered the protest, highlighting the police brutality and the misinformation spread by the ruling government. Notable among them were Kavya Karnatac, Samdish Bhatia, Abhinav Pandey, Utkarsh Gaur, among others, proclaiming that perhaps this protest was the nail in the coffin for mainstream TV and print media. Such proclamations will only be put to the test in the years leading up to the 2029 General Election. Memory of the 2019 and 2024 General Elections cautions us that the mainstream TV media has a way of addressing such deterrents in the vilest ways possible. Nevertheless, the availability of numerous videos through Instagram Reels and mobile cameras showcasing police excesses on students, despite the negative coverage by mainstream television channels, became a rallying point for the movement. Responding to demands for a probe into police excesses, the CJI responded: ‘We are not interested in videos. We don't have time to watch’. Noting her experience at the July 20 March to Parliament, a prominent Delhi-based student activist noted:

This was a completely new crowd. Having been a student activist for more than a decade, you expect to find some familiar faces at these kinds of protests, but this time it was different. July 20 was something I had never experienced before, having been in the thick of many students’ movements over a decade. It was not only the number of protestors estimated in lakhs, rallying against the wrongdoings of the ruling government, but also the present-ness of the protestors in that moment, in an otherwise unorganised, scattered demonstration, which could jam the entire central Delhi. The CJP had charted its demands. Those resonated and perhaps attracted this large pull of young Indians too, to Jantar Mantar. But the students-youth that day demanded more than what was there in the demand charter. Most of those demands have not been fulfilled yet.

Many students noted that during the July 20 march to parliament, they felt completely confused because of the lack of internet facilities and the lack of communication from the CJP spokespersons. Blocking the internet the region did not remain restricted to only July 20 but extended right until the end of the protests, with protesters having to seek internet connectivity from nearby homes. They went so far as to, allegedly, ban food delivery apps from delivering to the location. The government’s attack on the internet is an attempt to respond to Gen Z’s use of the internet and social media tools to distribute live updates and co-ordinate among themselves. Being natives of the digital age, the internet becomes their primary site of mobilisation. Governments across the world realise how Gen Z uses the internet for mobilisational purposes, rendering the internet the first fatality in their vision of protest-management. The digital blockades, however, act as shields for the governments in power to bypass certain legal regulations and human sensibilities. For example, in Tanzania, another important site of the Global Gen Z revolts, the government has actively used internet blackouts to camouflage its human rights violations. With the Cockroach protests as well, the Indian government followed a similar tactic. The internet blockade around Parliament Street on July 20 ensured that news about the events was not easily available, making it difficult for citizens to become aware of the occurrences of the day. Police brutality did not help matters either, with many students coming from outside Delhi feeling completely helpless amidst the chaos. Speaking about his experience on the night of the July 20, a student from Bihar said:

The police have just blocked the entire street around the area, ensuring that nobody can move about. They initially allowed people to enter after doing a thorough check, but after July 20 they are not allowing anybody to enter. This entire place was like a cemetery in the few hours after the July 20 events, but after that the police made it very difficult to move about.

The government also made life difficult for commuters and students to move about by blocking metro gates and introducing new traffic routes. While these moves had a negative impact on the public perception of the movement, the larger public continued to support the protests. In some cases, even the children of BJP ministers and supporters were seen rallying behind the protesters. The atmosphere at Jantar Mantar from July 20 onwards was electrifying with young people singing and playing protest music that highlighted India’s secular and diverse social fabric, making Instagram reels to disseminate information, and creating political satire to share their trauma online. A large section of the gathering was composed of women and girls. Many young couples brought their children to the protest site, a welcome sight for any democracy. One of the most important aspects of the gathering was that young protesters were making their points in a language accessible to the masses, often using slangs which are not generally used in Indian political demonstrations, that often defied the bourgeois notions of civility endorsed by the Indian political spectrum. There were swear words, costumes, and most importantly, the active participation of women. Young people dressed up as superheroes, some came as Gandhi and Ambedkar, while a few others donned a cockroach mask or costume. This is something that had become apparent from Thailand, the birthplace of the contemporary Gen Z protestswhere young protesters used cosplay as a method of registering dissent. What began as an effort to be different from the older generations quickly escalated into a standard toolkit,  found in Gen Z movements across the globe. It is commonly believed that Gen Z are individuals who have inherited the millennial apathy towards politics and are much more interested in maintaining their lifestyle than making their political opinions heard or asserting their socio-political identities. However, countless young people have defied these assessments of their socio-economic and political behaviour and have instead occupied the centre stage of contemporary anti-right-wing movements by transforming these symbols of pop-culture dominated “lifestyle choices” into political statements. This transition occurred mainly through young people using the same perceived-to-be negative qualities of their generation as effective tools for mobilisation, as one activist mentioned during the afternoon of July 20:

When we were activists, there were certain qualities that were sacrosanct. For example, you could not make loose statements once you were in a leadership position. You also needed to understand the dynamics of the population that was coming to the protest. These people do not understand that which is why you have such a chaos in the march to parliament. Left student organisations have been organising such marches for decades, but nothing of this sort has happened in them. We have also been lathi-charged and beaten. But we were political activists and organisers. These people are not. This was supposed to be a disadvantage but has become an advantage for them.

Gen Z movements have been dictated by a combination of fear, anger, pride, hope, and a perennial sense of disappointment against a governmental order that seeks to squash their sense of civic belonging. Fear helps in realising ‘what is at stake’, pride helps in consolidating participation over time, and hope circulates through various practices of solidarity. That being said, a sense of disappointment also settles in when people realise the stagnancy and stability of the system in place. The cockroach protests also highlighted these factors when young students shed their sense of fear and directly challenged those in power, inviting their fellow students and inculcating a sense of pride in being part of the protests. In doing so, they understood how drastically the BJP government interfered in their education. The Indian Gen Z realised that the mere resignation of Pradhan would do no substantial good, so the movement quickly escalated into one that demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.  

Gen Z Strategies: Local to Global and Vice versa

Successful Gen Z protests have been dictated by four interrelated factors: strong organisational dynamics, popularity, negotiable demands and expectations, and a movement-sensitive political structure in place. Gen Z movements within a protest-sensitive political ecosystem get wide coverage when leading spokespersons of the protest movement maintain a broad appeal, promote decentralised mobilisation and mainstream opposition forces act as supporters of the movement rather than direct actors. Many such movements challenged the traditional methods of organising and emphasised the need to combine online and offline methods of organisation to materialise a successful protest movement. Bulgaria remains an important recent example with the success of the Gen Z movement against a budgetary decision pertaining to a significant tax increase in late 2025. Regardless of the geographic and regional specifics, governmental responses to Gen Z movements have been varied, but there have been some common traits globally. For example, most governments have tried to squash Gen Z movements by blocking access to the internet, realising how young people use it to mobilise and garner popular public support. Sometimes, the responses shown by the governments to Gen Z protests have often been so brutal that families are torn apart, like in Kenya, where about 50 people have gone missing over the past two years in cases related to the 2024 and 2025 Gen Z protests.

Governments also realise the political vacuum within which these protests function. Hence, while most governments agree in principle to drop the cases against young protesters, and pursue strategies that seek to establish – albeit farcical – mechanisms towards accountability. In India, we see this in how the government is undertaking  digitalisation to ensure less paper leaks and establishing fast-track courts to address cases rather than looking at the incompetence of the NTA. These measures are used as facades to shroud the fact that many of the protesters continue to face threats and police cases despite the government’s promise that all cases against protesters would be withdrawn. The complete picture of the fallout from the protests is yet to be seen, but some are already visible. For example, Junaid’s family continues to be hounded by the Uttar Pradesh Police. Even though former student activist and CPIML-Liberation MLA from Bihar Sandeep Saurav along with others were released on July 29, the Delhi police issued an arrest warrant for Aishe Ghosh – the joint secretary of the SFI –  for a case that was filed in 2021. Several activists with other left-wing student organisations have also alleged increased police surveillance around their homes, and campuses. In a recent news, it was also quite disturbing to see that a young girl had been forced to seek forgiveness for her remarks on the Prime Minister, with her single mother being evicted from her rented house in Noida. There have also been petitions demanding the public scrutiny of the finances that supported Abhijeet Dipke’s education in Boston. Such moves reveal the Modi government’s desperation.

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The Delhi police began investigating the restaurants that sent food to the protest site. The Prime Minister has now uploaded reels questioning the language used during the protests, focusing on the women participants. At the same time, a Times Now journalist – one of the premier Godi Media channels – has filed a case alleging that she was molested during the protests. The rapid onslaught of these responses expose how the Modi government was taken aback by the scale and suddenness of the protests. When sustained student agitations had become difficult to organise, the Cockroaches brought politics back to the streets. While boomers tried to find similarities with the India Against Corruption (IAC), many millennials attempted to find similarities with the 2015-2016 student movements. The 2026 ‘Cockroach’ protests, however, were unlike any of the previous ones in that it saw a largely organic mobilisation of people who transitioned from their digital spaces to the streets. Unlike the IAC movement, these young people were operating with no media coverage or support from mainstream civil society. Unlike the IAC movement which saw numerous ‘journalists’ and news anchors – such as Arnab Goswami, Shazia Ilmi, and Sudhir Chaudhary – making a career out of the IAC and becoming a part of the movement supporting the government, towing the far-right line and becoming important actors in controlling the public support Modi and the BJP.

Moreover, while Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and others were supported and aided by the RSS, the Cockroach protests saw volunteers and hunger-strikers from left-wing student organisations like the AISA, the SFI, the AISF, Collective-JNU, Disha Student Organisation, and the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS). Many other left-wing student organisations such as the Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF), the All India Democratic Students’ Organisation (AIDSO) and the All India Revolutionary Students’ Organisation (AIRSO) along with others also expressed their support to the movement. But not all differences are generative to the left-wing cause. Unlike the 2015-2016 student movements, this movement depended on decentralised and largely apolitical mobilisation, one which had gone outside the control of the CJP itself. As a veteran left-wing activist from West Bengal, states:

This movement will be difficult to control because nobody will listen to anyone. Yes, of course, under a fascist regime, these kinds of movements are beneficial to us, but we need to be careful regarding what they signify and what they want to achieve, and how they want to achieve it. A movement can spiral into anything. We have seen the Anna movement and the Nandigram movement. Both these movements began with good intentions, but one resulted in the BJP government, while the other resulted in clearing the path for a backdoor entry for the BJP in West Bengal.

In an attempt to control the crowd, the CJP issued a statement regarding the slogans that they endorse, including the much controversial ‘Bharat Mata ki Jay’ usually used by the far-right in India, and a complete silence on ‘Azadi’, usually used by the left, even though they endorsed ‘Inqilab Zindabad’ (Long Live Revolution). Many saw the move as an attempt to calm down matters as the movement after July 20 had gone beyond their control, and a disassociation from radical slogans was necessary to ensure popular support and avoid a compete crackdown by the state. When the media becomes controlled by the state, such forms of resistance – initially organised mainly through social media platforms – become their own media, disseminating factual and real-time information amidst state repression.

Several of these Gen Z movements characterised by such factors across the globe can be traced back to the 2022 Sri Lankan uprising known as the ‘Aragalaya’ which originated from the ‘Gota Go Gama’ camp in Colombo against the then Mahindra Rajapaksa government. This movement that led to the overthrow of the Rajapaksa Government and the subsequent election of Anura Dissanayake from the JVP – a Stalinist-Maoist oriented and historically anti-Tamil political formation – to power in 2024. Following this, student protests in Bangladesh resulted in the first successful Gen Z led uprising in the world during July - August 2024. The protest began with students who protested against the restoration of a 30 percent reservation in government jobs for the children of the 1971 war veterans, which, according to them, was a way of disproportionately favouring those considered being close to the ruling dispensation. The then Prime Minister, Sheikh Haseena, had to flee the country and is allegedly now housed in India. Following Bangladesh, in September 2025, protests broke out in Nepal because of the ban on some major social media platforms by the Stalinist regime in place. Successful elections in Nepal have now resulted in the election of Balendra Shah as Prime Minister.

India’s relationship with these countries, except Sri Lanka, remains in a state of disarray. The Gen Z movement in India has to be seen considering these three movements that have characterised the political contours of recent South Asia. The first reaction of the Indian far-right was to denounce the protesters as being anti-national – following the standard toolkit in India since 2014 – claiming they desired to overthrow the Indian democratic setup. This alarmist narrative, which invoked the spectre of India turning into a Nepal or Bangladesh-like situation, obscured more than it revealed and necessitates a grounded comparison of India’s distinct structural conditions. Such claims, while politically expedient, rely on a flattening of South Asian trajectories and do not consider the importance of India’s specific historical and structural features, which diverge from those of its neighbours. The circulation of this fear purposefully overlooked the major differences that exist between India and its South Asian neighbours, most notably India’s wide geographical base, which makes any nationwide movement difficult to sustain unless a single issue emerges that can unify the entire country. Despite the long history of social movements in postcolonial India, only two movements have had national appeal: the anti-emergency movement and the IAC. On top of that, India possesses  a strong democratic ethos, so much so that even at the height of the Gen Z protests, discussions about any potential forceful overthrow of the established order and government or a citizen’s coup remained unheard of. A common student at the protest site on July 22 stated:

We do not want to convert India into a Nepal or a Bangladesh. We just want accountability for the actions of the ministers. We elect them, and so they should come and talk to us. I care little about the CJP or other parties. I just want politicians to be more responsive. It is a democracy, and I believe we all want to keep it that way.

The mainstream media on national television and the print media aligned with the BJP continued to propagate their version of alleged similarities between the other South Asian protests and the cockroaches. Numerous protesters emphasised the hypocrisy and misinformation spread by the mainstream TV media over the past decade and actively resisted them from entering and reporting on the protests, citing that they act as representatives of the ruling class rather than as journalists. Sometimes, however, these issues resulted in some reporters getting attacked and mobbed at Jantar Mantar, which has led to sharply divided opinions within the liberal media and even among the independent media, which was instrumental to the success of the movement. Despite the absence of mainstream TV media, the protests went on unabated, with students coming to Jantar Mantar from across the country. Some individuals, it must be noted, travelled internationally to be at the protests. Support for the protestors at Jantar Mantar grew as more farmers' unions, known for the 2020-21 Farmers' Protests, joined and warned that they would bring their tractors and trolleys to Delhi if the government failed to address the students' concerns. Immense pressure was also placed on the government as the principal opposition to the BJP, the Indian National Congress (INC), started a simultaneous protest before the PM's residence, calling for the resignation of the Education Minister, Home Minister, and Prime Minister. They were subsequently detained by the police, but the most important part of the INC’s protest was its support for the CJP. It needs to be mentioned here that the INC did not support the CJP explicitly – even though some members of the youth congress were present at the protest site – because of the CJP’s historic relationships with the AAP. These developments put the government in a spot of worry.

Forced by the farmers' and INC's support for the students, the right-wing peddled a narrative denouncing these protesters as being foreign-funded and driven by an external agenda to destabilise the government. Young people, however, responded with memes and reels. For example, responding to the allegation that the mobilisation on July 20 was funded by China and Pakistan, a young student made a satirical reel stating that the Chinese and Pakistani authorities were paying him 60 INR (approximately 6 cents) for travelling and eating during the protests. Many had expressed skepticism at the movement, including this author, when a major part of the offline mobilisation by the CJP was from the middle class. Anand Teltumbde noted that the posturing of Ambedkar in the movement as a central ideological figure risked the movement becoming too sectarian. This marks another important distinction between the CJP and the 2015-2016 student movements, where the imagery of Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh was used more prominently because of their more radical ideas. While the use of Gandhi as a symbol of one’s democratic and non-violent right to protest and express dissent has been a standard practice in India, the relative absence of other more radical figures – such as Bhagat Singh and Birsa Munda – raise some important concerns that the Gen Z will have to engage with. The young protesters used Ambedkar as a symbol of India’s constitutional heritage. That being said, it remained interesting that the CJP used Ambedkar in conjunction with Gandhi, one of his most important intellectual rivals. The enmeshment of the two symbolised two of the most important aspects of the movement: the positioning of caste as ‘just another social identifier’ – that many such as Yogendra Yadav argued to be a positive step – and the promotion of Gandhian methods of resistance that emphasise non-violence rather than direct action. This became visible in how Dipke’s Dalit identity and his photographs with an RSS-supported publishing houses’ edition of Ambedkar’s ‘My Autobiography’ – a book that Ambedkar never wrote – evaded popular and even left-wing criticism to a large extent.

The two factors highlighted above remain important because they severely restricted the range of responses at the disposal of the Modi government. The government could neither label these protesters directly as ‘Marxists’ or ‘Left-Wing Extremists’, nor it could argue that they were voicing their opinion in support of a particular community – ploys that the government had conveniently used during the 2025-2026 wave of student movements. Students have always been at the focal point of the Modi government’s repressive ploys. Be it the 2016 JNU sedition row, or the Justice for Rohith Movement in 2015, or the FTII movement in 2015, student protests have always been dealt with using highly undemocratic and repressive means. For example, many in the Justice for Rohith movement continue to face criminal charges and arrest warrants. The suppression of student activists and the crushing of dissenting voices often made it difficult for many student organisations to function freely on campuses, resulting in a general decline of radical student activism. The successful cockroach protests came as a respite to many rational-thinking Indian citizens because every protest over the past decade has been met with a fury like never before in Modi’s India. Abha Dev Habib of the Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF), a regular at the CJP protest site, noted:

A beautiful, powerful youth movement that brought education to centre stage. We were there as teachers and as parents. It was heartening to see that people have begun to notice how the BJP has been manipulating the system in their favour. This results from the long neoliberal process that has converted students into consumers. It was good to see so many young people turn up despite the mandates issued by their respective universities.

The cockroach protests symbolised the crystallisation of citizens’ anger over the long 12-years’ of mismanagement by the Modi government. While the Modi government had practically made it impossible to openly proclaim secularism as a core Indian value, the protesters embraced secularism with posters and slogans stating, ‘Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai, Sab Mere Bhai!’ (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, all are my ‘Brothers’) and ‘Jab Hindu Muslim Raazi, Toh Kya Karega Nazi?’ (When Hindus and Muslims agree, what can the Nazis do?). It was reflected by how the Nihang Sikhs – a historic, armed warrior order within Sikhism – marched into Jantar Mantar to offer protection to the students, and by how Muslims and Sikhs opened up their places of worship for tired protesters to rest and save themselves from the scorching Delhi heat. The protests were also supported by innumerable patrons globally who sent food through the various food delivery platforms to the protest site. The CJP would also eventually make public announcements regarding the commodities they needed and would often have to put up posts stating that they needed no more food. One delivery worker, who delivered food to Jantar Mantar during those tumultuous days, said:

When I was there, I felt so good. Even though I was working, I knew these people were talking about me as well. I also want a good job. I also want my kids to get a good education. They are much more sensible than many of us, even though some of them are causing hurdang [chaos].

The government, however, left no stone unturned to crush the movement and its associated networks of solidarity. For example, there was a consistent effort to spread fake news about Church pastors marching to Jantar Mantar, providing food and other equipment to protesters with foreign funding. The government tried to use the occasion to generate public support in favour of its Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, designed to tighten governmental control over non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society groups who receive funds from abroad to carry out their functions and operations in India. The ploy to decry protests as being foreign-funded is a standard response to anti-establishment movements by neoliberal governments globally. Take the case of Georgia, where since October 2024,young people – mainly high school and university students – have taken the streets against the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia’s ‘foreign agent’ law that mandates organisations receiving over 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as ‘foreign agents’. Young protesters highlighted how such laws mimic dictatorial repression and crush networks of solidarity and organisations that demand action on human rights violations.

In both these cases, the government had neglected the potential of young people to transgress authoritarian boundaries. The courage exhibited by people such as Mohammad Junaid Mullick, a law student from Ghaziabad, supplied food to the protesters for 35 days without taking a day off. His show of solidarity will be long remembered in the history of social movements in India. The maturity shown by the students was also visible when delivery workers reached the protest site with food, they could hand it over to anyone without fear because the students could instil a confidence among them that the food would reach those who needed it. Throughout the duration of the protest, and especially after the July 20 police brutality on students, one could see sacks of food – pizzas, burgers, fries, and the like – lined up on the street leading to Jantar Mantar, with students voluntarily distributing them. This supply of food, along with the ‘langar’ established by Sikh organisations, became critical during police crackdowns. The protesters also distributed sanitary pads and other essentials for women, and setup a relief point especially for the women and kids who visited the site. These young people shocked the Modi government by showcasing secular human relationships triumphing over the hate-filled social relationships promoted by the Modi government. The movement showed a glimpse of secular India that was commonplace before 2014. It showed that regardless of the repression and police brutality, young people remain committed to a vision of India that was institutionalised by – albeit bourgeois – early Nehruvian Socialism, which was rooted in peaceful coexistence, welfare, and most importantly, secularism, a vision that has been consistently attacked by BJP’s fascist regime.