How India’s Cockroach Party Became a Political Force

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (0:08)
It started out as kind of a joke. A satirical political movement in India that moved from social media to the streets.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:21)
It's a packed house at cockroach protests in New Delhi, central Delhi area. Thousands of protesters have gathered over here.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (0:29)
And finally, to the highest levels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:35)
It's the first time since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in 2014 that one of his ministers has resigned under public pressure.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (0:47)
Protesters in New Delhi erupted in celebration over the weekend, following the resignation of India's education minister. His decision to quit comes after weeks of cockroach protests, which kicked off in June amid outrage over a botched national medical school entrance exam. Some two million students who dreamed of becoming doctors took the exam.
And when it emerged that answers had been leaked in advance, disrupting what for many young Indians is a rare pathway to economic advancement.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:20)
Anger over India's education system spilling onto the streets.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (1:24)
It sent tens of thousands of self-proclaimed cockroaches into the capital.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:35)
Police in New Delhi used tear gas and batons on Monday to disperse thousands of students marching on parliament. The rally led by the so-called Cockroach Janta Party was the largest in India's capital in recent years.

**Atul Dev** (1:47)
It all came to a head last week when the protesters called for a march to the parliament on Monday and way too many people showed up choking every arterial road leading to the parliament.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (2:00)
Atul Dev is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News in New Delhi.

**Atul Dev** (2:04)
It led to scuffles and skirmishes between the protestors and the police. And the police used force, including tear gas and batons and allegedly even pellet guns. Since then, the protests only grew.
And over the weekend, the resignation of the education minister was accepted by the prime minister, which was a remarkable development.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (2:27)
The protest that toppled the education minister also announced a powerful new force in Indian politics. Young people, frustrated by dwindling job opportunities in a country where unemployment among college graduates far outstrips the national average.

**Atul Dev** (2:43)
And the thing worth understanding here is that it is not about a single exam paper leak. It is a much larger problem. It should be looked at as a moment that sort of crystallized all of that anger among Indian students.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (3:04)
This is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Rebecca Choong Wilkins, in for Wanha. Every week we take you inside some of the world's biggest and most powerful economies, and the markets, tycoons and businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show, India's cockroach protests, how they drove so much change so fast, and what they tell us about how young people in India feel about their government and their future.
Atul, protests in New Delhi have been intensifying and spreading until last weekend when we had the resignation of the education minister.
You've been on the ground for all of it.
Some of our listeners will just be tuning in to this story for the first time. Tell us, what is the cockroach movement?

**Atul Dev** (4:00)
The Cockroach Janata Party, as they call themselves, is a satirically named political movement that grew out of off-the-cuff remarks that were made by the Chief Justice of India in May during a court hearing.
And he referred to some of the unemployed youngsters as cockroaches. And this guy who was sitting in Boston decided to start a website called Cockroach Janata Party.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (4:27)
That somebody was Abhijit Dipka, an Indian national who was finishing graduate school at Boston University and looking for a job when the top judge called some unemployed young Indians cockroaches and parasites. Dipka set up a satirical website that he built as a home for India's lazy, unemployed and forgotten, and a voice for millions of young Indians who feel neglected by traditional politics.

**Atul Dev** (4:54)
And very quickly, over 22 million people joined it online. And then he sort of posted this now famous tweet that was all over the protest that asked, what if all the cockroaches came together? And he moved back to India. He came to this designated protest site in Delhi called Janata Mantar, and he had been sitting there for about a month until last week.

**Rebecca Choong Wilkins** (5:19)
So you have this satirical CJP party, and that's sort of a nod to Modi's BJP, right?

**Atul Dev** (5:25)