A remark by India’s Supreme Court Chief Justice branding many young people as “parasites” and “cockroaches” has unexpectedly ignited a satirical political movement that is channeling widespread frustration over unemployment, low wages and a political system many young Indians say has ignored them.
The Cockroach Janta Party — janta meaning “the public” in Hindi — was founded last month by Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old recent graduate of Boston University. Dipke posted a question on X: “What if all cockroaches came together?” Thousands embraced the label, and the movement quickly went viral.
During a May court hearing, India’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant referred to many young people as “parasites” and “cockroaches” who don’t work and instead criticize institutions on social media. In a later statement, Kant said his comments referred to people who use fake degrees to enter professions like law and media, not young people overall.
India’s economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world, but many young people say the benefits have not reached them. The unemployment rate for those ages 15 to 29 is about 15%, triple the rate for the population as a whole. Recent graduates often struggle to find work that pays well, and competition for stable government jobs is increasingly fierce. Between 2014 and 2022, more than 220 million applications were submitted for central-government jobs, but only about 722,000 candidates were recommended for positions, according to figures provided in Parliament.
“The youth feel that the existing political ecosystem doesn’t care about them at all,” Dipke said. “Nothing else would explain why a party born out of satire would receive such a huge following.”
Ashish Savita, 22, recently resigned from a factory job assembling earbuds and smartwatches near New Delhi. He earned about $160 a month, barely enough to cover expenses. After the factory raised production quotas, he quit. He now helps at his father’s small grocery shop.
“It’s the government that makes us cockroaches,” Savita said. “We get jobs with meager wages in factories and companies, but those jobs are so torturous and stressful that we don’t want to work.”
Nishanth, 22, who goes by one name, became the first person in his family to attend college and earned a bachelor’s degree in business last year. He now works as an insurance-claims adjuster in Chennai, earning about $190 a month. His father, a chauffeur, is disappointed that his son’s salary is less than half what some friends without college degrees earn delivering orders for e-commerce platforms.
“Currently I’m in an unsolved loop,” Nishanth said. “Many people are working so hard, but there aren’t enough jobs that they deserve.”
The movement has also tapped into anger over repeated scandals surrounding major exams required for government jobs and higher education. In May, more than two million students who took India’s medical-school entrance examination were told their results would be canceled after allegations that questions had been leaked. Arju Singh, a 21-year-old master’s student in English in New Delhi who is preparing for the civil-service exam, said years of reports about leaked papers have shaken her confidence.
Neither India’s Education Ministry nor the prime minister’s office responded to requests for comment.
The Cockroach Janta Party’s Instagram account has attracted more than 22 million followers, surpassing those of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition National Congress Party. Both the movement’s website and its original X account have been blocked in India. Dipke said the group’s Instagram account was also briefly taken down. The ministry in charge of information technology did not respond to a request for comment.
Dipke previously spent three years working on the social-media team of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party, earning about $400 a month. He left India for graduate school in the U.S. after deciding he would never be able to earn enough at home to support his parents.
His first concrete demand after founding the party was a petition calling for the resignation of India’s education minister. More than 800,000 people have signed it, he said.
On June 6, Dipke returned to Delhi and organized the movement’s first street protest. Hundreds of people gathered, many wearing cockroach face masks. Gautam Tamboliya, a 21-year-old aspiring doctor from Haryana state whose hopes were dashed by the canceled medical entrance test, said the movement has given frustration a face.
“The youths of this country were already frustrated but they didn’t have a face before the Cockroach Janta Party came up,” Tamboliya said. Now “the issues facing the young people like me are getting a voice.”
Dipke said he is committed to turning an online phenomenon into a real-world force. “This was born out of satire,” he said. “We are taking it one step at a time because none of this was intended or planned.”