It’s Time the Young Reclaim Indian Democracy!
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
The CJP must now change gear and wage an all-out anti-establishment struggle as did the youth in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
By NR Mohanty in Delhi
It’s a sign of our times that the peaceful protest march by students and youth of the country to Parliament on July 20, 2026, has faced a brutal clampdown under the Modi-Shah government. This is hardly surprising.
In the last 12 years, this authoritarian government has systematically suppressed all avenues of dissent; the dissenting voices have been either put in jail without trial for years or they have been subjected the ‘ED-CBI-Income Tax’ harassment so that they spend years fighting the cases in courts.
The recent emergence of the Cockroach Janata Party as a powerful voice of the youth has become a sore thumb for this government. The saffron establishment wants to ensure that the youth unrest on the specific issues of education does not cascade into a larger anti-establishment sentiment, just as it had happened in neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the last couple of years.
That explains why this government has been so indecisive in handling the CJP phenomenon. When Abhijeet Dipke, a student at Boston University, floated a digital platform called Cockroach Janata Party — this action by Dipke was most possibly in jest, as a reaction to the remark of Chief Justice of India Suryakant castigating unemployed youth as “cockroaches” — he himself must not have imagined the kind of traction it would get. Within days, more than 25 million people, mostly youngsters, had logged into the platform as members, the numbers being many times more than that of the ruling BJP that boasts of being the biggest political outfit in the world.
The saffron establishment initially tried to defame CJP as a subversive platform branding them as Pakistani/Chinese agents, but when Dipke made public the geographical spread of the digital platform’s support base, the lies of the regime were busted. Had the CJP remained a mere digital sensation, the government would have heaved a sigh of relief. But when he decided to return to India and take to street protests, the Modi establishment was on the horns of a dilemma: how to handle it — with carrot or stick?
Predictably, the initial reaction of the government was to show the stick by coming down heavily on it: it forced the management of X (Twitter), Facebook and Instagram to take down the CJP’s digital platforms. Undeterred, Dipke and his associates decided to go ahead with the June 6, 2026, protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, after a series of huge rallies in some cities of India.
There was widespread speculation that Dipke would be arrested on his return to India and the police would disallow the congregation at the protest site. However, to everyone’s surprise, neither of the speculations happened.
The police treated Dipke with kid gloves and, in an unprecedented gesture, handed him over a letter granting permission to hold the protest later in the day. This was the carrot.
The government was hoping that the CJP phenomenon would fizzle out; it reportedly took extra care to ensure that no funding came to Dipke and others from any foreign or domestic sources. For a movement to gather initial momentum, there is the need for resources: both logistical and financial. Once that momentum takes off, then resources flow automatically for taking the movement to a higher gear.
The BJP knew this from its experience of the Anna agitation. When Arvind Kejriwal masterminded the anti-corruption agitation and made Anna Hazare its face, the BJP— along with its foster parent, the RSS — supported the agitation whole-heatedly, and from within, in order to undermine the credibility of the Manmohan Singh government. It was successful in its mission; the Congress was ousted from power and the BJP was sworn into office in 2014.
It was therefore in the logic of things that the Congress should have supported the CJP with necessary resources as the current movement is ranged against the BJP. But the Congress apparently kept away; there could be many reasons for this: first, the Congress has been raising the same issues that the CJP’s protest is focused on, and it has been doing so before the CJP was born, with big protests across the country led by its youth wings; second, Dipke, the CJP leader, and some of his associates were, in the earlier years, members of the Aam Aadmi Party, and had allegedly lampooned Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra as a tourist delight!
There was a certain fear in the Congress circles that CJP might turn out to be the B-team of Kejriwal and might end up hurting the interest of the national party, which is directly pitted against the AAP in Punjab and Delhi.
It’s possible that the Aam Aadmi Party has been extending logistical support to the CJP which has been on a protest sit-in at Jantar Mantar for over a month. But CJP’s momentum got a real fillip, thanks to the support of Sonam Wangchuk, a well-known activist/educationist, and a Magsaysay award winner, who decided to sit on indefinite hunger strike to press home the demand of the resignation of the Union Education Minister – widely perceived as the man responsible for the suicide of more than 20 young students.
Wangchuk’s fast surely galvanised different sections of the population to come out in support of the movement. He was joined by student activists from AISA, with Neha Bora, Manish and Aameen fasting for 23 days, while Danish was lifted earlier. Youngsters came in tens of thousands; often, their disillusioned parents joined ranks.
What added momentum was that some celebrities extended their support, while, predictably, the superstars of Bollywood, like our celebrity cricketers, yet again chose to look the other way.
It’s true that when the Congress was in power, some big guns of the film industry like Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Anurag Kashyap and the like had come out in support of the Anna movement. But their lips were sealed this time.
It’s not hard to find a reason. They knew that the Congress was not vindictive, even if they foul-mouthed its government. And they realise that if they are found on the wrong side of the BJP establishment today, they would be out of their business; they might ill face the same fate as Prannoy Roy did while running the NDTV.
It’s heartening to see, as always, Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Prakash Raj speaking out against an oppressive government. Indeed, they joined the peaceful march to Parliament on July 20. What was rather a pleasant surprise was that Sonakshi Sinha has stood up to her conviction and released as many as two videos in support of the movement. For someone who is currently an established star of Bollywood, it’s indeed a courageous step.
Irrespective of what happens to the current stir in the coming days, which has spread across the country with thousands joining it, it’s certain that there will be no let-up in the vindictive actions against dissenters as long as the Modi regime is in power. Undoubtedly, the only hope for the country lies in the youth which must rise against this corrupt and authoritarian establishment, help restore a liberal-democratic government, and reclaim our secular Indian democracy -- as it is has done with the resignation of the education minister.
Nalini Ranjan (NR) Mohanty is a seasoned journalist, commentator and academic. He is former Resident Editor, Hindustan Times and The Times of India (Patna Edition) and former Director, Jagran Institute of Management and Mass Communication (JIMMC).
Images courtesy Instagram / Social Media
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