Indian youth have had enough.
After years of exam scandals, persistently high unemployment and increasingly unaffordable opportunities, simmering frustration has boiled over into open anger online and in the streets, with calls for accountability that many say they can no longer ignore.
For one Indian graduate of Boston University, watching from afar isn’t enough.
Abhijeet Dipke, 30, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, a satirical political party that has become a hot topic across India, said he was returning to New Delhi determined to channel the anger of his generation into action. He said he plans to lead a protest at the Jantar Mantar monument this weekend demanding the resignation of India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“My friends and family are worried that I will be arrested at the airport,” Dipke said in an Instagram post this week. “But how long can I be afraid of prison? This country doesn’t belong to just one party, it belongs to all of us. This is about our future. Our future is being ruined.”
The spark that ignited this particular Gen Z flame is India’s University Entrance Examination, a high-stakes test in which millions compete for a limited number of seats.
The system has long been mired in controversy, including leaked exam questions and technical glitches, putting enormous pressure on students and financial strain on families who invest everything in their children for promises that often seem fragile.
Veronica Madan, 24, took India’s infamous medical entrance exam twice. This exam determines the future of hundreds of thousands of aspiring doctors every year. She says the pressure doesn’t start on exam day, but months or even years in advance.
“It comes from a feeling of having to succeed at all costs, fear of disappointing yourself, fear of disappointing your family,” she said.
Madan spent two years preparing, but in the end, his grades fell short of securing admission to one of the country’s top medical schools.
“It was a very discouraging situation for me,” she said, explaining that she is currently pursuing a master’s degree in forensic science. “But that rejection turned me around.”
CNN has asked India’s education ministry and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for answers.
With a population of 1.4 billion, India is one of the world’s most populous countries and one of the world’s youngest countries, with its young people coming of age at an unprecedented rate.
Better educated, digitally savvy, increasingly connected and determined, this generation is redefining what ambition looks like in a rapidly changing society. Classrooms, startups, and digital platforms have become starting points for upward mobility.
But optimism can also be dampened by harsh realities.
The country has over 360 million people between the ages of 15 and 29, and unemployment among this group remains high, according to a recent report from Bengaluru’s Azim Premji University.
Nearly 40% of graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed, and around 20% of 20-29 year olds are unemployed, the report said, identifying the transition from education to unemployment as a “major challenge”.
India’s ‘cockroach’ party goes viral
India’s Chief Justice has made remarks that were widely interpreted as calling the country’s youth “cockroaches”. What followed was the satirical “Cockroach Janta Party,” which now has more than 10 million followers on Instagram. CNN’s Lea Mogul reports.
Inflation is unstoppable and more and more people feel ignored by those in power.
Join the cockroach janta party. With its blend of clever memes and biting satire, it captured the anger of young people and gained more than 22 million followers in a week.
The AI-generated image of the company’s virtual cockroach mascot quickly permeated social media and was simultaneously published on news channels and newspapers across the country.
Now, the company wants to take online complaints to the streets.
The Cockroach Janta Party owes its existence to a comment by Chief Justice Surya Kant, who was widely perceived to have called the country’s unemployed youth “cockroaches”. He later clarified that he was referring to people who used fake degrees to get into certain professions, which angered many.
Amrita Singh, one of the party’s supporters, said it is the youth who are actively participating in the country’s “growth and development”.
“I am very proud and happy that a political party was formed in India at this time,” she said. “They are raising national issues that need to be corrected.”
The judge’s cockroach remarks also coincided with a period of swirling anger over university entrance exams.
Days after Kant’s remarks, more than two million students who took India’s largest medical entrance exam were told their results would be thrown out after allegations that their papers had been leaked.
Leaks and controversies related to exams have been a problem since long before the current administration took office, and students are increasingly dissatisfied with the situation.
“These leaks are very unfortunate,” said Madan, a master’s student. “We don’t want less competition, we want fair competition.”
In recent years, South Asia has seen a proliferation of youth-led movements challenging perceived corruption and entrenched political patronage.
In 2024, a student uprising in Bangladesh escalated into a mass movement involving tens of millions of people, eventually toppling the dictatorial regime of Sheikh Hasina and forcing her to flee to neighboring India. A year later, a youth-led movement once again reshaped Nepal’s political landscape, toppling the incumbent government and paving the way for rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah to rise to power.
India’s government, ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has overcome a series of decisive challenges over the past decade. From the shockwaves of demonetization to a year of farmer protests to India’s devastating second wave of coronavirus infections that captured the world’s attention, his administration has faced both policy backlash and sustained public scrutiny.
But Mr. Modi’s political appeal remains strong. He continues to use his command to secure electoral victories while the Bharatiya Janata Party expands its reach and makes significant inroads into historically restive regions.
“Five years ago, no one was ready to speak out against Mr. Modi and the government,” Dipke, the founder of the Kochibli Janta Party, told The Associated Press, but now times are “changing.”
Since then, he has appointed three official spokesmen to speak on the party’s behalf: an investigative journalist, a filmmaker and a former McKinsey employee.
“We are a youth political movement and this is what we demand: There must be accountability in the system,” spokesperson and investigative journalist Sourav Das said at a press conference on Wednesday. “The system has attracted so much corruption. People have been so vocal.”
Mr. Das appeared to be alluding to India’s declining position in the world press rankings and Mr. Modi, who has never held a single press conference during his tenure.
“You’ll notice that there haven’t been many press conferences in this country in recent years,” Das said. “We also welcome questions.”
Mr. Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Party, said he would arrive at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 8 a.m. local time on Saturday, and a carefully planned demonstration would begin.
Once there, he and his supporters will seek permission from police before heading to Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century monument long considered a center of political demonstrations in the capital.
“Our protests will be peaceful. They will be carried out in a democratic manner,” Dipke said. “Now is the time to restore accountability.”
