When All “Cockroaches” Come Together
“What if all cockroaches come together?” Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, satirically remarked on X on May 16 after Indian Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant compared India’s unemployed youth to the reviled pest. Dipke’s post achieved instant virality as Kant’s comment ignited long-simmering anger among millions of young Indians. Although Kant later claimed he had been misquoted, the statement had already catalyzed Indian youth’s outrage over two senior secondary school exam scandals that had occurred weeks apart in May. What began as an online quip soon transformed into an organized political protest known as the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Rapidly evolving from a satirical social media campaign into a mass political mobilization, the CJP has inspired hundreds of thousands of young Indians to protest in 34 cities across the country in pursuit of educational reforms and Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, India’s Minister of Education.
The May exam scandals served as the tipping point for young Indians to express a growing sense of betrayal felt towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime. The students’ outrage stems from the state-backed, deeply entrenched meritocratic norm, which promises social mobility in exchange for top performances on these high-stakes exams. Any flaws in the administration of these exams are thus keenly felt among Indian youth, causing severe psychological damage—misgraded exams cause rampant anxiety, depression, and even suicides—and financial strain, as families often spend vast sums on tutoring. In addition to the government’s routine mismanagement of testing procedures, it has also consistently failed to deliver job opportunities, eroding faith in its promise of a secure future for graduates. However, when confronted with the relentless pressure from the CJP, the Modi administration has been forced to concede to its demands, thereby beginning the process of reforming India’s education system.
The first exam scandal involved the flawed grading of a board examination that students sit for in Class 12 to graduate from senior secondary school. This exam, administered by the Modi government’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), is critical because it plays a major role in determining the acceptance of two million Class 12 students into competitive universities, impacting their future career prospects.
For the May 2026 exam, the CBSE introduced On-Screen Marking (OSM) to evaluate exams, a system that digitally grades papers using scanned images. CBSE sought to outsource OSM to a private company. Upon failing to find a bidder, a mere six months before the exams, CBSE sweetened the deal by corner-cutting—scraping important technical requirements such as image quality—to attract private companies. Eventually, CBSE contracted Coempt Edu Teck, a company with a concerning track record, which critics argue demonstrates governmental incompetence at best, and corruption at worst. Notably, in 2019, Coempt Edu Teck was forced to rename itself following public backlash against its sloppy digitization of a state exam in Telangana, leading 40 per cent of students to fail and triggering emotional anguish that even prompted a string of suicides.
Unsurprisingly, Coempt Edu Teck’s troubled past foreshadowed its flawed implementation of OSM. Again, thousands of devastated students received suspiciously low grades, as technical failures—including blurry scans, delayed image resolution, and unauthorized backdoor access— undermined confidence in the examination process and jeopardized their futures. The government’s hasty decision to contract a company linked to severe technical failures exemplifies the shortcomings of India’s education system and demonstrates the necessity for reform.
In addition to this exam, Class 12 students interested in pursuing a career in medicine, as well as repeat test takers, also sit for the highly competitive National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), administered by the National Testing Agency (NTA), to win limited seats at India’s medical colleges. Just weeks before the CBSE exam fiasco, the NEET was compromised, causing the NTA to invalidate and reschedule the exam, provoking outrage and despair among millions of aspirants. The NEET was allegedly leaked by Shri P.V. Kulkarni, a teacher working as a translator for the NTA itself. Indian authorities arrested Kulkarni for accepting payment to circulate a guess paper containing questions from the NEET to a network of coaching institutions. This alleged corruption demonstrates how the high importance placed on exams in the Indian education system helped incentivize profit-seeking behaviour at the expense of students, often through India’s lucrative coaching industry.
These CBSE and NTA scandals are not isolated occurrences but rather features of India’s deeply flawed education system, which has been marred by allegations of administrative mismanagement and corruption for years. The failure of the Modi government to address these recurring issues underscores its disregard for the futures of young Indians. Outrage over the exam scandals has transcended the education sector, including anger at India’s bleak employment prospects for graduates. With a job market that produces far too few stable, mid-skill jobs to absorb graduates, the country faces high unemployment rates, with nearly 40 per cent of those aged 15 to 25 and 20 per cent aged 25 to 29 hunting for a job. Modi’s economic strategies, including his 2014 Make in India initiative to expand domestic manufacturing, have inadequately addressed the job shortage. Modi often relies on spurring GDP growth by concentrating investment in a few capital-intensive sectors, but this approach fails to create enough suitable employment opportunities to accommodate the vast number of India’s graduates. Thus, record-high unemployment rates persist, further fueling youth anger at the defects of the Modi regime’s education system.
Led by the CJP, these frustrations exploded online—and then on the streets—following Kant’s cockroach comment in May. At first, the Modi regime refused to acknowledge the CJP, upholding his image as a “strongman” immune to public pressure. However, as the movement gained traction, Modi’s façade quickly started to crack as he mounted a pressure campaign against the CJP in mid-June, attempting to ban their website and social media accounts. Following this censorship, Modi’s crackdown turned violent with the forcible breaking of CJP-linked activist Sonam Wangchuk’s hunger strike and the brutal repression of tens of thousands of peaceful protestors marching towards Parliament in New Delhi on July 20, which left over 100 hospitalized. This repressive response highlights the regime’s refusal to take accountability for its failure to deliver on its guarantee of a secure future for young Indians.
The pressure placed on the Modi government has already borne fruit: just days after thousands marched to Parliament in New Delhi on July 20, 2026, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned. The government also agreed to the CJP’s other demands, including compensation for families of students who died by suicide as a result of the exam scandals. The Cockroaches’ ongoing journey to reform the Indian education system underscores the need for the regime to address young Indians’ educational and economic grievances, ultimately demonstrating the political power young people can wield when they unite for a cause that directly affects their future.
Edited by Laura Ridoux
Featured Image: Student protestors in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi in July 2026. Photo by Raydann is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
