<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/20/who-are-indias-cockroach-janta-party-and-why-are-they-staging-protests->
"The Cockroach Janta party (CJP) might have started out as an online joke, but
– driven by millions of discontented young people in India – it has swiftly
grown into one of the most unexpected challenges to the powerful rightwing
government of Narendra Modi.
The CJP was founded in May by Abhijeet Dipke, 30, an Indian national who
recently graduated from university in the US. Enraged to hear comments made by
the chief justice of India, who compared the country’s unemployed youth to
“parasites” and “cockroaches” during a supreme court hearing, Dipke jokingly
put out a call on social media: “What if all cockroaches came together?”
The response was overwhelming. Dipke built a website and social media accounts
for a satirical Cockroach Janta party – a poke at Modi’s ruling Bharatiya
Janata party (BJP) – complete with a biting manifesto taking aim at the
government and a tagline: “A political party for the people the system forgot
to count.”
Within two weeks, the CJP’s Instagram page had more than 22 million followers,
overtaking the BJP. The Modi government, highly intolerant of criticism,
attempted to block its social media accounts on national security grounds but
was not successful."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
