Thousands of Cockroach party protesters defy police by marching in Delhi | India

Thousands of protesters defied police orders and descended on Delhi to demand the resignation of India’s education minister in one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in recent years.

Hundreds of others had camped out overnight as a large crowd, mostly students and Generation Z, filled the streets in the heart of India’s capital chanting anti-government slogans from the early hours of Monday morning.

Delhi police, under the control of the central government, did not allow the march to take place. All public gatherings were banned, roads across the city were barricaded and the internet was shut down in the centre. Protesters’ attempts to advance towards the parliament building were met with police violence, including the use of batons and tear gas.

But this did little to prevent the emergence of thousands of protesters, many of whom loudly voiced their anger at the Narendra Modi government and its ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), accusing them of failing the country’s youth.

“They call this protest illegal, they call us anti-nationalists,” said Rhythm Katoch. “But I’m 22 years old and I’m standing here fighting for our education system, for the rights of young people, for our democracy. Is it too much to ask for the government to listen to us?”

The march to parliament was called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a new political movement led by young people. Although CJP started as a satire founded by alumnus Abhijeet Dipke in May, it has quickly grown into one of the most powerful youth-led movements in India.

Its main demand was the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan in the exam chaos after this year’s medical entrance exam, in which more than 2 million students competed for just 130,000 places, was again leaked to the highest bidder, which was scrapped and students had to re-sit the grueling exams. The debacle has been linked to more than 20 suicides.

Greater frustrations over alleged failures in the education system and the lack of job opportunities for India’s youth have also galvanized support.

Anger was palpable on the streets of Delhi on Monday. Harion Sharma, 18, was among those forced to retake last month after his medical exam was leaked, which he said put “unbearable” pressure on him and his fellow students.

“This is a government that doesn’t care about education, that doesn’t care about the pressures and suffering of young people. Students died because of those leaks. So we are here to hold them to account and call on the education minister to resign. We are young but strong.”

For weeks, the government had ignored CJP supporters camped less than a kilometer from parliament. Pradhan tried to dismiss calls for his resignation, calling them “terrorists”. However, after the huge turnout on Monday, the Modi government invited several CJP spokespersons for talks.

“They may be trying to crush our future and our democracy, but look around you, how young people have taken to the streets in such large numbers,” added Sharma. “Now finally the government is afraid of us.”

While governments have been toppled by youth-led movements in neighboring countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, such broad expressions of dissent have become unusual in India in recent years.

The BJP, in power for 12 years under Modi, has gained unprecedented power at the national and state levels, while routinely jailing and persecuting its opponents and opponents, leaving little room for dissent.

The CJP protest was sparked by a hunger strike by renowned engineer and education activist Sonam Wangchuk, who refused all food and water in solidarity with the students for the last 21 days until Pradhan agreed to resign.

After Delhi police arrived early on Sunday morning and forcibly took Wangchuk away against his will, outrage grew across the country and footage of the incident went viral.

Wangchuk was taken to a government hospital, where he claimed he was “held hostage”. In a statement, his wife Gitanjali Angmo condemned the heavy police presence around Wangchuk in the hospital ward. “This is not medical care,” he said. “This is an unlawful detention”

In response, CJP organizers also went on hunger strike and called on their supporters to join Monday’s march, which Wangchuk said would be “India’s second freedom movement”.

Amrita, 27, said she took a day off work to attend the protest and called the government’s treatment of Wangchuk “shameless.”

“We have a cowardly government that is afraid of young people and Sonam Wangchuk,” he said. “He is such a brilliant mind and he risked his life for the youth. It is a shame to India how he was treated. That is why Generation Z came out today to raise their voices.”

On the morning of the protest, Wangchuk said he would end his hunger strike if the government accepted responsibility for “failures” in the education system, gave assurances that exam leaks would be addressed in parliament, and if senior political leaders visited him in hospital. As of Monday afternoon, the BJP government had agreed to no such promises and Modi had left parliament for the day.