Yesterday’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) “Sansad Chalo” mobilization was huge. It was the most significant rallying point yet of this online Gen Z “satirical” movement. The Delhi police and Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were completely dumbfounded at the scale of protests.

[Originally published on Marxist.com]

The Indian Express wrote that “the Delhi Police Intelligence Department had estimated that the turnout could reach 7,000–8,000 people on Monday morning. The actual number, including those gathered elsewhere in the city, turned out to be 50,000 or more.”

Modi tries to crush the Cockroaches

The BJP government panicked, blocking the parliament gates with water cannons and paramilitary forces. Extra CCTV cameras were put up the night before. But none of this stopped the flow of people coming out.

There were also big mobilizations in other cities across India, including Mumbai, Pune, and Bengaluru, as well as cities abroad, including London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and Vancouver—led by Indian students.

The mobilization was sparked after climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, who has been on hunger strike, was taken away from Jantar Mantar, where many of the protesters have been camped for the past month, by Delhi police. Wangchuk said he will not eat until the hated education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns (the main demand of the movement in response to the NEET exam leaks).

Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, and the Delhi police reacted to this huge mobilization in the only way they know how. They meted out massive brutality to stop the march to Parliament and then to clear the Jantar Mantar protest site.

The images speak for themselves. The young peaceful protesters were met by Delhi police thugs with lathi charges and tear gas. Even women were not spared. They tore down the Jantar Mantar protest camp and stage. They suspended the internet. This is the ruthless face of the Indian government, which is lauded as the “world’s biggest democracy.”

Even the pro-government Godi media, which dismisses these protests and atrocities on a daily basis, has been forced to widely report the enormous police brutality meted out, which has shocked millions.

In the midst of carrying out all of this violence, the government thought offering CJP leaders a parliamentary photo opportunity with Health Minister JP Nadda would calm things down. But to its credit, the CJP stood firm.

Today the Jantar Mantar site is back up, and the resolve of the CJP leaders holds.

Who is protesting?

This protest, and the supporters of the CJP, are predominantly educated students and professional young workers from middle-class backgrounds. For example, the BBC reported:

Among those who had travelled to Delhi was commercial pilot Samrat Khanna, who said he had swapped flying duties to attend the march… “I felt I had to be here,” he said. “I couldn’t just watch from the sidelines.”

DW news interviewed an Indian civil servant who said she had voted for the BJP at the last elections. Meanwhile, Abhijeet Dipke, the leader of the CJP, was until recently a Boston University master’s student.

These are not the poorest and most oppressed layers of society. They aren’t factory workers. Most appear to be Hindus. They grew up in relatively well-off households, are young, but are extremely dissatisfied with modern India and the promise of the life they were supposed to have.

The stifling of creativity, ideas, and free speech. The toxic Hindu-Muslim politics. The widespread nepotism and corruption for good jobs. The insane graduate unemployment, which sits in the tens of millions. The government’s constant nationalist chest-beating and its taunts of “anti-national” to even the smallest of criticisms.

Most of those protesting can likely only ever remember an India like this, governed by the Hindu nationalist BJP and its leader, Narendra Modi.

Is this unusual? No. When you look back at India’s history, remember that it was the sepoy army—an army formed and created by the British East India Company, who conquered India for the British—which went on to rise against their masters and launch the biggest anti-colonial uprising of the 19th century.

Karl Marx himself remarked:

The first blow dealt to the French monarchy proceeded from the nobility, not from the peasants. The Indian revolt does not commence with the ryots, tortured, dishonored and stripped naked by the British, but with the sepoys, clad, fed, petted, fatted and pampered by them. (Karl Marx, The Indian Revolt)

Remember also the countless English-educated lawyers and civil servants who were cultivated by the Raj to be the perfect English gentleman, and to be loyal and trusted servants of the Empire. Whatever their faults and mistakes, they went on to lead the independence struggle against colonial rule.

Now, under India’s billionaire Raj, a layer of young people—fed on Hindutva propaganda since birth and educated at the top universities—has been cultivated to become the much-vaunted “Indian middle class” and live better than any Indian has in centuries. And yet, this is exactly the layer of people who are now leading the fightback against the system that they are supposed to be the main beneficiaries of.

These events should also be a lesson that Modi is not all powerful. His party, the BJP, has never won a decisive majority in any general election. Like all living things, Modi has an expiry date. And that expiry could be coming sooner than he thinks.

What next?

There is an urgent need to defend the movement. Dipke, the main leader of the CJP, has already been slapped and had ink thrown in his face. Yesterday, hundreds, if not thousands, of Cockroach supporters were violently attacked.

There is intense pressure to lead peaceful protests and not to be provoked into violence for fear of being smeared in the media. But the BJP and Modi will shed no tears over any Indian killed or injured by their lathis, guns, or cannons, and will not hesitate to deploy these measures, regardless of how peaceful the protest may be.

The movement must defend itself through elected defense committees, most importantly, by reaching out to the powerful Indian unions. Whilst this layer of educated students and professional workers may lead the movement, it is only the mighty Indian working class, which this whole rotten regime sits upon, who could step in to make the decisive difference.

The best lessons the CJP could take are from their brothers and sisters in Dhaka. During the Gen Z movement in 2024, led by the students, Sheikh Hasina stopped at nothing to put the movement down. At least 450 people were killed. But when the students called for a general strike and drew in the Bangladeshi working class, nothing could stop them. They overthrew her and her hated Awami League. The Indian working class is yet to have its say.

This movement, only months old, is still unfolding. The Cockroaches have tapped into a deep social anger which has enormous reserves of support. The lessons of the Gen Z revolutions must be studied and implemented now.

Toppling Narendra Modi and the BJP would be the biggest victory yet for the Gen Z revolutions and would have worldwide ramifications. It would breathe life into every movement of the oppressed and downtrodden across the world. This is what is at stake.