accused it of stifling civil liberties and the press<\/a>, pursuing a Hindu-first agenda, and inflaming religious divisions within India’s secular democracy. The BJP has repeatedly denied such characterisations.<\/p>\n![\"Prime](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4JVY9TE_AFP__20250325__20250319_9__v1__MidRes__ChristopherLuxonNewZealandPmIndiaVisitNewDelh_jpg\")
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\nPrime Minister Christopher Luxon meets India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi in March 2025.
\nPhoto: Piyal Bhattacharya \/ The Times of India via AFP\n<\/p>\n
The Cockroach Janta Party references this on its website.<\/p>\n
“We do not check religion, caste, or gender,” it says on its sign-up form.<\/p>\n
In its manifesto, the Cockroach Janta Party said it will cancel the licenses of “all media houses owned by Ambani and Adani,” referring to two of India’s richest men – Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani – who own prominent television channels and are seen as being close to Modi, “to make way for a truly independent media.”<\/p>\n
The party’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, told the Associated Press that “five years ago, nobody was ready to speak up against Modi or the government,” adding that the times are now “changing.”<\/p>\n
The political communications strategist and student at Boston University in the United States previously worked with the Aam Aadmi Party, a political outfit born from India’s anti-corruption movement in 2012.<\/p>\n
“The youth are really frustrated and the government is not acknowledging their concerns,” Dipke told the news agency.<\/p>\n
Supporters of the Cockroach Janta Party also took the discourse offline this week, dressing up as the insect to clean up India’s notoriously polluted Yamuna River in Delhi, according to news reports.<\/p>\n
But some young people have also voiced their disapproval, arguing the Cockroach Janta Party is a meme embraced by more privileged youngsters, offering up little in the way of real political solutions.<\/p>\n
“It is a section of the urban middle class suddenly discovering that the system they watched brutalise others for years can humiliate them too,” wrote one Instagram user in a post that has gained more than 15,000 likes.<\/p>\n
![\"India\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JO75JA_Cockroach_Janta_Party_1_webp.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nIndia\u2019s Gen Z have flipped the lowly cockroach into a symbol of defiance.
\nPhoto: Supplied \/ Cockroach Janta Party\n<\/p>\n
Youth unemployment in focus<\/p>\n
In recent years, South Asia has seen a number of youth-led movements against corruption and nepotism.<\/p>\n
In 2024, a student-led uprising of tens of millions in Bangladesh helped topple the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina, forcing her to flee to neighboring India, where she’s been living in self-exile ever since. And in Nepal last year, youth-led activism toppled the previous government, paving the way for rapper turned politician Balendra Shah to be elected to power.<\/p>\n
In a statement on social media, Dipke said his party is not comparable to what evolved over there. The youth “understand their constitutional rights and will express their dissent through peaceful democratic means,” he said.<\/p>\n
To join the Cockroach Janta Party, members need to be “lazy” and “unemployed” – a tongue-in-cheek response to the chief justice’s comments.<\/p>\n
But beyond humor lies a stark reality.<\/p>\n
With an average age of 29, India has one of the world’s youngest populations. Its young people are growing increasingly educated and ambitious, but the country is not yet able to reap the potential economic benefits.<\/p>\n
A recent report by Azim Premji University in the southern city of Bengaluru found that nearly 40 percent of graduates aged 25 and younger are unemployed.<\/p>\n
“The rapid expansion in the number of graduates has not been matched by commensurate growth in graduate employment,” the report said.<\/p>\n
CNN has previously reported that in recent years, a growing number of young Indians have undertaken a perilous and illegal journey out of the country – involving multiple flights and a hazardous trek through the jungles of South America – in an attempt to reach the US border.<\/p>\n
The trend speaks to the desperation faced by Indians in the world’s largest democracy and stand in stark contrast to the powerful and robust image that Modi is trying to project on the world stage.<\/p>\n
While many have been quick to embrace the Cockroach Janta Party, the pushback hasn’t gone unnoticed.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Cockroach Janta Party’s X handle was made inaccessible in India, with the platform citing “a legal demand.”<\/p>\n
CNN has contacted India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and X for a response.<\/p>\n
Minutes after being taken down, the party emerged with a new handle: Cockroach is Back.<\/p>\n
Posting an image of the insect at a podium, its long spiky arm raised in a defiant fist, the caption reads: “You thought you could get rid of us? Lol.”<\/p>\n
– CNN<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Rhea Mogul, Esha Mitra, CNN A man visits the web page of the newly formed Cockroach Janta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-442125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JO759V_cnn_L19jb21wb25lbnRzL2ltYWdlL2luc3RhbmNlcy9jbXBnZDV0ODEwMDAxM2I2cjZ0a3Vrazdl_L19jb21wb25lbnR.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JO75JA_Cockroach_Janta_Party_webp.jpeg\")
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