Cockroach Janta Party goes viral in India
It started with an offhand remark from a courtroom, and ended up breaking the internet.
When India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant allegedly compared unemployed young people gravitating toward journalism and activism to cockroaches and parasites during a hearing, he likely did not anticipate what would follow. He later walked back the comments, clarifying he had been referring specifically to people with “fake and bogus degrees.” But the damage, or depending on who you ask, the spark, had already been lit.
Within days, young Indians online had done something unexpected: they embraced the insult entirely.
The result is the Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, which translates to Cockroach People’s Party, a satirical online movement whose membership criteria include being unemployed, lazy, chronically online, and possessing “the ability to rant professionally.” It is not a registered political party. It is something harder to define and, for that reason, harder to dismiss.
The man behind it is Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communications strategist and Boston University student who previously worked with the Aam Aadmi Party in India. He says the whole thing began as a joke. “I thought we should all come together, maybe just start a platform,” he told BBC Marathi. What followed was far beyond anything he had planned.
The CJP’s Instagram account has since crossed 10 million followers, surpassing the official account of the BJP, widely regarded as the world’s largest political party by membership, which sits at around 8.7 million. A Google form for membership pulled in tens of thousands of sign-ups. The hashtag #MainBhiCockroach, meaning “I too am a cockroach,” swept across platforms. Opposition figures including Mahua Moitra, Kirti Azad, and senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan lent their endorsements. Young volunteers even showed up dressed as cockroaches at protests and clean-up drives, turning an online joke into something tangible.
The movement’s X account, meanwhile, has been withheld in India following what the platform described as a legal demand, a detail that has, unsurprisingly, only added fuel to the fire.
Critics have been quick to point out Dipke’s AAP background, arguing the CJP is less spontaneous digital rebellion and more carefully packaged opposition politics. Dipke himself does not shy away from the underlying seriousness beneath the humour. “People are frustrated because they don’t feel heard or represented,” he said. “Gen Z has given up on traditional political parties and wants to create its own political front in a language they understand.”
That language is unmistakably internet-native. The CJP’s website reads less like a political manifesto and more like something assembled inside a group chat, describing itself as “the voice of the lazy and unemployed,” boasting “zero sponsors” and “one stubborn swarm,” and inviting people “tired of pretending everything is fine.” Buried within the irony, though, are recognisable political demands: media accountability, electoral transparency, anti-corruption measures, and greater representation for women.
The choice of the cockroach as mascot is not accidental. It is not aspirational or heroic, it is something more primal. Resilient, adaptable, capable of surviving conditions that would kill almost everything else. For a generation navigating economic anxiety, a job market that does not reward education the way it once promised to, and a political system that largely ignores them, the metaphor lands.
India is one of the world’s youngest countries, with roughly half of its 1.4 billion people under 30. Yet a recent survey found that 29% of young Indians avoid political engagement entirely, while just 11% belong to any political party.
The CJP has not changed that, not yet, and perhaps not ever. Some observers expect it to fade as quickly as it rose. But it has already accomplished something that formal parties with far greater resources rarely manage: it made a significant number of young people feel, even briefly, like someone was speaking their language.
“I think CJP is just the beginning,” Dipke said. “Young people are fed up with the current political system, and more youth organisations will come forward.”
In an earlier era, youth political anger produced manifestos and marches. In 2026, it is producing meme parties with insect mascots, and somehow, that feels entirely logical.
Source: BBC
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