The one big difference between India’s ‘cockroach’ protests and other revolutions across South Asia

As tens of thousands of GenZ protesters take to the streets of Delhi demanding the resignation of the country’s education minister, the scenes in India's capital have been widely compared with recent popular uprisings in several countries across South Asia. Youth-led movements in recent years have overthrown governments in neighbouring Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal – the latter seeing the government of KP Oli ousted less than a year ago.Like with the demonstrations in India, the origins of all those popular uprisings can be traced to online dissent that quickly turned into physical action.

The “cockroaches”, as the protesters in India call themselves, took their name as a mocking response to a pointed comment from India’s top judge, Justice Surya Kant. open image in galleryPolice officers in riot gear face protesters during a demonstration led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) near Parliament Street on 22 July 2026 (Getty)During a hearing in May, the chief justice of India compared the unemployed youth to roaches, while responding to the criticism of Indian judiciary on social media. “There are youngsters like cockroaches, they don't get any employment, they don't have any place in profession," he said.

He later clarified that his comments were misunderstood. But it was too late. Days after the remarks, Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old with a master's in public relations from Boston University, launched the Cockroach Janta Party - the voice of the lazy and unemployed – as a satirical online collective, and an obvious play on prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

"In India, if you're rich, the system dances at your fingertips. If you're poor, nobody will be there for you," Dipke told NPR. "We're frustrated because the government has stopped listening."

open image in galleryTear gas fills the air as police officers in riot gear face protesters during a demonstration led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) (Getty)The movement exploded online, drawing tens of millions of followers and quickly eclipsing the BJP's own social media presence. But the movement has since then rapidly evolved into something much more politically potent. Its rapid rise reflects a broader pattern that has emerged across South Asia and beyond, where online outrage has repeatedly spilled into mass street mobilisation."

The movements have become remarkably similar," says Saskia Brechenmacher, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment who researches civil society and democratic governance.open image in galleryPolicemen stand guard during the ongoing protest of Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), two days after thousands of protesters marched towards parliament demanding the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan (Reuters)"We have youth-led movements that have emerged in the past few years that are often triggered, like in India, by not by some big concern about democratic backsliding or government overreach, but it's really about sort of a specific grievance that has come to symbolise broader governance failures."The similarities with neighbouring countries are striking.

Bangladesh's 2024 uprising began with what appeared to be a demand from university students seeking the abolition of quotas in civil service recruitment, where a significant proportion of jobs were reserved for descendants of veterans of the country's 1971 war of independence.The protests eventually evolved into a nationwide anti-government movement.open image in gallerySupporters of India's Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) form a human chain to control demonstrators during the ongoing protests, two days after thousands of protesters marched towards parliament (Reuters)"The exams [in India] are really important to their economic future and there's a lot of stakes associated with making it into those institutions of higher learning and so it comes to symbolise something bigger and we've seen something similar in other countries."

Yet analysts argue that despite their different origins, these movements were all driven by a shared feeling of injustice. Economic anxiety, rather than concerns about democracy backsliding, has repeatedly proved to be the catalyst.Social media has accelerated this process by allowing frustrations that once remained local to spread nationally within hours.

They amplify grievances that already exist, particularly in societies where educated young people face shrinking opportunities despite rising aspirations.Brechenmacher argues that such movements are most likely to emerge in countries combining relatively open political systems with deep structural inequalities.open image in galleryA supporter of India's Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) sits on the ground as he takes rest during ongoing protests, two days after thousands of protesters marched towards parliament (Reuters)The ingredients include a well-educated population, access to digital platforms and enough political space for public mobilisation, alongside corruption and unequal distr