The "cockroaches" already brought down a minister. Now they want to throw out the man who guards the votes of the country that sells itself as the largest democracy in the world. The youth movement that turned an insult into a flag has returned to the streets of India with a new complaint: after seeing how exam leaks compromised its future, its followers fear that the revision of the electoral roll is also reducing its ability to decide who governs.
On Friday and Saturday, thousands of supporters of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) gathered in Delhi and Mumbai with Indian flags and slogans against Gyanesh Kumar, chairman of the Election Commission. Generation Z thus opened another national campaign.
In the capital, where student unions, activists and opposition parties tried to demonstrate at Jantar Mantar, the response was a police deployment, the temporary closure of access to twelve metro stations and hundreds of arrests.
The controversy revolves around the Special Intensive Review, known by the acronym SIR, which has removed more than 130 million names from provisional censuses, according to The Indian Express investigation.
The Commission maintains that it seeks to eliminate duplicate registrations, deceased people and people without the right to vote. The opposition and protesters claim that legitimate voters are also being expelled and that the process favors Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Government and the electoral body deny this manipulation.
The Indian newspaper's investigation revealed that members of the Commission raised objections about registrations, cancellations and computer systems. Some decisions, they warned, had been made without their knowledge. Among their objections were changes to the forms for registering new voters and the centralization of access to the electoral database in Delhi.
The "cockroaches" have once again capitalized on these new protests. In May, Supreme Court Justice Surya Kant compared unemployed youth to these insects. Abhijeet Dipke, a 30-year-old political communications strategist, responded online by asking what would happen if all the cockroaches united. The satire caught on among frustrated young people and ended up becoming a protest movement. Dipke returned from Boston, where he lived, to lead the mobilization.
That rebellion sparked with the scandal of the medical entrance exam. Reports of leaks forced the results of the May test to be canceled and repeated, affecting more than two million candidates. Anger over a system that wasted years of family effort filled the streets of Delhi and other cities. After weeks of protests and police repression, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on July 25. The group decided to remain active to demand accountability from power.
Now he is trying to repeat that victory, although this time the parliamentary opposition joins in with more presence. The INDIA alliance, led by the Congress Party, has announced a march of its parliamentarians on Tuesday towards the Election Commission. The "cockroaches" are preparing another large protest in Delhi next Saturday. Dipke has promised to prolong the protests until Kumar leaves.
Delhi riots
Amnesty International has denounced the continued restrictions on peaceful protests, the arrests of hundreds of participants and the suspensions of internet and transportation. "The right to protest is not dependent on government approval," said Aakar Patel, board president of Amnesty India. The organization accuses the authorities of using temporary emergency powers to prevent peaceful gatherings and demands the release of those who have been arbitrarily detained and the restoration of internet connections.
On Saturday there were new arrests in Delhi. About a hundred protesters removed police barriers and demanded the resignation of the electoral chief before the agents took away some participants. The protesters denounce a double exclusion: from the lists and from the right to protest in the streets.
For Modi, the challenge has an uncomfortable precedent: these young people have already shown that they could force their government to give in. His jump from exams to the census now reaches the rules of democracy. The generation that turned a cockroach into an emblem now demands to keep its voice at the polls.
