I don’t remember exactly when the viral phenomenon of the Cockroach Janta Party first caught my attention. Of course, I had been following the NEET paper leak crisis, like so many others. By then, we had already grown wearily accustomed to the recurring spectacle of paper leaks under the present regime. From 2014 onwards, India had witnessed dozens, perhaps over a hundred, reported incidents of exam paper leaks.

According to an analysis published in The Wire, there were 148 documented cases of exam fraud between 2015 and 2026, nearly double the rate seen before 2015. A Newslaundry analysis of suspected leaks, where FIRs were filed or examinations cancelled, estimated that these scandals had affected the lives of at least 6.5 crore candidates. But that particular wound came later.

What truly drew me in, almost at once, was something deeper. On their satirical website, founded after the Chief Justice of India had called activists ‘cockroaches’ and ‘parasites’ — an accusation he later denied — CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke had framed the movement as the ‘Voice of the Lazy & Unemployed’ and set out five demands.

I liked the irreverent cheek of throwing the insults right back at the powerful. These demands reached beyond exam scandals into something larger: the slow, almost imperceptible erosion of India’s liberal democratic order.

They pointed to the leanings of certain judges, the Election Commission’s conduct through the SIR process, the open trafficking of political turncoats by the ruling dispensation, the brazen partisanship of large sections of the media, and the sinister act of pushing for delimitation disguised as a 50 per cent women’s reservation in legislatures. In essence, they addressed the quiet unravelling of the country’s democratic institutions, a decay evident to anyone still possessed of honest judgment.

Also Read: To Be Young........

© National Herald