Police beat 10,000 Cockroach protesters at India parliament
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- Delhi Police fired tear gas and used canes and baton charges against more than 10,000 Cockroach movement supporters marching on India's parliament in the largest street challenge yet to PM Modi's government.
- Protesters demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and a crackdown on corruption in the exam system, with the march deliberately timed to the opening day of parliament's monsoon session.
- Sonam Wangchuk, a 59-year-old veteran activist who has been on hunger strike for three weeks in solidarity, was forcibly hospitalized on Saturday, swelling Monday's turnout with fresh outrage.
- Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, was detained by police during the demonstration, even as the government offered a concession by inviting two activists to meet a senior cabinet minister.
- The exam scandal that spawned the movement forced 2.2 million aspiring doctors to retake India's medical entrance exam after May's test was annulled over leaked questions, with more than a dozen students reported to have died by suicide; the government briefly banned Telegram to halt further leaks.
- The 'Cockroach' label originated when a Supreme Court chief justice likened unemployed young people to "cockroaches" — protesters adopted the slur as a badge of honor, then weaponized it with viral satirical memes mocking Modi's ruling party.
Why it matters: This is the largest street challenge yet to Modi's government, and it is driven not by ideology but by a concrete institutional failure: a leaked medical entrance exam that forced 2.2 million students to retake under armed guard and has been linked to more than a dozen student suicides. With the monsoon session of parliament opening the same day, the government cannot defer a response on an education-corruption crisis that has radicalized a generation of young Indians.
