4 min readJun 7, 2026 07:14 AM IST
First published on: Jun 6, 2026 at 02:52 PM IST
Abhijit Dipke is no Arvind Kejriwal, and the Cockroach movement is no Anna Movement. The phenomenon known as Cockroach Janta Party seems to have run out of steam before it could take off. The so-called assembly of cockroaches at Jantar Mantar on June 6 created a lot of buzz, but the event hasn’t had the impact many would have wanted. There is little chance that CJP will shake the Modi government as the Anna Movement shook the Manmohan Singh government 14 years ago.
There is no doubt that CJP created a sensation in today’s social media age and global connectedness when its Instagram account attracted more than 2 crore followers in five days. This attracted many conspiracy theories, from the local to the global. The corridors of power were abuzz with speculation, albeit in hushed tones, that a foreign hand was out to destabilise the government. Equally forcefully, it was argued that the CJP phenomenon had been created to kill the opposition campaign against the government, as people are upset and angry due to many issues like paper leaks and a brewing economic crisis. I was certain that it was neither; the cockroach movement should be viewed only as a manifestation of the rising anxiety among the youth and an indication of the disruption that might lead to social conflict if the Modi government does not take corrective measures. I was sure that it wouldn’t be a repeat of 2011, with the same history-making momentum.
The night before, I was told by many that the so-called cockroaches would be a greater headache for the government, but these were people who, to this day, have not been able to adjust to the socio-political changes the country has been witnessing since 2014. It was this class of people who wanted the Modi government to go, who were pushing the CJP’s cause, forgetting that the Anna Movement was a unique phenomenon in Indian history that does not repeat itself often. Three things that made the Anna movement what it became later were absent in today’s CJP event.
One was the genius of Arvind Kejriwal and the months of planning and preparation that he put in. Kejriwal also assembled a team of stalwarts from civil society across the country, which gave a certain gravitas to the anti-corruption movement before Anna Hazare sat on a dharna at Jantar Mantar.
Second, 2010-11 was a time when the world was grappling with economic dislocation after the 2008 recession, and across the globe, there were mass protests, from the Jasmine movement in Tunisia to the Occupy Wall Street movement from New York to Australia, which shook many regimes and toppled many dictators.
Three, massive media support for the Anna movement created a nationalistic fervour. Today, CJP drew a crowd of YouTubers to Jantar Mantar, but mainstream TV channels chose to ignore the whole episode. Anna Hazare could become a household name and the darling of the masses because TV channels covered his protest 24/7. It was this wall-to-wall coverage that created a narrative that Manmohan Singh was presiding over the most corrupt government in independent India.
The CJP event on the ground exposed the reality that there was no preparation for the movement, no mobilisation, and that it solely depended on social media fervour. CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke’s landing at the Delhi airport a few hours before the protest shows his inexperience. If he thought that, like Lenin and Khomeini, he would descend on the ground and revolution would occur, then he was wrong. In fact, once I learned that the police had gone to the airport and given him permission to hold the protest, I was sure nothing would happen today. A government that steadfastly resists any protest could not be so benevolent if there were even a semblance of a possibility that the CJP could become a threat to the ruling regime. The government was sure of the non-event and let it happen.
The writer is co-founder of SatyaHindi and author of Reclaiming Bharat
"There is no doubt that CJP created a sensation in today’s social media age and global connectedness when its Instagram account attracted more than 2 crore followers in five days," writes Ashutosh. 
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