The Cockroaches Would Like A Word

Women in India’s “Cockroach” protests

Picture this: a large protest rally, near India’s Parliament. Thousands of student protesters, demanding the resignation of the Education Minister, over a scandal involving leaked questions from the standardized medical school entrance test. In the midst: a young woman named Divya, dressed in bridal finery - pink traditional skirt (lehenga), heavy jewelry, full make-up, holding a sign saying “RIP Career: Shaadi.com here I come.” (Shaadi.com is a popular Indian matrimonial website.)

A reporter asks her what she means. ‘My career is lost because my education is lost’, she responds. ‘I wanted to study, but I couldn't any more, because of the leaked tests, so my family just wants me to get married.’  

Education and a career as an escape valve from an arranged marriage and a life bounded by the four walls of the home. This dream rings true for middle-class women all over India. It’s a shrinking option, though. Unlike its G20 peers, female labor force participation has fallen as India has grown richer, despite a slight uptick since 2023. A 2018 survey found that over 90% of people in their 20s had arranged marriages, with lives lived according to traditional expectations being the norm. 

India has had a female prime minister for almost 16 years (Indira Gandhi), a woman president currently in office (Droupadi Murmu), and eighteen female chief ministers over the years. Think of political powerhouses known globally like Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, J. Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu, Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan, Sheila Dixit in Delhi, and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. Despite that impressive track record of political representation, only 1.6% of Fortune India 500 CEOs are women, compared to 11% of the US Fortune 500. And even though 52% of India’s college graduates and 44% of STEM bachelors’ graduates are women, women constitute only 33% of entry-level placements, and only 17% of C-suite roles.  

In a country where 40% of college graduates under 25 and 20% of college graduates in the 25-29 age group are unemployed, the Central Government requirement forcing all medical school aspirants - over 2 million of them - to retake the entrance test as a response to the leaked questions was emblematic of broader frustrations with the education system.

The lack of economic opportunity, and the seeming indifference from those in charge was the tinderbox. Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant’s throwaway comparison of unemployed young people to cockroaches, which inspired a satirical meme that turned into a national movement, was the match. The resulting firestorm eventually forced the first ever resignation of a cabinet minister in Prime Minister Modi’s more than 12 years in office. 

Humor was key from the beginning, as one might expect from a Gen Z movement called the Cockroach Janta Party (Cockroach People’s Party). With no political affiliations, the movement may have concluded protests, but it produced a slew of memorable, often hilarious chants and memes. Ones that the internet will not let anyone forget.

Well-behaved women seldom make history

Indian women are no strangers to political activism and leadership, before and after Independence. The 1970s Chipko movement, protesting deforestation, was largely led by tribal women. Medha Patkar and Booker prize-winning author Arundhati Roy are among legions of Indian women who have led protest movements. Feminist activism over the years has resulted in legal protections for rape victims, anti-dowry laws, and a ban on sex-selective abortion, among other victories. Neha Bora, president of the All India Students’ Association, was a leader in the Cockroach protests and was among those who went on a hunger strike. 

Something feels different this time, though. Delhi University student Sakhi went viral for responding to police beatings with mockery. The chants mocking Prime Minister Modi’s claim to a 56-inch chest and the hagiographic comic book used in his election campaigns, led by female students, are now showing up in animated memes and campaign rallies. 

The image of Rhiya Ahir in Mumbai, standing nonchalantly in the middle of the street, one hand on her hip and the other blocking a police van carrying detained protesters.

Reel after reel of young women shrugging off expectations of genteel, demure behavior; fighting back against police baton charges, using strong, often coarse language against the prime minister, ridiculing his choice of camera angles in the videos he filmed responding to the protests.

Flirting with police officers stationed at demonstrations to the tune of Lana Del Rey’s Playing Dangerous, a global TikTok trend that Instagrammer Shreya Chadda turned into a protest motif. The sarcastic “Everybody knows that I’m a good girl, officer,” picked up nationwide by girls choosing not to be “good.”

A Dam Has Burst

A dam has burst; the atmosphere of fear and mandatory respect and traditional behavior has weakened.  In large mixed groups young women joined men at protests even in cities like Delhi largely considered unsafe for women.

The tone of India’s youth activism, regardless of gender, has shifted from rage to irreverence. The women in the Gulabi Gang (Pink Gang) carry bamboo sticks to beat domestic abusers, but they have never joked about putting the prime minister in a bra or exaggerated makeup, or recommended he masturbate rather than attack protesters. 

What happens, then, when these “badly behaved” women graduate and enter the work force? What happens to the millions more watching them on social media?

It would appear the same question haunts Prime Minister Modi’s support base as well. 

Inevitable backlash

Unsurprisingly, the ruling party’s infamous online troll army has come out in force against the protest organisers and participants. 

Meme king and Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke has faced death threats, attacks on his parents, and questions about how he funded his education at Boston University. But a special level of vitriol has been reserved for the young women who used impolitic language. 

Targeting Young Women

15-year-old Ruchika Singh, who went viral for her profanity-laden tirade against Prime Minister Modi, had charges filed against her by police for doing so. She produced a tearful apology video after online trolls hounded her widowed mother and forced her family to move from their home in Noida.

This, despite the Prime Minister’s condescending video in which he 'forgave' her and the others their unbecoming language, and called for these “wayward children” to be gently brought back to the “straight path.”

Others face online abuse, too: they have been called prostitutes and threatened with rape. The focus of these threats has been not so much their participation in a protest against the Education Minister and the Nationalized Testing Agency, but rather their use of language; their improper, unladylike rhetoric. 

Economist Alice Evans has said “Culture isn’t a fossil, it’s a fistfight.” These young Indian women who grew up online, steeped in global memes and trends, may not have fully appreciated what they were getting into - but they are in the ring now. 

Every feminist agitation has sparked a backlash from traditionalist men and women. Many have a lot to lose from changes to existing gender roles and relationships. The rhetoric this time though, is unusual. Pro-Modi media have not been arguing against the protesters' desired policy changes, which would be their usual strategy. Instead, they have argued that those using inappropriate language are not representative of “true” Indian Gen Z. 

Ruling Party BJP's vocal Member of Parliament and Bollywood actress, Kangana Ranaut, praised independent career women, while simultaneously calling the protesters’ language “jarring and crass.” She described the protesters as “so-called Westernized Indian women” adding, they were so “ugly and corrupt they can’t be homemakers either.” 

Language policing is, at its core, culture policing. This is the worry: that women who do not revere their political leadership will not be compliant wives and daughters-in-law.

India's female 'cockroaches' may no longer respect traditional hierarchies. If they can speak rudely about the Prime Minister, they might talk back to their husbands and in-laws.

They might not back down.

Maybe they will even make history.