By Rajdeep Sardesai
India is a country where improbable stories have an uncanny habit of occasionally becoming reality. Every day, millions dream of changing the system. Very few succeed. Which is why the astonishing rise of 30-year-old Abhijeet Dipke deserves to be taken seriously.
Who could have imagined that a tweet posted on 16 May urging “cockroaches to come together” would snowball into a nationwide youth protest movement that would eventually force the resignation of a powerful Union minister?
Barely a month ago, Dipke and his Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) scarcely registered on the national radar. Today, television crews, YouTubers, senior political figures are making a beeline for his modest home in Sambhajinagar.
The immediate battle may have been won. The real challenge begins now. Should the CJP remain a pressure group or take the plunge into electoral politics?
It was a question I put to Dipke in a recent interview that has since attracted millions of views across social media. His answer was immediate.
“We haven’t even thought about becoming a political party. We want to remain a protest movement that demands accountability in a democracy.”
India has heard those words before. At the height of the India Against Corruption movement in 2011, Arvind Kejriwal repeatedly insisted he had no plans to enter politics. Just two years later, he was Chief Minister of Delhi.
Every successful protest movement eventually confronts the same dilemma: how do you convert moral authority into political power without losing the credibility that gave you that authority in the first place?
Dipke understands that dilemma better than most. Having worked with the AAP, he has seen both sides of the story. AAP demonstrated that it is possible to convert public anger into electoral success. It also showed how difficult it is to retain the moral purity of a movement once you enter the unforgiving world of competitive politics, where alliances, compromises and organisational compulsions become unavoidable.
History suggests that every successful political disruptor needs more than public anger. It needs the right timing and, even more importantly, a clearly identifiable social base. Kejriwal did not simply ride an anti-corruption wave. He became the political voice of India’s expanding urban middle class.
The story of the star debutante at the heart of this year’s political superhit, C. Joseph Vijay, is different but equally instructive. His appeal rests on a unique blend of cinema and politics that is distinctly Tamil.
Every successful political start-up requires such a natural constituency. Moral outrage may ignite a movement; it rarely sustains an electoral challenge.
Which brings us to a central question confronting Abhijit Dipke. Who exactly is the CJP’s core supporter? Is it the Gen Z student angry over repeated paper leaks? The unemployed graduate struggling to find a job? The aspirational lower middle class that feels excluded from India’s growth story? Young Ambedkarites seeking a new political vocabulary? Or is it a broader generation of Indians under thirty who increasingly believe that governments, irrespective of party, have become less accountable?
Until these questions are answered, transforming a protest movement into an electoral force will remain extraordinarily difficult.
There is another reason for caution. Unlike Delhi in 2013 or Tamil Nadu in 2026, the national political landscape does not present an obvious electoral vacuum. The BJP remains India’s dominant electoral force. PM Narendra Modi’s aura of invincibility may have dimmed somewhat, but he continues to remain a towering presence.
Indeed, one could argue that the CJP’s greatest strength lies precisely in the fact that it is not another political party. The movement struck a chord because it appeared to rise above conventional partisan politics. It offered young Indians a platform to express frustration without forcing them to choose between the BJP and the Congress or between Left and Right.
The NEET paper leak may have been the immediate trigger and Dharmendra Pradhan the most visible symbol, but the movement resonated because it captured a much deeper anxiety about shrinking opportunities, growing inequality and an increasing perception that governments have become less responsive to ordinary citizens.
That moral authority is precious. Once surrendered, it is rarely regained. The moment a movement enters electoral politics, every decision becomes a compromise of sorts. The ‘outsider’ slowly becomes part of the establishment he once challenged.
Perhaps that is why Dipke’s instinct to remain a pressure group is the wiser course, at least for now. There is no shortage of causes waiting to be championed: unemployment, paper leaks, failing public education, police reform, environmental degradation, agrarian distress and concerns of marginalised communities.
By consistently taking up issues that cut across party lines, the CJP could become an independent voice capable of holding every government to account rather than becoming captive to one political formation.
The CJP has already achieved what few imagined possible. The real test is whether Abhijeet Dipke can preserve the credibility, independence and genuineness that made millions rally behind him in the first place.
For the Cockroaches, the first chapter has ended. The far more difficult one begins now.
Postscript: When I interviewed Dipke last week, he turned up in a loose white T-shirt with a faded “Fly Emirates” logo. There was something almost deliberate in its ordinariness. Here was someone who seemed unconcerned with television optics or political choreography.
Whether by instinct or design, Dipke projected the image of a young, fearless anti-establishment figure for whom authenticity mattered more than appearance. In an age of carefully curated political branding, perhaps that, too, is part of his appeal.
The writer is senior journalist and author.