India’s Modi Cracks Down as Gen Z Cockroach Protesters Return to Streets of New Delhi

Members of India’s Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party, which earlier this year forced the resignation of a key minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, are back on the streets of New Delhi to protest the removal of some 130 million names from the nation’s list of eligible voters.Hundreds of youths were arrested Saturday while headed to a scheduled protest in the city center, while three movement leaders were detained at New Delhi’s airport on their way to the event. Police in riot gear and equipped with tear gas barricaded streets and pulled would-be protesters out of buses and cars on their way to the rally, according to wire service reports.Several thousand police and paramilitary personnel took part in the crackdown, in which mobile internet service was suspended in the central business district and dozens of subway stations and markets were closed down, Reuters reported.A spokesman for Mr. Modi’s long-ruling Hindu nationalist party boasted that the demonstrators’ “flop show has been completely demolished,” describing the participants as “anarchic elements.”“Is there a democracy in this country?” remarked an opposition lawmaker, John Brittas, to the Associated Press before he was detained himself by police. “A total siege over the city. Citizens are being driven out.”The Cockroach movement, launched in May as a satirical response to a top judge’s description of disaffected young people as “cockroaches and parasites,” burgeoned into a mass movement, powered in part by frustration over the government’s nullification of a national medical entrance exam, affecting millions of students. More than 20 student suicides were attributed to the resulting turmoil, prompted by the leak of questions and answers to the original exam.Weeks of mass street protests led to the resignation in July of the federal education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, marking the first time since Mr. Modi came to power in 2014 that a Cabinet minister was forced to step down under public pressure. The protest leader, 30-year-old Abhijeet Dipke, subsequently called off the protests, saying all of the party’s demands had been met.However, the movement renewed its activities this week amid rising anger over an ongoing review of the nation’s voter lists, ostensibly designed to weed out ineligible and duplicate voters. Opposition parties charge that an estimated 130 million names have been deleted from the list of more than 950 million eligible voters, charging that many of the deletions were aimed at Muslims, lower-caste groups, and migrant laborers who normally vote against Mr. Modi’s party.Sporadic protests in New Delhi this week were meant to have culminated with a mass rally Saturday at a designated protest site, Jantar Mantar, where the demonstrators planned to demand the resignation of the nation’s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar. That effort was crushed with a massive police crackdown, in which more than 2,000 demonstrators were arrested, according to Reuters. Television footage showed police approaching the party founder, Mr. Dipke, on his airplane as he arrived on a flight from Mumbai and arresting him along with two other top party leaders. “I have come to be arrested; arrest me … I am not afraid of you guys,” Mr. Dipke was seen telling the officers.“No, this is not an arrest,” one officer replied. “Please cooperate.”Other party officials told reporters they will not be deterred by the arrests and the obstruction of Saturday’s rally. “We will continue our protest tomorrow, day after … until Gyanesh Kumar resigns,” said CJP leader Ajinkya Shinde. “We will be on the streets.”

India’s Modi Cracks Down as Gen Z Cockroach Protesters Return to Streets of New Delhi

India’s Modi Cracks Down as Gen Z Cockroach Protesters Return to Streets of New Delhi

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