The Current - Gen Z protests India explained

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Tens of thousands of young people in India are on the streets protesting as part of the country’s  “cockroach” movement. They’re calling for education reform, and a bigger system change after recent university entrance exam leaks forced millions of students into rewrites — and led to several suicides. We talk to Shourya Kumar, who’s been at the protests every day this week in Delhi, and Amrit Dhillon, a freelance journalist based in New Delhi, explains what this moment means for the country.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Tens of thousands of students are flooding the streets in India again today, protesting what they feel is a corrupt education system and rising levels of youth unemployment. We are suffering. The youth is suffering. The students are suffering. The people of India are suffering right now. Education is the basic right. I hope they listen to us because if not now then I don't know if it is if it's a democracy or like dictatorship. Unemployment has been created by these people and now they're calling the unemployed youth who are demanding accountability as cockroaches. If the government doesn't agree, millions more will come to Delhi because this time will not hold back, will not stay silent.

So the government really needs to get its act together. Otherwise the youth of this country is going to take them down. Calls for education reform have been growing for a long time after a string of recent exam leaks forced millions of students into rewrites. And families say led to a number of suicides. But frustration came to a head when the Chief Justice of India compared the country's unemployed youth to cockroaches. In response, students created the cockroach Janta Party. What began as an online joke has now become the largest anti-government protest movement the country has seen in years. of the party say they want the government to be held accountable for the exam leaks and are calling

for the resignation of the country's education minister. Shoria Kumar lives in Delhi and has been at the protest every day this week. Hello? Hi, Rebecca. What have you been seeing at the protest this week? Just describe a little bit of the scenario that has played out. All along it was peaceful, mostly, till the state interfered with the students and they started charging on them and they started hitting on them, then the things got serious. Because we ourselves as students, as the citizens of a country, we do not promote any violence, act of brutality, and we want peace. And we are just fighting for our basic rights.

Sharia, tell me a little bit about what you saw yourself about the police response. Okay, so it was on the 20th July, and we were marching towards the Sunset or the parliament, as you call it. I reached there at around 9, 9.30 in the morning, and it was really peaceful until 11 or so. And then as students were peacefully marching towards the parliament road, the police started beating the students up right there. And the situation got really bad. The stampede was there. Students were trying to get themselves out of this brutality scenario that was created by the police.

And this was a clear case of fearmongering that they were trying to put into the heads of the youth. Shari, I understand you weren't involved in any of the exam rewrites, but you are still out on the streets every day where it seems as though it can be dangerous. So why is it important for you to be there? It is important because we're fighting for a right cause. And myself being an engineer, I have given many national exams myself. And if we don't stand for our youth, then what society are we building here, right? So we're here for cause.

What changes do you hope come out of these protests? We know the government has said it's looking to respond to this movement by tomorrow. It's asking for a bit of time. But ultimately, what do you want? It's a very sad situation that we had to protest for like 40 days. And then the government is responding just because the things have got really dirty here. So what if they were accountable since the day one? We asked for that.

And that is one thing. I have no hopes from them. They are still trying to tackle the situation very politically. And let's just hope that our demands are met. And if these demands are met, anyone in the future who comes up will be on their toes working for us. Sharia Kumar, we'll leave it there. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Rebecca.

Shurya Kumar lives in Delaware. Amrit Dillon is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi, and she's been covering the protests. Amrit, hello. Hi, Rebecca. Tell us more about the leaks of these entrance exams. How did that lead to the mass youth-led protests that we're seeing today? Well, it's because young Indians are tired of these leaks. Of course, the one that everyone is enraged about happened in May, but these leaks have been

happening for many, many years now, for over 20, 30 years. And the problem is that no one has. so far being convicted. So corrupt officials who are responsible for leaking or criminal gangsters who are responsible for leaking these questions seem to be getting away with it. And so the latest trigger, of course, has been the cancellation of the exam in May. It had to be cancelled because the paper was leaked. But this story goes back a long time. And now the feeling is that you cannot keep putting students under this awful pressure where they first study for months, for years to sit these exams,

which are so insanely competitive that, you know, two million students will be competing for a place at medical college. And the number of places is about 120,000. It's ridiculous the mismatch between the two. And at the end of it, after sitting the exam and perhaps thinking they've done quite well, the whole thing is cancelled and have to prepare to reset the exam again. And so, Amrit, what do we know if this has been happening for years? Who is actually leaking the exam questions and to whom?

Who's benefiting in all of this? Well, up till now, it's been criminals who, of course, know that, as I said, the competition is so great. Indian families, working class families, lower middle class families, are so desperate for their child to get into an engineering college or a medical college because they know that's the only way they're going to get a reasonable, decent income. And so they will be prepared to pay a large sum of money if someone were to offer them that question paper before the exam. But in an interview I saw the other day with the BJP minister, what was alarming was that apparently in this case, in the May exam, those who were accused of the leak were actually the people who were setting the questions themselves. So these would have been serious academics and top-notch government officials who were doing it. Wow.

You know, we are seeing a whole lot more protests this week. And it's this so-called cockroach movement. It's been around for a couple of months now. How did that movement grow into what it is today and tell us about the name, which I understand sort of started as a joke? Well, it says an online joke because there was a young man, a young Indian student studying in America, who's in Boston. And in fact, he'd finished his studies and was looking for work.

And he suddenly read one day that the Chief Justice of India, who was the top judge here, apropos something else in some other context, had referred to some unemployed youths as cockroaches. Now, this maddened him because one young Indians under tremendous pressure to pass these exams. Then they have to struggle for work and there was no work. Unemployment here is chronic. And then they have to suffer being called these attempts of abuse. And so he went online, not expecting the phenomenal response that he got, he went online to say, okay, we'll have been cockroaches.

Let's be cockpourges, let's just own the name then. And to that, he got an incredible response. He got about 22 million followers on Instagram in the space for about five or six days. And as that grew, he came back to India because he realized that he realized that he really touched, he tapped into a very deep reservoir of alienation and disaffection amongst young Indians who study as hard as they can to get somewhere. But when they finish their studies, what do they get? There's no work. If there is any work, it's really pathetic, scrappy, informal jobs such as photocopying or delivery agents or issuing railway tickets. And that then,

as people began to support him, the whole thing just took off. It's huge. It's all over India now. And the police response to those protests has been drawing huge criticism internationally. Human Rights Watch said the government should promptly and impartially investigate unnecessary and excessive use of force. There are more protests today. What are you seeing so far? I was at the site last night. The Kockhush movement, the protesters, called for

a lot of demonstrations today in the capital. And so I think that's exactly why the government lost its nerve yesterday and decided to have talks with them this morning because there really was a feeling that we cannot have another repeat of Monday scenes or pitched battles on the streets and the whole capital paralyzed and conversed by this movement. We need to do something. So that's why they held those talks this morning.

But also the movement had asked for people in other cities that asked them to come out nationwide to show their support and solidarity for the movement. You know, one of the protests activists just ended a 26-day hunger strike. And this is, as you say, he's been meeting or there has been some meetings now with government ministers. I understand they've said that they want a bit of time to fully respond to their concerns to what they want. What exactly is it that they're after right now then? Well, their core demand, which is the one they've been stating since the movement began, over 60 days ago, is that the education minister should resign.

For the obvious reason that this leak happened under his watch, therefore he should take moral responsibility and leave. Now, that's something the government, for reasons best known to itself, refuses to budge on. That has remained their core demand, and even now that's what they're asking for. But the government, even though it's had talks with them this morning, is not budging on that, although there seems to have been a little bit of a shift because after the talks this morning,

the protesters were told by the government, two ministers, they were told, give us 24 hours, and then we will decide, give you a final decision about whether the education minister will go or not. And one of the other demands that they have is for, because what happened is after the exam was cancelled in May, about a dozen young Indians committed suicide. They couldn't face resitting the exam.

And so the protesters want the government to give adequate compensation to the families of those who committed suicide. And from what one of the leaders said this morning, after the talks, it seems the government has agreed to give that compensation. Do you see this as sort of a, you know, because what they're really after is seizing this moment.

It sort of began in one way, and it's moved into other directions. And so do you see this as the start of something different as an overhaul to the education system right now? That's clearly what should happen and what they want to happen. I thought you were going to say, it means a wider political kind of movement against Mr. Moby? I don't think that's going to happen.

That would be overstating it. But certainly, I mean, obviously after and if the education minister goes, their next demand will be let's sit down together with the government to see how we can reform the system so that it doesn't place such crushing pressure on students. And people have talked about other alternatives, for example. I mean, why does everything, hinge on a life or death final exam. It could be that students could take three exams and then the best marks they get for a particular exam could be the ones that go that decided whether they get a place or not. Some way of just relieving the pressure was at the moment millions of young Indians, not only do they study for 10 to 14 hours every day while they're teenagers, they then supplement that with going to coaching institutes where again more hours to put in and more money

is spent on getting extra tuition. So the whole system basically is flawed and needs a complete overhaul. And just a fraction of all of those young people who are studying in that way actually make it to the medical school or engineering school that they so desperately want into, right? It's true. You might think why would they, why do they bother? But the problem is that there's so few opportunities in India, there's so few private jobs, jobs in the private sector that they can get that the safest option to them and to their parents seems to be okay, either try for a government job. And by the way, for the government jobs too, there's a very competitive exam.

Or it's the safe options of engineering and medicine. Because they know that with those two professions, they are set for life in terms of status, prestige and income. And so just lastly, then, before you go, what are you watching for in the coming days and perhaps weeks here? It won't be weeks if the government agrees. to ask Mr. Pradan, the education minister, to resign. This government doesn't like to be seen, to be giving way to any pressure at all. You might recall a few years ago, the farmers launched

a big protest against Mr. Mothis' educational reforms, sorry, agricultural reforms. And it took them over a year of protesting and campaigning outside Delhi for the government to relent and cancel those reforms. But my sense is that. if they do agree to sack Mr. Padan, then the protest will be over. The court demand will have been met. But the movement has made it clear that if the education minister is not sacked tomorrow, they'll continue with their protest for as long as it takes. Okay, Amratt Dillon, thank you very much for this.

My pleasure, Rebecca. Amrott Dillon is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones, or you can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca.com or on the CBCListen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.