Interview: ‘Good chance that BJP will co-opt Cockroach Janta Party’s demands’
· Scroll
Visit afrikasportnews.co.za for more information.
The Cockroach Janta Party, which began as an online satirical campaign on May 16, has kept up the pressure on the Modi government. Its founder, Abhijeet Dipke, announced plans to return from the United States to India on Saturday to lead a protest demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The online popularity of the campaign has sparked speculation that India, too, could see dramatic political changes driven by youth protests like the upheavels in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. But Amit Ahuja, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was sceptical of this possibility.
Ahuja has written extensively about protests, social movements and political parties in India. He told Scroll that even if the cockroach campaign manages to bring some of its social media followers out on the streets, the Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to eventually co-opt its demands.
However, this does not take away from the fact that India is witnessing a crisis of employment, Ahuja argued. All political parties, particularly the ruling BJP, would do well to be more sensitive towards the “desperation” among the youth that the Cockroach Janta Party represents.
Here are edited excerpts from the interview.
A lot of commentators in India are calling this the start of a movement...