NEW DELHI — The Indian government has ordered social media platform X to block the account of Cockroach Janta Party, a youth protest movement, citing national security threats, even as its founder Abhijit Dipke reports receiving death threats warning he will be "killed in America."
The account, which gained massive following among young Indians protesting government policies and exam corruption, was blocked Thursday following a government directive under India's IT Rules. The timing raises questions about freedom of expression in the world's largest democracy—coming just as the movement had gathered over 246,000 signatures on a petition demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over repeated examination leaks.
"I am receiving death threats saying 'we will get you killed in America,'" Dipke, who is currently based in the United States, told The Indian Express. "This is what happens when young people demand accountability."
A billion people aren't a statistic—they're a billion stories. For millions of Indian youth, the Cockroach Janta Party represented something rare: a voice demanding accountability from institutions that seem immune to consequence.
The movement emerged after India's Chief Justice reportedly referred to unemployed youth as "cockroaches" during court proceedings—a characterization that, even if clarified later, struck a nerve among a generation facing record joblessness and institutional failure. Young Indians reclaimed the insult, turning it into a rallying cry for systemic reform.
The government's national security justification for the account blocking has drawn sharp criticism from digital rights advocates and legal experts. "What national security threat does a student protest movement pose?" asked Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation. "This appears to be using emergency powers to silence dissent."
The blocking order comes as the movement had intensified pressure on over the —the fifth such breach in a decade. The National Testing Agency continues to deny systemic failures despite repeated compromises of India's most important entrance examination.
