India's Youth-Led Cockroach Movement Faces Government Crackdown Amid Voting Rights Protests
Historic Delhi protest site closed and leaders imprisoned as demonstrations shift focus to alleged voter disenfranchisement.
Callum Smith
A fresh wave of protests by India’s youth-led Cockroach movement has been met with a crackdown by Narendra Modi’s government.
Jantar Mantar, a historic protest site in Delhi, no longer functions as an official protest venue; it remains closed.
Initially sparked by frustrations over education and unemployment, the protests now center on voting rights.
The CJP, alongside opposition political parties and student groups, accuses Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of revising India’s electoral roll to advantage the ruling Narendra Modi government.
Critics claim the voter list revision is politically motivated; it could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.
Opposition parties allege these deletions disproportionately affect Muslims and other minorities. Over 130 million names were reportedly removed from voter lists in revisions that began last year.
The Indian government is understood to be seeking to disenfranchise millions of voters, a claim also made by critics of the Modi government.
The election commission denies favoring any party, stating that wrongly deleted voters can re-enrol.
Police denied permission for a protest on Saturday and imposed a security crackdown. Authorities deployed approximately 30,000 police and paramilitary forces.
More than 7,000 people were reportedly detained during the security crackdown.
Abhijit Dipke claims the Modi government is resorting to “cowardly tactics” to “crush dissent.”
A UK political delegation, led by trade minister Jonny Reynolds, expressed concern about the protests and raised the issue with the Indian government.
The Indian government responded to a UN human rights statement on the protests, calling it "unwarranted and constitute an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of the country".