Frustrated Indian youth flock to a political party led by a cockroach

NEW DELHI (AP) — It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young Indians are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration.

A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance.

The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, set up its website and social media accounts on Saturday. By Thursday, its Instagram page had amassed more than 15 million followers, far surpassing the 8.8 million followers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party on the platform.

“Nothing of this was intentional,” CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke told The Associated Press, saying the movement’s rise reflected mounting frustration among young Indians.

“It is the younger people who were actually very frustrated. They didn’t have any outlet. They were really angry at the government,” said Dipke, a political communications strategist and Boston University student.

The CJP emerged online after remarks by Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant triggered backlash among young Indians angered by unemployment, rising living costs and recent government exam paper leaks that have disrupted job recruitment drives.

During a hearing last week, Kant criticized what he described as “parasites” attacking institutions and compared some unemployed young people and activists to cockroaches.

“There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in the profession,” Kant said. He said that some turned to social media activism, journalism or public interest campaigns and “start attacking everyone.”

The comments quickly spread online, where many users saw them as dismissive. Kant later clarified that his remarks referred to people obtaining fraudulent degrees and said that he didn't intend to insult India’s youth.

But the controversy soon led to the creation of the parody CJP account on Instagram, which adopted the cockroach as its political symbol and began posting memes, mock campaign slogans and satirical commentary targeting Modi’s government.

Within days, it drew tens of thousands of online volunteers through a Google form submission, alongside endorsements from some opposition leaders.

“We have to understand that five years ago nobody was ready to speak up against Modi or the government. The times are changing,” said Dipke, who has previously worked with the Aam Aadmi Party, which emerged from India’s anti-corruption movement in 2012.

Dipke said that the CPJ isn't affiliated with any real political organization. But its rise echoes a broader trend across South Asia, where youths have played a central role in anti-government movements in recent years, including uprisings in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and unrest in Nepal.

“The youth are really frustrated and the government is not acknowledging their concerns,” Dipke said.

The pressures are especially acute in India, where youth makes up more than a quarter of the population, yet many young people face scarce job opportunities, persistent unemployment and growing frustration with traditional political parties.

Many young voters are also angry with Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party over issues including rising religious polarization, widening inequality and economic pressures.

The CJP leans heavily into self-mockery.

Its tongue-in-cheek membership criteria includes being unemployed, lazy, chronically online and capable of ranting professionally. Its manifesto uses satire to address several contentious issues in Indian politics, including opposition allegations of voter manipulation, criticism of the relationship between corporate media and the government, and the appointment of retired judges to official posts.

Some opponents, many of them Modi supporters, have dismissed it as online political gimmick aligned with the opposition, citing Dipke’s past association with the Aam Aadmi Party. They also say that the surge in popularity is likely to fade as quickly as it emerged, arguing that it's a digital campaign rather than a grassroots movement.

But Dipke said what began online was unlikely to remain confined to social media.

“This is the movement that has arrived in India … it will change the political discourse,” he said. “It will continue online, and if required it will also come on the ground.”

The movement has already begun to slowly spill offline, with some young volunteers appearing at protests dressed as cockroaches.

So has the apparent pushback.

On Thursday, Dipke wrote on X that the CJP’s account on the platform, which had around 200,000 followers, had been withheld in India, marking one of the first visible restrictions of the rapidly growing parody movement. The reason wasn't immediately clear.

Minutes later, Dipke announced a new account for the group, alongside a poster reading “Cockroach is back.”

The post added: “You thought you can get rid of us? Lol.”

A man visits the web page of the newly formed Cockroach Janta Party on a laptop in Dharamshala, India, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)

NEW YORK (AP) — After more than a decade of mixing and kneading dough in his family’s Brooklyn pizzeria, Salvatore Lo Duca recently made a distressing discovery: A key component of their thin-crust pies, bromated flour, contained a suspected carcinogen already banned in much of the world.

So, in the back kitchen of Lo Duca Pizza, the 39-year-old began tweaking the original recipe handed down by his parents — with unexpected results.

“When we started playing around with a different flour, I actually took a liking to it,” said Lo Duco, who runs the shop with his five brothers. “It’s a little more expensive, but the quality is there.”

A looming ban on the additive, potassium bromate, may soon force thousands of pizzerias and bagel shops across New York into a similar transition.

The bill, passed by state lawmakers and awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature, has divided dough-makers, triggering fears that even a minor change to long-established baking practices could have dramatic implications for the city’s most iconic foods.

“This is an earth-shaking event for New York pizza,” said Scott Wiener, a pizza historian who leads tours of notable slice shops. “That ingredient is part of the identity of the slice.”

Employees at several stores that use bromated flour declined to comment for this story. But Wiener estimated that around 80% of pizza and bagel shops rely on a flour that contains the oxidizing agent, which reduces rest time for dough and helps ensure a stronger, chewier product.

To some, the quintessential qualities of the New York bagel — its height and structure, external crispiness and springy bite — would not be possible, or at least as ubiquitous, without the chemical shortcut.

“You could achieve that same bagel texture, but it’s a lot more work and it’s going to be a lot more expensive,” lamented Jesse Spellman, the second-generation owner of Utopia Bagels.

Ahead of the possible ban, he too has been adjusting his family recipe, experimenting with yeast concentrations and rise time.

“It’s going to take some time to get a product that we’re happy with,” Spellman said.

Others, meanwhile, see the proposed ban on potassium bromate as long overdue. The additive is already outlawed across the European Union, China, India, Canada and — as of next year — California. Some experts have theorized that its absence outside the United States could be one reason that many Americans find baked goods in Europe and elsewhere more tolerable.

“From a consumer’s point of view, there’s nothing good about potassium bromate,” said Erik Millstone, a professor of science policy at the University of Sussex focused on the health impact of chemicals in food.

Going back to the 1980s, he noted, studies have shown it can cause cancer in laboratory animals, even in “perfectly reasonable” doses.

“Most well-informed people would prioritize a long healthy life over a slightly softer and more soluble bun,” he said.

Already, many of New York’s most celebrated pizzerias, particularly newer and more artisanal-leaning shops, tout their use of “unbromated” flour.

But neighborhood slice shops still overwhelmingly rely on a General Mills flour called All Trumps, a standard ingredient since the city’s first grab-and-go pizza parlors opened nearly a century ago, according to Wiener. General Mills now sells an unbromated flour for roughly the same price, though other alternatives are costlier.

In Wiener’s view, the move away from bromated flour could ultimately improve the quality of slices across the city.

“Without such a fast turn around for dough production, you’re going to get more well-fermented doughs, which is going to lead to lighter pizzas that are easier to eat and leave you with less of a stomachache,” he said. “It will require more of a process. But everything will be built back better.”

If the legislation passes, businesses will have a one year grace period to continue using the additive, plus additional time to go through unexpired bags. A spokesperson for Hochul said she would review the bill.

In the meantime, the possibility of the ban has rippled beyond New York’s borders.

“Pizza in Florida is officially better than pizza in New York,” crowed Mario Mangilia, the owner of DoughBoyz in Florida in a recent Instagram post. He added that “my grandfather would haunt me” if the shop’s dough recipe were ever changed.

But after he was confronted by several prominent pizza accounts over the additive's health concerns, Mangilia appeared to walk back his pro-bromate stance.

“I’ll tell you what,” he replied to a Long Island-based pizza owner. “I’ll test some different flour out to check it out.”

A man pays for pizza at Lo Duca Pizza, May 12, 2026, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/David R. Martin)

A worker at Utopia Bagel preps bagels made with bromated flour, May 13, 2026, in the Queens borough of New York. (AP Photo/David R. Martin)

Salvatore Lo Duca makes pizza at Lo Duca Pizza Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/David R. Martin)