(Corrects spelling of Abhijeet in paragraph 1)
By Tora Agarwala
NEW DELHI, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Indian police detained on Saturday Abhijeet Dipke, the political strategist who turned a “cockroach” jibe at unemployed youth into a nationwide protest movement that helped force the resignation of a federal minister.
Police met Dipke’s aircraft as it landed in the capital of New Delhi ahead of a rally demanding the resignation of the election chief over accusations of voter list manipulation that critics say dropped about 130 million voters from a draft roll.
“I have come to be arrested, arrest me … I am not afraid of you guys,” Dipke told police officers aboard the aircraft, in television images that showed one of them assuring him he was not being arrested, but rather that his cooperation was sought.
Dipke, 31, born in a Dalit family on the lower rungs of India’s caste system, shot to fame this year after his six-word response to Supreme Court Chief Justice Surya Kant’s remarks likening unemployed youth to “cockroaches” went viral online.
The post spawned the satirical “Cockroach Janta Party”, an online movement that rapidly evolved into a political force.
It mobilised mass street protests that culminated in the July resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, a rare exit from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, following sustained public pressure.
Dipke’s detention came after he called for a fresh protest on Saturday seeking the resignation of election commission chief Gyanesh Kumar over the changes.
The election panel says the figure, which is larger than the population of Japan, comprises entries flagged during draft revision, and that voters wrongly removed can enroll again.
Bearded and usually wearing T-shirt and jeans, Dipke had led a protest in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru before travelling via Mumbai to the capital, where police detained him with two senior group leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka.
Despite a police crackdown in Delhi and tight protest restrictions, Dipke urged supporters to demonstrate peacefully, citing the example of Mahatma Gandhi, India’s apostle of non-violence.
“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” Dipke said in
a video recorded before Saturday’s flight. “But one thing I am sure of is that I am not going to be afraid. Neither am I going to step back. We have to save our democracy.”
Authorities called in thousands of security forces to fortify Delhi, with travel and telecoms links suspended, in a lockdown designed to stop the youth protest.
“Why is the prime minister so scared of the country’s youth, the country’s people?” Dipke asked before his flight.
UNLIKELY EVENTS SET OFF BY SIX-WORD POST
“What if all cockroaches come together?” was Dipke’s question in a May social media post that almost overnight turned the political communications professional into one of the most recognisable faces of India’s youth protest movement.
He returned to India after completing a master’s degree in public relations in the United States, saying his viral success had given him “a chance to do actual, meaningful work”, despite threats he and his family received.
The “Cockroach Janta Party” amassed millions of followers online and helped drive protests over leaks of a medical entrance examination paper affecting about 2 million candidates.
The movement eventually focused its anger on Pradhan, who resigned on July 25.
Since then, Dipke and his supporters, who see the group as a political pressure movement rather than a party, have campaigned on issues ranging from government school infrastructure to jobs for young people.
It returned to the streets after a report last month in the Indian Express newspaper.
The paper said two of election chief Kumar’s deputies had repeatedly raised concerns about voter-roll revisions, registration procedures and the commission’s digital systems.
The poll body has said differing views are normal during internal deliberations.
(Reporting Tora Agarwala in New Delhi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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