“I do not want anything to happen to my family because this is a choice I made, not them”: Six days after he launched the satirical platform, ‘Cockroach Janta Party’, Abhijeet Dipke told The Indian Express that he has been receiving constant threats and is worried about his family back home.
Dipke, 30, is in Boston, where he moved two years back to pursue a course in public relations. His family lives in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, formerly known as Aurangabad. “I have been getting constant threats both for myself and my family, which is in India. I just received a video in which a man is saying that they have reached outside my home and that I need to wait till evening to see what happens next,” he said.
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‘Cockroach Janta Party’ was launched in response to a remark by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on those who “attack the system”. On May 15, the Chief Justice pulled up a lawyer who had filed a petition seeking directions to the Delhi High Court over the designation of a Senior Advocate, a status he himself was aspiring to. The Chief Justice questioned if “pursuing” the designation looked “proper”. “There are already parasites of society who attack the system, and you want to join hands with them? There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in (the) profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists, and they start attacking everyone,” he said.
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The remarks triggered an uproar, following which the Chief Justice clarified that it is “totally baseless” to suggest that he criticised the youth. “What I had specifically criticised were those who have entered professions like the Bar (legal profession) with the aid of fake and bogus degrees. Similar persons have sneaked into the media, social media, and other noble professions as well, and hence, they are like parasites. It is totally baseless to suggest that I criticised the youth of our nation. Not only am I proud of our present and future human resource, but every youth of India inspires me,” he said.
Dipke had criticised the Chief Justice’s remark and announced a platform for “cockroaches”, triggering an online trend. Yesterday, the X account of Cockroach Janta Party was withheld in India. The Indian Express reported that this was done at the direction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) after inputs from the Intelligence Bureau flagging “national security concerns”.
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Dipke said his family should not face the consequences of his decisions. “Nobody’s family should be hounded like this just for expressing their opinions,” he said.
Asked about his visa status and how long he can stay in the US, Dipke said, “I have a full visa. Currently, my visa gives me the option to stay (in the US) till July. I have no tension till July, but I will have to return to India sometime… People will say, ‘he is himself sitting in the US. What is he asking us to do’?”
To a question on whether he has a plan, he replied, “I had not made any plans at all since I had not anticipated that something like this would happen at such a level. I am trying to talk to the relevant people so I can have more options.”
Dipke said GenZ “are exerting a lot of pressure on me, like, ‘don’t back off, now you have started something’”.
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Asked about his plans regarding the “party,” and whether he was looking to register it, he said: “I had not thought this far ahead; this had begun as a satire. But let’s see what they (the people) say; we are going to take suggestions; we will see how it turns out. But it will be too early to say anything… (it) will mostly be like a political front operating like a pressure group; that is what I have thought for the time being. Going forward, let’s see, as we identify more and more people.”
Earlier, a senior government official had told The Indian Express that the Cockroach Janta Party’s X handle was posting “inflammatory” content. “In particular, the concern stemmed from the fact that the account’s content was gaining traction among young people,” the official said.
Dipke countered this. “There are efforts to defame this by comparing it with what happened (the uprisings) in Nepal, in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. I am countering it…We have clarified that we are very democratic people and whatever we will do to express our dissent will be within the rights of our Constitution and in a very peaceful manner. Don’t even try to compare Indian GenZ with others because the GenZ here is more educated; in fact, more educated than those running the country right now… This will be a political youth front.”
Before moving to the US, Dipke had worked with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a volunteer. He was attached to the office of Delhi’s then Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and handled communications for the AAP leader during the Covid-19 pandemic.
An AAP insider described Dipke as “an Ambedkarite” who questioned caste violence and the so-called upper castes’ holding positions in politics and government institutions. “Not many of us met him personally, since he operated out of Pune during most of his association with the AAP; but he was well-known in party circles as a ‘star campaigner’ committed to both the party as well as its leaders, especially Manish ji, for whom he officially handled both social media communication,” an AAP source said.