Cockroach movement claims victory but the odds are stacked against India’s youngsters

Over the past few weeks, young people have mobilised to protest India’s broken education system, against the background of a shortage of job opportunities.

The protests were initially sparked by the cancellation of a medical school entrance exam after questions were leaked, leading some despondent young people to take their own lives. The movement repurposed the image of a cockroach as their symbol – inspired by a comment by India’s chief justice, allegedly comparing jobless young people to “cockroaches”. Humour and satire were integral to the recent unrest.

On Saturday, the cockroach movement claimed its biggest victory since the protests began with the resignation of India’s education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.

But this move will only do so much. These issues did not appear overnight, nor can they be easily fixed.

Decades of frustration

Irregularities and shortcomings in education, as well as rampant unemployment, have been major issues in northern India since at least the early 1970s. One of the main reasons for this is the economic growth that occurred in the late 20th century was not accompanied by broad-based investment in education. It also failed to create jobs in the private sector, leaving many young people dependent on government jobs.

As I wrote in my book Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India, for example, by the...

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