Dharmendra Pradhan: India’s ‘cockroach’ protesters call off strike as education minister resigns

Geeta Pandey
Reporting from Delhi

It took the
“cockroaches” – as Dipke and the CJP protesters call themselves – five weeks to
force a government minister to resign.

In end-June, when I first visited Jantar Mantar, the main protest venue, the CJP protest had
already been going on for a week.

It was small, with a rag-tag bunch of a couple of
hundred young people hanging around. Sonam Wangchuk, respected Gandhian activist, had begun an indefinite hunger strike in their support just a day
earlier.

As days
passed, his condition began to deteriorate. A week later he’d lost more than 8kg,
grown frail and was in pain.

As sympathy
rose for Wangchuk, who was already well-known in India as the inspiration
behind the 2009 hit film 3 Idiots, thousands began to arrive at the protest
venue to express solidarity with “Sonam sir”.

Image source, Getty Images

He was forcibly removed by the police last Saturday and taken to hospital. The CJP alleged he had been roughly handled, leading to a huge outrage in India.

Wangchuk’s continued fast in hospital and Monday’s brutal crackdown on those attempting to march to the parliament was what turned the tide in favour of the CJP – ultimately leading to Pradhan’s resignation on Saturday.