Two months after the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) went viral in India, its followers have entered dangerous territory. Police forcefully removed educator-activist Sonam Wangchuk from the CJP’s sit-in at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar observatory, taking him to hospital against his will on the 21st day of his indefinite hunger strike.

Protesters rallied at the site while CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke began his own hunger strike. The demonstrators plan to march towards the Indian Parliament on Monday to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over university entrance exam leaks that caused nationwide outrage and wider failures of accountability in India’s competitive examination system. There have even been calls for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The CJP emerged in mid-May after remarks by Chief Justice Surya Kant in which he called unemployed youth “cockroaches”, sparking outrage across the nation. Since then, the “party” has garnered an immense online following among India’s youth and staged massive protests.

Before Saturday’s escalation, the state’s response was neither open accommodation nor an all-out crackdown but calibrated containment: permit protests within narrow limits, police their reach and wait for the coalition to fragment. It now appears that the CJP has unnerved those in power.

It seems it is no longer possible to treat the CJP as another viral storm in India’s crowded and volatile politics, as a satirical youth outfit born on social media, briefly visible on the street and destined to fade as quickly as it appeared. The cockroach has travelled far because it has named a widespread sentiment in society.

To be called a cockroach is to........

© Al Jazeera