The birth of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and its first rally on June 6 at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar have provoked widespread speculation. Was it a spontaneous rally? Was it secretly backed by a political party? How wide really is its appeal? What do the “cockroaches” believe in? Is it a flash in the pan or the beginning of a lasting movement?

Much of the coverage of the CJP suggests that it is a peculiarly contemporary phenomenon enabled by connectivity and a generational shift. The only parallel observers tend to refer to, if at all, is the 2011-12 Anna Hazare-AAP phenomenon.

The suddenness of its emergence and the enabling role of new media undeniably imbues the phenomenon with an acutely current feel. But it may be misleading to claim that nothing like this has ever happened before. There are, in fact, interesting parallels between the CJP and a student uprising in Gujarat half a century ago, namely the Navnirman Movement of 1974.

Like the CJP, which erupted over the leak of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, symptomatic of a problematic centralised and commodified education system, the background to the Navnirman Movement was also an unprecedented expansion and commercialisation of education in Gujarat.

In the 1970s, the number of college students had risen tenfold over the previous two decades. Lowered admission bars and........

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