The significance of the Cockroach Janta Party may ultimately lie less in the government concessions it has extracted than in the expectations it has created among those who watched these developments. For decades, Indian politics has trained citizens to think of the state as something to be petitioned, endured or periodically replaced. A defective examination system, an unresponsive public office or a failing school could provoke anger, but rarely a sustained expectation that institutions themselves must explain their performance. CJP is beginning to challenge that habit.

This is larger than the fortunes of one movement. Across countries as different as Bangladesh, Kenya, Bulgaria and Peru, youth protests have demonstrated a similar pattern: a specific grievance can become a vehicle for a much broader rejection of institutional complacency. The issue that brings young people onto the streets is often not the entire issue. It becomes the point at which accumulated frustration finally finds expression. India’s version is distinctive because the initial grievance was so intimately connected to the life chances of young people.

Competitive........

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