In just under three months, 30-year-old Abhijeet Dipke — the founder and face of India's Gen Z "cockroach" protests — has acquired the kind of celebrity status normally reserved for a breakout actor or cricketer. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.

"It's been a rollercoaster ride. Two-three months ago, nobody knew me. I was just in my room in Boston watching documentaries or attending lectures," said Dipke, who recently completed a master's in public relations at Boston University.

"Now I'm here surrounded by hundreds of people, by cameras. It's a bit overwhelming."

In and around his hometown of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in the western state of Maharashtra, Dipke is routinely thronged by people wanting to shake his hand or take a photo.

If the attention bothers him, it doesn't show. Perhaps because politics isn't entirely new to him: before moving to the US, Dipke had worked with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), an opposition party that grew out of an anti-corruption movement, for three years.

Then, on 16 May, Dipke wrote a post on X that would change his life: "What if all cockroaches come together?"

It was a response to a remark by India's Chief Justice Surya Kant, who had likened jobless youngsters to cockroaches. Kant later said his comments had been misinterpreted and were directed specifically at young people using fake degrees, rather than the country's youth more broadly.

But the clarification did little to quell the outrage.

Dipke said he wrote his post while playing a video game. "It was totally spontaneous. I had no idea it would become such a big movement," he said.

Encouraged by tens of thousands of responses, he joined a handful of former colleagues and activists to launch the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), its name playing on both the chief justice's remark and that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Alongside the support, Dipke and the campaign were fiercely trolled by government supporters. Their website and X account was briefly taken down in India.

Dipke says that when he wrote to X and to India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asking why the account had been taken down, he received a notice saying it had been withheld under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act which allows the government to block online information 'in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State'.

The ministry did not reply to the BBC's questions about the issue, but The Indian Express and other media reported government officials as saying the sites had been blocked because of 'national security concerns'. Dipke says he decided to return to India in response to this.

"I took the decision to come back to India when I was called a national security threat by my own government. That really hurt me. Isn't my government supposed to stand by me when I'm abroad?" he said.

"I decided I need to go back to my country to show I'm not a national security threat. I love my country, just not in the way that you [the government] want."

Returning was not an easy decision. In recent years, activists and journalists critical of the government have faced police questioning, legal cases and, in some instances, jail.

Dipke says a lawyer he consulted advised him against returning, warning that he could be detained under the National Security Act (NSA), which allows detention without formal charge or trial. The government has always denied it takes retaliatory action but a fear of reprisal prevails.

"I won't lie. I was afraid. I had sleepless nights thinking if I go back to India, my life will change. But if I sit in the US, all these people who have followed the Cockroach Janta Party, they will feel betrayed — that 'he didn't come to India, he just kept hiding in the US'," said Dipke.

"My mother broke down over a phone call. She said, 'Why are you coming back? They might put you in jail or attack you.' I told her I can't backtrack now because people will mock me."

The cockroach protests were not the first mass agitation Modi's government has faced. Thousands protested against a controversial citizenship law in 2019 and against farm laws introduced in 2020.

Those movements were often portrayed by government supporters as representing particular religious or political interests, or as attempts to damage India's image.

Attempts to discredit the cockroach protests in similar ways, however, gained less traction for a number of reasons.

Despite India's impressive economic growth, education and employment remain major concerns for young Indians. A recent government report found that just over 8% of graduates find jobs aligned with their skills. The unemployment rate for graduates stands at 29.1% — a rate nine times higher than for those who never attended school.

And after more than 12 years in power, Modi's government is facing anti-incumbency in a way it didn't back in 2020.

But, crucially, the CJP also found an issue with broad appeal.

Around the time the campaign began, the national medical entrance exam was scrapped after a question-paper leak. The scandal resonated with students and middle-class families, cutting across religious and caste lines. More than 20 students were reported to have taken their own lives in its aftermath.