New Delhi: The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has shown the power and strength of a mass movement which started with a post on social media.
Who would have imagined when Abhijeet Dipke founded the satirical group two-and-a-half months ago that it would bring together India’s Gen-Z and compel the resignation of Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET-UG paper leak issue?
And now, another online movement is brewing – the Reservation Hatao Andolan (RHA).
Another issue-based online campaign, Reservation Hatao Andolan, is growing rapidly, by the minute literally. It has attracted more than 5.1 million followers on Instagram and published 112 posts – and counting — within days of being opened.
The new group’s Instagram account, under the username reservationhataomovement, describes the campaign as a citizen-led movement with no political affiliation. Its slogan is drawn from B R Ambedkar’s ‘Educate-Agitate-Organize’.
“Backed by citizens who believe reform deserves a voice. Educate-Agitate-Organize. All castes are equal; all I want is a great nation. Jai Hind,” reads the account’s bio.
“We are not affiliated with any political party. Like many citizens, we once believed that a change in government might bring major reforms to the reservation system. BJP failed to do so. Instead, reservation policies continued to evolve and expand,” said one of its posts.
“Our conclusion is simple: this issue cannot be reduced to party politics. Our focus is on the policy not the party. This is a citizen-led movement, independent of every political party,” the post said.
The objective of Reservation Hatao Andolan, as the name suggests, is to eliminate caste-based discrimination. It wants the government to stop requiring or recognising caste identity in everyday public life.
It says no one should be identified as “Bharaman, Jaat, Gurjar, SC, ST” and called for “the showcasing of the cast illegal”.
The group further says citizens should not have to declare or record their caste in routine government forms, educational admissions, employment applications or other public-facing processes.
The long-term goal of the movement is – ‘One Nation. One Identity. Indian.’ And its slogan – ‘Remove Reservation. Remove Casteism.’