A Celebration of Freedom

An open letter to Abhijeet Dipke, Sonam Wangchuk, the Cockroach Janta Party, and every Indian who believes in the dream of India

Executive Summary

• In just a few short weeks, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and Sonam Wangchuk have transformed a national insult into a national awakening. You have given a voice to crores of young Indians — a phenomenon documented by BBC, Reuters, AP, and CNN.
• The emotion beneath the movement is not anger alone. It is fear — a quiet fear of power that ordinary Indians carry — and a deep longing for fairness and accountability.
• My advice to the movement’s leadership, offered with admiration: do not let this remain a protest. Reframe it as a celebration — of democracy, of the individual citizen, of freedom, of India itself.
• A protest divides a room; a celebration invites everyone in. No party, leader, or institution can object to citizens celebrating the Constitution — and most, I believe, will want to join.
• I write as a technologist and educator who returned to India after 45 years abroad — not a politician, not an activist. Pro-freedom, and therefore pro-India.

Why I Am Writing

I was born in India in 1965. My family moved to Canada when I was nine. I grew up there, built a career in technology working with large enterprises, spent nineteen years in the United States, and in 2020 — after 45 years away — I came back to India. Today, I manage a CBSE school in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, and I have built tech-based businesses in Kolkata and Noida.

I am a technologist, an entrepreneur, and an educator. I am not a politician. I do not claim to understand the intricacies of Indian politics or the people in it. What I claim is only what I have seen with my own eyes, in three countries, over sixty years. It is from that vantage point — with humility, and with love for this country — that I offer these thoughts.

What You Have Already Achieved

First, congratulations. To Abhijeet Dipke, his team, and the movement’s supporters: you have done something no consultant or campaign could have engineered. Within days of its founding, the CJP drew millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of sign-ups. And to Sonam Wangchuk — who called himself an “honorary cockroach” and has now put his own body on the line — you have given the movement a moral gravity that commands respect far beyond its ranks.

A movement born from a dismissive insult — calling citizens “cockroaches” and “parasites” — is uniquely positioned to respond with joy rather than anger. It proves that the youth are not lazy, but highly organized and fiercely protective of their democracy.

Look at who has responded. Shashi Tharoor called the movement “a revelation” of youth frustration. Anna Hazare said, “youth power is national power” and urged the government to encourage it. The world’s most careful newsrooms — the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera — have all told your story. This is not a joke that went viral. It is a mirror held up to the country, and crores of Indians have recognised themselves in it.

The Truth Beneath It: Fear

Let me say plainly what I believe this movement has surfaced, because naming it honestly is the first step to healing it.

In my decades in Canada and the United States, ordinary people did not live in fear of their leaders. Nobody spent their days worrying about the wrath of Trudeau, Obama, or Bush. The foundational assumption was that the police would be fair, the courts would be just, and the state belonged to the citizen.

Since returning to India, I have learned something that took me time to accept: here, almost everyone carries a quiet fear of the powerful. The poor, the middle class, and even the “wealthy”. People speak guardedly about the ruling national and state establishments, and even more carefully about local politicians. Many arrange their lives to avoid the police and the courts entirely.

I do not believe these leaders want to be feared — no leader wants fear as their legacy, and I take them at their word that they seek the people’s trust. But fear does not ask for permission; it grows wherever accountability feels out of reach. So, we must ask ourselves a simple question: what kind of India do we want to build? An India where the quiet fear of power is simply accepted as the way things are — or the India we were promised, where every citizen stands equal before the law, and no one needs to be afraid of doing right?

And here is what we should not take for granted. There are countries where a gathering like the one at Jantar Mantar would have been silenced in a single night, and the world would never have learned the names of those who stood there. In India, it has continued for a month in the open — debated in Parliament, covered by the BBC and Reuters, argued over in our courts. That difference is precious. It is the very thing this movement should celebrate — and the very thing we must all work to protect.

The CJP’s deepest achievement is that it has allowed millions of fearful individuals to look across the country, realize they are not alone, and reclaim their voice.

The Opportunity: From Protest to Celebration

My advice to the leadership is not to change what you are doing, but how you frame it. Do not let anyone else control the vocabulary of this movement.

When you organize public gatherings, marches, and rallies, others will want to call it an “agitation,” a “disruption,” or an “anti-government protest.” That language turns citizens into adversaries.

Flip the script. Change the language.

• Do not call it a protest march; call it a Democracy or Freedom Parade.
• Do not frame the gatherings as defiance against a party; frame them as a Celebration of the Constitution.
• You are not protestors demanding concessions; you are Free Indians expressing your love for the Indian dream.
• Invite everyone — sincerely. Prime Minister Modi, Rahul Gandhi, the NDA, the INDIA bloc, every party, and every leader who believes in this country should be welcomed to join, because a celebration of India belongs to no party. Some will come. Everyone who does makes the circle larger.

The physical actions — the crowds, the marches — remain exactly the same. But by shifting the language and posture from grievance to celebration, there is nothing to oppose. What objection can any police force, court, or politician raise to citizens peacefully celebrating the rights guaranteed by the Indian flag?

A protest draws a line in the sand and dares others to cross it. A celebration of freedom draws a wider circle and invites the entire nation — including every officer, clerk, and constable of the state — to remember that they, too, are citizens first.

This framing also honours Sonam Wangchuk’s own life’s work, which has always been to build — schools, solutions, institutions — rather than to blame. A movement in his spirit celebrates what India is, while working joyfully on what India can be.

Conclusion: Pro-Freedom, and Therefore Pro-India

I am not a protester or an activist. I believe something simpler: every person has the right to the freedom and opportunity to live the life they choose — to prosper, to be happy, to speak — so long as they do not deprive others of the same.

I believe in the dream of India, but it is not a finished thing. It is a dream every generation must strive toward again. This generation — the one the powerful dismissed with an insult — has picked it up with humour, courage, and remarkable grace. Let us not waste that grace on anger. Let us spend it on a celebration so large, so joyful, and so undeniably Indian that no one — not one party, not one leader, not one citizen — feels it is against them, and everyone feels it is for them.

I am pro-freedom. And that is why I am pro-India.

Jai Hind!

Kapil Lohia is a technologist and entrepreneur who returned to India in 2020 after 45 years in Canada and the United States. He manages a private, CBSE school in Hathras, UP.

Photo Credits: All images in this article are sourced from Wikimedia Commons and released under the CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain) license.