Dozens gathered on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia to decry allegations of politically motivated election tampering in India and amplify a wave of youth-led demonstrations against its government.
The protests have swept through the South Asian nation, demanding the election chief resign over the contentious removal of 130 million names from the country’s voter roll. Critics say the removals could disenfranchise millions and entrench Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power, while Modi’s government has denied any wrongdoing.
In recent weeks, police in New Delhi have cracked down on protesters, detaining opposition party members and the movement’s youth leaders, who call themselves the “Cockroaches.”
On Saturday, about 25 people assembled at the bottom of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s steps to draw attention to the escalating tensions and broaden the fight to safeguard democratic institutions. Many participants were part of the Philadelphia area’s Indian diaspora.
The voter roll purge casts “serious doubts about India’s trajectory,” said Ramya Devan, the event’s organizer and a board member with the national chapter of the social justice organization Hindus for Human Rights.
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The group held up signs that read “Steal hearts, not votes” and “The diaspora stands with India’s students”; chanted “stand up, fight back”; and sang protest songs. Similar actions were set to take place nationwide this weekend, from Los Angeles to New York City.
“Voting rights are under attack in this country as well,” Devan said. “So we’re here to be inspired by the youth in India and stand up for democracy everywhere.”
Revisions to the voter roll began last summer as what the government called an overdue cleanup of records, requiring people to submit multiple documents to prove they were eligible to vote. The review of voters is ongoing.
“[India] cannot call itself a democracy until everybody has the right to vote, and if you are taking it away, then it does put the trust that we have in our institutions at stake,” said Kaustubh Naik, a 35-year-old doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania. Naik said he participated in similar social justice movements while a student in India but nothing at this scale.
A Gen Z government-accountability movement, the “Cockroach Janta Party,” has led the campaign for free and fair elections in India. The Cockroaches started as a satirical campaign this summer after India’s chief justice compared unemployed youths to parasites. But young Indians have since embraced the pejorative as a powerful symbol of resistance, Devan said. Protests led by the group forced the resignation of India’s education minister.
“More people are now realizing the pitfalls of this regime, and they’re coming out in protest,” Naik said.
Panna Iyer, 50, of Malvern, hopes the movement puts pressure on Indian officials to fix the election system and reverse what she called the “downslide of democracy.”
“There are no kings in a democracy, there are no crowns in a democracy — it’s for the people, by the people,” Iyer said. Just hours earlier, the coalition of progressive groups behind the “No Kings” protests rallied at Philadelphia City Hall to encourage people to vote in the U.S. midterm election.
“It’s very distressing,” Iyer added. “This is not the India I lived in — the India I grew up in.”
Prasad Valappil, 53, of Chester Springs, said he feels helpless seeing suppression of human rights in India.
“If you don’t raise your voice … then you don’t make progress,” he said.
“You cannot be silent all the time.”
This article contains information from the Associated Press.