Youths normally unaccustomed to agitation thronged Jantar Mantar with placards and cockroach masks, joining the viral social media platform Cockroach Janta Party’s first real-life protest, held to demand the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the serial exam scandals.

Many came with their parents. They held up books and offered flowers to police, as suggested by CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, who arrived in Delhi from Boston on Saturday morning.

He left the airport with B.R. Ambedkar’s autobiography. Dipke, a Dalit from Maharashtra like Ambedkar, considers Babasaheb, Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru his political guides.

At the airport, the police told him that permission for a one-day protest had been granted — a one-time waiver from the mandatory 10-day notice norm — to avoid chaos as the protesters were already trickling in.

Dipke urged supporters on social media to maintain discipline and ensure the protest remained peaceful. He reached the venue around 11am.

A huge banner reading “Peaceful Protest” was brought in. Dipke and others huddled against a wall and chanted slogans over loudspeakers. He and others delivered speeches, but most of it was drowned out in the din caused by the exuberant Gen Z crowd.

Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, a participant, said he was impressed with the youth and the peaceful protest.

He thanked Dipke for calling him the “Cockroach-in-Chief” and told the youth: “You did not keep sitting at home crying, nor are you creating any ruckus on the road.”

Dipke repeated his demand for Pradhan’s resignation. “My friends, this is a long struggle,” he said.

“It has been a month since we started demanding Pradhan’s resignation on social media, but these individuals are so shameless that instead of taking action, they have been focused on other distractions, like hacking our accounts and getting our posts deleted.”

He added: “You may be able to delete our posts, but you cannot erase us from this space.”

The police held back pro-government hecklers — who symbolically held up cans of bug spray and shouted “Jai Shri Ram”.

Ananya Bahadur, a 24-year-old woman, carried a bouquet of white and pink roses “as a symbol of peace”.

“It represents our belief that change can be sought through peaceful and non-violent protest,” she told The Telegraph.

“Nothing will change if you don’t try to change (it), and expressing dissent is quite necessary in a democratic system.”

In the gathering were students, parents, job aspirants and supporters of the CJP or groups that support it. Some came from outside Delhi.

Student Neel Pahuja, a victim of the on-screen marking system adopted for this year’s CBSE Class XII exams, had come with his mother Poonam Sethi.

“My son might lose a year because of someone’s carelessness in checking the paper — for the university may not grant additional days for admission and could close it (the admission process) any day,” Poonam said.

“What will my son do when the re-evaluation result arrives after the admission process is over?”

Neel explained why he had sought re-evaluation after obtaining a copy of his answer sheet.

“Pages were left unseen; marking was done incorrectly,” he said. “It’s as if they had decided the marks first and then started checking the paper.”

Ranjit Kumar Suryavanshi, a native of Muzaffarpur in Bihar who is studying BTech in Rajasthan, said the exam scams would lead to ill-qualified professionals wreaking havoc on society.

“What will happen when an unqualified doctor treats patients or an unqualified engineer designs the infrastructure we rely on every day?” he said.

“These are questions we need to confront the government with…. Anyone who raises their voice against the government is either labeled ‘anti-national’ or ‘Pakistani’.”

Several protesters shouted slogans against what they called the “godi media” — pro-government TV channels whom they accused of covering up the Modi administration’s scandals.

Many Leftist activists came without their organisation flags.

AISA general secretary Prasenjeet Kumar told this newspaper: “We are raising our voice against multiple irregularities in the examination system that is crippling the country’s education systems. We have demanded the dissolution of the National Testing Agency and an overhaul of the testing system to prevent future paper leaks.”

Perhaps because of the 40-degree heat, the turnout did not match the massive support seen on the CJP’s social media accounts that far outstrips actual political parties. The protest ended around 3.30pm with Dipke fainting.

After being revived, he issued a statement warning of a nationwide protest if Pradhan didn’t quit.

In the evening, CJP spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka told reporters: “Today’s protest was a trailer. We are giving the BJP government seven days’ time. Either Pradhan resigns or the government sacks him, else this movement will spread across the country.”