The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP),
which started a couple of weeks back as a joke, suddenly ballooned into a mass
movement. It has no ideology. It has no leadership. It’s a mere apolitical
movement. There is, of course, an innocent gustiness in that movement.
These protestors are the frustrated
lot due to NEET-UG 2026 medical entrance exam paper leaks. These entrance exams
are pretty gruelling to attempt. The leak in May affected more than 2.2 million
students who had to endure that demanding task. Reports also indicate that the
leak of a paper caused 20 student suicides due to stress and trauma. Indeed,
such leaks have become a routine feature of our educational system.
Hurt and outraged by such
repeated leaks of entrance exam papers, boys and girls took to the streets in
protest against our broken exam architecture. After the initial isolated
protests, the CJP launched an indefinite sit-in protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi
on June 20. Their central demand was: resignation of the education minister who
failed to conduct exams with integrity and without leaks. They have also asked
for compensation to families of those students who committed suicide. They have
also demanded reforms in the examination system.
This non-ideological and
apolitical movement has, of course, in the course of its spreading to other
cities, picked up other burning issues such as unemployment, independence of the
Election Commission, Judiciary and the future of democracy in the country.
Theirs was a peaceful
demonstration of their resentment against the inept governance of the education
system. It obviously became contagious. It attracted the participation of
affected parents and intellectuals from all walks of life.
The result is: Delhi witnessed its
biggest protest in more than half a decade, said the media. Some boys and girls
had come in their school uniforms with backpacks loaded with books. Some were
carrying red roses, some were chanting patriotic slogans, and some were
demanding the resignation of the education minister. Many reporters commented
that the majority of the protesters were extremely polite in their
demonstration.
The general feeling among civil
society is that the anxieties and concerns of protesting students about the
leak of question papers and the lack of accountability for such lapses are
quite genuine, and their demand needs to be handled with empathy.
Instead, the government appears
to have treated it like any other political protest to be quelled with police
force. Videos show bloodied students running away from tear gas shell firing
and baton-wielding police. It seems even girls were slapped by the police in
plain clothes. Some protesters were seen standing still as the police were
beating them, perhaps to show the non-violent intent of their protest. It was
alleged that the police used pellet guns, causing severe injuries to the
students. The brutal violence unleashed on these peaceful protesters during
their march to the Parliament by RAF and Delhi Police has only swelled up the
nation’s sympathy for the protesting boys and girls.
The internet was blocked. Yet
these smart boys and girls circulated these scenes through phones. In the words
of one reporter, the young protesters had succeeded in bypassing the mainstream
media’s orchestrated narrative.
Appearing for a PIL filed in
Delhi High Court, the advocate submitted that protesters were subjected to
“brutality to the largest extent” by the state machinery. He also said, “There
are videos of several people in civil clothes carrying lathis, lathis with
nails, electric batons and pellet guns.” Another advocate alleged that a large
number of police personnel were deployed without nameplates and they used
batons not authorised by Delhi police.
These “ghastly” scenes made many
intellectuals and political leaders from different parties, including the
ruling party at the centre, come out in support of protesting students.
At last, on July 23, the Prime
Minister announced late at night that the government “will set up fast-track
courts to ensure swift and stringent punishment for those involved in paper
leaks. … Those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared”. He
was, however, silent on the central demand of CJP: Resignation of the education
minister.
“Politics is the art of the
possible”, said Bismarck. Governance calls for a give-and-take approach for
bettering the people’s welfare. Had the education minister, following the
tradition set by his predecessors like Lal Bahadur Sastry, N Sanjeeva Reddy,
Nitish Kumar and so on, owned moral responsibility for the leaks and tendered his
resignation, the movement would not have swelled as much as the world
witnessed. Or, had the government responded with a positive frame of mind to
meaningfully address the youth’s concerns about the examination system right at
the beginning of their protest, we would not have witnessed these unhappy
incidents.
That being the case, it is not too
late for the government to rejig the examination system on a priority. It may
have to think of establishing an independent body on the lines of UPSC to
ensure leak-proof examinations. Or, all entrance examinations may be assigned
to UPSC to restore confidence among aspirants.
True, all this calls for not only
money but also a strong belief in government machinery that there can be no
true progress in the country without investing in our educational system. Unfortunately,
over the past 12 years, the share of education in the Union Budget has nearly
halved— it dropped from 4.6% in 2013-14 to 2.5% in 2025-26. It is time to set
right the education in the country, for our future rests on it.
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