CJP protests – so, will there be a resignation and a demonstration of public accountability?

 

“What if all cockroaches come together?” Six words posted on X that have now shaken the BJP Government. The person who posted this, Abhijeet Dipke, 30, along with Sonam Wangchuk, are the faces of perhaps India’s biggest street protest, the first Gen X protest movement against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Dipke’s tweet was in response to Chief Justice of India Surya Kant equating India’s unemployed youth with cockroaches. When Dipke, a Boston University student, launched the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), not many would have imagined how things would unfold. The cockroach (a creature I dread) has now become a symbol of courage and resilience.

The campaign seeking the ouster of India’s Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan exploded on social media, attracting more than 21 million Instagram followers within days. Once Wangchuk joined the demonstration and went on a hunger strike (lasting more than three weeks), CJP gained a new burst of energy. Forget mainstream or legacy media, everything was unfolding almost minute by minute on Instagram – memes, mock campaign slogans and satirical commentary targeting the Union Government over unemployment, few job opportunities and the economic pressures families across India are facing today. Gen Z found in Instagram a platform to voice anger over the many failings in the education system and to bring into focus a macro campaign for government accountability. Undoubtedly, this has now become one of the most visible public challenges to Modi. He and his colleagues would never have expected such a challenge even a few weeks ago, an unprecedented one thanks largely to Instagram.

So, what about individual conscience? What about moral responsibility? What about political accountability? Why is the education minister not reigning? Is he being forced to stay? Here are some of the notable names who quit:

Lal Bahadur Shastri (Railways) – resigned after the Ariyalur railway disaster, accepting moral responsibility.

T.T. Krishnamachari (Finance) – resigned following the Mundhra-LIC scandal after the Chagla Commission criticised his ministry's functioning.

V.K. Krishna Menon (Defence) – resigned after India's defeat in the Sino-Indian War.

Then there are instances of Nitish Kumar and Suresh Prabhu, both as Railway Ministers. The ones who did not resign include Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mamata Banerjee, both as Railway Ministers.

In years past, especially when Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister, resignation was seen as a constitutional convention. A minister accepted responsibility for failures in the department. Things changed in the 1980s when Indira Gandhi was in charge, and after the emergence of coalition politics, resignations mostly occurred only when a court intervened, or an investigative agency filed a case, or when coalition arithmetic demanded it, or when political damage became just too much. Today, for the Modi Government, isn’t political damage already too much! This fiasco is not something that will be forgotten in a hurry even though 2029 may seem far way. But yes, if ministers resign merely on moral grounds, it can be interpreted as an admission of guilt. Why go for it?

What is now amply clear is that the government of day does not have cloak to hide under. People have lost trust in institutions, definitely in the education system, and also in the executive and the judiciary. About mainstream media, the less said, the better. It is social media that scores by far and the CJP protests would not have turned out to become what they did without the Instagram feeds, with a few news channels gaining traction aboard the platform, such as Peep TV of which I had not heard of before.

So, what now? Will the education minister quit? Fast-track courts will not solve the problem. Nor will telling students not to go to Jantar Mantar as JNU and Delhi University advisories now seek to do. We have the weekend ahead and it will be interesting to see how things unfold at Jantar Mantar and elsewhere. There have, of course, been protests across India, including in Chennai. CJP in a statement says that if their demands are not accepted at the earliest, the movement will only grow bigger and spread across India. A response to its five-point demand charter on examination reforms has been sought.

Internet is being suspended sometimes around the protest sites in Delhi. Delhi Metro has been shutting stations due to ‘security reasons’. News has just come in about the government ordering Bitchat to be taken down. It is also being reported that the government has ruled out Pradhan’s exit as that would mean ‘running away’. Our heart goes out to the students.

About our great film stars, cricketing and other sporting icons not speaking out aloud, well, that will probably make for another story.

 

- Pictures show CPI (M) workers holding a protest meet this evening in MGR Nagar, Chennai, expressing solidarity with the students and protestors in Delhi. Miles away from Jantar Mantar, they were demanding the resignation of the education minister.