Let me be clear: there is a need for significant reforms in the way exams are held in this country. But let us be equally clear that the protests we have just seen are neither “student-led” nor populated by a majority of students either.
Essentially what you see is a double utility Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) being created in the form of the Cockroach Janta Party. The first is the third reincarnation of Sonia Gandhi’s “supra cabinet” – the National Advisory Committee. When it became clear that the UPA was going to lose power in 2013, they and their known associates started supporting a new venture called the Aam Aadmi Party.
The same faces, the same policies soon started populating the AAP and giving them the much-needed alleged intellectual heft to become a player, at least in the public discourse. Come the 2024 general elections in Punjab and the 2025 Delhi state elections, it became clear the AAP was rapidly losing steam. Unsurprisingly, this “new” party emerges – CJP – where every single prominent member has been deeply connected to the AAP or has been bona fide members of it.
Much like how Arvind Kejriwal used Anna Hazare and the India Against Corruption movement to exploit genuine public outrage to propel his own career and political ambitions; AAP 2.0 aka CJP has used Sonam Wangchuk to propel their own careers and political ambitions.
Consider the 4 faces of the CJP: Abhijit Dipke, Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka and the recently dissociated Vijeta Dahiya. To date, we don’t know what exactly Mr Dipke’s alleged degree from Boston University is, who funded it, what he scored and if he even passed the course and obtained a degree.
Then there is Saurav Das, a person who writes on legal matters after repeatedly failing law entrance tests. He claims to be freelance, but lives in a thousand-square-yard independent house in South Delhi’s posh Greater Kailash 1, with neighbours like the Munjal family who own Hero motorcycles. Rents for a property like this are easily upwards of 9-10 lakhs per month.
Also, the most recent photos of his 2025 Diwali party show the entire erstwhile Delhi cabinet, including Arvind Kejriwal in attendance. Ashutosh Ranka claims he graduated from IIT Kanpur in 2017 and worked in an unknown job till 2019, thereafter joining the communications team of AAP.
Finally there is Vijeta Dahiya, who’s only known professional qualification is that he was a researcher for known AAP-associated YouTube propagandist Dhruv Rathi.
In essence we have 4 people, not one of whom has a verifiable trail of employment or transparent educational qualifications, talking about accountability and education. Irony much?
None of this takes away from the fact that the Central Government has mucked up the examination system, either through sheer neglect, or inaction or answering questions that nobody asked. Let us forget for the moment the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board (PSSSB) paper leak and irregularities in 2025 for which the AAP minister in charge has neither resigned nor has any corrective action been taken. The fact is NEET has affected more students across the country than any state leak. Let us just focus on NEET.
One would expect the CJP to at least know their facts on the chronology and sequence and facts of repeat NEET leaks? Even assuming party workers tend to be generally clueless, you’d at least expect party spokespeople to be better informed? Yet amazingly, on a news channel, CJP spokesperson Dahiya not only did not know about the K Radhakrishnan committee set up last year to look into this very issue, but given his background as a researcher for Dhruv Rathi, he didn’t even know who Mr Radhakrishnan – the former director of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was.
Much the same way Arvind Kejriwal weaponised public sentiment against corruption to launch himself, and talk about everything under the sun, including movie reviews, what the CJP has succeeded in doing is remove the focus from the BJP and its bungling on law and order, and everything under the sun except systemic reforms of the examination system. Don’t believe me? Consider this. At the time of writing, another CJP “spokesperson” Saurav Das listed 3 demands: the resignation of education minister Pradhan, withdrawal of FIRs against students who got violent during the Jantar Mantar protests and Rs 1 crore in compensation for the families of the 20 students who committed suicide over the NEET fiasco.
So let me ask you this. Has anyone to date seen any plan or roadmap of reforms or systemic changes proposed by the CJP? Has any one of the CJP “leaders” ever enunciated a clear plan of action for fixing the system? Has any CJP leader ever spoken even cursorily of youth unemployment and the artificial shortage of professional courses in India engineered by the education mafia? The simple answer is: NO.
Ultimately, the barometer of a legitimate movement is not just that it opposes what it believes to be unjust, but also actively propounds corrective measures and articulates an alternate vision of how it believes things should be. Only anarchists and nihilists oppose without offering alternates. From this alone it should become clear that the CJP is a malafide bunch of grubby, grabby, social-climbing opportunists, of highly dubious background, here to exploit the misery of students for personal gain, without offering any hope or vision.
Ignore the fact that this so called movement failed to mobilise any substantial numbers till the riots of the 20th of June and subsequent days. Do you trust people who couldn’t control a highly localised crowd of 1 lakh people spread out over 2 square kilometre area, to give you solutions to control 1 crore plus teachers, schools and exams disaggregated over 32 lakh square kilometres?
Never confuse delusion with hope. A resignation is a scalp, not a solution; if the government believes that handing over Pradhan has assuaged public anger or fixed anything, it is living in delusion. But equally, for anyone in the public to assume that the duplicitous and shady opportunists of the CJP — who have now packed up and gone home the moment their demands were met, without a single word on reform — are in any way or form concerned about students, would be equally deluded.
(The views expressed are the author’s own.)