The uprising by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) is legitimate as it protests what is seen as a failure to ensure that one of the most challenging entrance examination for entering the medical profession – the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is conducted flawlessly. The first NEET examination this year saw leaked question papers, sending lakhs of students who spent precious hours studying for the examination into depression. Many who did well the first time saw their marks plummet this time. Over 20 students who lost all hope of a secure future have ended their lives. Is there any other country where students must pass through such trauma to enter the medical entrance examination? Not in recent times. India has become infamous for this fiasco. In such a situation, the student population is expected to rise up to demand accountability from the ruling government and that is what they did under the leadership of Abhijeet Dipke who decided to return to India from the US where he was studying and start a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. Ladakh-based scientist and activist Sonam Wangchuk lent his support to the cause and undertook an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar even as his health started deteriorating. On July 18, armed with a High Court order, Delhi Police forcefully and surreptitiously took Wangchuk to Safdarjang Hospital.
The CJP had been priming itself to march to Parliament on July 20 when the monsoon session would begin. Accordingly a large contingent gathered at Jantar Mantar to march toward Parliament in an orderly manner, shouting slogans demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. This has been their consistent demand and any other Government would have shown deference to such an organic public protest. But not the Modi Government, which, in the face of such internal crises prefers to adopt a stunning silence in an attitude that challenges the protestors, as of to say that the Government can do no wrong and that anyone protesting against any of its acts of omission and commission are enemies of this country or as they would like to term them anti-nationals or urban naxals.
It is admirable and hope-giving that the student community of Meghalaya also lent its weight to the CJP and protested peacefully to show solidarity with their fellow-protestors in New Delhi. The culture of protest is a sine qua non of democracy. Any Government that has not learnt the art of engaging with its citizens on issues they considers necessary to review or rescind is a Government that has no respect for public opinion or for democratic tenets. Indeed, for a long time now, protestors have been jailed as if they are enemies of the country. Umar Khalid is a case in point. Fr Stan Swamy is another example of the Modi Government’s propensity to crush all voices of dissent. Fr Stan Swamy finally breathed his last in jail and for what? For giving his entire life to the cause of the tribals of Jharkhand. In other words the Modi Government is averse to giving tribals their rights. All right-thinking citizens need to support the CJP protest before democracy loses its ethos and meaning.
