Opinion

CJP masquerading as Gen Z

How NEET protest evolved beyond examination reforms into a wider political confrontation involving multiple actors

August 26, 2026

The hidden agenda behind the NEET agitation

On June 6th 2026, New Delhi grappled with a protest led by a satirical political group, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), as the party founder, Abhijeet Dipke, returned to the country from the United States. The agitation was supposedly focused on examination paper leaks in national public examinations like NEET-UG, but it quickly morphed into an anti-national event by raising divisive slogans and the presence of well-known anti-nationals.

Abhijeet Dipke, the apparent leader of CJP, coming from a sojourn in the USA, should have been aware that there, too, high-stakes professional and admissions testing has suffered paper leaks. During test cycles (e.g., September and November 2025), there were allegations frequently circulated on platforms like Reddit and Discord alleging “SAT leaks“. However, nobody heard of any Abhijeet Dipke taking cudgels against the US authorities. Had he done so, he would have been in the cooler now.

He might have been spotted by foreign intelligence agencies as a potential troublemaker who could be deployed in India for creating mass disruptions. Hence, this unknown and unheard-of person pompously announces his arrival in India to lead a Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) agitation in the capital city. The government had prior information but underestimated the disruptor, his financiers, and the composition of his motley crowd of paid participants, criminals, professional stone throwers, and molesters. Surely, a lapse of intelligence inputs, pre-emptive action, and inadequate measures by the government led to an unnecessary conflagration with a riff-raff crowd. Severe injuries to the Police force became a major embarrassment, even reflecting on the efficiency of the force to handle agitators. Foreign intelligence agencies would be assessing the political disarray, tepid response of the government and judiciary, paid media’s one-sided coverage of events, and the destructive potential of a bunch of ragtag rioters.

Having said this, it warrants examination as to who was responsible for the engineered NEET-UG Exam question paper leaks? It was not the government, but a bunch of greedy professors who sold the question papers to undeserving students and their filthy rich parents. Did any of the agitators protest in front of the houses of these professors or their Richie-rich clientele of students and parents? On the contrary, the paid ire and hidden motive of the agitators was to replicate the Bangladesh model of calculated destruction to overthrow a legally elected government.

But where exactly does the government come into the picture? As the cost of education soared to dizzying heights, the government and its bureaucracy were definitely caught napping. The IITs and IIMs charge a ridiculous Rupees 25 lakhs. In 2023, it was revealed that IIM Ahmedabad earned Rupees 114 crores as tuition fees, Rupees 102 crores as interest income, and a cash profit of Rupees 87 crores! Reads more like a real estate business than the fees of an educational institution. While an engineering degree in a state government institution costs between Rupees 4 to 10 lakhs, the same degree costs Rupees 8 to 22 lakhs in a private college; in a Deemed to be University it costs Rupees 13 to 29 lakhs, and for the so-called NRI quota it is Rupees 27 to 53 lakhs! For medical courses, while the government run Central medical colleges fees, the range is Rs.2.50-4.50 lakhs, in state medical colleges it ranges from Rupees 3.50 lakhs to Rs.16 lakhs, in private medical colleges it shoots to Rupees 60 lakhs to Rs.1.50 crores, in Deemed Universities it soars to Rupees 90 lakhs to 1.80 crores, and for NRI quota it ranges from Rs.1.50 to 3 crores. A law degree costs a whopping Rupees thirty-five lakhs in a prestigious law university. Can an ordinary Indian whose average median income is estimated at Rupees 2.4 lakhs afford such astronomical sums for a degree for their children? Why the ire against the judiciary? All the fees are fixed by committees headed by a retired High Court judge! Were the government, bureaucracy, and judiciary mute spectators for the box office collections of educational institutions?

Many educational institutions and deemed universities are run by political families. Leader of the Opposition Mr. Rahul Gandhi, who is hopping around in T-shirts, trying to gain mileage from the CJP protests, should publicly disclose the names of his MPs and MLAs who own medical and engineering colleges and universities. He is raging against Mr. Narendra Modi, under the misplaced assumption that he is the only automatic PM successor if he can displace Modi’s regime. But Rahul Gandhi and the entire Gandhi clan will be jittery at the latest aspiration of the Tamil Nadu TVK party, that its supremo actor Joseph Vijay has prime ministerial ambitions. Those jesters who support wrong agitations by foreign-funded agitators need to be circumspect; there is no advance reservation facility for the prime ministerial throne.

A long-pending demand for reforms in bureaucracy and judiciary is gathering dust. The government needs to act with alacrity; the status quo cannot be dragged on indefinitely. Agitators like CJP are being directed by foreign-funded manipulators, who are keenly spotting the many Achilles’ Heels in the government administration. Professional rioters masquerading as student agitators can also easily don the role of litigant-agitators, educated but unemployed agitators, anti-reservationist agitators, and so on. Possibilities are limitless; no institution enjoys immunity from CJP-like attacks. Political parties need to understand that in the scheme of things, lackadaisical bureaucrats have nothing to lose; their tenures are protected, increments and promotions move with clockwork precision, but for politicians, it is citizens who review every five years. Citizens are whimsical and suffer from periodic mood changes, and often react irrationally. The government should actively think of nationalising all private colleges and Deemed to be universities, which are all running money-spinning scams. Even a simple threat of nationalisation can bring these education Shylocks to their knees. Students are a class of citizens with whom money extortion ventures should not be permitted. Their disenchantment can easily erupt into revolt against the government, bureaucracy and even the judiciary. In Bangladesh, former Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan faced intense pressure and agreed to resign in August 2024 amid student-led demonstrations demanding a judiciary overhaul.

Indian judiciary is sitting on a mountain of cases, which may need more than a century to clear up, and nobody has a plan or idea how to clear the mess. Disgruntled litigants watch with hidden anger as terrorists and anti-nationals get priority hearing, even at midnight, and walk out scot-free. CJP model agitations can happen by the new generation of lawyers, and against the bureaucracy by citizens. The government should function with absolute powers, as it is the sole authority facing the electorate every five years. Lapses by the bureaucracy and judiciary are answerable by the government, making it pointless to argue with the electorate that democracy rests on three independent pillars – legislature, bureaucracy and judiciary. CJP model agitators will demand demolishing the structure if it is dysfunctional.

If professional rioters masquerade as students to create mayhem and anarchy, security forces should mingle in incognito mode to repulse them. Niccolò Machiavelli, a political philosopher, argued that a ruler facing domestic instability or internal enemies must act decisively. Cruelty or decisive force should be applied quickly and all at once so that people do not dwell on it, while benefits should be doled out slowly. If dissenters or rebels threaten the stability of the state, a ruler cannot afford to look weak or hesitant. When dealing with internal opposition, Machiavelli advised removing the leaders or breaking the cohesion of a rebellious group. Rather than engaging in endless open conflict, a ruler should isolate the weakest links, sow division among opponents, and dissolve the common glue holding a rebellious faction together. Machiavelli stressed that how a leader is perceived matters more than reality. To maintain order against those who undermine the regime, a ruler must project absolute strength, unity, and civic virtue, ensuring that alternative or defiant worldviews do not gain a foothold in the public consciousness. Even our great political strategist Chanakya advises swift, decisive action to crush threats before they grow. But the BJP needs to initiate massive reforms in educational sector, as well as the long-pending bureaucratic and judicial reforms.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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