The Cockroach Janata Party’s “school reform” campaign has not only exposed the dire conditions prevalent in the rural education system, but also demonstrated the potency of social audits as a tool to hold authorities accountable and usher in tangible change. With the CJP planning to expand the scope of its campaign beyond education, state governments and the pro-BJP right-wing ecosystem are bracing themselves to deal with this grassroots challenge. As is their wont, authorities and BJP supporters are attempting to intimidate CJP volunteers and leaders on the ground while defaming the campaign on social media through orchestrated trolling.This became evident when CJP leader Abhijeet Dipke recently visited a group of tribal villages in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district. He met a hostile pack of “influencers” and residents allegedly pressed into service by the administration. The aggressive group vociferously accused Dipke of “doing politics over dead children”.
He countered by telling them that they were barking up the wrong tree and should instead direct their questions to elected representatives and the state government. In his characteristic style, he even shared a satirical resignation letter on social media, pretending to be the state chief minister.The child deaths in Balaghat offered the pressure group a textbook example of multifaceted deprivation, official negligence, and governance failure. Several children had died due to infectious diseases — mostly preventable, but fatal when compounded by other deficiencies like malnutrition, illiteracy-driven lack of awareness, and delayed medical treatment.
The CJP’s social audit campaign, launched a month ago, has elicited varied responses in BJP-ruled states. In West Bengal, armed locals allegedly linked to the BJP resorted to violence, resulting in the death of a CJP volunteer’s father. In Rajasthan, a similar pattern played out against the CJP team, though the state government was later constrained to admit to shortcomings and ordered fixes. Another tactic involved banning “unauthorised outsiders” and video recording on school premises to scuttle the CJP’s guerrilla-style campaign.The BJP has accused the CJP of selectively targeting BJP-ruled states, including Dipke’s home state Maharashtra, Ashutosh Ranka’s state Rajasthan, West Bengal, and now Madhya Pradesh. In defence, the CJP pointed out that the BJP and its allies govern around 20 states. To demonstrate non-partisanship, a team led by co-convenor Saurav Das visited AAP-ruled Punjab. But by selecting a “school of eminence” with well-maintained infrastructure, the CJP invited criticism of cherry-picking and soft-pedalling, despite highlighting infrastructure gaps in a couple of other schools.
Several grassroots organisations in the country have used social audits to expose governance issues and systemic corruption, but lacked high visibility. Leveraging its growing political stature, social media reach, and public profile, the youth-led platform has been effective in utilising this participatory review process. The CJP should now be more strategic in its campaigns to avoid being caught in inter-party battles. While everything is political, to remain credible as a pressure group, it must not only be, but also appear to be, fair, objective, and neutral vis-a-vis all political parties.