After Jantar Mantar, what still needs fixing

On July 25, 2026, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stepped down, fulfilling the central demand of a movement that began with a satirical Instagram page, a few thousand students, left-leaning student groups, and a septuagenarian on a hunger strike who ended up hospitalised. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which set up camp at Jantar Mantar in early June, may have drawn its name from a judge’s remark likening unemployed youth to cockroaches, but its impact was anything but trivial. It succeeded in forcing out a sitting Cabinet minister, a rare instance of a generation, too young to have voted him into office, compelling his exit. That achievement is real and worth stating plainly, before the familiar cynicism returns.